Steady State expresses its opinion on an analysis of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict which says that nearly 300,000 Georgians fled their homes by their own accord. The blog takes issue with the idea.
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Is it really true that being part of the world-community we Abkhazians, numbering about 100,000 in Abkhazia itself, are doing harm to this community. Is it possible that if mankind, having already lost in the 19th century our brothers the Ubykhs, is now to lose us Abkhazians at the close of the 20th century, it will become somehow richer in the 3rd millennium A.D.?!
The fact is that people are being exterminated and the world is keeping silent… Well, almost - for such news-agencies as Reuters, AP, the BBC, whenever they refer to us, our standard epithets are ‘separatists’ and ‘rebels’… How is it that we are separatists when we are actually not separating from anybody or attacking anybody? Are there any resolutions of the Abkhazian Parliament adopted before August 14 1992 (or even several months afterwards) which have declared secession from Georgia? There is not one! In fact, it was the Abkhazian side that suggested building our relations with Georgia on an agreed, federative basis. Therefore, it was the Abkhazian side which came out with proposals that would preserve the unity of Georgia. The response was the despatch to Abkhazia of tanks, fighter-bombers and guardsmen armed to the teeth…
We are being forced into a separatist-position by the actual separatists reigning in Tbilisi who are busy destroying their own country. They have cast their country, the unity of which was supported by the bayonets of the Stalinist Soviet Empire, back to the feudal division of the Middle Ages. The so-called separatists from Adjaria, Mingrelia, Kakhetia (not to mention Abkhazia and Ossetia) are taking up an all-round defensive position against the central power in Tbilisi. The question is: «Why are there so many ‘separatists’ in Georgia?» Russia appealed to her former autonomies to conclude a federative treaty. Russia raised the status of autonomies and many regions, including those in the North Caucasus, to the level of republics. No obstacles were put in the way of the elections of presidents in these republics or of the adoption of their national flags and other state-symbols.
Abkhazia is Abkhazia
By Stanislav Lakoba, Central Asian Survey, vol. 14, no. 1
http://www.circassianworld.com/Abkhazia_is_Abkhazia.html
Abkhazia’s Liberation and International Law
By E. K. Adzhindzhal, Sukhum, 2007
http://www.circassianworld.com/Abkhazia_Liberation.html
Dear Abkhaz brothers,
It is time to reconcile. It is time to stop letting other to treat us like puppets in hands of evil.
I live in Batumi, and Abkhaz community in Batumi is huge. We have been living there since muhajir migration and together with our Georgian brothers my ancestors fought against both Russian and ottoman suppression at the end of 19th century.
I feel ashamed when we let the mogul owned television and bogus western and especially Russian experts judge our behaviour, our living and history in way as if we are a couple of unique breed of monkeys in the zoo.
It must be noted that Abkhaz, Megrelian, Gurian, Ajarian, Imeretian, Karlian, Svan, Kakhetian, Pshav and Khevsur WE ARE ALL GEORGIANS. Oseetians is another ethnicity but is part of our family as well.
Historically we intuitively worked out the habit to federate ourselves facing the scarceness of resources to fight against the Persians, Ottomans, Mongols and Russians. Forming into regional groupings we used to become hardly identifiable by the enemy, and the unexpectedness of guerrilla attacks were so effective that thousands of troops were forced to step back.
We were debilitated under Russian tsarist rule; we were forced to merge and disappear during the soviet union. We were very unskilful and unable to administer ourselves after the fall of USSR.
Undercover KGB provocations worked well. We started hating and killing ourselves. But thank god all is clear now. We have to learn the lesson, otherwise we are the most stupid people in the world.
We have to stop repeating Jerenovski, Zatulin and other sick men who neither care about Russia not its citizens. But what they care about is to have a peace of Kalbasa every breakfast and supper on the table. They will sell all and everything for it.
Please be cautious. There is no separatism in Georgia, no division between the regions. There is an imaginary hatred that was successfully implanted by Russian propaganda in our minds.
God bless all who care others.
Sorry there are some spelling mistakes. If it’s not a problem please make the following corrections:
Instead of
It is time to stop letting OTHER to treat us like puppets in hands of evil.
PLEASE REPLACE WITH
OTHERS
Instead of
But what they care about is to have a PEACE of Kalbasa every breakfast and supper on the table.
PLEASE REPLACE WITH
PIECE
My Abkhaz Brothers,
terrible things did take place in past, but you know and I know, Russia does not offer future to Abkhazia and needles to say that Russia offers future to anybody, except to itsself.
Our future is together, where Abkhaz and Georgian people make united State better, give a federal ideas new swing and become a true European Democracy keeping unique characteristics of each Nation.
God Bless
North Caucasian autonomies (such as Adyghea, Kabardino-Balkaria, etc…) were indeed upgraded; it was, I think, to do with allowing them to claim ’sovereignty’ over their own territories. Declarations of ’sovereignty’ have been misinterpreted in the West as declarations of ‘independence’, which is why one reads in different sources that Abkhazia declared independence in the early 1990s, whereas it only did so in late 1999. It always seemed to me that such measures on the part of the Abkhazians were taken in direct response to the various maneuverings in Tbilisi and done to protect Abkhazians’ own interests. If Georgia had been prepared to allow Abkhazia (and South Ossetia) true -con-federal status instead of going down the road of chauvinistic aggression, there would have been every chance that Abkhazians would have accepted this and been satisfied with it, and it’s a pity that those in Tbilisi who had the power to manipulate popular opinion were not sensible enough to go down this path instead of the one of war, which was always the danger and was what prompted me to get involved in the politics of the region, as I was reading what Georgian historians and literary experts were writing back in late 1988 and early 1989; it alarmed me to think where all of this nationalist rhetoric might lead, and, of course, we all know where it did lead.
