That evening they all met up at Mohamed’s in Omalo, one of the fifteen or so villages in the Pankisi Valley. It’s the end of March and the temperature is still chilly. The group of Chechen youths, mostly Kistins (Chechens from Georgia – editor’s note), gives up on the idea of an outdoor football match. They decide to watch for the umpteenth time a video filmed and made in 2003 in Chechnya by an Arab journalist, documenting warlord freedom fighter Shamil Basayev.

One picture follows another, interspersed with incantations in praise of Allah. “That’s the scene where the armoured vehicle blows up”, blurts out Salman. These youngsters know the content of the pirate video off by heart. They’re aged between 14 and 26. Most of them left Grozny with their families at the beginning of the second Chechen war in 1999.

The conflict has been ongoing for the past six years, on the other side, in neighbouring Chechnya. But for them it’s become reality TV and more of a bitter distraction for an idle and unemployed youth. All of them deny that they want to take up arms and pass over to the other side of the Caucasus mountains. Don’t bother looking here for the face of “wahhabism” that Moscow, careful to maintain its involvement in its overly unruly Caucasian backyard, regularly brandishes as a threat.

Determined to put an end to this unsavoury reputation, the Kistin and Chechen population has opted for self-derision. “An international centre of terrorism, here in Pankisi, among the pigs and the hens? It’s also true that we have gas and running water”, jokes Khalimed.

In Mohamed’s living room, faces suddenly become less solemn, less manly too. Beslan has just inserted an amateur video of Chechen dancing into the video machine. An ideal excuse for looking at young women.

Comments flow thick and fast. Laughter breaks out, almost immediately stifled by the screen that has just gone blank. Nothing surprising here. The electricity generator has run out of petrol and here, at best, domestic electricity is available every other day. The rest of the evening will be spent by lantern light, as per usual in this remote district of Kakhetia.

An enclaved border zone

Even today, the gap between everyday life for Pankisi’s inhabitants and the collective perception of a valley in the hold of “Wahhabism” remains enormous. Where does the blame lie? Undoubtedly, with the events in 2000-2002, the authorities in Moscow, international media and the ever-ambiguous attitude of the Georgian authorities who for a long time had no control over this isolated region.

Located less than a hundred kilometres from Georgia’s capital city, the valley can only be reached by road after a three-hour drive, at the very least. Once in Pankisi, the vision of muddy or decrepit tarmacked roads is evidence of a region in economic crisis, far from the centre. There are hardly any cars and no cafés. Only a few small stalls are still open. The top-heavy inheritance of the past few years adds weight to the natural handicap of an enclaved region.

When the war in Chechnya resumed in the autumn of 1999, Russian aviation violated Georgian airspace on several occasions and opened fire on the Shatili border post. Chechen fighters also found refuge in the valley. Border villages were bombed by Russian forces.

Pankisi then became a sensitive zone, giving Russia an excuse to get involved. The central Georgian authorities reacted to Russian provocation. Eduard Shevardnadze, the then Georgian President, encouraged the international community to set up an OSCE observation mission on the Georgian-Russian border. Military exercises were also carried out in Pankisi as of spring 2000.

The potential instability of the valley flares up sporadically. Lately, the Western press, but also Colin Powell during a session of the UN Security Council, have not hesitated to link the name of Pankisi with that of Abu Zarkawi, the now infamous Jordanian-born Palestinian who heads a terrorist network supposedly linked to al Qaeda in Iraq. But once again, the inference refers to the 2001-2002 period.

Last February, during a chat on the lemonde.fr website, Georgian Foreign affairs minister Salomé Zourabishvili brought up the issue of the recent Russian veto against renewing the OSCE observation mission on the Georgian-Russian border and the accusations made against alleged terrorist movements. This was her cue to reiterate that “Georgia has asked for another international mission to be set up (...) to guard against accusations or possible attempts by Russia to penetrate Georgian territory during antiterrorist operations.”

