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Introduction
Since 1988, Transcaucasia and
parts of the North Caucasus have been the scene of turmoil. There have been numerous
latent and overt claims and counterclaims concerning national statehood,
administrative status, ethnic identity and borders. Never before, since the
turbulent period of 1918-21 which followed the fall of the Russian empire,
have conflicts raged with such deadly animosity. Old ethnic wounds have
reopened, leading in some cases to sustained warfare, in others to ethnic
strife punctuated by intermittent clashes.
Geopolitical changes in the
region have been one of the main underlying causes of ethnic conflicts. Just
as in 1918-21, when the Caucasian conflicts followed the demise of the
Russian empire, these have come on the heels of the weakening and then
break-up of the USSR.
Geopolitics is a function of the vital interests of states and societies.
Thus the Warsaw Pact served the purpose of preserving the social system and
securing the socio-economic development of the coalition, by repelling the
perceived threat from the West. With the defeat of the Soviet
Union in the Cold War, these interests changed abruptly, and a
reorientation of the Eastern bloc's ruling elites to Western-type free-market
economies ensued. The weakening of communist control from the Centre put an
end to common ideological interests shared between the different national
elites. These persuaded public opinion in their countries that a transition
to a free-market economy, personal freedom and Western aid could better be
ensured by economic and political sovereignty. For the elites of the titular
nationalities of the Transcaucasian republics (Georgia, Armenia
and Azerbaijan), breaking
loose from the influence of Moscow
became a priority. The federal division of the USSR - in particular, the
existence of higher- and lower-ranking administrative units based on ethnic
and territorial principles - became an impediment to the titular elites'
national projects. These projects manifested themselves in attempts to create
(or, in the case of Armenia,
which was nearly 90% Armenian-populated by 1988, to consolidate) statehood on
an ethnic basis. In Georgia,
this national project collided with the separate statehood, language and
cultural interests of the Abkhazian
Autonomous Soviet
Socialist Republic
(Abkhazian ASSR) and of the South Ossetian
Autonomous Oblast (South Ossetian AO). Azerbaijan
was confronted with the problem of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast
(NKAO) region, populated mainly by Armenians. In Armenia, the perceived
injustice of the international treaties of the early 1920s, which ensured
border divisions within the region,(1) reinforced the Armenian
determination to hold on to Karabakh, viewed as the
only part of historic Armenia outside the republic's borders still populated
by an Armenian majority. Thus Karabakh represented
both a raison d'Жtre of the Armenian national
project and a centre-piece of the Azeri one. It might be added that, in both
Armenia and Azerbaijan, the national movements did not start out as
anti-Soviet, but initially included demands for the Kremlin to ensure the
validity of their respective national claims: in the case of Armenia, for the
NKAO to be attached to it, and in the case of Azerbaijan, to prevent this. It
was the inability of the Kremlin to satisfy these demands that set the
movements in both republics on a path of independence.
An institutional vacuum was created as titular
nations asserted their rights. The nationalism of larger nationalities found
a counterpart in the nationalism of national minorities. National minorities,
concerned for their security and survival, mobilized their own populations,
tried to ensure exclusive administrative control over their territory and
appealed for help to the Centre, to kindred ethnicities across the border
and/or to neighbouring republics; they set up
paramilitary formations, and expelled "foreign" nationals along
with government troops sent to subdue the "rebels".
The Ossetian-Ingushi
conflict stands apart from the basic pattern we have just outlined. This is
not a case of a national minority struggling to preserve its existing
autonomy within a dominant titular nation, but a dispute over parts of the
region which have seen repeated border changes and forcible population
transfers within them. In other words, it is not a conflict over ethnic
status, but a purely territorial dispute.
The interests involved in gaining sovereignty
and statehood can submerge socio-economic interests. In Georgia, Armenia
and Azerbaijan,
no price seemed too high in the national cause. The Georgian president, Gamsakhurdia, isolated his country from the international
community; the Azeri president, Elcibey, reoriented
his country towards Turkey,
risking the loss of the Russian market, while Armenian leaders were willing
to endure an oil, gas and transport blockade by Baku for years rather
than stop supporting Karabakh. The predominance
within national elites of particular groups, such as leaders of military
formations, criminal mafias and war profiteers, did little to favour a peaceful solution to ethnic conflicts.
Some regional leaders realized that the price
paid for sovereignty had been too high. Shevardnadze and Aliyev
stopped ignoring economic and military factors and turned to their
traditional partner, Russia.
They did so while, at the same time, preserving other, newly-found regional
partners and striving to avoid the less palatable elements of their former
relationship with their northern neighbour. This
new opening up to Russia, together with the political activities of new
regional states like Iran and Turkey and the policies of international
organizations, have created new possibilities for crisis management in
conflicts.
To explain why conflicts break out, geopolitics
and socio-economic interests alone are not enough. A salient factor in the
conflicts under discussion is the use of history in the service of particular
nationalist demands. Thus, in Abkhaz literature, one finds references to the
Abkhazian kingdom which existed in the 9th and 10th centuries. This is
instrumental to the Abkhazian claim for sovereignty over the region, even
though the same kingdom could equally be described as a common
Georgian-Abkhazian state, with a predominance of Georgian language and
culture. Georgian authors, in turn, stress the allegedly non-Abkhaz character
of pre-17th-century Abkhazia to support their case. In a more extreme
variant, a similar historical perspective gave rise to the theory of
"hosts" (Georgians) and "guests" (all other minorities)
on Georgian land. Thus both protagonists use "suitable" historic
periods (antiquity and the Middle Ages for the Georgians, the Middle Ages and
the Soviet period, when Abkhazia nominally had autonomy, for the Abkhaz). Ossetian politicians impute the decrease in population in
South Ossetia during the Soviet era to Georgian policies, forgetting that it
was partly due to the resettlement of South Ossetes
in the former Ingushi-populated territory (itself a
matter of historic dispute with the Russian Cossacks). An influential
Armenian writer, Zori Balayan,
presents a view of history which furthers Armenian interests by appealing to
Russian imperial ambitions and denigrating the legitimate nationhood of Azerbaijan
- that "tentative country with tentative Union borders", as he puts
it.(2) In Balayan's
view, when Russia fought her early 19th-century wars against Iran to annex Eastern
Armenia to Russia, Azerbaijan did not exist as a state, nor did the Azeris exist as a nationality (here Balayan
is alluding to the relatively late, 20th-century emergence of Azeri national
identity, with Azerbaijan, in his opinion, forming part of ancient Armenia).
The results of those wars were allegedly legitimized in international
treaties "for all time". Thus Russia,
according to Balayan, should continue to keep Azerbaijan
within its sphere of influence and ward off Turkish influence. If Russia
does not, it will be failing to see justice done to the Armenians, its loyal
Christian subjects in the past, who had entrusted it with their fate. A
reference to Azerbaijan as a formerly Armenian territory, made as it was in
the wake of Karabakh Armenian victories in 1993,
implicitly carried the message that the Armenians were entitled to annex as
much of Azerbaijan as they could. Azerbaijani writers, for their part, have
tried to refute the Armenian origins of the ancient inhabitants of Karabakh.
The validity of the right to
self-determination, as against the principle of the territorial integrity of
states, is a thorny issue, and one which finds no satisfactory solution among
the protagonists in the conflicts within the former Soviet
Union. Contemporary international law recognizes the right of
independence for colonial peoples and annexed territories, but not for parts
of such territories, nor for national minorities in internationally
recognized states.(3) This is designed to prevent wars
between nations whose borders have been demarcated, often disregarding the
ethnic composition of the territories in question, by former colonial and
imperial powers. Another reason is to safeguard the rights of
"minorities within minorities" and protect them from ethnic
cleansing. Taken in the ex-Soviet context, the principle of territorial
integrity has been invoked primarily by the countries newly admitted to
membership of the UN, whose independence has been internationally recognized
(Georgia, Azerbaijan) and by autonomous republics whose
borders - and not status - are contested (North Ossetia).
Georgia and Azerbaijan invoked this principle when they
revoked the Soviet-era status of Abkhazia, South Ossetia
and Nagorno-Karabakh. The declarations of independence by the latter group of
republics have not been recognized by the international community, although
the UN de facto recognizes Abkhazia as a negotiating partner by sponsoring
peace talks in Geneva between it and Georgia.
The Abkhaz, South Ossetes
and Karabakh Armenians, who do not
"qualify" for independence according to UN principles, invoke the
right to self-determination and consequently seek the support of regional
players.
