Tajik refugees celebrate naturalisation

There was a sense of optimism in the air in a public park on Sunday as Tajiks refugees in the town of Ivanovka, near the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, marked World Refugee Day. Amid dancing, feasting and a commemorative soccer match, those who fled the civil war that shattered their country after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 told IRIN what the noise was all about. "I now have the right to become a Kyrgyz citizen and that's why I'm happy today," one old man shouted over the disco music from an outdoor sound system. He fled Tajikistan a decade ago after his wife and son were killed, and has been living in the northern Chui province - where 70 percent of refugees in Kyrgyzstan have settled - ever since. The 5,000 Tajiks of Kyrgyz descent - who do not want to return to the country where their ancestors moved decades ago - are expected to be granted full local citizenship later this year. Kyrgyz Prime Minister Nikolay Tanayev signed instructions in May to implement simplified naturalisation procedures agreed under a bilateral agreement between Kyrgyzstan and neighbouring Tajikistan that was accepted 18 months ago. Now that the agreement's implementation has been clarified, the Bishkek office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) expects that most of the remaining ethnic Kyrgyz will be joining more than 4,000 refugees from Tajikistan who have already received citizenship under earlier government decisions, often at formal ceremonies with senior state leaders. "We hope to reach the target of 3,000 naturalisations by the end of the year now that there's a simpler procedure in place," Gregory Balke, UNHCR's senior protection officer in Bishkek, said. The refugee agency is pleased at one of the rare cases of local integration in a region where host governments normally rule out the granting of citizenship. The naturalisation programme is only one part of UNHCR's work with Tajik refugees living in Kyrgyzstan. "We've assisted around 6,000 Tajiks who wanted to voluntarily repatriate over the past eight years," UNHCR national programme officer Almaz Burkutov said. The refugee agency's work with Tajiks has been boosted by a number of partner organisations. The Kyrgyz NGO Sairon, which had been supported by UNHCR since its foundation in 1999, has been helping the refugees - both those already given citizenship and those awaiting the step - to integrate into local communities. "When the refugees first arrived here, of course there were problems, but the fact that the [ethnic Kyrgyz] Tajiks speak Kyrgyz and observe the same customs as local people helped a lot," said Vakhobjon Rasulov, the 37-year-old head of Sairon and himself a former refugee from Tajikistan. Sairon's approach has been to assist the refugees, but also to assist their host community too. "So if we get a donor to help Sairon improve a rural water supply or repair a school, that is for the whole community, not just the refugees. This has really helped with integration." Hairinisso Djurabaeva - another Tajik who has just received Kyrgyz citizenship - braved the blazing sun to read a poem to the refugee day crowd made up of refugees, UNHCR staff and local dignitaries. "That [poem] was about being accepted here and finally having a place I know I can stay in and call home," she said, while tucking into a plate of kebab and salad from an Afghan refugee food stall. Askar Jumagulov, head of Kyrgyzstan's northern immigration and naturalisation service, said integration had been made easier by the fact that the Tajiks arriving from the civil war were mainly hardworking and adapted quickly to the environment. "Resentment can arise when locals see the immigrants as getting a better deal than them. After all, there is much poverty here, but we have all worked to avoid that," he said. The naturalisation of Tajik refugees in Kyrgyzstan is the first time any country in the region has offered citizenship to significant numbers as a response to a refugee influx. It has raised hopes of a similar solution elsewhere in the Central Asia region, where refugee populations who are unlikely to repatriate are often faced with official suspicion and lack of recognition. "Other [regional] countries are examining the possibilities, but normally only within the context of the standard naturalisaton process open to any migrants," Balke pointed out.