Georgian Leader’s
Abkhaz Choices
New Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili begins a rethink of his country’s policy on Abkhazia.
By Gocha Khundadze in
Tbilisi (CRS No. 216, 29-Jan-04)
In his short inauguration
speech by the grave of King
David the Builder on January 25, Georgia’s new president,
Mikheil Saakashvili, repeated the words
“integrity,” “reconstruction,”
and “unification” many times. At the beginning and
the end of the ceremony, held
in Tbilisi later the same day,
he vowed to achieve all
these things.
The Gelati monastery - last abode of David
IV, the King of all Abkhaz, Kartvel
and Kakh, who united Georgia in the late 11th and
early 12th centuries - was deliberately chosen as a venue not only to underline
Saakashvili’s desire to unite all
citizens of Georgia but to reunify the country
by bringing the dissident territories
of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Ajaria into
the fold.
Of these, although Ajaria is the most
immediate problem for the new leader,
the issue of the other Black
Sea region, Abkhazia, which seceded de facto from Georgia after a bloody war in 1992-3, is the most daunting.
“The Abkhaz conundrum cannot be resolved in a week,” he told the
press soon after his resounding election victory on January 4. “Until Georgia enforces order, revives its economy
and builds up strong armed
forces, not even the UN can help us deal with Abkhazia.”
Although Saakashvili mentioned
“strong armed forces” in the Georgian-Abkhaz context, he also
seemed to be ruling out the
use of force to resolve the
issue.
“I will never reconcile myself to the break-up
of Georgia, but military intervention
would be the most nightmarish course of action imaginable,” he said. “Enough blood
has been shed, and I declare that
my intent is to settle the
issue peacefully.”
Many have seen a hopeful sign for
the stalled peace process in the recent resignation
of Tamaz Nadareishvili, the leader of what
Tbilisi calls the “Legitimate Government of Abkhazia in Exile”, and the
man who has been the most
prominent representative of
the Georgian exile community from Abkhazia for
the past decade.
Nadareishvili was forced
out of his job after losing a vote of confidence in the Supreme Soviet
of Abkhazia, the body of which he was
the chairman.
He was the leading hawk on the Abkhaz issue,
repeatedly calling for military intervention
to reverse the defeat of 1993. More than 200,000 Georgians were forced to leave
Akhazia as a result of the war.
In private conversations,
Georgian state officials make no attempt to conceal
that Nadareishvili was out of favour.
He was repeatedly
accused of having an authoritarian style and not listening to the views
of his community. His “government
in exile” was also widely criticised
for corruption and inaction and
the authorities followed up by
arresting a number of high-ranking officials
in the Nadareishvili administration on charges of embezzling public funds.
Manoeuvring is now going on to find a replacement
for Nadareishvili, who will probably
be much more moderate.
The peace process over Abkhazia, frozen for much
of last year, has been effectively suspended while Georgia went through its
political crisis. The two sides
met for security talks in the Gali region earlier this month, but high-level negotiations
are not set to resume until next
month at the earliest, when a meeting is planned in Geneva.
The Abkhaz have so far been wary
of Saakashvili, who has made many different
statements about Abkhazia and has the reputation of being a populist nationalist.
Some believe he should use his huge popularity to talk compromise. “I would recommend that the new
leaders of Georgia hurry to declare their
commitment to political dialogue with the Abkhaz,
their intention to promote economic
relations between Tbilisi and Sukhumi,
reopen mutual railway, marine, road, and air
traffic, denounce Georgia’s economic sanctions previously imposed in Abkhazia, and start talking about restoring Georgian-Abkhaz relations rather than Georgia’s national integrity,” said Zurab Erkvania,
deputy chief of the national intelligence
agency of Georgia.
Erkvania was a member of the “government in exile” for four
years but fell out with his boss,
Nadareishvili. According to informed sources,
who asked to withhold their
names, they split in 1998 when Erkvania blamed Nadareishvili for triggering the disastrous events of March that year
in the Gali region, when tens of thousands
of Georgians fled the area.
Erkvania argues that the “government in exile” should be disbanded altogether and replaced by
a small but more flexible coordinating body.
“This body, whose original mission was to deal
with the social, economic, and cultural problems
of refugees, gradually lost its functional
content and was reduced to
the state of a mere bureaucratic accessory serving one man,” Erkvania
told IWPR.
Scenting change in the air, Georgian internally
displaced persons or IDPs from
Abkhazia have become more vocal
in recent months, staging several protests and hunger
strikes in Tbilisi and the provinces.
Last week, Eteri Astamirova,
Georgia’s new minister for refugees,
and herself a member of the “Supreme Soviet of Abkhazia” in exile, was briefly detained
by a group of angry IDPs in the
western town of Zugdidi, demanding payment of overdue benefits.
Many IDPs are also calling for
new elections to decide who
will be their leaders, in succession to the existing
ones in the 38-member supreme soviet, who have
been dubbed “the eternals” as they have held
their jobs for 12 or 13 years.
“The revolution in
Georgia was not directed personally against ex-president Shevardnadze,
but rather against his system, of which the ‘Legitimate Government of Abkhazia in Exile’ was an integral
part,” Malkhaz Pataraya, one of the leaders of the Joint Council
of Refugee Community Groups and Political
Associations.
Analysts believe that Saakashvili is likely to abolish the
“government in exile” but
not before Georgia’s parliamentary elections, scheduled for March
28.
Others say internal reshuffles
must be a prelude to a bigger shift
in policy.
“If all we want is to
find a replacement [for Nadareishvili], it should be easy, but how is this going
to advance the peace settlement
process?” political commentator Armaz Akhvlediani, director of the School of Political
Studies in Tbilisi, told IWPR.
Akhvlediani believes that a rethink in relations with Russia is a prerequisite for sorting out the
Abkhazia issue. “Georgians must stop thinking that Russia
is the cause of all evil,” he
said. “We must get rid
of this complex and make a clean
start in our relationship with Russia while
the option is there.”
Gocha Khundadze is assistant
director of the Abkhaz TV & radio company based in Tbilisi.