A major factor which will be discussed in this
chapter is the position taken at various stages in the conflicts by the
Soviet, and later Russian, leaders. For the Soviet authorities, and also
under Gorbachev, the main political priority in dealing with events in Armenia and Azerbaijan (as in all the other
republics) was to ensure the preservation of Communist Party control. This
implied a different attitude to each of the national movements, depending on
the degree to which they could be contained by local Party bodies, the
relative weight of their respective leaders in Kremlin circles (thus Aliyev's friendship with Brezhnev, and his presence in
the Politburo since the Andropov era, meant that Azeri claims would get a
better hearing) and the economic leverage the republic in question was able
to bring into play. The amount of pressure that could be applied by democrats
or hard-liners in Moscow
in any given case was also important. Of lesser importance was the intrinsic
value attached to such considerations as the legality of ethnic claims and
constitutional provisions regarding the rights of individual republics. Thus
the Kremlin fought against separatism in Karabakh,
where the movement was outside central control and could destabilize the
communist regime in Armenia
and Azerbaijan, but made
no attempt to suppress separatism in Abkhazia, where the national movement
was at odds with independence-minded Georgia.
The break-up of the USSR was accompanied by the
wholesale plunder of Soviet military equipment by local paramilitary and
criminal elements, often with the connivance of corrupt elements in the
Soviet military. According to Valeri Simonov -
former Chief of Intelligence of the 19th Independent Anti-Aircraft Army,
stationed in Georgia until the break-up of the USSR - whereas, before 1992,
the Soviet military grouping in Transcaucasia had had enough weapons and
ammunition to make a thrust to the Persian Gulf and be able to wage, in
autonomous fashion, a month-long full-scale war in that area, by 1993,
Russian might in that region was less than 10 per cent of that of the former Transcaucasian Military District.(4)
Russian policies in the region
have vacillated between the principle of non-intervention in the affairs of
the warring sides and an assertive, interventionist policy, including the use
of Russian troops for peacekeeping activities. In the analysis of these
conflicts, we shall also deal with the efforts made by all sides to use the
interests guiding Soviet and Russian policies (and in some cases, those of
other powers as well) to their own advantage.
Ethnic Conflicts in Georgia
(1989-1994)
Abkhazia (Apsny,
"a Country of the Soul" in the Abkhaz language, Abkhazeti
in Georgian), an autonomous republic in Georgia situated on the Black Sea
coast, had, as of 1 January 1990, a population of 537,000, of which 44% were
Georgians, 17% Abkhaz, 16% Russians and 15% Armenians.(53) The Abkhaz are a people close in language
and origin to the North Caucasian peoples of the Adyghe
group. Although they lived under Turkish rule from the late 15th to the early
19th centuries and some of them were converted to Islam during that period,
there are few Moslems now left in Abkhazia. The Abkhaz population underwent
Christianization in the late 19th century, under Russian rule. The territory
of the present-day republic was once part of Ancient Rome, Byzantium
and Persia.
Later, Arabs, Genoese colonists, Turks and Russians sought to control it.
Until Abkhazia's absorption by Russia in 1810, Abkhazian rulers
were in nominal or effective vassalage or union with various (although often
separate) Georgian kingdoms and princedoms. So the historical evidence is
ambiguous: both unity with Georgia
and autonomy can be argued on historical grounds.
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For
some reasons, the author did not mention long periods of history during
which Abkhazia was integral part of a united Georgian Kingdom or various
Georgian states (Ed.)
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On 31 March 1921, an
independent Soviet Socialist Republic of Abkhazia was proclaimed. Abkhazia
kept that status until December 1921, when the SSR Abkhazia joined the
Georgian SSR under a Treaty of Union. This status lasted until 1931, when the
Abkhazian Republic
was incorporated into Georgia
as an autonomy (the Abkhazian ASSR). The Georgian
side, contradicting Abkhaz claims, denies that these changes of status were
made under pressure.
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The
period of Georgian independence (1918-1921) during which Georgia
included Abkhazia, is omitted by the author (Ed.)
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Abkhaz authors lay particular emphasis on their
people's plight in Stalin's era. Stalinist repression hit Abkhazia like the
rest of the USSR,
but here it had an additional ethnic colouring, as
it was carried out by Georgians. From the late 1930s to the early 1950s, a
policy of the Georgianization of Abkhazia and its
native people was in progress. The tragedy suffered by the Abkhaz during the
Russian conquest in the 19th century - the forced emigration to Turkey
of the Moslem sector of the Abkhaz population who had inhabited half the
Abkhazian territory - was compounded by a Georgian policy, conducted in
Stalin's times, of planned resettlement of Georgians into Abkhazia. The
Abkhaz intellectuals and party leaders repeatedly (in 1956, 1967 and 1978)
petitioned the Centre to separate Abkhazia from Georgia
and attach it to Russia.
In response to this pressure, the Centre made a number of concessions to the
Abkhaz in personnel and cultural policy. Thus, by 1988, Abkhazia had its own
radio and TV, which were outside Tbilisi's
control. Abkhaz party cadres represented a prominent - and, in Georgian eyes,
disproportionate - proportion of the republic's administrative personnel.
Nevertheless, the fact that the Abkhaz - a people with two thousand years of
recorded history - were reduced by that history to 17% of the republic's
population, and were enduring what they viewed as the smouldering
enmity of the less tolerant part of the Georgian population towards their
national aspirations, was taking its toll. Niko Chavchavadze, a Georgian MP and director of the Institute
of Philosophy, writing in 1994, recalled that only a minority of Georgian
intellectuals were prepared to take Abkhaz interests into account, as they
feared for Georgia's territorial integrity.(54) In 1989, the objective of the
Abkhaz separatists, as a first step towards complete independence from
Georgia, was to secure a return to the status of Abkhazia prior to 1931.(55)
As of 1989, the autonomous oblast of South
Ossetia within Georgia
had a population of nearly 100,000, of whom 66.2% were Ossetes
and 29% Georgians.(56) Half of the families in the region were of
mixed Georgian-Ossetian descent. The Ossetes are descendants of the ancient Alan tribes of
Iranian stock. Some of them are Orthodox Christians and some (in certain
regions of North Ossetia) are Moslems. On 20
April 1922, after the Sovietization of Georgia in
1921, the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast (AO) was
formed. Georgian-Ossetian strife dates back to
1918-21, when the Menshevik government of Georgia ruthlessly (the Ossetes say: genocidally)
suppressed a Bolshevik-supported South Ossetian
insurgency (the Ossetes were largely landless
peasants, living on lands owned by Georgian aristocrats). South Ossetian leaders, such as Torez
Kulumbegov, claimed that South Ossetia was the only
autonomous entity in the USSR whose population was now lower in absolute
numbers than before the 1917 revolution.(57) Even if this is an exaggeration
(the data available to us for 1897 and 1926 do not bear it out), a Soviet
demographic dictionary confirms that the AO's population had decreased in
1984 (98,000 inhabitants) by comparison with 1939 (106,000).(58) The decrease might be explained
partly by heavy losses in World War II and partly by the resettlement of
South Ossetes (on orders from the Kremlin) on
former Ingush lands after the Ingush deportation in 1944. According to Kulumbegov, Ossetes in the AO
were barred from entering higher education establishments and restricted in
filling administrative posts, a fact the Georgians deny. Georgian writers
have claimed that, like the Abkhazian ASSR, the South Ossetian
AO had been formed by the Bolsheviks to create permanent sources of tension,
so as to enable the Kremlin to control Georgia more easily. Both
Abkhazia and South Ossetia were said to be run on an ethnocratic
basis, to the detriment of Georgian national interests.(59) Hence the perceived Georgian
need to curtail if not abolish these autonomous entities. The response from
the South Ossetes was either to try to secure
federal status within Georgia
or, failing that, to seek to be reunited with North
Ossetia, forming part of Russia.(60)
The 9 April 1989 Tragedy and the Abkhazian
Question
On 18 March 1989, an Abkhaz assembly in the village of Lykhny proposed that Abkhazia should
secede from Georgia
and that the status of a Union republic be restored to it. 30 thousand
participants in the Lykhny assembly - including all
the party and government leaders of the ASSR, but also five thousand
Armenians, Greeks, Russians and even Georgians - signed an appeal published
in all local papers on 24 March, stating their position on the causes of the
conflict as outlined above.
