Zurab Bendianishvili
Resume

2008 August war resulted in more than 25 000 interntally dispalced persons for Georgia, the overall number of which equals to 260 000, approximately 7% of the country’s population.

Unconditional return of refugees is the intergral and one of the main parts of resolving conflicts. Although the refugees happend to be way far from this after Russian military occupation of Georgian territories.
Since 1991 none of the Georgian Government has used refugees’ potential for peaceful resolution of conflicts, or regard refugees as a subject of negotiation in the process of conflict resolution.

Negotiations were conducted only with separatist governments, which did not encourage viewing the realistic picture at an international level. As a result, whole Abkhazeti and Tskhinvali regions are refered to as separatist regions, while the major part of regions’ population, being in exile after ethnic cleansing, and are against the separation.

State is a warrant of population safety, among them – of every citizen that lives in separate regions, and not only a part of population. This means conducting equal dialogue with supporters of separatism, as well as with those who is for integrity of the country to define the region’s future. Refugees are one of the composits of this security and it is impossible to have realistic security in the region without them. Consequently, it is impossible that the refugees participate in defining their own future as minimally as before.
The role of refugees is especially great in preserving and developing relationships with the population having stayed on the occupied territories. Kinship, neighborhood relationships, years of kind coexistence gives unique possibilities to set relations with those, who happend to be entirely isolated from the rest of Georgian society.

It is obvious that it is impossible to resolve Georgia’s territorial problem without active participation of refugees. Refugees’ problems should not be discussed only in social aspect. The most important task in relation with refugees is to use their peaceful potential.