Jamestown Foundation
Presents
Sochi in 2014:
Can an Olympics Take Place at the
Site of the Expulsion of
the Circassians 150 Years Earlier?
Friday,
June 18, 2010
10:30 A.M. - 12:30 P.M.
*A light luncheon will be
served following the event*
The Jamestown Foundation
Seventh Floor
1111 Sixteenth Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
In 2014 the Sochi Olympics will take place at the site of
the mass expulsions of over a million Circassians in the 19th century.
Opposition to the Olympic Games is mounting as Circassian nationalism is on the
upswing, both in the North Caucasus and among
the 7 million strong Circassian Diaspora. Circassians are now calling for
the unification of all three Circassian republics in the Northwest
Caucasus into a single republic. These factors, combined
with a possible security threat to the 2014 Olympic Games by militant groups
operating in the North Caucasus -- as announced last week by the Director of
the Russian Federal Security Services, Aleksandr Bortnikov -- promise to deepen
an already tense and volatile regional security environment for the 2014
Olympic Games.
Featuring the following speakers
Paul Goble
"The Road to Sochi
in 2014: Can Russia
Ignore the Circassians?”
Publisher, Windows on Eurasia
Blog
Fatima Tlisova
"The Legitimacy of the 2014 Olympic Games?”
Reagan-Fascell Fellow, National Endowment for
Democracy
Murat Berzeg
"The Circassian Awakening”
Founder and Chairman, Circassian Congress,
Maikop, Adyghea, RF
Valery Dzutsev
"Gearing Up for Sochi 2014: Weak Spots in Russia's
Olympic Preparations”
Jamestown Analyst
Tsiklauri Nugzar
"The Sochi
Olympics and the Circassians: The View from Georgia”
Member of Parliament, Republic of Georgia
Q & A
Light Luncheon
12:30 P.M.-1:00 P.M.
Participant Biographies
Valery Dzutsev
Valery
Dzutsev is a freelance analyst writer, who covers developments in the North
Caucasus for the Washington
based Jamestown Foundation and several other online publications. Valery
received an Edmund S. Muskie Fellowship in 2007, supported by the U.S.
Department of State and received his master's degree in Public Policy at the University of Maryland in 2009, with specialization in
International Security and Economic Policy. From 2002-2007 Mr. Dzutsev worked
for the distinguished British journalism development organization: The
Institute for War and Peace Reporting as country director for the North Caucasus. Mr. Dzutsev extensively reported and
edited journalistic materials from across the North Caucasus on events like the
Beslan school hostage taking in North Ossetia in 2004, the violent assault on Nalchik in
Kabardino-Balkaria by armed militants in 2005 and overall socio-political
developments in the region. Before working for IWPR, Valeriy served as a local
coordinator for another British-based NGO Centre for Peacemaking and Community
Development (CPCD) in North Ossetia, managing
numerous conflict transformation projects.
Paul
Goble
Paul
Goble is the publisher of the blog, Windows on Eurasia.
He is the former director of research and publications programs at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic
Academy in Baku. Prior to joining that institution but
after retiring from the U.S. government in 2004, he was vice dean for the
social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior
research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia.
Earlier, he served in a variety of capacities in the U.S.
government, including at the Department of State and Central Intelligence
Agency; at U.S.
international broadcasting institutions like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
and the Voice of America, and at various think tanks, including the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, the Potomac Foundation, and the Jamestown
Foundation. The editor of five volumes on ethnicity and religion in the former
Soviet space, he continues to prepare daily commentaries on these issues,
posting his articles at www.windowoneurasia.blogspot.com or on request by
e-list (paul.goble@gmail.com). Trained at Miami
University in Ohio
and the University of Chicago, he has been decorated by the governments of Estonia, Latvia
and Lithuania
for his work in promoting Baltic independence and the withdrawal of Russian
forces from those formerly occupied lands.
Tsiklauri Nugzar
Tsiklauri Nugzar is a Member of Parliament of the Republic of Georgia and the Chairman of the
Relations with Compatriots Residing Abroad Committee. Born in Tbilisi, Mr. Nugzar was
educated at Tbilisi Iv. Javakhishvili
State University,
with a focus in Georgian Language and Literature. Before becoming a
Member of Parliament in June 2008, he served as a correspondent for the
newspaper Tavisupali Sakartvelo
from 1996 to 1997. In 2001 he assumed the position of Chairman of the
Board for the Litera publishing house. In 2006, he served as Director of
TSU Publishing until 2008, when he assumed his position in Parliament.
Fatima Tlisova
Fatima
Tlisova is an award-winning investigative reporter with extensive experience in
the conflict-ridden North Caucasus. Over the
past decade, she has covered the most sensitive topics affecting the region,
including human rights violations, torture and detention, women’s rights,
nationalist sentiments, the role of Islam in regional affairs, and abuses of
power by authorities. She served as editor-in-chief of the Regnum News Agency
from 2004–2007 and has reported for Russia’s
Novaya Gazeta, the Associated Press, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting
(IWPR), the Jamestown Foundation, and Radio Free Europe/
Radio Liberty. Most recently, Ms. Tlisova was a Carr Center Fellow and a Nieman
Fellow at Harvard
University. She is a
recipient of the Gerd Bucerius Freedom of Expression Award for her commitment
to reporting on the conflict in Chechnya,
the Amnesty International UK Media Award, the Rory Pack Trust Award, the Human
Rights Watch Hellman-Hammett Award, The Louis Lyons Award for Conscience and
Integrity in Journalism.
Murad Berzegov
Murat
Berzegov is the founder and Chairman of the non-profit organization Circassian
Congress in Maikop, Adyghea. During the last two decades Murat has been a
prominent advocate for the rights of Circassians and participated in a variety
of initiatives both in his native homeland and in the Circassian Diaspora. In
the early 1990s Berzegov supported and participated in the developments of the
first Circassian NGO after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. In 2004 Murat created
and became a chairman of an NGO Circassian Congress (CC) in Maikop with the
main goal to represent the rights and freedoms of the Circassians particularly
the recognition of the genocide committed by the Russian
State against Circassians and the
right of repatriation to the homeland of the exiled 7 million citizens of Circassia.
From
2004-2005 the Circassian Congress gathered more than 500 documents from the Russian
archives confirming the Circassian massacre and deportation in the 19th
cenutry. All the documents have been posted on a specially created website:
www.circassiangenocide.com
In
July 2005, CC initiated an appeal to the Russian State Duma demanding the
recognition of the Circassian genocide which was rejected by the members of the
Russian Duma. In January 2006 Mr. Berzegov initiated an appeal to the European
Council requesting a special peacekeeping commission to be sent to the Republic of Adyghea to settle the conflict revoked
by the attempt of the Russian Government to forcibly join Adygeya to
Krasnodarski Krai. In October of 2006 the Circassian Congress under the
leadership of Berzegov collected the signatures of the leaders of 20 Circassian
NGOs from 9 different countries under the appeal to the European Council
demanding recognition of the Circassian genocide. The EC accepted an appeal and
sent letter of consideration to the CC.
In
2006 the Circassian Congress, in cooperation with the Circassian NGOs from
Karachai-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria, initiated and organized several
mass demonstrations and people’s Congress to protest the liquidation of the
Republic of Adygeya, planned by the Russian government. Mr Berzegov and the
members of his family have been constantly harassed by the state security
services. He has personally experienced physical attacks as well as numbers of
death threats. In 2010 Murat Berzegov was granted political asylum by the United States.