Georgian outrage at the Abkhaz demands was
expressed in unsanctioned meetings organized by "informal
movements" across the republic, which combined anti-communist and
anti-Soviet slogans with calls to "punish" the Abkhaz and abolish
their autonomy. Especially active in these meetings (the 12,000-strong
meeting in Gali on 25 March, Leselidze
on 1 April, Sukhumi
and other cities) was Abkhazia's Georgian population. The long-suppressed
Georgian yearning for independence became irrepressible after the violent
outcome of the Tbilisi
hunger strike and demonstrations of early April 1989. These demonstrations,
prompted by the Lykhny meeting, started out under
anti-Abkhaz slogans, but quickly acquired a broader, pro-independence
character. On 9 April they were brutally dispersed by Soviet (Russian) troops
(21 people, mostly girls and old women, were killed with sharpened digging
tools and toxic gas).
In Moscow,
besides causing loud public outcry, the bloody incident led to lengthy recriminations
among the party and military elite over who should take the blame for the
event. The debates were especially heated at the first Congress of the USSR
People's Deputies (May-June 1989).(61) Gorbachev disclaimed all responsibility,
shifting it on the army. The revelations in the liberal Soviet media as well
as the findings of the "pro-perestroika" Deputy Anatoli
Sobchak's commission of enquiry into the Tbilisi
events, made known at the second Congress in December 1989, resulted in a
massive "loss of face" by the Soviet hardliners and army leadership
implicated in the event.(62) After that, the army was
gripped by the so-called "Tbilisi syndrome": an unwillingness to
involve itself in internal military ventures of any kind, much less ethnic
feuds.
A session of the Georgian Supreme Soviet, held
on 17-18 November 1989, officially condemned Soviet Russia's infringement of
the Russo-Georgian Treaty of 7 May 1920 in annexing Georgia in February 1921, thus
paving the way for the republic's independence. Politically, in the wake of
the events of 9 April Georgia
was almost left alone by the Union Centre; the latter was quite content to
see the republic in the throes of ethnic conflicts. However, there is not
enough evidence, in our view, to suggest that the Centre actually engineered
these conflicts. At most, it can be said that, as they flared up for local
reasons and in pursuance of local interests, the Centre used them to its own
advantage.
By the second half of 1989, as news of
chauvinistic pronouncements and policies by Georgian politicians became
known, a rift appeared between the Georgian nationalists and Russian
democrats, after Andrei Sakharov wrote his passage where he described the
Union republics (including Georgia) as "minor empires".(63) This drew a storm of protest in
Georgian political circles.
Conflicts in Abkhazia: 1989 -
End of 1991
The dynamics of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict
were influenced by a number of factors: the extreme positions taken by
Georgian nationalists in 1989 (no to Abkhazian autonomy); Gamsakhurdia's
chauvinism; the Abkhaz leadership's reliance on hardline
forces in Russia, and the
autonomist movement in the North Caucasus.
The situation was further complicated by the break-up of the USSR and the continued instability in Georgia
after the fall of Gamsakhurdia (in particular, the Zviadist insurgency in Megrelia
and divisions in the Georgian leadership on the subject of Abkhazia).
On 15-16 July 1989, intercommunal
violence erupted in the city of Sukhumi over the
establishment of a department of Tbilisi
State University
in the city. The Georgian part of Sukhumi
University refused to
stay as long as Abkhaz and Russian lecturers remained there. The Abkhaz then
attacked a school which was expected to house the Georgian university. At
that time, neither side was strong enough to force the issue militarily. The
battles between the Georgians and the Abkhaz over the Abkhazian question were
relegated to the legislatures of the two republics.
In August 1990, the Georgian Supreme Soviet
passed an election law banning regionally-based parties from taking part in
elections to the Georgian parliament.(64) This was intended, in part, to
prevent the Abkhaz Aydgylara (Unification) movement
(the Abkhaz People's Forum) from fielding its candidates. On 25 August 1990,
Abkhaz delegates to the Abkhazian Supreme Soviet, separately from their
Georgian colleagues, passed a Declaration on the Sovereignty of Abkhazia.
Justification for the move was provided by the adoption by the Georgian
Supreme Soviet, in 1989-1990, of legislation annulling all the treaties
concluded by the Soviet Georgian government since February 1921 which had
served as a legal foundation for the existence of the Georgian autonomies -
those of Ajaria, Abkhazia and South
Ossetia. The Abkhaz declaration was annulled by the Georgian
Supreme Soviet a few days later.
After Gamsakhurdia's
Round Table bloc had won the Georgian parliamentary elections in October
1990, the Abkhazian Supreme Soviet started on a course of defying Gamsakhurdia's authority. In December 1990, Vladislav Ardzinba, whom the
Georgian leaders had accused of fanning Abkhaz separatism and of belonging to
the Soyuz Group - a group of hardline deputies to
the Soviet parliament - was elected chairman of the
Abkhazian Supreme Soviet. At the same session, the Abkhazian parliament voted
to prepare a draft law on new parliamentary elections.(65)
In March 1991, Gamsakhurdia
issued an "Appeal to the Abkhazian People". While professing
respect for the age-old friendship between the Georgians and the Abkhaz, he
called Ardzinba a "traitor" and a tool in
the hands of Moscow.
For his part, Ardzinba declared that the Abkhazian
parliament still considered Abkhazia part of the USSR, while the newly issued
draft of the Union treaty granted equal rights to Union and autonomous
republics; finally, the Georgian parliament had enacted a law on the prefects
(published on 27 April 1991) which violated Abkhazian constitutional rights.(66)
In defiance of a Georgia-wide ban on its holding
imposed by Gamsakhurdia, Abkhazia voted in the
referendum on the preservation of the Union,
which was held on 17 March 1991. 52.4% of the electorate took part, with a
98.4% "yes" vote.(67) Gamsakhurdia
threatened to disband the Abkhazian Supreme Soviet and abolish the Abkhazian
autonomy.
In a counter-move, Ardzinba
arranged for the redeployment of a Russian airborne assault battalion from
the Baltic republics to Sukhumi.
The battalion has been quartered in Sukhumi ever since, while Ardzinba has established friendly contacts with the
Russian military.(68) A reinforced Russian military presence
compelled Gamsakhurdia to make concessions and
allow the elections to the Abkhazian parliament to proceed on a quota basis:
28 seats to the Abkhaz, 26 to the Georgians and 11 to all the remaining
ethnic groups. The elections were duly held, in two stages, in
October-December 1991.
Conflicts in South Ossetia,
1989-92
In contrast to Abkhazia - whose autonomous
status was only briefly challenged in Georgia in 1989, while the Abkhaz
were mostly considered to be an autochtonous people
- the Ossetes were regarded as relative newcomers
to Georgian land and their claims were, in Georgian eyes, even less valid
than those of the Abkhaz. Even the term "South Ossetia" has been
"wiped out" of Georgian publications and replaced with "Samachablo" (Land of the Machabeli,
from the name of the Georgian feudal family which allegedly ruled it), Shida Kartli (Inner Kartli) or, later, the Tskhinvali
region.(69) South Ossetia's geographical
position (a mountainous region surrounded on three sides by Georgian
settlements) made the Ossetes more vulnerable than
the Abkhaz in the event of hostilities.
Conflicts in South
Ossetia became a political issue as a result of an attempt by
the South Ossetian Supreme Soviet to upgrade the
status of the AO. On 10 November 1989, it approved a decision to transform
the AO into the South Ossetian ASSR, which would
form part of Georgia.
In a day, the Georgian parliament revoked the South Ossetian
parliament's decision. The first stage of the conflict lasted from November
1989 to January 1990, and started with a march of more than 20,000 Georgians
to Tskhinvali, organized on 23 November 1989 by Gamsakhurdia and the Georgian CP leader, Givi Gumbaridze, "to
defend the Georgian population". The marchers were prevented from
entering the town by the armoured cars of the
Soviet Ministry of the Interior. Some of the Georgian paramilitary troops
stayed in nearby Georgian villages, engaging in clashes with the Ossetian population. The first blood was spilt. Talks
between Gamsakhurdia and his Ossetian
counterpart, General Kim Tsagolov, brought no
result. Gamsakhurdia was quoted as saying to Tsagolov: "I shall bring a 200,000-strong army. Not
a single Ossete will remain in the land of Samachablo.
I demand that the Soviet flags be removed!"(70) The conflict stabilized in
1990, largely thanks to differences within the Georgian national movement. A
number of parties that later formed the National Congress (e.g., Giorgi Chanturia's National
Democratic Party of Georgia, the NDPG) criticized the role played by the
parties allied to Gamsakhurdia in ethnic crises. An
Ossetian source quotes Chanturia
as saying: "It was a great mistake to go to Tskhinvali,
and a double one to return".(71)
On 26 April 1990, the USSR Supreme Soviet
passed a law providing for a notable enhancement of the rights of Soviet
autonomies. By so doing, the Centre encouraged the autonomies to fight for
their sovereignty against the majority in some multinational Union republics
striving for independence (Moldova,
Georgia).