Nana Inskerviki, a reporter for the Rustavi 2 television channel, specialising in criminal affairs and conflict zones, doesn’t mince her words. Now a spokesperson for political correctness in accordance with Saakashvili government positions, she considers that “Pankisi is no longer a news item. Three years ago, Pankisi was a closed and volatile zone, where drug traffickers, MVD (ministry of the Interior) forces and combatants rubbed shoulders. But now, the fighters have left and from a journalist’s point of view, Pankisi isn’t so interesting.”

Irrefutable proof of official disinterest in the valley is evidenced by the fact that the last report on Pankissi Chechens was aired six weeks ago on Rustavi 2, in mid-February.

From his desk as head of MVD in the Tbilisi district of Okhtatchala, Khatia Dekanoidze agrees that “the question remains confused” whilst affirming that decisions are made after direct consultations with Mikhael Saakashvili.

The Interior ministry security forces still based in Pankisi should soon be replaced by normal police patrols. The current authorities’ watchword is that the situation is normal, even if it means hushing up certain “slip-ups”.

For Tbilisi’s attitude remains ambiguous. In its January 2005 Country Summary, Human Rights Watch speaks of mixed results on human rights in Georgia, particularly for Chechen refugees and Pankisi Kistins.

“In May (2004), Chechen refugees from Pankisi went on a week-long hunger strike to protest against police harassment, including illegal house searches and intimidation. In August, following the border closure on the Russian side and pressure brought to bear by Moscow on the presence of “terrorists” in the Pankisi valley, masked Georgian security forces raided several houses inhabited by refugees and Kistins. Twelve people were detained and accused of illegally entering Georgian territory.” This information was corroborated by valley refugees and also by refugees in Tbilisi.

Kistin-Chechen Cohabitation

Back to Pankisi now, to the village of Birkani. Arbi, whose face is visibly worn at the age of 38, was born in Grozny. He arrived in the valley, on foot, in the autumn of 1999 after five days of walking through the Caucasus mountain range on the Chechen-Georgian border.

His wife, Elissa, and their children were brought by helicopter to Shatili, a village on the Russian-Georgian border, by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) as the road to Nazran was closed. They arrived in the Pankisi valley in December 1999, following in the footsteps of a thousand other Chechens. The influx of refugees was somewhat unexpected, as up until then the first Chechen war had forced hundreds of thousands of refugees in the direction of neighbouring Ingushetia.

“In the first year”, recalls Elissa, “We were given help from many organisations ranging from the UNHCR to Islamic NGOs.” Since then, approximately every two months or occasionally more often, the UNCHR organises for every person to receive 25kg of flour, oil, sugar, beans and sometimes clothes.

Since 2003, some Chechen refugees have been able to leave for Europe. The more lucky ones were able to do so through the UNHCR’s reinsertion programme. Others made it by themselves. Arbi and Elissa toy with the idea of leaving for Sweden or Holland. Having recently moved into the former local library, they are all too familiar with the trials of everyday life.

“I teach geography and Russian as a volunteer at the school in Duisi. But my husband’s unemployed”, says Elissa. “Living conditions here are difficult enough for those born here. Imagine how we’re finding it.”

The insecurity of the area is evident and weighs on peoples’ minds, along with the shock of the exile. When Mohamed tells of his arrival in Pankisi, he emphasises his amazement. “The difference between Grozny and the valley is incredible. I had just left a flat with gas, electricity and running water and when I arrived here it was as if I had gone back 500 years in time.”

Young people in Pankisi may well have access to some form of education, but any qualification obtained here is worthless. The free movement of people is also restricted. On Georgian territory, in spite of the refugee card, it doesn’t help to have been born in Grozny. And if you haven’t got a passport you may as well not even entertain the idea of crossing national borders.

As far as relationships with the Kistins go, Arbi admits that tensions can flare up every now and again. “But we’ve been living here for six years now. We’ve had plenty of time to learn how to live together.” A sense of solidarity is very much in evidence. Hizri Aldamov, a Kistin born in the Pankisi valley, was the representative of Chechen separatist leader Maskhadov in Georgia until November 2002. Although he was the subject of much controversy and was weakened by an attempted poisoning in 2004, he had, until then, symbolised the links between the Chechen and Kistin communities. In the homes of Pankisi, you will also sometimes hear that “Good Kistins call themselves Chechens, bad Kistins say they are Georgian”.

