Hi,

Don´t blame Georgia for all wrong-doings. Funny enough, people usually begin blaming Russia, then blaming Abkhazia, and they reserve a little bit of blame to Georgia... You reasoned all the way round :) It´s the first time I see someone not blaming Russia first in whatever issue on the region you talk about!!! (I believe, by the way, in Russian faulty attitude in the area, but also think that blaming only Russia is an easy excuse for local elites, also -the same with US. I suppose-, and that people forget on the 15 million ethnic Russian living outside Russia, the economic relations built in 80 years of Soviet Union, and the geostrategic loses -military bases, seaports, resources- that I think very few countries, if any, would have accept easily)

Back to Abkazia: methodology :)

I didn´t travel to Abkhazia, I had no funding, that´s why I worked on the geopolitical perspective (mainly power relations and peacekeeping strategies), which could be approached from the distance.

Back to Abkhazia: context

1. It´s not only Georgia who prevents/prevented Abkhazia of being independent. Its everyone but Russia. When Soviet Union split up, the international community agreed that all the 15 republics would be granted independence, but NONE of the "republics within the republics". That´s the case of Chechnya in Russia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia in georgia, Transdniester in Moldova and Nagorno-Karabakh in Armenia. I´m mentioning the separatist conflicts, as there´s territories, such as Kazan in Russia, Adaria in Georgia and others, with national sentiments that opted for more "semi-authonomy" estrategies (forced or willing). This to show that other options but independence are also possible, always, even in very centralized and autocratic contexts.

2. In the mixed Caucasus, who belongs the land to? Demographic data are political tools there, and there´s very few generally agreed data, but:

a) In 1989 (last Soviet census) Abkhazia had 525000 inhabitants, the 18% (76000) defining themselves as Abkhazians. 45,7%, 240.000 were defining themselves as Georgians.

b) During 1992-93 war, 300.000 persons fled, most of them haven´t returned, not only because of ethnic and political problems, but because of economic situation. Who the hell would want to go back? Now, although the proAbkhaz part denies ethnic cleansing, "dancing figures" shows that currently the Abkhaz population is more than 40% of the overall population in Abkhazia... 200.000 displaced were Georgians (remember, there was 240.000 in the first place).

c) Most lived either in the capital or in Gali Valley. As usually happens, Gali valley (part of Abkhazia republic) has an important historical meaning for Georgia. By the way, blame Soviet Union (and particularly Stalin, who was Georgian but was very much against Georgian nationalism based on identity) on that. When defining boundaries, one thing that Soviet Union did was to lower the importance of historically strong nationalities by creating boundaries that didn´t respect demographic or historical boundaries. So they fucked up on purpose an already complicated area like the Caucasus, giving, in this case, parts of north Georgia to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This territories belonged to Georgia but had semiauthonomy justified on nationality, providing their "name nationality" (the one that gave the name to the subrepublic) a greater political representation than the one that would have had by its demographic or economic power. This Abkhaz political class felt menaced when Georgia proclaimed independence.

3. Anyway, Georgian politicians can't now accept independence, even of the northern part, where population wasn´t Gerogian in that larger extent as there would be a high risk of fostering extremism inside. Georgia was, back in 1991, one of the ex-soviet republics with a stronger national feeling. With a risk of expansion, even, if handled by radicals.

4. There´s peacekeeping forces and military suppossedly to protect refuggees. I mean, they do, but the peacekeeping contingents have vested interests, also. So the question is not if Georgia would involve in protecting people, but if will involve just in that. That´s been always the beginning of crisis, some Georgia or Russian part blaming the other of attacking, the other talking about self-defence against groups without control, that are extremist, but sometimes also useful in doing what the official army can´t do but would like to.

Complicated, complicated...

P.D. I don´t blame on Abkhazians of everything, either; maybe it seems so in this post, but it´s just that I´m giving mainly the Georgia-supporting arguments here....

P.D. I´m crap with html, so here is a link to a map of Georgia for you to download, as I don´t know how to nest it. (The UN officially accepted map)

http://www.un.org/depts/Cartographic/map/profile/georgia.pdf

"If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none." (Fahrenheit 451)