International Working group for release of prisoners and hostages and tracing of missing persons of the Karabakh conflict

2006

1.1 Project period

The International. Working Group for the Release of Prisoners and Hostages and the Tracing of Missing Persons of the Karabakh Conflict, a NGO, registered as non-profit organization in Germany, for more than ten years has been working for prisoners of war and missing persons of the Karabakh conflict. At the same time the group has been working for confidence - building measures in the humanitarian matter of POWs and missing persons in the region. With the help of our international group several POWs could be released. In 2006 the work of the group was funded by Caritas France.

The working groups activities are coordinated by the chair persons Bernhard Clasen (Monchengladbach), Mrs Svetlana Gannuschkina (Moscow) and Paata Zakareishvili (Tbilisi). On the spot three assistants work for the group.

1.2 The current situation in the region of the Karabakh conflict

Little progress has been made in 2006 in solving the issue of the missing in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, notwithstanding that most of the missing disappeared in the early 1990s.

5551 persons remain missing, including 4,604 Azerbaijanis and 947 Armenians from the conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The International Working Groups knows of six persons, who in 2006 became POWs. They were all released after several days, sometimes weeks. However, former POWs from Azerbaijan have to fear to be judged in their country for treason.

Detailed information on the situation of the missing persons and POWs in the region of the Karabakh conflict can be found in the enclosed preliminary and still confidential report of the Rapporteur of the Council of Europe, Mr. Leo Platvoet.

1.3 Project goals

· To regularly collect information on missing persons and on persons, who are being held in custody according to unconfirmed information.
· To provide help for POWs and hostages of the Karabakh conflict with the aim of securing their release;
· To act as a mediator between the state commissions on missing persons of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Karabakh;
· Verifying rumors about missing persons and persons supposedly being held by the other side
· To help former POWs, their families and families of missing persons;
· To contribute to confidence-building between the conflicting sides in humanitarian questions;

2. Concrete work during the project period
2.1 Measures

2.1.1 On-site assistants

In 2006 following persons worked as on-site assistants of the International Working Group:

in Yerevan (Armenia): Mrs Karine Minasjan
in Baku (Aserbaidijan): Mr Avas Hasanov,
in Stepanakert / Chankendi (Nagornij Karabakh): Mr Albert Voskanjan.

The on-site assistants were our contact persons for relatives of missing persons and POWs, they prepared the journeys of the working group to the region, kept the members of the group informed about the state of affairs, worked out one common list of missing persons, and in other ways supported the group. Thus we continued our cooperation with our on-site experts, which had been very fruitful in the previous years.

2.1.2 Journeys of the working group

1. Journey to Azerbaijan, Jan. 30th - Feb. 3rd, 2006
Participants: Bernhard Clasen, Svetlana Gannuschkina, Paata Zakareishvili, K, Avaz Hasanov;
2. Journey to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh: June 17th - June 22nd, 2006
Participants: Bernhard Clasen, Paata Zakareishvili, Albert Voskanjan, Karine Minasjan, Avas Hasanov;

3. Journey to Strasbourg, France, October 1st - October 6th, 2006
Participants: Svetlana Gannuschkina, Bernhard Clasen, Albert Voskanjan, Karine Minasjan, Avas Hasanov.

2.1.3 Helping former POWs of the Karabakh - conflict
The Int. working group in 2006 continued it´s contact with former POWs and organized several forms of help for them. All work for former POWs in 2006 was done on a voluntary basis, with our psychologists in Yerevan, Stepanakert and Baku working for free. In 2006 the group had close contact with about 20 former POWs. 2.2 Cooperating with the Council of Europe

The Council of Europe at the end of 2005 decided to work on the issue of missing persons of the Karabakh and Abchas conflicts. Mr Leo Platvoet from the Netherlands was appointed rapporteur of the Council of Europe on this matter. It is the task of the rapporteur to provide the Council of Europe a report about the issue of missing persons of the Karabakh and Abchas conflicts at the beginning of 2007. We got in touch with Mr Platvoet and Mr Neville, secretary of the committee Mark Neville, Secretary, Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population of the Council of Europe. For us it was especially important to relay the need of a joint Armenian-Azerbaijanian commission on the missing person issue. At the beginning of October the International Working Group spoke at the invitation of the rapporteur at the committee on migration, refugees and population of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.

2.2.1 Tracing missing persons

All tracing work of the group in 2006 double-checking rumors about missing persons, who supposedly are being held by the other side, showed the same results: no missing person could be found alive, it became, on the contrary, more clear that hardly a missing person is still alive. Having worked for several years on the missing person issue, our group worked on about 200 cases.

2.2.2 Internet-site

We updated the design of our Internet site and translated the site into English, Russian and German. Address of the site: www.agkk.org