Ahiska Turks mark 80 years of deadly exile with commemoration in Washington

Scholars, activists, community members gather in US capital to discuss hardships endured by Ahiska Turks

The 80th anniversary of the forced exile of Ahiska Turks was commemorated in the US capital with a conference that highlighted their struggles and resilience while calling for global recognition of their plight. The event, organized Friday by the Ahiska Turkish American Community Center in collaboration with the Jamestown Foundation think-tank, brought together academics, politicians, representatives of non-governmental organizations and community members to discuss challenges faced by Ahiska Turks in the last 80 years of exile. Islam Shakbandarov, president of the Ahiska Turkish American Community Center, told Anadolu that hosting the program in Washington, D.C. held deep significance and praised the strong participation of young people. Shakbandarov detailed discussions at the conference, which covered the life of the Ahiska community under Soviet rule, their forced deportation and eventual resettlement in the US. “Eighty years have passed since the exile, and there are now very few living witnesses of this painful event. We call it genocide because 100,000 Ahiska people were forcibly removed from their homes and ancestral lands overnight. While men were fighting on the front lines in the Russian army to protect the Soviet Union, the elderly, women and children were loaded onto animal wagons and exiled,” said Shakbandarov. He added that 20,000 Ahiska Turks died during the deportation. “It is crucial that these stories are shared, and the voices of Ahiska Turks are heard. Even though 80 years have passed, Georgia has yet to restore the return rights of Ahiska Turks. Georgia is rapidly becoming more Russified,” he said. Steve Swarlo, a human rights lawyer and associate professor of the practice of human rights at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, said he has been working with the Ahiska community for 25 years. He noted that he first worked with Akhiska Turks in southern Russia where he said they were facing statelessness, constant persecution at the hands of Cossack groups and other Russian extremists. Swarlo noted that the US government opened up a special program in 2004 for Ahiska Turks to resettle here. "In 1944, Stalin deported the group from southern Georgia … and that experience -- -it forced the community to consolidate their ties to become stronger, and they had to struggle to survive, and they lived relatively successfully," he said. Swarlo noted that repeated deportations during and after the Soviet era created a complicated history for Ahiska Turks. Nazly Mamedova, an immigration lawyer of Ahiska origin, emphasized the importance of raising awareness in the US and the West about the hardships endured by Ahiska Turks. “The genocide that happened to the community needs to be recognized, and it would be great for the West to recognize that and to help Ahiska Turks to return to their homelands,” she said. Mamedova also called for the Turkic world to support Ahiska Turks’ efforts to grow their community, gain recognition and return home. Peter Mattis, president of the Jamestown Foundation, expressed sorrow about the community’s tragic history. "They have been through so much from the initial forced deportation, the mass conscription under Stalin's Soviet Union, to the present day, that they have shown us the true nature of the Russian government," he said. "And I think we have a duty as human beings, really, to draw attention to these issues and to ensure that the people who have suffered ... are seen as people, as sort of full citizens of wherever they are forced to land," said Mattis. Ahiska Turks, also known as Meskhetian Turks, were expelled from the Meskheti region of Georgia by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1944. They faced discrimination and human rights abuses before and after the Soviet deportation.