But instead of giving the autonomies effective protection, it merely played
them against the nationalistic currents in those republics, thus paving the
way for political and military interference in their affairs by the Kremlin.(72)
The August 1990 ban preventing regional parties
from running for election for the Georgian parliament, mentioned above in
connection with Abkhazia, was likewise aimed at preventing South Ossetia's Adamon Nykhas (Popular
Assembly) movement from taking part in the Georgian election. The South Ossetian Oblast Soviet countered the move by declaring
the oblast the South Ossetian Soviet Democratic
Republic (YuOSDR) and appealing to Moscow
to recognize it as an independent subject of the Soviet federation.(73) South Ossetia
boycotted the October elections to the Georgian parliament.
After Gamsakhurdia's
Round Table bloc won the elections in Georgia
in October 1990, he declared that the autonomies in Georgia would be preserved.
Nevertheless, on 9 December 1990 elections were held to the Supreme Soviet of
the YuOSDR. On 11 December, the Supreme Soviet of
Georgia reneged on the earlier promise and adopted a law abolishing the South
Ossetian autonomy. The next day, the Kremlin
imposed a state of emergency in the Ossetian-populated
districts of South Ossetia. Chanturia described Gamsakhurdia's
decision to abolish the South Ossetian autonomy as
politically unjustified and premature until Georgia
became fully independent, as the Kremlin might use it to foment national
discord.(74) Still in December 1990, Georgia started a blockade of South Ossetia which lasted until the end of July 1992.
During the night of 6 January, Georgian police and paramilitary, Alsatians on
the leash, entered Tskhinvali and carried out
violent reprisals against the defenceless
population, supposedly in search of arms. On 7 January, Gorbachev issued a
decree repealing both the South Ossetian Supreme
Soviet's decision to proclaim a secessionist republic and its Georgian
counterpart's abolition of the South Ossetian
autonomy. He ordered the two sides to withdraw all military formations -
except those of the USSR Ministry of the Interior - from South Ossetia within
three days.(75) The Georgian Supreme Soviet
defied the order, and nothing happened. On 16 January, Rafik
Nishanov, President of the Chamber of Nationalities
of the USSR Supreme Soviet, paid a visit to Georgia. The result appeared to
be a compromise between the higher Soviet and Georgian authorities: Georgia was supposed to acknowledge that its
police was subordinated to the Soviet Ministry of the Interior, in return for
an opportunity to deal with South Ossetia as
it saw fit. That, in Ossetian eyes, signalled a go-ahead for more terror. The presence of
Georgian policemen in Tskhinvali continued until
early February 1991 when, by agreement with the South Ossetian
authorities, they withdrew from the blockaded city.
On 29 January 1991, the chair of the Supreme
Soviet of South Ossetia, Torez Kulumbegov,
was arrested in the presence of Russian officers during talks with Georgian
authorities. The South Ossetian public was angry
that the central government took no steps to ensure his liberation. In a Tbilisi jail, Kulumbegov was
kept together with Mkhedrioni leader Jaba Ioseliani, arrested by Gamsakhurdia in February 1991.(76) The YuOSDR took
part in the all-Union referendum of 17 March 1991 on the fate of the Union,
boycotted by Georgia,
and ignored the Georgian referendum on independence held on 31 March of the
same year. At the Union referendum, South Ossetes
voted 99 per cent in favour of keeping the Union, hoping that such a vote would induce the Centre
to take measures to protect them. As a result, Georgian atrocities only
increased. Ossetes began to be expelled from their
villages which, they said, were pillaged and burned with people still in
them. Conversely, the Georgian public was indignant over instances of Ossetian atrocities, such as the burning alive of four
Georgian peasants on 18 March 1991. About 10,000 Georgian civilians took
refuge from the war in the inner regions of Georgia. The Kremlin showed no
willingness to intervene, preoccupied as it was with other "hot
spots" of the disintegrating Soviet Union and with political rivalries
in Moscow.
The fighting on the Georgian side was mostly done by Vazha
Adamia's Merab Kostava Society, allied to Gamsakhurdia.
Most of its membership consisted of Georgian residents of South
Ossetia. They were opposed by Ossetian
self-defence forces.
After Gamsakhurdia's
fall, the Military Council of Georgia released Torez
Kulumbegov from prison at the beginning of 1992.
This served as an invitation to dialogue to the South Ossetian
leaders. The latter, however, chose not to pursue a line of compromise. In a
referendum held in South Ossetia on 19 January 1992, boycotted by local
Georgians, more than 90% of those taking part voted to join Russia. The referendum had been
initiated by a group of South Ossetian deputies favouring the line of the former party chief, Anatoli Chekhoev, that armed struggle was the only way out. The North Ossetian authorities disagreed with the move as
unrealistic.(77) Among the Russian experts, it evoked a
mixed, generally negative reaction. Galina Starovoytova,
then adviser to President Yeltsin on the question of nationalities and a
champion of minority rights, while admitting that it made things difficult
for Russia, still tended to see the South Ossetian
referendum ("the people's choice") as a precedent for the solution
of such problems for the world community at large.(78) Political scientists Emile Pain
and Arkadi Popov, on the
contrary, considered the referendum as morally reprehensible (an attempt to
take advantage of the turmoil in Georgia), legally dubious (conducted under
martial law and not following the correct procedure) and politically
ineffective (if Russia supported it, it would be criticized by the ex-Soviet
republics who suspected Russia of wanting to violate their territorial
integrity; if it did not, the referendum would be met with reproaches from
Russian hard-liners defending the "rights of the Russian-speaking
population" in the "near abroad").(79)
South Ossetia refused to enter into
negotiations with the new regime in Georgia until it pulled Georgian
troops out of the region and lifted the blockade. There was a certain
lessening of combat activity in the early months of 1992, explained by the
fact that Mkhedrioni and the National Guard had
their hands tied in Megrelia and parts of Abkhazia,
fighting the Zviadists. In mid-April, however,
Georgian artillery started daily missile attacks on the residential quarters
of Tskhinvali.(80) A first cease-fire was agreed in Tskhinvali on 13 May, only to break down a few days
later. On 20 May 1992, unidentified gunmen (Ossetes
had no doubt that they were Georgians) massacred a busload of Ossetian refugees fleeing Tskhinvali
near the Georgian village
of Kekhvi.
All political contact was broken off and North Ossetia cut the pipeline
supplying Georgia
with Russian gas.(81) A new cease-fire in early June again broke
down within a few days. Two important factors then intervened to change the
situation. One was the North Ossetian factor.
Another was the increasingly important role played by the Confederation of
Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus. As the
influx of refugees from South Ossetia and the inner regions of Georgia grew, North
Ossetia was forced to intervene, pressing the Russian leadership
to take steps towards the resolution of the conflict. The North Ossetian leader, Akhsarbek Galazov, disagreed with the "radical tendency"
among South Ossetian leaders (Head of Government
Oleg Teziev and First Deputy Chairman of Parliament
Alan Chochiev) and generally acted to defuse the
conflict.
The Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the
Caucasus (KGNK), set up at the third Congress of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus
on 1-2 November 1991 (chairman: Musa Shanibov) and
successor to the Assembly of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus (AGNK), acted
as an unofficial parliament of peoples of the North Caucasus and had its
military formations drawn from the KGNK member republics. On 13 June 1992, Shanibov brought an Abkhaz KGNK battalion to Vladikavkaz, intending to send it to fight on the side of
South Ossetia. Galazov
refused to let it travel on to Tskhinvali.(82) A further development of the conflict (as
later in Abkhazia) would threaten the involvement of the peoples of the North Caucasus and destabilization throughout the whole
region.
Towards the middle of June 1992, Russia was on the brink of war with Georgia for South Ossetia.
A number of Russian leaders, including RF Supreme Soviet Chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov, Vice President Alexander Rutskoi and Acting Premier Yegor
Gaidar, made strongly-worded statements on Georgian
behaviour in South Ossetia.
