Tsblana Inhabitants Still Face Disaster

Tsblana Inhabitants Still Face Disaster

A landslide killed 24 local inhabitants of Tsablana on April 19th 1989. Since then, the village has been designated as an ecological danger zone. At the time the government evicted the population from the village. Nowadays, the families remain homeless. The sum allotted to assist the families disappeared and nobody has ever been punished for it.

“We were given a plot on Agmashenebeli Street and were allotted 2,700,000 roubles to build a house there. The money disappeared, although Guram Varshalomidze, who was then the head of the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, was not held responsible. This is because Guram Varshalomidze is the father of Levan Varshalomidze, the current Chairman of the government of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara”, says victim of the disaster Nugzar Shainidze.

Since the disaster, 220 of the affected families lived in a sanatorium, at the expense of the government until 1993. However, when the sum was allotted to the families, the government refused to assist them with money for food. That is why the inhabitants of Tsablana have been forced to move back to their village. “We were destined to die. There were two options for us: If we stayed in the sanatorium we could die from hunger and if we went back to the village we might die under the collapsed ruins of our homes. Nevertheless, we decided on the second option and started all over again - because all the cattle and chickens we had were taken away during the eviction”, says another victim, Tamaz Makharadze.

The new homes for the families should have been built on Agmashenebeli Street, where building work started but only continued for a short time before stopping.

The inhabitants now remain in the village in constant fear for their lives. “The ground starts sliding from the mountains towards our homes when it rains. We have not only faced one disaster since 1989. Fortunately, we survived. Though, we remain at risk in both winter and summer”, state the local inhabitants.

The inhabitants of Tsablana in the Khulo region have been protesting and holding hunger strikes in front of the administration building of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara for two weeks. They stopped protesting in the hope that their problems would be solved. Representatives of the Supreme Council met the protestors and promised to discuss their case at the session. It should also be mentioned that Levan Varshalomidze did not meet the protestors. The protestors, in turn, threaten to hold further protests if their demands are not met. 

A sum for the victims has not been allotted from the current budget of Adjara. The Head of the Department for Refugees and Accommodation, Kakha Guchmanidze, offers to accommodate the inhabitants in Tsalka and Akhmeta. “The money allotted for building the housing was transferred to two building enterprises. Due to inflation however the sum was not enough to start the building work. It is possible for the inhabitants of Tsablana to be involved in the project and then accommodated within the President’s program which is supposed to start in May”, says Guchmanidze.

There were no police raids on the protesters, although on one of the protestor’s placards was inscribed: ‘No Raids’. On April 19th the protestors left the protest to return to their village – Tsablana. They are sure however to return with further protests in May, if their problems are still not solved.

Maka Malakmadze from Batumi