An Impasse of Irresponsibility

Everyone involved in Abkhazia’s frozen conflict--the governments in Tbilisi and Sukhumi, the government-in-exile, and the refugees--is failing to take responsibility for a solution. by Daan van der Schriek 23 October 2003 ZUGDIDI, Georgia--Zugdidi has a pronounced Wild West atmosphere. Situated five kilometres from the de facto border with the separatist region of Abkhazia, this town in western Georgia lies inside the (frozen) conflict zone--and, it seems, outside the state’s power.

Kalashnikovs dangle from the shoulders of many otherwise ordinary-looking people as they walk around the town, and not just in the hands of the police, military and peacekeepers. They might belong to one of the partisan or bandit bands (the line between the two is a thin one) with which Zugdidi teems, or just civilians trying to protect themselves from these roving bands.

“There is no state authority here,” says a local journalist. This stimulates crime, contraband and lawlessness. It also makes life exceedingly difficult for Zugdidi’s 52,000 permanent inhabitants and its 62,000 refugees from Abkhazia.

The refugees’ lives are tough enough as it is. Refugees can work legally, but in a deeply troubled economy, their refugee status means their slim chances of legal work become slimmer still. And for those without legal or illegal work, the challenge is to survive on the monthly 14 lari (less than $7) they get from the government.

“It’s a pittance,” says Tamaz Nadareishvili, the leader of the Abkhaz government-in-exile, which is composed of Georgian members of the government that fled the Abkhaz capital, Sukhumi, in 1993.

The government-in-exile has managed to take residence in an attractive building in the heart of Tbilisi. Most of the 250,000 or so refugees haven’t been so lucky; they’re living in decrepit hotels all over Georgia--and for ten years already.

Nadareishvili claims he can’t do anything about all this, saying the refugees’ plight is now the responsibility of the federal government.

Responsibility is not at the top of the government’s agenda, at least so thinks political scientist Paata Zakareishvili. “The state wants to use them politically,” he says. “It’s not interested in them as human beings. Until one year ago, the refugees weren’t even allowed to vote in local elections in the places they’re living now.”

Instead of integrating them in Georgian society, the authorities want to keep the displaced destitute and ready to deploy in its effort to reclaim Abkhazia, argues Zakareishvili.

PARTISAN MOVEMENT

Some elements of Georgian society have always tried to push for an armed solution to the Abkhazian problem. Notably, some of the refugees, tired of having had to wait for a peaceful solution that never seemed to near, formed guerrilla bands to harass the Abkhaz--and the occasional Russian peacekeeper monitoring the 1994 cease-fire.

Guerrilla bands with boy-scout names still abound. There are the Forest Brothers, operating throughout Abkhazia, and the White Legion, mostly active in Abkhazia’s southernmost Gali raion, where 40,000 Georgian refugees have returned. But there are other, smaller groups as well. And they’re all bickering with each other.

The military commander of the White Legion confirmed they had “very tense relations” with the Forest Brothers at the moment and that they “do not cooperate with them.”

That notwithstanding, he promises to continue his guerrilla activities. But even he doubts that the partisans, who were given a severe beating in May 1998 when Abkhazian forces kicked them out of Gali, can ever be successful.

“I don’t say that we can beat them,” he confesses, “but we need to bring the conflict under the world’s attention to show that Abkhazia is Georgian territory and not Russian.”

They are indeed probably too weak to do anything more than draw attention. “I think the combined total of Georgian partisans does not exceed 300,” says the commentator Paata Zakareishvili. And it is questionable whether they are seriously contemplating taking on Abkhazian forces--let alone the Russian peacekeeping forces; these are, in the words of the commander of the White Legion, “to be honest, a bit too well-equipped for us,” though he says “we will continue to protect the interests of the people.”

Besides playing guerrilla, the bands keep themselves busy as smugglers--acting in league with local authorities on both sides of the border and with the peacekeeping troops.

“Every night goods flow in from Abkhazia over the Enguri bridge,” says the Zugdidi journalist.

“The partisans control the contraband from Abkhazia,” confirms Zakareishvili. That contraband mainly consists of cigarettes, oil, and nuts. Although this can make a local refugee-turned-smuggler reasonably affluent, its importance should not be exaggerated.

“There’s corruption everywhere in Georgia” Zakareishvili says. “In Abkhazia, there’s smuggling because no solution for the conflict has been reached. But it’s not so important that it could be a reason not to find a solution.”

The refugees’ nominal leader, Tamaz Nadareishvili, also agrees there are some partisans working in crime and contraband. “But these we do not support,” he hastens to add.

Other groups he would support “morally”--which seems to explain why the White Legion’s commander said Nadareishvili is “good at talking, but that’s it. We don’t get any support from the government.”

But Zakareishvili believes there is, in fact, some kind of official support for the various guerrilla bands; the fact that partisan leaders can, for example, make frequent media appearances suggests he is right.

