Caucasus

OSI Assistance Foundation Armenia
1 Pushkin St, apt 11
Yerevan 375010
Armenia
office@osi.am

Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan
PO Box 31
Baku 370000
Azerbaijan
Eldar Zeynalov (Director) aihmm@lycos.de

Intiative Group of War Resisters' International - Georgia
144 Dolidze St
Tbilisi 380071
Georgia
Usha Nanuashvili ishrg@caucasus.net

Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law
Masanchy St 57a/404-405
480012 Almaty
Kazakhstan
Evgenii Zhovtis omaz@omaz.almaty.kz

by Silke Makowski

In the region of Caucasus and Central Asia, no country offers a free choice between military service and alternative service, most of them even having no legal basis for a substitute service at all. The few states that passed a law on some kind of alternative service haven't implemented it according to international standards: in Georgia, substitute service isn't available in practice and in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, large bribes are necessary to perform it.

by Lindsay Barnes

International interest in the resource-rich former Soviet states in Central Asia and the Caucasus has surged over the past decade. Why has Caspian oil and gas suddenly become so significant to the global energy market? What are the consequences for the region's inhabitants as they struggle to forge fledgling democracies?

The
Caucasus is a region of the former Soviet Union which lies between the Black
Sea and the Caspian Sea. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, conflicts
in this area erupted, sometimes in very cruel forms. In some of these
conflicts, women have crossed the lines to find peaceful means of
reconciliation. Here, some of these women tell their stories.

by Ellen Elster