Former Soviet territory has hope for recognition
Abkhazia is cut off and struggling

By Tom Parfitt, Globe Correspondent | March 17, 2006

Boston Globe, MA
March 17 2006

SUKHUM, Abkhazia — At first glance the tiny self-declared republic
of Abkhazia on the eastern coast of the Black Sea is an earthly
paradise. For decades its palm trees, warm scented air, and long
beaches drew thousands of holidaymakers from across the Soviet Union.

Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev relaxed on its shores.

Even today, it is famed for its gentle climate, its mandarin oranges,
and its sweeping boughs of yellow mimosa blossom. But look closer,
and there are signs of an uglier past.

Side streets in the seaside capital, Sukhum, are dominated by the
gutted remains of smoke-blackened houses, choked with weeds. In the
countryside not far away, whole settlements stand in silent desolation,
abandoned in a furious war that raged here in the Caucasus more than
a decade ago.

The conflict flared up in August 1992 when the armed forces of
Georgia attacked Abkhazia, a region within Georgia’s territory that
had declared its intent to break away from the country after the
Soviet collapse. Since 1931, when Stalin began a forced colonization
of the region by Georgians, Abkhazians had nursed a desire to wrest
back total control of the territory.

In late 1993, after a year of fighting and atrocities on both sides,
the Abkhazians drove out their enemies — including thousands of
Georgian civilians who were by then a majority of the population —
and declared independence.

Ever since, this scrap of land, home to about 200,000 people, has
led a lonely existence, cut off by an embargo and unrecognized by
any country in the world.

”In the last 13 years, Abkhazia has formed a state with its own
institutions, authorities, army, and democratic development,” said its
de facto president, Sergei Bagapsh, in an interview at his offices
in downtown Sukhum. ”But the world ignores us when we have every
right to gain international recognition.”

Despite its frustration, Abkhazia is one of a posse of unrecognized
former Soviet territories that are now champing at the bit because
of a far-off event in the heart of Europe.

Last month, face-to-face talks between delegations from Kosovo and
Serbia finally began in Vienna. The UN-brokered negotiations will
decide the future of Kosovo, the ethnic Albanian province of Serbia
that has been under UN protection since NATO air strikes forced Serb
troops out in 1999.

European diplomats indicate that Kosovo has a chance to gain full
independence and recognition by the international community later
this year.

That suggestion has prompted a wave of hope for similar recognition in
self-declared territories like Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgia’s
other breakaway region, as well as the republic of Trans-Dniester in
Moldova, and the disputed district of Nagorno Karabakh, an Armenian
enclave in Azerbaijan.

Bagapsh predicted Abkhazia’s independence will be recognized ”within
three days” if Kosovo is granted status as a country.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia threw his weight behind Abkhazia’s
cause at the end of January when he said Kosovan independence would
set a precedent.

”We need universal principles to find a fair solution to these
problems,” Putin said in his annual news conference. ”If people
believe that Kosovo can be granted full independence, why then should
we deny it to Abkhazia and South Ossetia?” he asked.

Russia’s support for the Abkhazians, an ethnic group that believes
God entrusted their territory to them for protection, has been key.

Moscow, keen to keep neighboring Georgia weak and hoping to slow
the region’s drift toward the West, supported the Abkhazians in the
1992-1993 war with weapons and air strikes. Thousands of irregulars
from Abkhazia’s ”brother nations” in the Russian North Caucasus
republics — including Chechens and Cossacks — also streamed across
the border to fight Georgia.

But Abkhazia’s victory came at a price. Georgia accused it of ethnic
cleansing and severed all trade. Many buildings were destroyed, and
the republic is desperately poor. Sukhum has no functioning airport,
receives little direct bilateral aid, and its coast is cut off by
Georgian ships. Its critics say it is a haven for organized crime,
which is hard to verify. And its only link is with Russia, which
buys its oranges and sends a trickle of tourists to the republic’s
crumbling resorts.

UN-led talks between Georgia and Abkhazia have borne little fruit
since the end of the armed conflict.

But Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba of Abkhazia said there is hope
that independence for Kosovo will set a vital benchmark that could
alter the course of his stranded republic.

”The international community needs to face up to the fact
that obstacles put in front of people and their aspirations to
self-determination only lead to bloodshed,” he said. ”In that sense,
Kosovo could become a kind of marker that determines a new world
attitude towards these issues.”

At Shamba’s cramped three-room foreign ministry, officials are
following every squeak and whisper of the Kosovo negotiations, which
are due to resume today.

Developments in Serbia are complicated by an increasingly fragile
local situation. Georgia is fed up with what it perceives as Moscow’s
meddling in its internal affairs, and the parliament in Tbilisi,
the capital, is gearing up for a vote in July, when it is expected
to demand the withdrawal of Russian peacekeeping forces that separate
Georgian and Abkhaz troops along the cease-fire line.

While any parliamentary vote will not be binding, President Mikhail
Saakashvili of Georgia is facing growing pressure from nationalists
to rein in his rebellious breakaway republics and rid the country of
foreign interference.

The country’s military budget is rising rapidly, with the United
States providing vital training and equipment.

Officially, the United States is neutral in the conflict, but
representatives of the Abkhazian foreign ministry who returned last
month from a USAID-funded trip to Washington said administration
officials urged them to accept broad autonomy within Georgia rather
than push for independent status.

Viktor Tvanba, an Abkhaz veteran of the 1992 conflict who lives
in Sukhum, said the withdrawal of Russian troops would lead to a
region-wide conflagration.

”The Georgians will surely attack us and then we’ll unleash such a
furious response that we’ll drive them all the way back to Tbilisi,”
the 56-year-old said. ”Any less would be an insult to our dead
relatives.”

As in Kosovo, every call to arms is accompanied by claims to historical
precedence on the territory, which are disputed by historians on
both sides.

The fate of the southern Gali region of Abkhazia where Georgians
dominate remains a major sticking point.

Interethnic strife has led to scores of deaths in the area since
the war, and most refugees who fled during the conflict have been
prevented from returning to claim their property and livelihoods.