From: MSN Nicknamepsychoteddybear24  (Original Message)    Sent: 11/9/2006 4:38 PM
EYE IN THE SKY TO COUNT ABKHAZIAN HOMES

The Georgians want to use satellite technology to register refugees' old homes
in Abkhazia.

By Nana Tomaradze in Tbilisi

The Georgian government plans to use detailed satellite photographs to allow
refugees to lay claim to properties they owned in Abkhazia before it broke away
from rule by Tbilisi in the early Nineties.

The administration in Abkhazia has dismissed the scheme as a publicity stunt
that will have no real impact.

Refugees from Abkhazia and another conflict zone, South Ossetia, have been
flocking to the ministry for refugees and resettlement in Tbilisi to register
the homes they lost in the wars of 1990-93. Their claims are been recorded as
part of a programme launched by President Mikheil Saakashvili earlier this year,
which represents an attempt to count both the refugees themselves and the homes
they once lived in.

Lasha Bregadze, head of the ministry's refugees department, describes the work
as a unique project designed to support the property rights of displaced people.

"I am Nino Katsitadze and my address is Flat 78, No. 39 Agrba Street, Pitsunda,
Gagra district," said a woman who had waited an hour and a half to be seen at
the ministry, giving her old address in Abkhazia. "Will you show me a photo of
my house?"

The official taking down her details explained that the satellite pictures would
only be available at a later date.

Ministry staff say the registration process for refugees living in Tbilisi will
be finished by next June next year, but the entire process could take up to five
years.

The government intends to use satellite photography to identify and list all the
properties, and will then draw maps showing the boundaries of each plot of land.

"This modern method will give an accurate description of each owner's actual
property holding and will provide them with incontestable photographic
evidence," said minister Giorgi Kheviashvili when he presented the programme.

The technology does not come cheap: photographing 100 square metres of land
costs around 10,000 dollars. The government is to set aside about 1.75 million
dollars for the programme, and is using television and flyers posted up on
public transport to urge people to register.

IWPR has learned that 100,000 refugees have filled in property declarations so
far. International organisations estimate the total number of people displaced
from Abkhazia at around 250,000.

Katsitadze, who lives with other refugees in Tbilisi's Hotel Sakartvelo,
welcomes the move. "The state should do its job, protect its citizens' rights
and prepare them for their return."

She hopes to return with her 18-year-old son to the coastal town of Pitsunda,
where she has a three-room flat. However, she has learned from relatives still
in Abkhazia that the apartment has changed hands several times. "I was told that
an Abkhaz family lived there at first, but then it was resold several times
over," she said.

Lasha Gvaramia, 27, has had his father's property registered, but is pessimistic
that it will actually be possible to reclaim it. "Although I had no problems
registering, I don't feel as if I now own any additional property," he said.
"Maybe we'll go back there one day - who knows? But it's unlikely to happen in
the near future."

Minister Kheviashvili strikes a more optimistic note. "This is what Sukhumi is
going to look like in 14 years," he said, pointing to a huge picture of New York
hanging in his office.

One of the Georgians' aims is to put pressure on the Abkhazian authorities,
which have allowed real estate owned by Georgians until 1993, when the conflict
ended in de facto secession, to pass into other people's hands.

Kheviashvili said a comprehensive map of Georgian-owned private assets in
Abkhazia would be available on the internet by the end of this year. "We already
have data on almost every house in Abkhazia," he said. The website will list the
owners' names, and they will be able to view a picture of their home online.

The minister warned that any attempt by anyone other than these owners to
acquire a property would be illegal under Georgian law.

In addition, he said, Georgia will hand over the property information to the
European Court of Human Rights. "This will be presented in Strasbourg as
incontestable proof that refugees' property is being seized by citizens of
another country. All the businessmen and oligarchs who are now buying assets
there should be afraid. They have accounts in foreign banks, and if there's a
court ruling against them, they will have to pay up."

Mamuka Areshadze, a political analyst in Tbilisi, said the scheme was a positive
step that would allow Georgia to make its case internationally about properties
lost in Abkhazia.

"If this programme is carried out properly and thoroughly, the Abkhaz will put
be in a difficult position, and the West will be better able to understand both
our position and the situation in which the refugees find themselves," he said.

It is not always a straightforward matter to submit enough evidence to put in a
claim, Zurab Gobechia, for example, left everything behind, including his
passport, when he fled the burning city of Sukhumi. He has no documents to give
to the ministry to prove that his two-storey house belongs to him.

"I was told to go to court," he told IWPR. "I imagine this will take up a lot of
time and nerves. I hope that I won't be getting the documents in vain."

In Abkhazia itself, officials and members of the public say the Georgian
programme will have no impact there.

The administration's foreign minister, Sergei Shamba, dismissed the threat of an
action in the European human rights court, and said his government too had
claims to press against the Georgian government.

He said the damage Abkhazia had suffered during the war used to be put at 13
billion dollars, but the estimate was now higher. "If Tbilisi officially submits
property claims to us, we will announce claims of our own," said Shamba.

"For the money, the refugees could get decent housing in Georgia," he said. "But
I would stress that the property issue is not on the agenda of the
Georgian-Abkhaz negotiating process. All the more so since negotiations are
stalled because of the situation in the Kodori Gorge, and we don't know when
they will resume."

After the conflict, the Abkhaz authorities took homes that until then been
Georgian-owned and gave them to families who had lost their own properties in
the fighting. Until recently, these "trophy houses", as they are known, changed
hands at lower prices than other kinds of property. In the last two years,
however, the prices of these houses has begun rising, as Abkhazia has become
more self-confident and this kind of real estate has begun to look like a better
long-term bet.

Saida Khishba, who runs an estate agency, is dismissive of the Georgian
initiative. "This new situation definitely has to do with economic reasons
rather than political ones," she said. "The [unresolved] Georgian-Abkhaz
conflict is currently at a point where there's no chance of Georgian refugees
returning to Sukhum or Gagra in the foreseeable future. In theory, the only way
that could happen would be through a new war.

"If Sukhum were to be captured by Georgian forces all of a sudden Sukhum, you
can be sure no one would ask the Abkhaz where they acquired their properties -
they'd just become refugees."

Nana Tomaradze is a freelance journalist based in Tbilisi. Inal Khashig,
co-editor of the Panorama newspaper, contributed to this article from Abkhazia.