HOW A TINY BREAKAWAY PROVINCE COULD BECOME THE NEW COLD WAR FRONTLINE WHILE GEORGIA HOPES TO JOIN NATO, ITS REBEL ABKHAZIA AREA IS BEING WOOED BY RUSSIA
Luke Harding in Dikhazurga

The Guardian
Thursday April 17 2008

The bridge over the Ingur does not feel like a place at war. There
is no gunfire, merely the noisy croaking of frogs. Down on the river
bank, anglers with homemade willow rods dip for trout in the swirling
turquoise water.

But this tranquil spot, on what was once a coast of the Soviet Union,
may be about to become a flashpoint – not just between Georgia and its
breakaway province of Abkhazia, which fought a war here in 1992-93,
but between Nato and the Russian Federation.

Fifteen years after driving out Georgian troops, Abkhazia is on the
brink of winning recognition from Russia. Yesterday Vladimir Putin
ordered his officials to strengthen economic ties and provide consular
support to residents in the separatist republic.

The president said Russia would recognise legal entities registered in
Abkhazia and in South Ossetia, another breakaway region. The move stops
short of recognising Abkhazia’s claim to independence, but only just.

Russia’s foreign ministry yesterday insisted it did not want
confrontation.

But yesterday’s move will enrage Georgia’s pro-western and US-backed
government, which accuses Moscow of attempting to annex its rebel
regions by stealth. Last night Georgia’s foreign minister, David
Bakradze, said Russia’s move amounted to a "legalisation of the
de facto annexation process". Georgian officials said Tbilisi was
preparing "an adequate response". In London, the Foreign Office was
moved to delve into the confrontation, saying the move "would only
increase tensions in the region".

Putin’s provocative action appears to be a deliberate response to
Georgia’s unsuccessful attempt this month to join Nato. Leaders
of Nato, meeting in Bucharest, deferred Georgia’s and Ukraine’s
application for the alliance’s membership action plan, despite strong
support from the US president, George Bush. But Nato countries agreed
Georgia would join eventually. And when it does, the alliance’s mutual
defence commitment will include sorting out the problem of Abkhazia,
a lush micro-republic on the Black Sea’s eastern coast that is a
45-minute drive from Putin’s summer residence in the resort of Sochi.

Abkhazia is a somnolent seaside paradise. In Soviet times, Russian
workers holidayed there, relaxing in sanatoriums. Stalin visited,
staying in a private dacha on Abkhazia’s vertiginous coast.

Now, Abkhaz generals talk darkly of another looming conflict. "Yes,
I think there is going to be a war," said Jansukh Muratiya, head of
security in the Abkhaz border town of Gal. "How else is Georgia to
resolve the Abkhaz problem?" According to him, 2,000 Georgian troops
were last week massing up in the Upper Kodori valley, a mountainous
gorge blocked for much of the year by snow. Georgia re-occupied the
disputed valley in 2006, Muratiya said, adding that there were regular
skirmishes between Abkhaz and Georgian troops.

Eduard Turnaba, 42, an Abkhaz soldier, said: "They want to be in
Nato. We are on the brink of recognition. That’s why there is tension."

Turnaba said the situation at the border was dangerous; his brother
Otar was blown up last year when his military vehicle ran over a
Georgian mine.

Georgia, meanwhile, wants to re-establish control over its separatist
territories but denies it has any military plans. Just before this
month’s Nato summit, Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili,
offered Abkhazia an autonomy package. Abkhazia’s leadership, based
in the charming riviera town of Sokhumi, said no.

The international community’s job of resolving this row has been made
more difficult by its recognition of Kosovo, the US-backed ethnic
Albanian province of Serbia that won independence in February despite
vehement opposition from Moscow and Belgrade. Abkhazia says its claim
to independence is the same as Kosovo’s. Beslan Baratelia, a professor
at Abkhazia state university, said: "Abkhazia has better arguments
than Kosovo. The difference is that Abkhazia is supported by Russia and
Kosovo by the US. Kosovo is now a precedent for the rest of the world."

On Tuesday the US and Russia clashed over the issue at the UN
security council. US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said he was deeply
concerned about Russia’s imminent plans to establish missions in
Abkhazia. Russia decided he was a hypocrite, given the "illegal"
US recognition of Kosovo.

Kosovo’s independence also gives hope to other breakaway territories
of the old Soviet Union. As well as Abkhazia and South Ossetia,
there are the republic of Trans-Dniester in Moldova and the disputed
district of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan.

About 1,000 Russian peacekeeping troops are in Abkhazia, in accordance
with a 1994 UN ceasefire. In recent years Russia lifted economic
sanctions and gave most Abkhazians Russian passports. Last year two
million Russian tourists visited the territory, attracted by its
subtropical climate and unspoilt scenery. "We are an unrecognised
de-facto state," Abkhazia’s vice-foreign minister, Maxim Gunjia, said.

Isolation

In many respects this is not quite true. Economic isolation has left
Abkhazia cut off from the outside world. There are no automated cash
machines for the public; people have to bring in Russian roubles. And
there is little transport: a single train threads its way along
a rusted coastal track, past crumbling neo-classical stations and
palm trees.

Up the road from the river Ingur is the border village of
Dikhazurga. Here cows wander among the walnut groves. But many of the
attractive wisteria-covered villas are roofless, abandoned when their
owners fled across the river in Georgia’s civil war; almost half of
Abkhazia’s population, mostly ethnic Georgians, fled. Tbilisi wants
the refugees to go back. Some have done so.

Abkhazia, meanwhile, claims it was itself the victim of migration
politics when Stalin, a Georgian, settled Georgians here, following
previous invasions by the Ottomans and Greeks.

Today residents seem unexercised by the fact that their bucolic
neighbourhood, with its blossom and bird song, could soon be the
venue of a new cold war between a resurgent Russia and an expansionist
west. "We just eat fasol [a bean appetiser], do our work and sleep,"
said Hwicha Kobalya, a resident, as he walked back across the
bridge. "We leave the politics to Putin."

Backstory

Abkhazia, a tiny separatist republic on the Black Sea’s east coast,
is surrounded by beaches and the Caucasus mountain range. The region
broke away from Georgia after fighting a war against the country’s
troops in 1992-93.

The territory now seeks independence from Georgia. So far it has failed
to win recognition internationally but yesterday it came a step closer
when Russia said that it would strengthen economic ties and provide
consular support to Abkhazia’s residents. Georgia wants to return
the rebel region to its control. It also wants Georgian refugees,
forced to flee Abkhazia during the war, to go home. The area is one
of several breakaway territories left over from the collapse of the
Soviet Union. With its mandarin groves and towering eucalyptus trees,
Abkhazia was a popular holiday destination for Russian workers as well
as for the Soviet elite. Stalin had a dacha here. Abkhazia now attracts
about 2 million Russian tourists a year.