ABKHAZIA CAUGHT BETWEEN ETHNIC AND CIVIC NATIONHOOD
Paul Goble

Georgiandaily
August 13, 2009

Vienna, August 13 – The population of the breakaway republic of
Abkhazia finds itself deeply divided between those backing an
ethnocentric model in which nationality would play the key role
and those supporting a civic nation model in which citizenship not
ethnicity would be the basis of political participation, according
to a leading Moscow specialist on the region.

And both because of the ethnic diversity of the republic and because of
the opposition of the international community to states in which one
ethnic group is given primacy over others, Sergey Markedonov argues,
the outcome of this increasingly contentious debate will have a larger
impact than many might think.

If the civic model is adopted, there is a chance that the partially
recognized republic of Abkhazia could develop in a more or less stable
country on its own. But if the purely ethnic definition is used,
that could undermine social and political cohesion within Abkhazia
and increase tensions between Abkhazia and its neighbors.

The current political debate was touched off by the passage by the
republic’s parliament of amendments to Abkhazia’s law on citizenship
that provided for offering citizenship to ethnic Georgians who had
returned from the Gal district and who had not compromised themselves
in the eyes of Abkhazia by fighting against that republic.

On August 5, representatives of the Abkhaz opposition assembled in
Sukhumi and demanded that President Sergey Bagapsh not sign the law but
rather return it to the Popular Assembly for reworking. That is what
he did, and the following day, the parliament appointed a working group
to come up with yet another revision in the republic’s citizenship law.

As Markedonov points out, all Abkhaz citizenship legislation
(as adopted in 1993, 1995, 2002, and 2005) has been based on
two "underlying principles." On the one hand, all the republic’s
citizenship laws have excluded from citizenship any who "with arms
in their hands fought against the Abkhaz Republic."

On the other, he continues, the legislation has been ethno-centric
in each case, clearly defining Abkhazia as "in the first instance"
a state of the ethnic Abkhaz, intended as a home not only for those of
that community living there now but also for the descendents of Abkhaz
who were expelled from the North Caucasus in the 1860s and 1870s.

To those ends, the paragraph that the parliament initially voted to
amend at the end of July specified three groups who could acquire
Abkhaz citizenship: ethnic Abkhaz regardless of their place or
residence or passport nationality, representatives of other ethnic
groups who have lived in the republic "not less than five years,"
and those who acquire it through naturalization.

A major reason why the issue of the relationship of citizenship and
ethnicity is so sensitive in Abkhazia is that unlike Nagorno-Karabakh
and South Ossetia, "where," Markedonov points out, "there exist
dominating ethnic communities, the Abkhaz even after military
actions and the expulsion of the Georgian population do not form an
overwhelming majority."

Given population shifts during the course of the violence, there
are today no universally agreed upon statistics for the ethnic
make-up of Abkhazia’s population, but Markedonov suggests that there
are 70-80,000 Abkhaz, a roughly the same number of Armenians, some
35-45,000 ethnic Russians, and 55-60,000 ethnic Georgians concentrated
in the Gal district.

Consequently, the parliament’s approval of a measure that would extend
citizenship to the ethnic Georgians could easily tip the political
balance in Abkhazia not only domestically but in its relations with
Georgia and other countries, and not surprisingly, therefore, many
who opposed such a move denounced its supporters as "traitors."

This emotional reaction has been fuelled in addition by the
anticipation of the upcoming presidential elections in Abkhazia with
both the incumbent president and his opponents concluding that victory
of one or the other may depend on just who gets to vote, something
the citizenship legislation will establish.

Extending Abkhaz citizenship to the ethnic Georgians of the Gal
district thus appears to many as an "either/or" issue, Markedonov says:
"either apartheid (this model was realized after the completion of
the conflict) or attempts at integration (which the Abkhaz powers
that be began to make very timidly beginning in2005)."

There is, of course, "a third variant," the Moscow expert points out,
yielding the territory and its people to Georgia. "But if one speaks
seriously," that is not possible and there is a compelling need for
some compromise, possibly on extending Abkhaz citizenship to those
who lived in Gal in 1994-99 and also to ethnic Georgians lacking
Georgian citizenship.

But Markedonov suggests that Abkhazia needs to find a way to include
the ethnic Georgians in the Abkhaz political community lest they become
"a fifth column" and a source of new tensions. As a result, he says,
"Abkhaz politicians will be forced to return to the issue of broadening
the basis of Abkhaz citizenship" whether they want to or not.