PINR – The Power and Interest News Report
Oct 18 2004

”Russia’s Slippery Foothold in Abkhazia”

n October 3, presidential elections were held in Abkhazia, a
mini-state on the Black Sea that broke away from Georgia in 1993,
after a war of independence that cost several thousand lives and
created at least a quarter million Georgian refugees (more than half
the region’s population) through ethnic cleansing. The first
contested elections in Abkhazia since it achieved de facto
independence (the mini-state is not recognized by any foreign
government), they were meant to enhance Abkhazia’s international
credibility. Instead, the elections have thrown the mini-state into
political confrontation and temporary paralysis in the wake of a
nearly even split of votes between the two leading candidates —
Moscow-backed Raul Khajimba and businessman Sergei Bagapsh.

With a small population of which ethnic Abkhazians are the third
largest group after Russians and Armenians, and suffering from
economic sanctions and a Georgian blockade, the mini-state has
depended for its existence on Russian economic support and military
protection in the form of “peacekeepers” from the Confederation of
Independent States. The United Nations also monitors the stand-off,
but Russia plays the decisive role in maintaining the status quo,
pending the restart of stalled negotiations between Abkhazia and
Georgia, which seeks support from the Euro-American alliance, which
backs Georgian claims to sovereignty over Abkhazia.

Abkhazia has strategic importance for all of the interests involved
in its fate. Fearing extermination as an ethnic group with its own
territory, the Abkhazians are determined to do anything possible to
preserve their tenuous hold on independence. The pro-Western Georgian
regime of President Mikhail Saakashvili, which must attempt to
satisfy nationalist sentiment, is equally committed to bringing
Abkhazia under Tbilisi’s control and repatriating Georgian refugees.
The Euro-American alliance wants to contain instability in the
Transcaucasus so that oil supplies from the Caspian Sea are secure as
they flow through Georgia, which is at the center of the Baku-Ceyhan
pipeline. The West is also interested in thwarting attempts by Russia
to reassert influence in the Transcaucasus, which it lost after the
fall of the Soviet Union. Russia, in contrast, is using Abkhazia as a
means to gain a foothold in the Transcaucasus and check Euro-American
bids for hegemony in the region.

Within this pattern of conflicting interests, Russia is the only
actor in the position to alter the status quo decisively — Moscow
can choose to deepen its support of Abkhazia, even to the point of
recognizing its independence officially, or it can move toward a
settlement that would restore Georgian sovereignty over the
mini-state in return for a greater share of influence in the
Transcaucasus. From the geostrategic perspective, Abkhazia is a test
of Russian power — all the other actors are locked in their
positions by virtue of their perceived interests relative to the
regional balance of power, whereas the course of action that would
maximize Russian power is an open issue that divides Moscow’s
security establishment.

Russia’s Shaky Foothold

The international status of Abkhazia was determined officially by a
1999 declaration at the Istanbul summit of the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe, signed by Russia, the United
States and European powers, that affirmed “strong support for the
sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia” and branded earlier
presidential elections in Abkhazia as “unacceptable and
illegitimate.” Although Moscow has abided by the declaration to the
extent that it has maintained a public stance in favor of a
negotiated settlement that would restore some form of Georgian
sovereignty, its actions on the ground have supported the
mini-state’s independence.

Moscow’s “two-track policy” worked effectively to prolong the status
quo until Georgia’s 2004 “Rose Revolution” that brought Saakashvili’s
pro-Western and nationalist regime to power. Tbilisi’s posture of
calling for a diplomatic settlement that would grant Abkhazia
“generous autonomy” and simultaneously threatening force against the
mini-state if it did not meet Georgian demands has caused rethinking
in Moscow.

It is undisputed that Sukhumi is a client of Moscow. Approximately
three-quarters of Abkhazia’s residents have Russian citizenship and
passports, the mini-state uses the ruble rather than the Georgian
lari as its currency, Russian investments and Russian tourists to its
Black Sea beaches (400,000 in the past year) are essential to its
faltering economy, and Moscow provides pensions to many Abkhazians.
With more than half its population unemployed and endemic crime as a
result, the Sukhumi regime would collapse without Moscow’s economic
support and military presence.

The question for Moscow now is what to do with its preponderant
influence in Abkhazia. That question becomes relevant because
Tbilisi’s tilt toward the West has altered the balance of power in
the Transcaucasus, disadvantaging Russian interests. The more
assertive that Tbilisi becomes, the more pressure Moscow is under to
move Abkhazia out of its state of limbo. The Euro-American alliance,
which wants the conflict resolved diplomatically in Georgia’s favor,
is a restraining influence that forestalls military action by
Tbilisi, but it also emboldens Tbilisi to count on its demands
eventually being met.

Moscow decision makers are, in general, divided into factions that
still hold out for some accommodation with the West and others that
believe that Russia needs to go it alone and rebuild its spheres of
influence wherever possible. The debate is complicated by the
contradiction between Russia’s appeal to its sovereignty in Chechnya
and its de facto opposition to Georgia’s similar claims. The
two-track policy toward Sukhumi is an example of how the broad
division of Russia’s political class on the country’s strategic
doctrine often results in compromises and stalemating positions.
Tbilisi’s pro-Western orientation has provided opportunities for
Moscow hardliners to gain some leverage over their opponents and to
press their “neo-imperialist” vision of Russia’s strategic future.

