article on Abkhazia

Sat Aug 16 00:03:34 UTC 2008

All:

I'm forwarding herewith an article about Abkhazia that may help
somewhat to answer
my  question about the autonomy of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.  One
thing that's coming
out is that Russia is also interested in thwarting any attempt  to
build a pipeline for oil and
gas that would not go through southern Russia, but through Georgia.
The  invasion of South
Ossetia, according to one report, is meant to show that Russia "means
business".

Abkhazia at the center of turf battle
By Megan K. Stack
April 17, 2008

In this half-abandoned place of rusting ports and skeleton homes,
there is a land that is recognized by nobody. Fifteen years since its
bloody war with Georgia, the breakaway republic of Abkhazia is a
surreal spot where Soviet isolation lingers, the Cold War never ended
and people cling to facades of statehood. Now, with Russia and the
United States engaged in a high-stakes power grab in the former Soviet
Union, this forlorn slip of lush beaches and snowy mountains has
emerged as a hub of new tensions between the Cold War enemies.

To the dismay of U.S.-backed Georgia, which still considers Abkhazia
to be part of it, Moscow has already distributed passports to nearly
all the people here and encouraged them to vote in Russian elections.
Tensions have ramped up in recent weeks, after Kosovo declared
independence from Serbia, a traditional Russian ally. Moscow bitterly
objected, warning that Kosovo's example would embolden other breakaway
regions and destabilize Europe. Russia turned to Abkhazia to drive its
point home. Moscow suddenly freed this place from harsh sanctions and
hinted that it might soon recognize Abkhazian independence.

"We were flying up to the sky with happiness," said Tamara Ezugbaya,
head of this seaside village and the mother of five sons, four of whom
died fighting Georgia in the early 1990s war. But among leaders here,
there is a lurking wariness of Russian motives. The powerful northern
neighbor is more interested in territorial expansion than in Abkhaz
independence, they fear, and may simply absorb Abkhazia.

Russia's attachment to Abkhazia is both sentimental and strategic.
Soviet-era vacations in the pristine mountains and on the balmy
beaches of Abkhazia are still a fresh memory for many Russians. Soviet
leaders such as Stalin and Khrushchev vacationed in private dachas
here, and many Russians feel a fond entitlement to this strip of
fertile, subtropical land where the Caucasus Mountains slip off to the
Black Sea. Russia's interest is also piqued by the steady encroachment
of Western military might into Eastern Europe.

With Georgia striving to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
many observers believe Russia is empowering breakaway republics on its
border – Abkhazia and similarly strife-laden South Ossetia, also
claimed by Georgia – in order to build a buffer zone between itself
and its Western-armed neighbor.

On Wednesday, Russia said it planned to establish "special relations"
with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and Georgian Foreign Minister David
Bakradze said his country would regard such a move as annexation of
its territory and "a gross violation of international rules on …
territorial integrity," the Interfax news agency reported.

The Russian parliament has been pushing to beef up the number of
Russian peacekeepers stationed in Abkhazia and suggested that Moscow
might fight on the side of the breakaway republic in the event of
Georgian military aggression.

"For us the main thing is not to be in between two superpowers at a
complicated time of dividing zones of influence," said Sergei Bagapsh,
the president of Abkhazia's self-declared government. "We're watching
the situation very, very carefully."

But Bagapsh acknowledged that Abkhazia hungrily snatches up all the
help that Moscow throws its way. Police wear Russian uniforms. Elderly
people collect Russian pensions.

"Since the war nobody has asked us, how do you live? How do your
children live?" Bagapsh said. "Nobody was interested. Not Europe.
Nobody. Only Russia gave us aid. Only Russian peacekeepers stood up
here."

Today, with sanctions removed and independence talks underway in
Moscow, Abkhazia is waiting for ships to flock back to the abandoned
ports; trains to creak back to life; tourists to flood south. People
here expect to sell massive quantities of stone and other building
materials to Russia in preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympics in
Sochi, which sits just over the border.

Abkhazia is a vast junkyard of collapsed structures and resurgent
nature. Roads are dotted with the shells of homes, picked clean of all
but the frame. Staircases to nowhere rise from tangles of vine. Cows
claim the right of way on shattered roads, stepping among the bomb
craters and puddles.

Abkhazia has a flag, license plates, visas, border guards and the
government. There is also a quixotic campaign to distribute Abkhaz
passports. "They are not recognized elsewhere in the world, but inside
the country they are very much in effect," says a government official
without irony.

The factories are blighted, offices shut down. Families have turned to
their gardens to survive; to their milk cows and chickens; their fruit
and nut trees. The economy is broken, but the people don't starve.

The government says that more than 200,000 people live in Abkhazia;
most independent analysts believe the real number is lower. In any
case, the official figure is less than half of the more than 500,000
people who lived in this then-thriving resort and citrus farming belt
before the war erupted.

The fight was brutal on both sides. In the end, as ethnic Abkhazians
emerged as victors, ethnic Georgians were driven out in an orgy of
torture, rape and looting.

For Georgia, Abkhazia is an open wound. Thousands of refugees from the
region linger in limbo in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. The Georgian
government has vowed to bring Abkhazia back within its borders.

Abkhazians swear it will never happen. "God forbid!" said Ezugbaya,
the mother whose four sons were killed. She is a slight woman with a
house in a mandarin orange grove, her gray hair pulled back into a
bun, wearing black all these years. Her sons died in quick succession,
within six months, the first two in the same battle. Her mother was
paralyzed with shock; her husband grieved to death. "I don't think a
single Abkhazian living here will allow this, as long as they're
alive," she said.

But Georgia is furious over Russian interference here. Leaders have
called for a boycott of the Sochi Olympics if Abkhaz goods are used to
build the sports facilities, and have also warned that any more
Russian peacekeepers posted to Abkhazia would be seen as "an act of
aggression against the Georgian state with all ensuing consequences,"
a Foreign Ministry statement said.

In the Abkhaz city of Sukhumi, the once-thriving port is a ship
graveyard, with rusted craft wedged into the sand. Two men sat
listlessly in an office overlooking the deserted coast, Lenin's stern
face keeping watch from the wall. Asked what they were up to, the men
laughed ruefully. Everything is at a standstill, they said. They were
just waiting around for Russia to make things better.

At the Sukhumi airport, out past the destroyed hotels and crushed
Pepsi-Cola plant, abandoned helicopters and airplanes litter the
runways. No international flights run in or out of Abkhazia these
days; the only things taking off now are a United Nations helicopter,
crop planes and the occasional flight to the mountains to drop off
scientists or skiers.

"I am personally worried about losing sovereignty," said Vyacheslav
Eshba, the chief of aviation. "But if they say, 'You Abkhazians can't
be independent, you have to be a part of something,' then Abkhazians
would rather be a part of Russia, which has oil and gas and where our
fraternal people live."

Outside, a handful of idle men in camouflage showed off the private
plane of former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, who had to
flee Abkhazia during the war. A faded Soviet flag was still visible on
its wing. The Abkhazians flew the plane at first, the men said, but
then fuel became too expensive.

It's a relic from another time, and nobody knows quite what to do with it.

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/17/world/fg-abkhazia17

-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of
the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who
disagree with a
message are encouraged to post a rebuttal. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)
*******************************************