Human Rights Efforts

•  Cooperated with Professor Charles Fairbanks, School of Advanced International Studies, Paul H. Nitze School of Diplomacy, Johns Hopkins University and former Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights under President Reagan, and Dennis Culkin, USAID, to organize a relief effort for Chechnia,  June – September 1996. 

•  Worked with USAID and with the government of the Republic of Adygheya, Russian Federation, to organize pilot missions for helping maimed and injured victims of the Chechen war by establishing medical and rehabilitation centers in the North Caucasus and South Russia.  September – November 1995. 

•  Consulted for Open Society Institute, Forced Migration Project, "Repatriation in Georgia," (written by Kathleen Hunt), March. 1995. 

•  Consulted for the World Rehabilitation Fund, New York, New York, regarding their manufacturing of orthoses and prostheses in Yerevan, Armenia.  August – September 1994. 

•  Advised Ambassador Madeleine Albright's office regarding refugee matters in Abkhazia – Georgia.  September 1994. 

•  Worked with Dr. Diane Roazen of University of Massachusetts, Boston, and with the US Department of State and USAID in arranging for a visa for a child to be flown to the USA for heart surgery (the eight-year-old son of a cabinet minister of the Chechen government).  May – August 1994. 

•  Initiated a program with USAID and the United Methodist Committee on Relief to bring maimed women and children to a hospital in Yerevan (Armenia), Eraboni, which had advanced plastic surgery facilities, March – September 1994.  This project, in victims from both sides were thrown together and shared in their own rehabilitation, served as the nucleus for what has since become, under Dr. Manoog Kaprielian, the world-wide War Victim's Project, which has had notable success because of its practice of shared rehabilitation. 

•  Consulted for Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, both with their New York and Washington branches, proofing their reports on various conflicts in the Caucasus (written by Christopher Panico), 1993. 

•  Inspected a refugee facility housing Abkhazian orphans and widows, and examined some of the wounded children from the Abkhaz – Georgian War, in Maikop, Adygheya, Russian Federation.  August 1993. 

•  Advised the second Abkhazian Human Rights Mission to Washington, 24-26 February 1993.   

•  Participant in the “Breakaway section on the Caucasus,” at the Carter Center, Emory University, International Negotiation Network Consultation, 2nd annual consultation. Exploratory talks between the Georgians and Abkhazians were begun as a result of my efforts.  17-19 February 1993. 

•  Lobbied members of the U.S. Congress for human rights issues with Mr. Joseph Cella for the Abkhaz American Human Rights Committee.  4-5 February 1993.

•  Advisor on human rights and strategic matters concerning the Caucasus to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). 1992-3. 

•  Advisor on human rights and strategic matters concerning the Caucasus to the High Commissioner on Nationalities, UN, The Hague.  1992-3. 

•  CSCE (United States Congress), advisor on human rights and strategic matters concerning the Caucasus, (1992-3).