The fertile Gali district of Abkhazia, which lies on the de facto border with Georgia, used to generate considerable wealth from its tea plantations, citrus groves and hazelnut farms. Now, after years of conflict and enforced neglect, it's a virtual wasteland. Although the Abkhaz rule the area - they won control of it during their war with Georgian forces in the early 1990s - most of the people living there are actually ethnic Georgians. That means it's always been tense (and full of men with guns), but on a recent visit I found the mood to be more oppressive and paranoid than ever.
Now Abkhazia has been recognised as an independent state by neighbouring Russia, many local Georgians are afraid that they might have to leave the area soon because they are being 'encouraged' to take Abkhaz passports, which involves formally rejecting their Georgian citizenship. The planned construction of Russian military bases in the region has also frightened them, as well as the suggestions by the Abkhaz authorities that they intend to build a fortified border and seal the region off from Georgia completely. This is my television report for Al Jazeera, filmed by the inimitable Vladimir Lozinski (all soundbites are in Russian without voiceovers and captions, unfortunately).
2 comments:
hi Matthew, i like the way u express the existing situation in Abkhazia. thanks for this report. i would like to see more about Abkhazia.
Refugees is always a big problem and it was NOT Abkhazia who bare responsibility for them - it is Georgia that STARTED the war and created huge humanitarian catastrophy. By the way Georgian population fled before Abkhaz Army entered the occupied territories. See UNPO's report: http://www.unpo.org/downloads/Abkhazia_Georgia_report_1992.pdf [...When Abkhazian troops entered Sukhum many civilians were killed. Similar incidents also occurred in other parts of Abkhazia. THE MAJORITY OF GEORGIANS, HOWEVER, FLED BEFORE ABKHAZIAN AND NORTHERN CAUCASUS TROOPS ARRIVED.] from the report.
For Georgians there is a country called Georgia their motherland where they may live but Abkhaz have no other home. If Georgian Army enters Abkhazia they will not mercy anybody non-georgian there. But when it will be happening you will be watching cenic news about restoring constitutional oreder over rebels and again separatist children women and old people. So it is better to be alive and not recognised then dead and part of Georgia.
There is constant misrepresentation in the West or pro-Georgia propaganda that Abkhazia is led by a gang of separatists. I would reccomend those people to tell a fable to their kids: "There is separatis country ruled by separatist governemtn and there are separatist children drinking separatist milk and separatist old people in the streets and they drive separatist car. Everything could be Ok with them and they could look like us but there is one thing that distinguish them from us - they are separatists, they are not people so we have to kill them all".
And just something more, just an historical fact.
HISTORICAL MAPS: Abkhazia at various times in history: http://gallery.abkhazworld.com/#4.41
The maps included here give an idea of the frontiers of Abkhazia at various times in history. The Abkhazians call their capital /Aqw'a/, but it is more usually known in other languages as Sukhum (Sukhum-Kalé or Sukhum-Kaleh in the period of Turkish influence along the Black Sea's eastern coast; /soxumi/ in Georgian). The ending -i in the form /Sukhumi/ represents the Georgian Nominative case-suffix, and it became attached to /Sukhum/ from the late 1930s when (Georgian) Stalin and his Mingrelian lieutenant in Transcaucasia, Lavrent'i Beria, began to implement a series of anti-Abkhazian policies. Abkhazians today, for obvious reasons, resent the attachment of this element from the language of a people they see as oppressors.
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