Abkhaz Railway? Light at End of Tunnel?

The reopening of railway links with Georgia could
bolster peace efforts.

Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR)
Caucasus Reporting Service
(CRS No. 297, 27-Jul-05)

By Inal Khashig in Sukhum and Giorgy Kupatadze in
Tbilisi

Georgia and the breakaway region of Abkhazia have
agreed to conduct a joint study on the feasibility of
reopening the railway that links them both to Russia ?
putting within reach a potential major breakthrough in
the unresolved conflict.

Following preliminary talks, it was agreed that on
August 9 a research group which will contain Georgian,
Abkhaz and Russian specialists will visit the Zugdidi
region of western Georgia and the Gali and Ochamchira
regions of Abkhazia to study the state of the railway
line there.

The Georgians have been keen to stress that things are
still at an early stage. ?The leadership of Georgia
has not yet taken a political decision about whether
the railway will be restored,? said Conflict
Resolution Minister Giorgy Khaindrava on July 19 after
a meeting in Abkhazia on the issue. ?At the moment we
are just talking about collecting preliminary data.?

Relations between the two sides are still strained
more than 11 years after the end of the conflict of
1992-3 which took thousands of lives and led to the
expulsion of tens of thousands of mainly Georgian
refugees. Last week, UN-sponsored talks in Tbilisi
were called off because of a row over the detention by
Georgian border guards of a Turkish ship headed for
Abkhazia.

However, even discussion of the question of rebuilding
the railway is an important development. The railway
line, closed since the start of the war, connects not
only the territories of Abkhazia and Georgia but is
also potentially the major transport route between
Russia and the South Caucasus.

Armenia, whose railway links with Azerbaijan and
Turkey are completely shut, is immensely interested in
reopening direct rail traffic with Russia via Georgia.

After 1992 wandering cows and pigs replaced trains on
the line and in many parts of Abkhazia subtropical
vegetation has entirely covered the tracks.

Two and a half years ago, the section between the
Russian town of Sochi and the Abkhaz capital Sukhum
(or Sukhumi as it is known in Georgia) was restored
and now a suburban train runs between the two towns
once a day and a passenger train comes from Moscow
three times a week. The government in Tbilisi strongly
objected to the move but the Russian government said
it was a humanitarian project implemented by a
commercial company.

Both sides would stand to gain economically from a
restoration of the railway link, but Georgia has until
recently been reluctant to make a concession to the
Abkhaz without getting guarantees on its major demand
? the right of return of more than 200,000 Georgians
expelled from Abkhazia during the war.

However, the Georgians are no longer openly linking
the issue of refugee return with that of the railway.

Political analyst Paata Zakareishvili said, ?If the
railway starts to work, then some of the refugees will
return to Abkhazia to work on restoring and servicing
it, if it will be set out in the agreement that
citizens of Georgia ? amongst whom the country?s
leadership includes residents of Abkhazia – ought to
do this.?

?The restoration of the railway should make a positive
difference into the Georgian-Abkhaz negotiation
process,? Giorgy Volsky, Georgia?s deputy minister for
conflict settlement, told IWPR. He said it should help
lead to the return of refugees and a rebuilding of
trust between the two conflicting sides.

The Abkhaz are suspicious of statements of this kind.
?The question of restoring railway communications is a
purely economic problem and it ought not to be
accompanied by political demands,? said Abkhazia?s
deputy prime minister Leonid Lakerbaia. ?If the
Georgians want to build trust between our peoples then
it should happen through the economy and without any
additional political demands.?

All sides acknowledge that the reopening of the
railway would transform the economic landscape of the
region.

?If the project goes ahead, then with a minimum
freight cargo Abkhazia will receive from 500 to
800,000 US dollars a month,? said Guram Gubaz, head of
Abkhazia?s railways, explaining that the current
monthly budget is just under two million dollars.
?Besides there will be a chance to use our ports.
Russian companies are seriously lacking in Black Sea
ports to transport their oil products.?

David Onoprishvili, head of Georgian railways, said
that ?sooner or later this railway has to open and it
will be useful first of all for Georgia and its
economy?.

The Georgian economy is now heavily reliant on transit
cargoes, which now comprise 70 per cent of all freight
traffic on the railways.

Another project which would benefit greatly from the
reopening of the railway is the Kulevi oil terminal on
Georgia?s Black Sea coast, which an international
consortium wants to build. Access to Russian markets
would enhance the project enormously.

The experts will be inspecting a 200-kilometre stretch
of the railway route in August. Most of it is in an
appalling condition. Sleepers are rotten, rails are
worn out and small stations are entirely dilapidated.

In the southern Gali region of Abkhazia (or Gal as it
is known to the Abkhaz), which has a majority Georgian
population, the railway line has disappeared
altogether. Local people have pulled up the rails for
use as scrap metal and burned the sleepers as winter
fuel. Even the railway embankment has been cleared
away and it is hard to see where the line used to go.

According to some estimates, it might take three years
to restore this section of the railway.

Russian Railways, the company which has been actively
promoting the project, has estimated that 100 million
dollars are needed to restore the railway.

Georgian experts refuse even to hazard a guess. ?We
are talking about rebuilding blown-up bridges and
clearing mine fields where the mines have not been
mapped,? said Giorgy Khukhashvili, an economic expert
and former Georgian railway manager. ?No one can say
how much it will cost.?

Another stumbling block is likely to be the issue of
customs and border posts and the security of railway
traffic through Abkhazia as a whole.

Previously, the Georgian government insisted it must
have the right of inspection on the border crossing
between Abkhazia and Russia at the Psou river ? the
point that is still internationally recognised as the
Russian-Georgian border. Otherwise, went the argument,
cargoes would be crossing unauthorised territory
without being checked.

Georgian parliamentary deputy Levan Berdzenishvili,
from the opposition Republican Party, argues, ?People
are forgetting that this is a rebel region and if the
Georgians and Abkhaz do not reach an absolutely
concrete agreement on this issue and don?t act
together, the trains will not run.

?We must not forget that the war in Abkhazia began
because the Georgian side could not control the
railway. If the authorities in Georgia want to start
another war, this is a way to do it.?

He was referring to the formal pretext for the start
of the conflict in Abkhazia in August 1992, which was
that Georgian troops supposedly intervened to protect
the railway.

The Abkhaz public is reacting cautiously to all the
reports about the reopening of the railway. No one is
speaking out against it but there is little of the
euphoria that accompanied the reopening of the
Sochi-Sukhum link ? an event that parliamentary
speaker Nugzar Ashuba compared to the launch of a
space-ship.

Giorgy Kupatadze is correspondent with the Black Sea
Press news agency in Tbilisi. Inal Khashig is
co-editor in Abkhazia of Panorama, a newspaper
supported by IWPR, and editor of the Chegemskaya
Pravda newspaper.