LINES DRAWN IN THE SAND IN FORMER SOVIET REGIONS
By C.J. Chivers The New York Times News

New York Times
Aug. 20, 2006

Every summer the Russian tourists arrive by the thousands at a Black
Sea resort area they regard as their own. They come with urges shared
by tourists the world over, for sun and drink and days lounging on
the shore. Their destination is officially Georgia. But in their
minds it is not Georgia at all.

It is Abkhazia, one of the thorniest issues dividing Russia and
Western-supported Georgia in the volatile Caucasus. And it is one of
four small regions in the southwestern reaches of the former Soviet
Union whose status remains unresolved 15 years after the Soviet
disintegration. The others – South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and
Transnistria – are in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Moldova, respectively.

These four are the breakaways, regions that do not recognize the
governments of the nations they find themselves in. All have declared
independence. These frozen conflicts, as the disputes are called,
have undermined the stability and development of a large swath of
former Soviet territory.

All were the scenes of short, vicious wars that ended in the 1990s in
cease-fires that so far have mostly held. The status quo in all four
has assumed an enduring form: centralized local rule with intensive
foreign support (from Russia, in all but Nagorno-Karabakh, where
Armenia is the principal patron), indigenous security forces and
carefully cultivated identities.

Each has had multiple forms of conflict: Not just wars fought for
territory and ethnic solidarity, but trade wars and wars of perception
and for outside support. What exactly are these places?

The answers, always passionate, depend on who is asked. Nations?

States? Ethnic statelets? Offshore investment regions, away from the
eyes and reach of regulators? Lawless zones for black marketeers,
fugitives and terrorists?

In the case of Abkhazia, where tourists blithely treat the beaches
of another nation as if they were their own, the answers show how
peculiar these enclaves are, and how elusive solutions will be.

For a Russian tourist, Abkhazia is a semi-tropical paradise, a lush
territory where the sky-high Caucasus ridge falls swiftly to the sea.

Many Russians regard Moscow’s interests in the region as irrefutable.

The Abkhaz shore, after all, was developed by czars and later by
Lenin himself. Stalin and Laverentiy Beria, his sinister chief of
the secret police, spent their holidays at state dachas in Abkhazia,
lending the Abkhaz coast its distinction as the Soviet Union’s most
desired retreat.

The local crops, which include tangerines and tea, draw an implicit
contrast with other Soviet climes. Think of a semi-developed Soviet
Florida, the Red Riviera, albeit now with bombed-out hulks.

To the Abkhaz, who welcome Russian tourists and their cash, their
land is more than a playground. Abkhazia regards itself as a nation.

It issues visas, has an elected president, operates ministries and
fields a military it claims can be augmented with a reserve force
modeled after the Swiss, with thousands of armed and trained citizens
ready to muster at tactically important locations on short notice.

But a nation it is not. It is an ethnic enclave, held by those who
occupied the ground when the cease-fire was reached in 1993. No
other country recognizes it. The cease-fire remains monitored by
U.N. observers.

To the Kremlin, Abkhazia is a protectorate. In recent years, as
Georgia has drifted Westward and its military abilities have improved,
in part with Pentagon aid, Russia has granted citizenship to most of
Abkhazia’s inhabitants. It is a policy akin to annexation.

The Abkhaz have become, at least in terms of the documents they carry,
"Russians" living abroad.

This support leaves the Kremlin open to charges of hypocrisy, given
that Russia regards its own territorial integrity as inviolable and
not open to discussion, even with a people, the Chechens, who wanted
to secede.

Russia has leveled much of Chechnya and killed at least tens of
thousands of people to make this point at home. The Kremlin has also
stood firm on other territorial disputes. Just last week in the Kuril
islands, off Russia’s eastern coast, its border guard fired on a
Japanese fishing vessel harvesting crabs in a contested border area.

A Japanese fisherman was killed. Russia blamed Japan.

With Russia becoming more emboldened on the world stage, the summer
frolicking on the Abkhaz shore belies the tension that surrounds
the place.

Mikheil Saakashvili, the Columbia-educated president of Georgia who
came to power in 2004, has made national reunification a central aim.

He is armed with the world’s map, which shows Abkhazia as Georgian
land. Abkhaz leaders, feeling secure under the protection of Moscow,
treat talk of restoring Georgian authority as a call to war. And not
just Abkhazia simmers. This year has brought fresh troubles in all
four enclaves.

Ukraine and its West-leaning president have supported Moldova and
cracked down on illegal exports from Transnistria, a manufacturing
zone controlled in part by shadowy Russian interests. Russia, angry
at Georgia and Moldova, has banned imports of both countries’ wines
and spirits.

The Azeri and Armenian leaders, even after years of prodding from
France, Russia and the United States, failed to find a settlement for
Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian-controlled enclave within Azerbaijan
where a long and mountainous frontline bristles with Armenian and
Azeri troops. Their occasional shelling and sniping at each other
has claimed lives on both sides. Azerbaijan plans to modernize its
military, using surging oil revenues.

South Ossetia, a land-locked region in Georgia on the Russian border
that Georgia regards as a smugglers’ haven, has had mysterious
explosions. And Abkhazia has said that a recent Georgian special
operation to clear a defiant paramilitary group from a gorge near
its demarcation line signals preparation for war.

Georgia denies that, but last week Saakashvili ordered a doubling
of Georgia’s military reserves, to 100,000 soldiers, a move Abkhazia
characterized as militarization. And on and on.

But now is summer, still. The tourists come to the beaches. While
fewer than last year, they suggest how firmly the enclaves remain in
the grips of those who control them. Each arriving train also reflects
how the enclaves’ complicated histories and entrenched interests make
solutions unlikely any time soon.