Khasbulatov warned that if Georgia did not stop the bloodshed, the Russian
parliament would consider granting South Ossetia's request to join Russia,
while Rutskoi telephoned Shevardnadze and
threatened to bomb Tbilisi.(83) The less warlike elements in
the Russian elite pointed out that besides the principle of
self-determination (invoked by South Ossetia), a principle of minimization of
human suffering also had to be taken into account: they argued that the
suffering could only be increased if, in retaliation for Georgia's
"inhuman" siege of Tskhinvali, Russia
launched an all-out war against Georgia.(84)
On 22 June 1992, Yeltsin and Shevardnadze met
in Dagomys and, with North and South Ossetian representatives, signed the Sochi agreement on a cease-fire and the
deployment of joint Russian, Georgian and Ossetian
peacekeeping forces. These were moved into the region on 14 July and the
agreement has held since. The South Ossetian demand
for the establishment of treaty relations between South Ossetia and Georgia was not accepted, though the Ossetian-populated districts have remained out of bounds
for Georgia.
The question of the status of South Ossetia
has not been solved to this day.
The overall consequences of the war were
devastating: according to Olga Vasilyeva, 93
villages (mostly Ossetian) were completely burned
down; most of the thousand Ossetes killed in the
war were civilians, only 100 among them members of the South Ossetian self-defence forces.(85) The number of South Ossetian
refugees to North Ossetia varies according
to different sources. While some writers, like Vasilyeva,
have cited a figure of up to 100,000 (presumably including those expelled
from the inner regions of Georgia - there were 160,000 Ossetes
in the whole of Georgia in 1979), a Russian general, Alexander Kotenkov, then head of the provisional administration in
the zone of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict, estimated
their number at 30,000 in March 1993, plus another 7,000 Ossetes
who became refugees from the Prigorodny Raion of North Ossetia during the Ossetian-Ingush
conflict in autumn 1992.(86) A traveller
to the region speaks of 40,000 Ossetes now
remaining in South Ossetia plus up to 7,000 from the inner regions of
Georgia. Part of this population periodically migrates from Tskhinvali to Vladikavkaz and
back.(87)
Since July 1992, little has changed in South
Ossetia, a land that seems to have been forgotten by the outside world: no
ties with Georgia, and hence no supplies from there; almost no attempt made
(for lack of financial resources) to rebuild what has been destroyed in the
war; factories idle, with the population engaged in subsistence farming. In
September 1993, Ludvig Chibirov,
a colleague of North Ossetian leader Galazov, became Chairman of the South Ossetian
Supreme Soviet, later renamed State Nykhas (Council
of Elders); elections to that body held in March 1994 gave the South Ossetian Communist Party 19 seats out of 36.(88) In October 1994, Shevardnadze
admitted that the conflict in South Ossetia had been the grossest mistake of
the former Georgian leadership, and diplomatic efforts to solve the refugee
problem were stepped up by the Georgian and South Ossetian
sides.(89)
A Prelude to War and the
Georgian Invasion of Abkhazia (August - September 1992)
|
The
above title is totally incorrect. No country can “invade” its own territory.
During the period described, Abkhazia was officially recognized as an
integral part of Georgia
and so it remains nowadays, (Ed.)
|
As the war was raging in South
Ossetia, the Abkhazian leadership sought to reinforce its
political and military position. In the new Abkhazian Supreme Soviet - elected
on a quota basis - which started to function in early 1992, Georgian deputies
complained of discrimination; they expressed concern over Ardzinba's
decision to form an Abkhaz-only National Guard. In early May, Georgian
deputies began boycotting the sessions of the Abkhazian parliament; in June,
they started a campaign of civil disobedience, followed by a Georgian strike
in Sukhumi
and attempts to set up parallel power structures. That same month, Abkhaz
national guardsmen attacked the building of Abkhazia's Ministry of Internal
Affairs in Sukhumi,
controlled by the Georgian authorities. The minister, Givi
Lominadze, was severely beaten. He was replaced by Ardzinba's supporter Alexander Ankvab.(90) This happened on the very day that Yeltsin
and Shevardnadze were meeting in Dagomys to decide
the question of South Ossetia.
On 23 July 1992, the Abkhazian
Supreme Soviet ruled (with the Georgian Democratic Abkhazia faction abstaining)
that the 1978 constitution of the Abkhazian ASSR was invalid and that,
pending the adoption of a new constitution, the 1925 Abkhazian constitution
which provided for a treaty relationship with Georgia was in force.(91) The State Council of Georgia declared this
decision null and void. In July, Zviadists in Megrelia took a number of high-ranking Georgian officials hostage and kept them in the Georgian-populated Gali Raion of Abkhazia. In
addition, they disrupted railway traffic. This was ostensibly the pretext for
the Georgian march into Abkhazia which began on 14 August, when Kitovani's tank columns entered Sukhumi, joining battle with the Abkhaz
National Guard. According to Georgian reports, the Abkhaz forces were the
first to open fire. The Georgian government side later claimed that Ardzinba had been notified in advance of plans to move
Georgian troops into Abkhazia to protect the railway and free the hostages (a
fact denied by Ardzinba himself).
A cease-fire was negotiated, allowing Russian
troops to evacuate holidaymakers and enabling Ardzinba's
government to withdraw to Gudauta in the north of
Abkhazia; the Georgian forces even withdrew from the centre of Sukhumi as part of the
agreement. However, on 18 August Tengiz Kitovani's forces unexpectedly re-entered Sukhumi and captured it.
They occupied the Abkhazian parliament and, amid cheers, removed the Abkhaz
flag and symbols from the building. An eight-man military council was set up
to run the republic's administration. An official Abkhaz publication, the
White Book, later listed by name 2,000 Abkhaz and other non-Georgian
civilians and military men (Russians, Armenians, North
Caucasians and Greeks) killed by the Georgian forces either in
battle or as a result of the harsh regime of occupation in Abkhazia, the data
cited mainly covering the period from August 1992 until March 1993. The
Abkhazian White Book estimated that figure at about 30 per cent of all
non-Georgian war losses.(92) The Abkhaz forces continued
stubbornly to hold their ground north of the Gumista
River and in the blockaded Tkvarcheli, south-east
of Sukhumi. Abkhazian public figures and intellectuals accused the Georgians
of annihilating peaceful Abkhaz villages, relics of history and culture,
museums, art galleries, scientific institutes and archives, and of conducting
a policy of terror. Among the objects destroyed was the pantheon of Abkhazian
writers and public figures and the Abkhazian Institute of Language,
Literature and History in Sukhumi.(93)
Afterwards, in an interview with US newsmen,
Shevardnadze admitted that the attack on the Abkhazian parliament "had
not been necessary", while his close aide, Sergei Tarasenko,
termed Kitovani's actions as stupid and
counter-productive.(94) Nevertheless, Shevardnadze
chose to back the military campaign in public, declaring over the radio on 17
August: "Now we can say that Georgian authority has been restored
throughout the entire territory of the republic".(95)
It could be argued that, just before August
1992, Russia
secured the military preponderance of Georgian forces over the Abkhaz ones,
which invited the former to go on the offensive in Abkhazia. In autumn 1992,
the Abkhaz had only eight tanks and 30 armoured
cars, whereas just one Russian division handed over 108 tanks to Georgia.(96) The extent of Russian help to Abkhazian
forces can be assessed from the fact that more than 100,000 land mines are
estimated to have been planted during the war (earlier, there had been no
arms industry or ammunition dumps in Abkhazia). Some of these mines were, of
course, planted by the Georgian side, also supplied from Soviet/Russian army
dumps.(97)
Tactics of the Two Sides in the Abkhazian War
In the opinion of military professionals, the protagonists
in the Abkhazian war had no strategic aims which, once achieved, would enable
either side to break the other's resistance. Georgia's
aim in the conflict - namely, to defeat the adversary's regime by a war of
attrition - was unattainable because the Abkhaz made use of the potential of
the North Caucasus (the KGNK) and, by
extension, Russia.(98) Likewise, due to their lack of manpower,
the Abkhaz could only hope to win a short-term victory. With the benefit of
hindsight, one could say that, given the internal disarray in Georgia, the lack of a unified Georgian army
and the diplomatic pressure that would be exerted by Russia to prevent a Georgian
military comeback after an Abkhaz victory, the Abkhaz did in fact have a
chance of success, at least for a time. Clashes with small autonomous armed
units rendered the deployment of heavy artillery and armoured
vehicles relatively useless. On the tactical plane, the Georgians needed to
take control of the only Adler - Gagra - Gudauta - Gali - Zugdidi road and the railway running parallel to it.
Another task was to close the mountain passes leading from the North Caucasus. The Georgians also had to keep
garrisons along the whole road up to their supply bases in Tbilisi
and Kutaisi.