Many Kistins today admit, under the protection of anonymity, that they sheltered fighters - Chechens, Arabs or Europeans - at the start of the new millennium. “When they left, we had less money”, remembers a young man, alluding to the financial help, albeit limited, that the boeviki represented. “They were brave men”, says a babushka in the village of Zemo Khalatsani. The discussion ends there. Distrust caused by the unpredictable ‘visits’ made by the Georgian security forces means that silence is advisable.

More symbolically, Salman Guelayev, the brother of Ruslan Guelayev, the Chechen commander who died in February 2004, has been living in one of the Pankisi villages since 1999. Thanks to the zashchita – protection – offered by the UNHCR, he is able to travel freely between the valley and Tbilisi without restrictions.

Some refugees are still in contact with Chechnya. Currently housed in a room in Duisi hospital, which has been converted into a makeshift asylum for the most impoverished Chechen refugees, Amin says that he is able to call his family from time to time. “Although the Russian FSB had blocked the mobile telephone network in Chechen territory until recently,” he explains.

As for his wife, she was able to get to Grozny in 2002 via the border post of Lars. It was a dangerous journey, however. On her way back she was detained by the Azerbaijani authorities for six days in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.

An upsurge in the number of mosques<

A minority of the Kistins in Pankisi belong to the Vainakh ethnic group to which both Chechens and Ingushetians belong. The first Kistins settled in eastern Georgia from the 19th century onwards. This community, which has been shaped by the Muslim brotherhood, particularly that of Qadiriya, has seen a new type of radicalism take root, catalysed by the war in Chechnya.

Today, with around 500 Chechen refugees still remaining in the valley, the 12,000 Kistins living in Pankisi make up an isolated Muslim minority in the middle of a Christian republic that has seen its identity strengthened first by independence and then by the arrival of Saakashvili to power. Reading between the lines, is Islam in Georgia a major issue along with that of the Pankisi valley?

With the exception of the Islam seen in Meskhet and Abkhazia, Georgian Islam is still fairly widespread in Adjaria and in the Kvemo Kartli region, where the population is mainly made up of Azerian Shiites. Islam is practised to such an extent that Pankisi is therefore only seen as a small Muslim region, lacking in influence.

However, the last four years have seen the emergence of a minor revolution concerning religious practices in Pankisi. Whereas the number of religious schools has gone from four to one following the departure of the fighters, the number of mosques in the valley has literally exploded.

Five new mosques have appeared on the Pankisi landscape – in Djokolo, Khalatsani, Birkiani, Omolo and Duisi.

Opened in 2000, the gleaming mosque at Duidi appears to have stolen the thunder of the old mosque. Situated on Pankisi’s main road, it has been described by some people as a ‘Wahhabi’ mosque. It was built by the Chechens, but financed by a Sheik from Saudi Arabia, who learnt of the existence of the Muslim minority in Pankisi as the result of a Kistin’s pilgrimage to Mecca.

In the sole religious school that remains open, Arabic lessons continue under the watchful eye of four local teachers who learnt Arabic in Saudi Arabia. Since 2003, however, pupils have become few and far between. Currently, there are just 20 pupils.

Beslan, an 18-year old Kistin who left Chechnya with his mother in 1991 and then returned in 1999, is proud to have learnt the basics of Arabic and the Koran. Although he has made a decision to continue his lessons, he admits to having already forgotten the basics. To the delight of his mother, who would prefer not to hear talk of Beslan’s Arabic lessons, his sister has left to study medicine in Tbilisi thanks to a UN grant.

As for the person the valley’s inhabitants call ‘the emir’, the spiritual leader of the Muslim community that some people refer to under their breath as ‘Wahhabi’, he is very well recognised. He is, however, completely untraceable. Journalists, perceived as being partly responsible for the valley’s reputation, are obviously not welcome.