GEORGIA-ABKHAZIA: Breakaway Region Keeps Uneasy Peace

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sergei Strokan

MOSCOW, Jul 16 1996 (IPS) - Four years ago, when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) began disintegrating into its component parts, Abkhazia erupted.

A republic within one of the former Soviet republics, this tiny place simmered with the nationalist fervour in which so many other parts of the region became embroiled.

Russian peacekeepers have managed to keep the lid on the breakaway area of Georgia since. Now their time is up — and Abkhazia is still seething. Their final week (the mandate expires Friday, Jul. 19) is a nervous time as they attempt to carve out a way of keeping the peace.

The conflict in Abkhazia is one of the most protracted and complicated in the post-Soviet era. Last Friday, the issue was back on the international agenda when the U.N Security Council discussed the problem ahead of the expiry of the mission sent to Abkhazia by the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a loose confederation of former Soviet Republics.

Numbering 1,500, the CIS force comprises mainly Russian troops assisted by U.N. observers.

Since June 21, 1994, four battalions have been stationed between warring sides on both sides of Inguri river separating Georgia from Abkhazia.

The mandate entrusted peace-keepers with monitoring the two- year-old ceasefire and creating conditions for people who left the zone of conflict to return safely to their places of permanent residence.

Abkhazia is a Black Sea province on the Russian border. Its capital is Sukhumi, a posh resort in Soviet times. In 1993, more than a year of war forced Georgian troops to abandon the province. A quarter million ethnic Georgians fled their homes in Abkhazia.

Sukhumi and the surrounding areas on both sides of the Inguri are now ghostlike in appearance. Blown-up buildings. Neglected vineyards. Hundreds of displaced people rummage through rubbish heaps looking for something to eat.

A province of the Russian Empire until the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, Abkhazia gained independence in 1917 and 1921 before finally becoming a nominally autonomous entity within Georgia — then part of the Soviet Union — on Moscow’s decision in 1931.

On Stalin’s orders, Abkhazia was settled by thousands of Georgian peasants. They took land from the native population. As the Soviet Union disintegrated leaders of the newly-created Abkhazia Popular Front presented demands for full independence and gained local power, leading to open war with Georgia.

“Due to its historically dominant position in the post-Soviet space and as a peace-keeper, Russia has inevitably become a third party to the conflict, and it is to Moscow that both sides are appealing now,” says Sergei Solodovnik, leading research fellow with the Moscow-based Institute of International relations who has just returned from a fact-finding mission to Abkhazia.

In the early 1990s Moscow was seen as tacitly condoning and supporting Abkhazian separatism as a weapon against the late Georgian president Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who constantly displayed anti-Russian sentiments. Its present position has a distinct pro- Georgian slant.

“Recently the Kremlin rather clumsily tried to walk a tightrope between both sides,” recalls Solodovnik. Russian border-guards imposed a blockade on the traffic from Abkhazia, and then Russian defence minister Pavel Grachev transfered some heavy weapons to the Georgian government army. That made Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze believe “the Abkhazian problem” could quickly be solved.

By that time Georgia had entered the Russian-dominated CIS and allowed Moscow to station troops on its territory — action seen as “advance payment” for Russian support. The U.N. Secretariat has proposed an extension of the mandate for U.N. observers to January 1997, Sabov noted.

As for Moscow, Shevardnadze said the re-election of president Boris Yeltsin on Jul. 3 created “a perspective for speeding up the Abkhazian settlement”.

Shevardnadze, who openly supported Yeltsin in his re-election campaign, is hinting that he expects the Russian president would repay him by broadening the responsibility for Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia.

The thousands of refugees who flooded Georgia after conflict broke out are a heavy burden on the shattered economy. Tbilisi insists their return to homes in Abkhazia can be guaranteed only if the peacekeeping force is given addition policing duties.

On the surface, both sides are now ready for peace. This week Shevardnadze reiterated his willingness to give Abkhazia vast autonomy within the Georgian federation, including the right to convene its own parliament, government, Supreme Court, and other signs of the statehood, provided Abkhazia returned under Georgia’s overall supremacy.

On the other hand, Abkhazian leader Vladislav Ardzinba on July 10 reiterated that he was willing to seek peace, with Russia’s mediation, and to meet with Shevardnadze at the next planned round of peace talks.

At the same time Abkhazians sternly oppose giving special police functions to Russian peacekeepers fearing that would open the way for joint Russian-Georgian pressure on Sukhumi to relinquish its independence altogether.

In the most recent outbreak of tension, Abkhazia demanded the withdrawal of 100 Georgian policemen from the Kodori valley bordering Abkhazia, saying it contradicts the cease-fire agreement and is a “prelude to new war”. In this situation Russia has to define more clearly its position of an “honest broker”.

While the Russian Foreign office is principally interested in keeping Moscow as the sole arbiter in the conflict, the Russian military seems keen on having access to the military bases in the region. And Russia’s powerful oil and gas industry would like peace, so it can use the area as a conduit for its oil, said professor Gleri Shirokov, deputy director of the Oriental Studies Institute in Moscow.

“It looks like Abkhazia will become the testing ground of the post-election Russia’s ability to act energetically and coherently. The dynamics of Abkhazian situation will show whether the new Kremlin team is capable of doing that,” Solodovnik said.