The Abkhaz, on the contrary, had to keep the road under their own control and
disrupt the enemy's communications with mobile units. On the whole, the
Georgians failed to achieve their tactical objectives. The hostilities were
marked by positional warfare interrupted by the capture of Gagra and the areas adjoining the Russian border by the
Abkhaz forces (October 1992); Abkhaz offensives in March and July 1993, and
the complete expulsion of the Georgian forces in late September 1993.
|
For
some reasons, the author did not mention widespread ethnic cleansing, muss
murder of ethnic Georgians by the Apsua militants and the expulsion of the
majority of Abkhazia’s pre-war population that followed the separatist
victory (Ed.)
|
The North Caucasian Factor
The most immediate support for the Abkhaz cause
came from the unofficial anti-Georgian movements in the North
Caucasus and their military units. The conflict at once
rebounded upon the whole region of the North Caucasus:
all North Caucasian republics were swept by meetings called under the slogan
"Hands off Abkhazia!". Such meetings were
held in North Ossetia, Karachai-Circassia,
Kabardino-Balkaria and elsewhere. On 17 August 1992, at a session of its
parliament in Grozny, Chechnya, the KGNK (which was to be renamed
KNK - Confederation of Peoples of the Caucasus
- in October 1992) drew up a platform of solidarity with Abkhazia. It was
joined by such organizations as the International Circassian
Association and the Congress of the Kabardan
People. A registration of volunteers started. Each people of the North Caucasus was to form a
detachment of 60 to 100 armed men. On 18 August, a session of the KGNK
parliament adopted a decision that, if the Georgian troops were not withdrawn
from Abkhazia within three days, the Confederation would declare war on Georgia.
Three days later, KGNK president Musa Shanibov
signed a decree on the start of hostilities on the territory
of Abkhazia (which did start) and in
Tbilisi
(which proved to be bluff).
The confederates began to arrive in Abkhazia
via mountain paths. The local authorities, much as they feared uncontrollable
mass movements of North Caucasian peoples, could not stop the volunteers,
risking a loss of power if they tried to do so. The example of Chechnya,
where General Dudaev had taken control after
overthrowing the local communist leadership in autumn 1991, was uncomfortably
close. What the confederates saw as Russia's
collusion with Georgia
against Abkhazia infuriated the peoples of the North
Caucasus, especially those ethnically related to the Abkhaz (the
Kabards, Circassians and Adyghe).
Such a turn of events was extremely unwelcome
to the Russian government, which on 18 August issued a statement on the
"inadmissibility of intervention in the internal affairs of Georgia".
The Russian authorities arrested Shanibov, but
riots in late September in Nalchik, the
capital of Kabarda, forced them to turn a blind eye
when Shanibov escaped arrest and appeared in Nalchik before the
crowds. Later he went to fight in Abkhazia. Politically, there were
differences between the various Confederate leaders and ethnic groups. While Shanibov leaned towards such Russian nationalist
hardliners as Sergei Baburin, the KNK commander in
Abkhazia - Shamil Basaev,
a Chechen - spoke out against Russian domination in the Caucasus.
Besides the North Caucasian irregulars, the
Abkhazian cause was furthered by Cossack elements, often hostile to
non-Russian North Caucasians fighting in
Abkhazia, especially Chechens. Cossacks patrolled the border between Russia and Georgia and took part in the
conflict in support of the Abkhaz for the sake of "Great Russia".
Mercenaries and volunteers were active on both sides. On the Abkhaz side,
these were the Russian Trans-Dniester guardsmen fresh from the war in Moldova.
On the Georgian side, there were the sportswomen snipers from the Baltic states who came to fight for mercenary reasons,
and the volunteers from the extreme nationalist Ukrainian UNA-UNSO organization,
motivated by anti-Russian feeling.
Russian Policies and the Georgian-Abkhazian War
(1992-1993)
Throughout 1992 and 1993, Russia had no single policy with
regard to the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict. It was not clear which would best
suit Russian interests - to see Georgia strong and united or weak and
dismembered.(99) Andrei Kortunov,
Head of the Foreign Policy department of the Institute for US and Canadian
Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, described the Russian
inconsistencies as follows: "For Russia, the problem is not how to
prevent these conflicts or mediate them. It is too late for the former, and
the latter may backfire. Russian diplomacy is not mature enough to keep the
proper balance between the conflicting sides. It tends to be politically
biased and subject to lobbying from ethnic-centered communities".(100)
Still, it was impossible for Russia to keep away from the
conflict. Russian garrisons were stationed both in Georgia proper and in the parts
of Abkhazia controlled by both sides. Sections of the military were opposed
to the line taken by Andrei Kozyrev's Foreign Ministry
and to the support accorded Shevardnadze by Yeltsin and Kozyrev.
The North Caucasian peoples were watching closely for any sign of a
pro-Georgian trend in Russia's
actions; in Moscow itself, the issue - as with
South Ossetia - became a subject of dispute
between Yeltsin and his hardline opponents in
parliament. The "dovish" line in Russian policy, under attack from
various quarters, could not hide the fact that even official Russian policy
was drifting towards a more assertive and paternalistic style in relation to
the "near abroad" areas, regarded as the "sphere of Russia's
strategic interests" (Grachev's statement in
February 1993), while it was claimed that Russia should be granted special
powers to settle ethnic conflicts on the territory of the ex-USSR (Yeltsin in
March the same year).
Kozyrev's efforts
were felt in the attempts at mediation, which led to the talks held on 3
September 1992 between Georgia
and Russia
(Shevardnadze and Yeltsin) with the participation of Ardzinba.
The latter, under pressure from Russia, was compelled to sign a
document authorizing the presence of Georgian troops on Abkhazian territory
and making no mention of a federal structure in Georgia.(101) The agreement fell through with the Abkhaz
capture of Gagra in October 1992, referred to
earlier.
The Russian military, on the contrary, were
less inclined to pressurize Abkhazia in favour of
Shevardnadze. A source knowledgeable about the moods of the Russian generals
was quoted as saying that "they don't like Shevardnadze and they are
defending their sanatoria in Abkhazia. The war will go on until either
Shevardnadze or Ardzinba joins Russia in some form or other. The
generals have lost too much with the break-up of the USSR. Where there is hope, they
will try to regain it".(102) The Russian officers in Gudauta
likewise sympathized with the Abkhaz. Besides their hostile attitude to
Shevardnadze, whom they saw as the initiator of the break-up of the Soviet
state, they were embittered against the Georgians for the
"barbarous" pillage of the property of the Russian forces in
Georgia and even the killing of Russian soldiers.(103) Although Grachev
had given the Russian commanders a severe warning that they should not
conduct military action in Abkhazia, their sympathy for the Abkhaz cause meant
that they were always ready to offer the Abkhaz a professional consultation
or to draw up a battle plan for them.(104) Incredible as it may seem
(although it was in line with a consistent Russian policy of supplying both
sides in a conflict), at a time when Russian-supplied warplanes were bombing
Georgian-held Sukhumi, other Russian units continued to supply the Georgian
Army. On 25 March 1993, at a press conference in the headquarters of the Transcaucasian Military District, Major-General Diukov said that the forces of the district were
continuing to hand over weapons to Georgia (one division with full equipment
so far) and were planning to turn over to them 34 military cantonments before
the end of the year. No agreement on the status of Russian troops in Georgia
had been signed by that date.(105)
The Georgian side reported a massive
influx of volunteers from Trans-Dniester to Gudauta
to reinforce the Abkhazian side.(106) Still, as a result of intensive diplomatic
activity, operations to aid besieged Tkvarcheli as
well as Sukhumi
and to evacuate the refugees got under way in June. On 27 July, the agreement
was signed in Sochi
by the Georgian, Abkhazian and Russian sides. It provided for a ceasefire,
the withdrawal of the Georgian army from Abkhazia and mutual demilitarization
by the belligerents, to be followed by the "return of a legal government
to Sukhumi".
What that government would be was still to be agreed by the two sides. The
agreement evoked mixed feelings in Georgia:
although thousands of Georgian civilians returned to Sukhumi
in anticipation of a peaceful life to come, large sections of the public were
shocked and demoralized, which enabled Gamsakhurdia
to emerge once more as a "saviour of Georgia".
A third of the Georgian troops to be withdrawn from Abkhazia went over to the
Zviadist side.(107) In late July, Zviadist
forces, commanded by Loti Kobalia, briefly took Senaki in Western Georgia,
ostensibly to prevent the withdrawal of the Georgian army from Abkhazia. In
late August they again took Senaki, Abasha and Khobi. Soon
afterwards, the Zviadist faction in the Georgian
parliament elected in October 1990 convened in Zugdidi
and appealed to Gamsakhurdia to return to Georgia
and resume his duties as head of state. Disagreements in the Georgian
parliament in Tbilisi
led Shevardnadze to tender his resignation on 14 September. With the crowds
outside parliament imploring him to stay, Shevardnadze agreed to do so, on
condition that parliament be suspended for three months.
