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

Working for POWs and missing persons in the Region of the Karabakh conflict

The International Working Group for the Release of Prisoners and Hostages and the Tracing of Missing Persons of the Karabakh Conflict is registered as non-profit organization in Mönchengladbach (Germany). For more than ten years we have 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. We as well helped former POWs and the relatives of missing persons. Since 2000 the work of the group has been funded by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Heinrich-Böll Foundation and Caritas France.
The working group´s activities are coordinated by the chair persons Bernhard Clasen (Mönchengladbach), Svetlana Gannuschkina (Moscow) and Paata Zakareishvili (Tbilisi). On the spot three assistants work for the group.

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 report of the Rapporteur of the Council of Europe, Mr. Leo Platvoet.

Our on-site activities:

1.Tracing missing persons.

In the last ten years the IWG has dealt with about 200 cases of missing persons.
Being in touch with relatives of missing persons and the state commissions on missing persons, we carry out investigations by our own means.Mostly our on-site coordinators are doing this work, though in some cases co-chairpersons of our working group also take part in verification of facts and information on the missing during their working trips to the region of the Karabakh conflict. Right now we have several uncompleted cases of missing Armenians and Azerbaijanians whose tracing is still underway.

As the Armenian and Azerbaijanian state commisions do not cooperate directly, we act as mediators. Requests to the Armenian side are sent from the Azerbaijan state commission to us with the request to forward it to the pertaining structures on the Armenian side, and the Armenians do the same: they give us information and requests, which are meant for the Azerbaijani side.

2. Prisoners of war and hostages
When traveling to the region, we visit prisoners of war and/or hostages, if we are informed about them being held. Both sides give us free access to the detained prisoners and we can talk to them in private. We do everything to make their fate easier, talk to the authorities asking for their release. We photograph them and send the photos to their relatives back home. We try not to use the word “exchange” related to prisoners’ release. Now, 12 years after the truce, prisoners have no more right to be “exchanged”. They have a right to be released without any conditions. Therefore, we do not agree with a prisoner “exchange”, where the sides try to exchange equal amounts of persons, as this could lead to a situation, where the side with the lesser number of prisoners is trying to get more prisoners as a bargaining chip. So these “prisoner exchanges” factually can lead to an increase in trading with human lives.

3. Former prisoners of war and hostages
We stay in touch with prisoners of war after their release and repatriation to their respective homes. These people are especially traumatized as a result of having been a prisoner and/or hostage. Back home they often are discriminated against by the society and some authorities for having preferred to stay alive and become prisoner of war instead of having fought to the end.
Against this backdrop we help former POWs, their relatives and the relatives of missing persons with legal, educational, psychological and medical programs, organize computer classes for them etc. Our on-site assistants are doing all this work.

4. Negotiations
For many years we have negotiated with the state commissions of the Armenian and Azerbaijanian sides. In these negotiations we succeeded in gaining credit and becoming partners of all state commissions on missing persons. At the same time we received the right of free access to POWs, prisons and army facilities (the latter, however, only on the Armenian side).
Moreover, we succeeded to organize and sponsor two working meetings of leaders of the State Commissions, the first - in Baku in September 1999 and the second – in Tbilisi in March 2005.

5. Data Base

The IWG maintains a database on missing persons, former POWs and hostages.

Strategic goal:
1. We consider our work a confidence-building measure in the region of the Karabak-conflict. We would be happy, if our work would contribute to the creation of a joint commission on missing persons, where Armenian as well as Azerbaijanian experts will participate.

2. Former POWs and hostages, relatives of missing persons have been traumatized by what they had experienced. We hope that our work can contribute to a higher level of support for them in their societies.

Co-chairpersons:

The group consists of three co-chairpersons:
In 1993 Bernhard Clasen (Mönchengladbach) organized a 3-month vacation program for refugee children from Azerbaijan. And a half year later he received the permission of the Azeri authorities to visit Armenian POWs. Since this visit to Azerbaijan, he has been regularly visiting all sides to the conflict several times a year. In 1995 he began to work closely with Svetlana Gannushkina.

Svetlana Gannushkina (Moscow) since 1989 has been traveling to the region on a regular basis. Right from the beginning of her involvement she has been trying to work objectively, staying in touch with all parties to the conflict, taking the side of only one party - the victims of the war. She was one of the organizers of a meeting between the Armenian and Azerbaijanian intelligentsia. Today Svetlana Gannushkina is a board member of the human rights center Memorial in Moscow and chairperson of the "Civic Assistance", an organization, which is protecting the rights of refugees and IDPs. She is a member of the human rights commission under the RF President Putin. In 2003 she received the human rights award of Amnesty International (German section).

Paata Zakareishvili (Tbilisi) was since the first days of the armed conflict in Abkhazia (summer of 1992) in charge of a working group of the Georgian government, which was responsible for the exchange of prisoners and security of the civilian population. Eventually he was responsible for the evacuation of 3000 people, organized the exchange of 300 POWs and participated in the exhumation of soldiers killed in action. One of his duties was tracing missing persons. Since February 1998 he has been active in our group.

Registration:
Our non-profit non-governmental organization „International Working Group for release of prisoners and hostages and tracing of missing persons of the Karabakh conflict“ was registered in Mönchengladbach (Germany) on 18 August 2000. Registration # VR 2123.

Official address:
Arbeitsgruppe Karabach-Konflikt, c/o Bernhard Clasen, Ludwigstr. 14, D-41061 Mönchengladbach, Germany
T.: +49 2161 / 205013, Fax: +49 2161 / 204056
E-Mail: Bernhard@Clasen.net