IN MOSTLY GEORGIAN PART OF ABKHAZIA, ETHNIC LINES SEEM INDELIBLE
By Tara Bahrampour
Washington Post
October 18, 2008
United States
GALI, Georgia — The old women in the horse-drawn cart tensed up as
they approached the border.
"You watch, they’re going to yell and curse at us," one of them
murmured as they reached the crossing from undisputed Georgian
territory into the only district of the breakaway region Abkhazia
that is still populated mostly by Georgians. "They’re going to ask
us for money," the woman said before she got down and was escorted
out of earshot
The sum that Georgians such as the cart’s passengers must pay guards
to enter Abkhazia, where they live, has gone up recently, the women
said, making it harder to travel to the Georgian-controlled side,
where they shop, go to the hospital and visit relatives.
For the 50,000 or so Georgians living in Gali district, the recent war
between Russia and Georgia has cast new uncertainty over an already
shaky existence. In August, ethnic Abkhaz celebrated when Russia
recognized their land, along with South Ossetia, as independent
countries. Tougher frontier controls are one sign of the sometimes
triumphant confidence the Abkhazian authorities now display.
"The checkpoint is on the border of an enemy state that wants to
destroy us," said Ruslan Kishmaria, the district’s governor. "In the
future, we will be looking at each person individually to see if we
will let them into the country." He denied that the cost of crossing
had gone up.
The argument over whether Georgia has a legitimate claim to Abkhazia
goes back to communist and even czarist times. When the Soviet Union
collapsed a decade and a half ago, tensions here erupted into a vicious
separatist war that sent ethnic Georgians fleeing and locked Abkhazia
into political limbo. In most of Abkhazia, displaced Georgians have
never returned, but in this southernmost district, many did.
The district’s capital, also called Gali, is not the prosperous town
of supermarkets, hotels and wide, smooth roads that residents describe
from the days when Soviet Black Sea tourism brought in money. Unlike
the fixed-up towns of northern Abkhazia, where few Georgians remain,
the roads here are rutted, abandoned buildings are draped in weeds,
and commerce and city services are skeletal. Many young people have
left, and people who stay maintain an uneasy relationship with the
local government and the Abkhaz and Russian troops.
In interviews, several Gali residents complained that Abkhaz soldiers
often demand cash, as well as a significant portion of their hazelnut
crops, as "taxes." As members of a minority, the Georgians said,
they have no one to appeal to and no choice but to pay.
While Georgian language is still taught in some schools, along with
Russian, Abkhaz and English, it is illegal to hang up a sign in the
Georgian script.
Asked why, Kishmaria said, "We hate the Georgians. Why would we want
to use their language?"
Georgian residents cited pressure from the Abkhaz government to
give up their Georgian citizenship and take Abkhazian passports. "It
doesn’t matter what kind of passport I have — I am Georgian," said
a middle-aged woman named Aza, who like many Gali residents said she
was afraid to give her full name.
Citing a population shortage, the government is trying to draw in as
many ethnic Abkhaz as it can. After a vicious war caused the exodus
of about 250,000 Georgians in the early 1990s, an estimated 70,000
to 90,000 ethnic Abkhaz remained, along with a significant number of
ethnic Russians and Armenians.
Officials offer incentives such as houses and dual citizenship to
ethnic Abkhaz returning from abroad — including descendants of people
forcibly moved to Turkey in the 19th century by the Russian czars.
About 90 percent of Abkhaz people here have taken dual Russian
citizenship. But for people who are not ethnic Abkhaz, dual citizenship
is not allowed, and Georgian citizenship is frowned on.
"To have a huge district populated with noncitizens, that’s a problem,"
said Deputy Foreign Minister Maxim Gunjia. "It is in our interest
that they become citizens" of Abkhazia.
If they do, many say, it won’t be from a sense of newfound patriotism.
"If somebody takes Abkhaz citizenship, it’s because they’re afraid,"
said Nargiza Kvaratskelia Pavlovna, 55, a Georgian who was displaced
in the early 1990s war and returned two years later to find her
house burned. "We have a dog’s life here. . . . We can’t even tell
the truth."
Many people here say that so far, remaining in their own houses here
has been better than living elsewhere as refugees.
But a 25-year-old woman who did not want to be named said that if
pressed to decide, she, like many young people, would probably move
to Georgian-controlled territory, perhaps ahead of her parents. "But
what to do with this house?" she said, gesturing around her family’s
spacious living room. "Leave it to the Abkhaz or Russians? I said to
my parents, ‘If you leave, just burn down the house. It’s better.’ "
The United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia maintains a presence in
Gali, as well as in Sukhumi, Abkhazia’s capital. But Abkhaz officials
have said the group will need to change its name and mandate if it
wishes to continue.
During the August war, U.N. personnel left Abkhazia’s only other
Georgian-majority area, a wedge of mountain known as the Kodori
Gorge. Home to about 2,500 ethnic Georgians, it had been under
Georgian government control since 2006 and was the seat of the
Georgian-backed Abkhazian government-in-exile. It was a showcase,
with billboards extolling a "united" Georgia that included Abkhazia,
and with money poured into municipal buildings and a ski resort.
When the war started, Abkhaz forces retook the area and Georgian
forces retreated into undisputed Georgian territory, along with most
of the residents.
Georgian officials insist that the French-brokered cease-fire that
ended the war will not be fulfilled without the return of Kodori
to their control. With Russia having recognized Abkhazia and South
Ossetia, leaders of those places say they have no intention of
returning to pre-Aug. 7 lines. But Abkhaz officials say they are
encouraging the Georgian civilians who fled to return and take Abkhaz
citizenship.
In a refugee center in the Georgian city of Kutaisi, a group who fled
Kodori criticized the Georgian government for failing to protect them,
and pondered a return. "If the Georgian authorities are going to be
there, of course we’ll go, but if they’re not, why would I go?" said
Tristan Chketiani, 52, adding that he did not want to live like the
Georgians in Gali.
For now, Gali residents say they will harvest their crops and wait to
see what happens. On a warm October day, the district capital’s outdoor
market teemed with people buying peppers and melons and corn. Children
practiced traditional dances in a darkened and crumbling theater,
and teenagers strolled by the remains of a cafe where, in July,
a bomb killed several people.
However, Nino Mirtskhulava, 18, who recently returned from a year
abroad in Huber Heights, Ohio, as an exchange student, said Gali feels
like a dead end. "We don’t have movies to go watch, or a bowling
alley. We have no restaurants where we can sit," she said. In a
few days, she said, she and her mother would be moving to Tbilisi,
Georgia’s capital.