After the signing of the Sochi agreement, the Abkhaz side complained
that the Georgians had failed to withdraw their heavy weapons. The latter
said they were being obstructed by the Zviadists
and impeded by a lack of logistics and fuel. To complete the operation, the
Georgians had recourse to the Black Sea Fleet. According to Georgian
accounts, in September its ships evacuated all Georgian hardware and 80 per
cent of Georgian troops from Abkhazia.(108) Russia's Defence
Minister Grachev, on the contrary, commented that
most of the weapons the Georgians had withdrawn were useless.(109) It appears that the Georgian
heavy weapons withdrawn to Poti fell into Zviadist hands, while the Abkhaz weapons were stored near
the front line, and on the outbreak of hostilities were quickly handed back
to the Abkhaz by Russian army units hostile to Shevardnadze.
After the Zviadists
launched another offensive against Georgian government troops near Samtredia (15 September), the Abkhaz felt it was time to act.
On 16 September, they launched an all-out attack on the Georgian forces. With
the help of free-lance Russian soldiers and North Caucasian volunteers, they
drove the Georgian army from Abkhazia, capturing Sukhumi on 27 September. Appeals by
Shevardnadze to Russian leaders - calling on Russia,
as a guarantor of the Sochi
agreement, to restore the status-quo - fell on deaf ears. The fact that the
Abkhaz had broken the agreement in starting their offensive drew a sharp,
though ineffective, reaction from Russian leaders. On 20 September, the
Russian government condemned the Abkhaz actions and imposed economic
sanctions on Abkhazia, but Grachev refused to
commit his troops to disengaging the two sides. Georgian sources reported
massive atrocities against the civilian Georgian population, perpetrated by
the Abkhaz and their allies.
Meanwhile, the Zviadist
offensive in Megrelia continued. In early October,
they captured Poti and Samtredia
and blocked all rail traffic and food supplies to Tbilisi. At this juncture, Shevardnadze's
regime, fearing a total rout by Kobalia's forces,
desperately needed Russian help and made a number of important concessions to
Russia.
On 8 October, Georgia
entered the CIS, a step widely seen as tantamount to entering into the
Russian sphere of influence. On 9 October, a Georgian-Russian agreement on
the status of Russian troops in Georgia was signed (a leasing of
military bases, including Poti). The Russian army
was called upon to guard strategic roads in Georgia as Georgian government
forces were fighting Kobalia to the north. Since
early October, Russian troops had been guarding the Poti-Samtredia-Tbilisi
railway and on 3 November took Poti under their
control, helping to make the port operational. It took most of October and
early November for Georgian government troops to bring Megrelia
back under control. Gamsakhurdia lost his life in
obscure circumstances in a remote village in Western
Georgia on 31 December 1993.
Russian/UN Mediation Efforts
After the capture of Zugdidi
(6 November 1993), the Georgian forces again approached the borders of
Abkhazia. A new period began. It has been characterized by a Georgian
inability to resolve the issue by military means and by Russian efforts to
get both sides - Georgia and Abkhazia - involved in direct talks. In the
process, Russia
put pressure on the belligerents in order to prevent a renewed Georgian march
into Abkhazia, on the one hand, and, on the other, to compel the Abkhaz to
let the Georgian refugees return home. The mediation effort allowed Russia
to increase its influence on both sides and safeguard its own interests.
Parallel to the Russian mediation, UN mediation was in progress, as the
international community tried to monitor Russia's moves. Both belligerents
jockeyed for position, trying to use Russian and UN leverage to vindicate
their respective claims, which were hard to reconcile. In the end, a
precarious peace managed to be achieved, not without problems for Russia's
relations with either side. Abkhazia failed to secure an internationally
recognized independent status, including recognition by Russia, with the result that it has been
impossible to rebuild the war-ravaged republic, while Georgia has made little progress
with constructing a coherent state machinery and a
viable economy.
In early November 1993, some Georgian
officials, Shevardnadze and Ioseliani among them,
were making statements about the possibility of a renewed march into
Abkhazia. In Tbilisi, Boris Kakubava, a Georgian MP
and leader of the Organization for the Liberation of Abkhazia opposed to
Shevardnadze's "conciliationist
policies", was forming an expeditionary force composed of Georgian
refugees in order to enter Abkhazia. In the Kodori
Gorge, the only part of Abkhazia outside Abkhaz control, clashes were taking
place between local Georgian militias, reinforced by detachments of Georgian
troops, and the Abkhaz forces. On 9 November, the Russian Foreign Ministry
issued a statement warning against the crossing of the Inguri River by either Georgian or Abkhazian
troops.
On 1 December, the first round of talks between
Georgia and Abkhazia under UN auspices and with the participation of the
CSCE, with Russia as
facilitator, ended in Geneva
with the signing of a memorandum of understanding. Both sides pledged not to
use force or the threat of force for the period of the negotiations, to
exchange prisoners and create conditions for the voluntary, safe and swift
return of the refugees.(110) The latter clause sounded like an important
concession on the part of Abkhazia. After the signing of the 1 December
memorandum, Russia
partially lifted the sanctions against Abkhazia imposed after its breach of
the Sochi Agreement. Subsequent events showed, however, that, on the refugee
problem, the memorandum would be honoured by
Abkhazia more in the breach than in the observance.
Consultations on the future status of Abkhazia,
which ended in Moscow
on 21 December, revealed the parties' differing approaches to the issue. The
Abkhaz side argued that Abkhazia's status should be determined by a
referendum in which the population could choose between the following
options: 1) autonomy for Abkhazia within Georgia; 2) confederation in
which Abkhazia and Georgia would be equal members; 3) complete independence
for Abkhazia. The Georgian side, conscious of the fact that in the absence of
Georgian refugees the vote would be slanted in favour
of the opposing side, refused to discuss the status of Abkhazia "as long
as the policy of genocide continued".
Subsequently, the UN-sponsored talks continued
in Geneva, New York
and Moscow,
the only progress being the absence of hostilities. The Abkhaz side delayed
the solution of the refugee problem until Georgian troops were withdrawn from
the Kodori Gorge. The Georgian side responded with
accusations of genocide.
The Russian-Georgian Treaty of 3 February 1994
On 3 February, President Yeltsin of Russia paid a visit to Tbilisi
and signed a Treaty on Friendship, Neighbourliness
and Co-operation with Georgia.
In addition, 25 intergovernmental agreements were signed, dealing with
economic cooperation, science and technology, transport, communications,
pensions, etc. The treaty provided for the establishment of five Russian military
bases in Georgia and the
stationing of Russian border guards along Georgia's
borders with Turkey.
Russia pledged to aid Georgia in organizing and re-equipping its
army after the settlement of the conflicts in Abkhazia and South
Ossetia. The ratification of the treaty by the Russian side was
made conditional on the settlement of these conflicts. Russia reiterated its recognition of Georgia's
territorial integrity. For Georgia,
economic agreements with Russia
were especially urgent as the Georgian economy was tottering on the brink of
collapse. In 1993, net national product was some 30.3% of that of 1990.(111)
In Russia, the government camp was
in favour of the treaty, but the Duma against. The 3 February statement by the Duma objected to the treaty on the grounds that 1)
Georgia had unilaterally infringed international agreements on the settlement
of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict; 2) Georgian aggression against Abkhazia
was continuing, and to conclude a treaty with a warring country was to abet
aggression; 3) the treaty would provoke negative reactions in the North
Caucasus, in Russia as a whole and in all the countries inhabited by the Circassian diaspora; 4) the
treaty provided for assistance in the formation of Georgian armed forces,
their equipment and the purchase of military hardware and technology, which
contravened the law.(112) The statement was signed by
all the factions in the Duma, including Russia's
Choice, headed by Yegor Gaidar.
The Duma's position was supported by the leaders of
South Ossetia, the International Circassian Association and Abkhazia, where mass meetings
in defence of the republic's sovereignty were held
on 31 January 1994. The Abkhazian Supreme Soviet made a statement saying that
the Russo-Georgian treaty had no effect on Abkhazia, as the latter was not a
part of Georgia.