Evidence of increasing power for Moscow’s hardliners is the opening
up in September of direct rail traffic between Russia and Abkhazia.
The move was met with charges from Tbilisi that Moscow was attempting
to “annex” the mini-state. Moscow replied that Tbilisi’s assertive
position threatened to ignite a general war in the Caucasus. Russian
President Vladimir Putin made it plain that neither economic nor
military pressure would resolve the problem of Abkhazia and blessed
the rail link. Moscow’s stand is that the rail link will improve
trade in the Caucasus, which skirts the sovereignty question.

In addition to weakening the economic blockade of Abkhazia
significantly, Moscow also approved of the presidential elections
there, against the position of the United States and European powers
that they were illegitimate. Successful competitive elections would
have enhanced Sukhumi’s claims to legitimacy, open the way to the
possibility of formal recognition, or at least some associated status
for the mini-state with Russia or with the alliance of Moscow and
Belarus. As it turned out, the elections ended in confusion and
indecision, marking a setback, though not a defeat, for Moscow’s
hardliners.

Abkhazia’s Elections

Abkhazia’s continued close relations with and dependence on Russia
was not an issue in the recent presidential elections. The population
of Abkhazia that remained after the expulsion and flight of its
Georgian majority has been firmly in favor of outright union with
Russia, some kind of formal association with it or regularized
independence under Russian protection. That consensus is rooted in
the preference of the ethnic Russian and Armenian segments of the
population for Russia over Georgia, and most of all, an ethnic Abkhaz
resistance to Georgian rule that is based on historical experience.

Although Georgian and Abkhazian claims are traced by their advocates
through competing histories dating back to the Middle Ages, the
proximate situation triggering the present conflict was the change in
Abkhazia’s status in the Soviet Union under Stalin’s regime in 1931
from an autonomous republic in its own right to an autonomous
republic of Georgia. Under Stalinist rule, Georgians were encouraged
to settle in Abkhazia, and Abkhazian culture, which had only acquired
a written alphabet in the late nineteenth century, was downgraded.
When the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991, Georgian nationalists led
by Zviad Gamsakhurdia took control of the new state, proclaiming a
“Georgia for the Georgians” policy. Fearing ethnic extinction or at
least subjection, the Abkhazians resisted, resulting in the 1992-1993
war of independence, won by Abkhazia with the help of fighters from
related Caucasian peoples — notably the Chechens — and support from
Moscow.

With the Russian-Chechen conflict intensifying, the Chechens tilted
toward Georgia, leaving Abkhazia with only Moscow’s de facto backing.
All five candidates in the recent election pledged loyalty to Moscow,
reflecting the anti-Georgian consensus in the mini-state. Their only
differences, if any, hinged on vague distinctions between the kind
and degree of “independence” that Abkhazia should enjoy.

The election was primarily fought over economic issues, revolving
around the power of different factions in economic institutions. The
two leading candidates represented different factions, with Khajimba
leading the existing power structure and Bagapsh calling for
“reform,” which he promised would not affect existing property
relations. This division, which had less to do with policy than
personnel, made Khajimba the clear favorite, because he had been the
only candidate to be granted a meeting with Putin, including a photo
opportunity. Khajimba, an ex-K.G.B. agent and prime minister of
Abkhazia under the outgoing regime of Vladislav Ardzinba — who had
governed the region from the Soviet era — was seen as Moscow’s man
and he was given campaign support by Moscow political operatives.

Khajimba’s opponent Bagapsh had also been an official in the Soviet
regime and was currently head of the national energy company. He had
formed a coalition of opposition groups, including the following of
Alexander Ankvab, a popular ex-interior minister of Abkhazia, who had
been excluded from candidacy on a technicality.

The election was far closer than analysts expected and was marred by
charges of ballot rigging and intimidation, especially in the Gali
district, which has a large Georgian population, among which are
repatriated refugees. After a week of confusion and a revote in Gali,
which the leading candidates agreed to, although it violated the
mini-state’s constitution, the Central Electoral Commission declared
Bagapsh the winner with 50.08 percent of the vote, triggering the
resignation of three of its members, a suit by Khajimba challenging
the election’s validity and Ardzinba’s refusal to countenance its
results. The fate of the election is now in the hands of Abkhazia’s
Supreme Court.

Analysts attribute Moscow’s failure to have its candidate score a
clear-cut victory to heavy-handed campaign tactics by Khajimba’s
Russian operatives, especially a pop concert on the eve of the
elation, which many voters considered a crude attempt to pander to
them for support. As the situation stands, however, Moscow has not
lost much ground from the election fiasco. Both Bagapsh and Khajimba
remain pro-Moscow and, although each warns that the other is flirting
with civil war, Abkhazian dependence on Russia and unity against
Georgia will probably contain any fratricidal tendencies. At most,
the hardliners in Moscow have lost the aura of legitimacy that they
wanted for the mini-state, and they still even might gain that if the
judicial system successfully resolves the electoral conflict.

Conclusion

In light of Euro-American reluctance to do any more than urge a
negotiated resolution to the Abkhazia problem that asserts Georgian
sovereignty, while refraining from backing that position militarily
or economically, Moscow is free to experiment with a neo-imperialist
policy in the Transcaucasus, attempting to keep Chechnya in Russia
and Georgia out of Abkhazia.

At the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on October 11,
Russian delegate Alexander Fomenko argued that Abkhazia was not
historically part of Georgia, but was a “gift” from Stalin, echoing
the Abkhazian “historical argument” for independence. Moscow’s more
assertive posture toward the West is a sign that it is beginning to
dig in for a protracted confrontation in the Caucasus that will test
its will and the resolve of the West.

Report Drafted By:
Dr. Michael A. Weinstein

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