Meltha Magazine Online

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2002 May Conference pages 15-16

Legal Status of the Assyrians After the Collapse of the USSR

Walter G. VENIAMINOV

Even today, 10 years after the collapse of the USSR, the majority of Assyrians, residing on the territory of the former USSR, remember their former life with nostalgia. At that time we had to do with two extremes: on the one hand a secure social protect-ability and confidence in future, and on the other hand, restraint and restriction concerning national culture, language, relations and so on.

The collapse of the USSR badly hit at the interests and existing way of life mainly of rural Assyrians, inhabiting territories of the former union republics. Absence of restrictive center from Moscow, prolonged Armenian-Azerbaijan war over Upland Karabakh, civil war in Georgia and other events -all this led to the fact that Assyrians had to leave their home-like places and move to Russia. I'll explain that formerly our ancestors, escaped from another slaughter in their country , also sought for protection from the Russian people and settled in southern provinces of the Russian Empire, which at the end of the twentieth century became independent republics.

Collapse of any state, especially such a power as the USSR, is a great tragedy and the tragedy not only in a geopolitical respect. They are endured but not always outlived tragedies in every Assyrian family, kin, and village.

So, the Assyrians are in a new place. Numerous problems, which could be solved easier if the Assyrians had received a status of refugees or forced migrants in conformity with the law. One of the problems is an institution of residence permit. Striving for joining the European Council, Russia de jure abandoned the institution of residence permit as limiting and infringing citizens' rights as early as in 1993. De facto the institution of residence permit was replaced by a similar institution of registration. Today in a number of places where Assyrians live compactly, since nineties they don't have a "residence permit". As a result more than a half of the adult population and more than ninety percent of the youth don't have jobs. Absence of a "residence permit" causes, like a snowball, a number of essential rights and legal interests' infringement of the Assyrians. Thus, newly married couples can't register their marriage in compliance with the law. There are families, where newborns and children of the full legal age don't have official records identifying them and can't get a Russian citizenship. Without a "residence permit" the Assyrians don't have an opportunity to go to the law for protecting their rights, place in a job, and enter an educational establishment and so on.

The result of just apart of stated infringements of the Assyrians' rights is a high level of criminality and drug addiction among our youth which considers themselves to be lost and don't have a belief in future. The above mentioned is a status of the Assyrians, forced migrants de-facto, who came to be unbidden and unexpected guests in Russia. The above mentioned is a compressed part of problems which the Assyrians face at a post-soviet space, and it's done not to ask anybody for help or to pity them. History teaches that the Assyrians have nobody to ask for assistance, as their rescue and preservation are the problems of the Assyrians themselves. The above mentioned is a diagnosis, which a doctor states before prescribing some medicine or treating a patient.

Constitution of the Russian Federation, a Federal law "About public organizations", a Federal law " About national and cultural autonomy" which are currently in force, formally grant great rights and opportunities to the Assyrians in terms of guaranteeing rights for preservation, development and use of the native language and for preservation and development of the national culture. Furthermore, these ,! standard acts stipulate for financial support of national and cultural autonomies on the part of the state. I However, the stated laws in Russia lose their "force" and stop "working" as Moscow moves off. '-

Realities of today require that our public associations should assign primary importance to protection of Assyrians' rights, including political ones. And this demands rapprochement and integration of Assyrian public associations in Russia as well as allover the world for coordination of activities. And it can't endure demonstration of our political leaders' ambitions.