Diplomatic Moves
10 February 1994 was scheduled in January as
the date for starting the return of the refugees. Instead, fresh hostilities
erupted. The Abkhaz side accused the Georgians of firing on Abkhaz positions
on the Inguri
River on 6 February, and of using
the process of the return of refugees as an excuse for an armed incursion
onto the territory
of Abkhazia to
instigate guerrilla warfare. The Georgian side denied these charges. In
March, the Georgian State Committee for Refugees and Displaced Persons
reported that 188,970 refugees, some 160,000 of them from Abkhazia, had been
officially registered and accommodated in 63 districts of Georgia.(113) The Georgian refugees,
grouped near the Inguri, pressed desperately for
the right to enter, staging marches and hunger strikes in the months that
followed.
The precondition for starting the UN
peacekeeping operation in Abkhazia was for the two sides to reach at least a
semblance of progress in the talks. As no progress had been made, the
Security Council did not deem it possible to deploy peacekeeping forces in
Abkhazia. On 10 March, while Shevardnadze was in the United States, the Georgian
parliament disbanded the Supreme Soviet of Abkhazia and annulled all its
decisions. The Abkhazian Supreme Soviet immediately cancelled all plans for
the return of the refugees. Shevardnadze considered the Georgian parliament's
move a mistake, as it blocked further progress in the negotiations. At the
end of March, fighting in Abkhazian Svaneti flared
up again. Russia
issued an appeal to both sides to resume negotiations.
On 4 April, the Abkhaz and Georgian sides, with
Russia's mediation and UN and CSCE participation, signed a quadripartite
agreement in Moscow on the voluntary return of refugees and displaced persons.(114) The agreement stipulated that immunity from
arrest, detainment, imprisonment and criminal prosecution did not apply to
those who had perpetrated military crimes, crimes against humanity or serious
common crimes. These people, as well as those who had earlier taken part in
hostilities and were currently enrolled in military units preparing for
military action in Abkhazia, were not eligible to return to Abkhazia. The
agreement was bound to evoke opposition in Georgia, as it concerned only
Georgian and not Abkhazian war criminals, not to mention the fact that most
of the male Georgian population of Abkhazia had been enlisted to take part in
the war on the Georgian side, even though not all actually fought. In
addition, on 4 April a statement on measures for the solution of the
Georgian-Abkhaz conflict was signed.(115) This stipulated that Abkhazia would have
its own constitution and legislation as well as its own national anthem, coat
of arms and flag. The parties reached an understanding on "powers for
common activity" in such fields as foreign policy and foreign trade,
border service, customs, etc. This was interpreted by the Abkhaz side as a
step towards the recognition of both sides as equal and sovereign subjects
delegating powers to each other. "Georgia has in fact recognized
the sovereignty of Abkhazia," said A. Jergenia,
representing Abkhazia at the talks.(116) Shevardnadze and other Georgian leaders
later pointed out that, contrary to Abkhaz claims, the statement of 4 April
did not speak of Abkhazia as a subject of international law. Nor did it
contain any mention of a confederal status for
Abkhazia.(117)
On 14 May, the two sides signed another
agreement on a ceasefire and the disengagement of troops. Both sides would
withdraw 12 km from the front lines along the Inguri River to form a sufficiently wide
security zone. The Abkhaz side was to pull its artillery, tanks and armoured vehicles back as far as Sukhumi and the Georgian side to Zugdidi. In addition, the Georgians were to withdraw
their troops from the Kodori Gorge and allow their
military equipment there to be destroyed. Peacekeeping operations involving a
2,000-strong Russian contingent started on 20 June. However, it was not until
the end of August that the first group of Georgian refugees was allowed into Gali Raion.
Russian pressure, exerted on
Abkhazia in order to solve the refugee problem, led to a gradual worsening of
Russian-Abkhaz relations. In early July, Ardzinba
refused to meet Kozyrev during the latter's visit
to the conflict zone, bringing sharp criticism from Kozyrev.
On 25 August, the Russian peacekeepers set up road-blocks and briefly
disarmed the Abkhaz police in Gudauta after a
reported shooting at a Russian military sanatorium at a time when Russia's
Deputy Defence Minister, General Georgi Kondratyev, was present.(118) In mid-September, the Abkhaz
and the Russian peacekeepers were on the brink of open hostilities when
General Vasily Yakushev,
commander of the Russian peacekeeping forces in Abkhazia, promised to allow a
mass crossing of Georgian refugees, due to start on 14 September. The Abkhaz
mobilized their motorized infantry, tanks and anti-aircraft forces and moved
them into the neutral zone. The crossing was cancelled. The crisis ended with
a Russian-brokered meeting between Shevardnadze and Ardzinba
in the presence of Yeltsin in Novy Afon, Abkhazia, on 16 September. The Georgian opposition
criticized Shevardnadze for making this ostensibly peace-loving gesture,
which, it said, was actually designed by the Russians to curtail Georgia's
capability to conduct independent policy on the eve of the Georgian leader's
projected visit to the UN General Assembly.
At the end of October, the joint commission,
including representatives of the Russian peacekeepers and UN observers,
ascertained the removal of Georgian units from the Kodori
Gorge. The Georgian irregulars were disarmed and heavy equipment was
destroyed by the Russian peacekeepers. The reasons earlier cited by the
Abkhaz side for not allowing at least some refugees back seemed to have lost
substance. By late autumn 1994, the Abkhaz had allowed several hundred
Georgian families to move into the Gali Raion in addition to an unspecified number (40,000 people
according to some accounts) who came there on their own, without any official
security guarantees.
On 26 November, the Abkhaz parliament declared
Abkhazia independent, a move that precluded any further talks between the
Abkhazian and Georgian governments. The declaration was condemned both in Tbilisi and in Moscow.
In the wake of events in Chechnya
in December, both Abkhazia and Georgia mobilized their troops, and there were
fears in Abkhazia that Georgia
would use the opportunity presented by Russia's
war on Chechnya
to act likewise towards its breakaway republic. Sympathy for the Chechens and
hostility to the Russian actions were strong in Abkhazia, which lodged an
official protest to the Russian government when the latter closed the de
facto border with Abkhazia on 20 December to prevent a possible flow of
volunteers to Chechnya (as
was done also with other stretches of the Russian borders with Georgia and Azerbaijan). In Georgia, the reaction to the Russian invasion
of Chechnya,
with some exceptions, was positive thanks to the Chechens' aid to the Abkhaz
in 1992-93 and to the Zviadists in late 1993. On 21
December, the Chairman of the Federation Council of the Russian parliament,
Vladimir Shumeiko, wrote a letter to Yeltsin
requesting the recall of the Russian peacekeepers from Abkhazia on account of
what he called the establishment of bases for Chechen guerrillas in the Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia. The Abkhaz authorities denied
this. The next day, Shumeiko's statement was denied
in a TV interview by General Yakushev, who said
there were no Chechen bases in the Kodori Gorge.
Other high-ranking Russian commanders also said that no Abkhaz volunteers had
been seen in Chechnya.
Russia's war against
separatism in Chechnya
made Abkhazia's position less secure by making it appear that separatism in
Abkhazia was equally illegitimate. At the beginning of 1995, this made the
Abkhaz leaders more amenable to a negotiated solution of the conflict.
Conclusion
The ethnic territorial division
of the USSR functioned as
a decorative federal screen, behind which the Kremlin controlled the diverse
peoples which comprised the USSR.
Civic peace among the various ethnic groups was maintained thanks to the
existence of the centrally-controlled apparatus of the Communist Party,
which, in turn, controlled the repressive bodies. Repression as a means of
dealing with outbreaks of nationalism, and even ethnic conflicts, as well as
the propaganda of the "friendship of peoples" of the USSR
and consistent steps to co-opt local ethnic bureaucracies in the republics,
were a built-in feature of communist rule.
With the arrival of glasnost, the peoples of
the USSR
seized an opportunity to speak out and vent their pent-up grievances, while
violence could not be used so readily by the state. In the Soviet
bureaucratic system, ethnic grievances could legitimately be voiced only on
the decisions of the corresponding authorities at the level of the different
republics, addressed to the Centre. At the same time, by 1988, society lacked
adequate means of give and take as well as a democratic political culture.
Thus, with glasnost, the conflicting decisions of republican bodies, backed
by popular mobilizations, with the party unable to gratify the relevant
ethnic groups, not only flouted the communist internationalist doctrine
("friendship of peoples"), but made the party unable to govern. As
the party was the cement binding together all of Soviet society and its
institutions, the erosion of party rule - caused, in addition to ethnic
disputes, by a host of political, economic and social problems - led to the
collapse of not just the party, but also the USSR itself. Subsequent
experience, especially in the Caucasus, has
shown, however, that in a state of "disunion" the peoples of the
ex-USSR have had even less chance of reconciling their national demands.
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