“I think the partisans could be located in one week,” he says, “but the [Georgian] government doesn’t do this because it needs destabilization.”

By condoning the partisans, the authorities are showing that they are unwilling to give up the possibility of bringing back Abkhazia under Tbilisi’s control by force, Zakareishvili believes.

The government-in-exile’s leader Nadareishvili, for one, doesn’t hide his preference for force.

DEADLOCK

Besides pushing for worldwide acknowledgement that the killing of 10-15,000 Georgians and expulsion of around quarter of a million Georgians was a “genocide,” the Georgian-Abkhazian leader-in-exile wants to see a UN-led military operation against Abkhazia—not a peacekeeping force, but an offensive force.

“Ten years of talks have had no results,” he complains.

But then, whose fault is that?

Heidi Tagliavini, the UN secretary-general’s special representative for Georgia, singles out two main hurdles to progress. The first (“a surprise” to her) was that even after ten years, feelings run high in both camps.

The height of this hurdle makes the second, “the failure of a political dialogue,” even more insurmountable. The UN’s proposal to find a solution is based on the territorial integrity of Georgia, but this is unacceptable for the Abkhazian authorities in Sukhumi. As a consequence the deadlock persists.

Zakareishvili believes that the Georgians should start making concessions and show the initiative, as “the Abkhazians are quite happy with the current situation.”

But with a stormy aftermath to parliamentary elections likely, it is highly doubtful that Tbilisi will act just now. Indeed, a more hard-line stance cannot be excluded (particularly since presidential elections are due in 2005). President Eduard Shevardnadze, in particular, having lost erstwhile moderate allies such as Zurab Zhvania, is increasingly turning to extreme nationalists to retain influence in the next parliament, which is due to be elected on 2 November.

Tamaz Nadareishvi is one. Another is Guram Sharadze, an ardent opponent of Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Roman Catholic Church.

Earlier, there was talk that Nadareishvili would support the opposition in the upcoming elections. But in the end, though, Nadareishvili has chosen the government block after all, giving them, as he said, “one last chance.”

But he claims that he didn’t give his support away for nothing. Nadareishvili says he decided to support the government, whose Abkhazian policy he has disapproved until now, after (he claims) it accepted all his demands--including working for acknowledgement of the Georgian “genocide” and an armed UN intervention in Abkhazia.

In these circumstances, is it possible to seriously believe that the Georgian authorities are really inclined to reach a peaceful settlement? Yes, believes the UN’s Tagliavini. “We are dealing with official structures and the people there want a peaceful solution,” she says. But Nadareishvili is not part of that structure.

Defence Minister David Tevzadze presumably is, however, part of those “official structures.” If so, the omens are poor. When a battalion of Georgian troops graduated from the controversial American-funded and -led “Train and Equip” program on 30 August, Tevzadze handed the U.S.-trained battalion the flags of its enemies: the Cossacks, the Chechens and, of course, the separatist Abkhazians.

The sad reality is that the Abkhazians are also not making much effort in the UN-sponsored peace talks. In September, they caused a second delay in the latest round of talks; the Georgians were responsible for the first hold-up. The Abkhazians officially blamed the delay on “technical problems.”

But Sukhumi probably felt they had to do this in order not to lose face, since Tbilisi had done the same earlier. “They are like a bunch of kids trying to score against each other,” a foreigner involved in the peace process says.

The peace process seems stuck. But a military solution, which some Georgians dream of, is not an option either. It has been tried before, in May 1998 in Gali and in October 2001 in Kodori (though whether the Kodori episode was a genuine attempt at a military solution or just a choreographed flare-up is unclear). On both occasions, the Georgians lost. The campaign in Gali in addition destroyed the partisan movement. The ones that are left today “are mostly criminals,” says Zakareishvili.

And with a solution far-off, the refugees are likely to remain unintegrated into society. The country’s politicians are concerned with the territorial integrity of Georgia and not with the refugees’ suffering.

But perhaps the refugees themselves also carry some responsibility for their neglect: they have barely tried to flex their political muscles. And they are not doing so during the current election campaign.

“Georgia’s population has no feelings of civic responsibility,” says Zakareishvili. “They don’t vote, don’t feel they’re getting any support from the government--and therefore don’t expect anything from it.”

The refugees are no exception. They did make some attempt to set up their own party but, lacking a genuinely popular leader, they failed. “Nadareishvili is considered to be their leader,” says Zakareishvili. “But he is not popular.”

As one refugee in Zugdidi put it: “What has Nadareishvili ever done for us? Nothing!”

But the refugees are not fighting for their opinion; they remain silent. “The refugees, like the rest of the population, are afraid of responsibility,” says Zakareishvili. But as long as they remain silent, “it is easy for politicians to misuse their supposed ‘wishes’ for their own purposes.”

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