Why shouldn’t the Abkhazians have been happy with TRUE -con-federal status, when for years after the end of the war, they were still saying that they’d accept -con-federal status? It was as a result of Georgia’s determination to thwart discussions along these lines, while at the same time financing such terrorist-organisations as the White Brethren and the Forest Legion, that finally led to the decision no longer to accept anything less than full independence and thus to the declaration of independence in 1999.
The proposal of Abkhazia to establish –con-federation (actually there was discussion of Common State - two states within common borders) with Georgia was a step closer to a legal secession. Abkhazia’s position before the war was to propose Georgia to revew no longer existing relations which were based on the Soviet Law. By the way if Georgia accepted that proposal Abkhaz claim could be even more beneficial for Georgia. If Georgia received Abkhaz proposals accordingly it would be more effective and peaceful velvet divorce between Abkhazia and Georgia. Today Georgia and Abkhazia could be two friendly states with major Georgian population living in Abkhazia and transparent borders and other joint actions.
Fortunately today Abkhaz position is more clear and straight. No union within Georgia may save and preserve Abkhaz nation.
That is the point, they are not Georgians. Nor Ossetians, nor Abkhazians, and so on. Please stop dispelling this lie to people. They have their own traditions, cultures, languages. These people have suffered long enough under Georgian domination. It is time Georgia realizes its mistakes and leaves them alone already. We can all live in peace together in our region and as independent states who take care of their own people. That is the right thing to do. Enough, Georgia, please leave Ossetians alone. Please leave Abkhazia alone. We all want nothing to do with you anymore. With that, you must stop forcing yourself to us. We are fine without you. Goodbye and goodluck.
I came across to this discussion. To tell the truth, I ended up reading it with spliting emotions: I am Georgian and support my country, but I understand that what our Abkhaz brothers have written here is also true from their point of view. The fact is that we need to talk a lot, before any changes appear, we need to calm our emotions. But there is a problem anyway:there’s always more than one side to the truth.
Last time I was in Sukhumi in 2000. It was painful to see how deserted the place was. This city was quite different in my childhood memories. I remember an old lady approaching me and talking in Georgian, but she was almost whispering, because, as she said, she was afraid to talk on this language.
Remember the movie “Truman’s show” ? Where the hero finds out that everything that surounded him for all his life was false. I am afraid that many of us, both in Tbilisi and Sukhumi will have to face this someday. We are generation who didn’t go to war, but whose relatives were killed. We are generation who haven’t meet for even once. So how we know what THEY tell us is true?
Dear All,
Georgia since 1992 had suffered economically and politically. Warlords and corrupted politicians had run the country down to the poverty and chaos.
There has not been a region left in Georgia not affected by the brutality of anarchism - Abkhazia and South Ossetia were no exception.
We, Georgians, think of Abkhazians and Ossetians as our brothers and sisters and rest assured no harm or hatred are in our hearts.
Georgia is at the point when things are improving. Economy is better, country is moving forward steadily and it has showed a lot of great potential to the world.
We should be able to settle any differences between us and move forward as one strong country with one strong economy, infrastructure and learn respect to each other.
I believe that making new countries in the world is impossible, even 5 years old kids know that nobody including Russia will allow that Abkhazia will become independent, then Russia will gain its own problems. What Russia did in Chechnia was awfull abd be happy dear Abkhazians that USA and Georgia will not make soup out of your country like Russia did in Chechnia or USA in Iraq…
It is pointless to speak about independence and i think Abkhazians know that. Germany, UK, France has already produced peace plan in 3 Stages which will be implemented as Russia will never go against countries which buys their goods and brings money to them. There is a big chance that all the above mentioned countries could get Asian Gas and oil through Georgia (which is not controlled by Russia) so Russia will do everything that Georgia will keep its Frozen conflicts for long time.
I know concerning the fact of Georgia that Georgia doesn’t have sovereign and territorial rights. Because Georgian authoriation always bias & liar like western style, weapon of mass murder, and ethnic cleanising since 15 years. I compared Georgia are National Fascism and Roman plutoarcy (Liberal Democracy) Like USA and NATO that I heard Georgia soliders kill more 1,500 ethnic Armenian Javakheti since 1998. I hate NATO and supported Abkhazia, Ossetia, Katveli and Javakheti to be liberated and indepedent states in the 21st century.
One of the reasons we can’t yet resolve the conflict in Abkhazia, is that there are still people like you making very heavy blames on Georgians without having facts. What about Armenians killing Azeri people in Karabakh? There are 1000 of facts there.
Who started the war? Georgians! Who is destroyed Abkhazia? Georgians! Who lost? Georgians? Who is blame? Georgians! Who is lying? Georgians! Ofcourse Georgians can not resolve the conflict with their huge lies.
I have support Abkhazia’s independence.
This is such a provocative subject for all of us who are seriously concerned with the issue. Let’s be careful.
The fact is that true abkhazs were expelled during otoman-russian war and georgian-russian war in early 90s.
So it is time to put things back in order, not militarily nor in macho style, but smartly and peacefully.
I can assure those so called russian FSBshniks who are assigned to play the role of a true indigenous Abkhaz, that their time is over soon and forcibly displaced people will return to their homes. That’s number one priority. All the rest is a bulshit.
For some 60 years Abkhazia was forced to accept the unwelcome status of being a mere autonomous republic with Soviet Georgia (thanks to the ruling of the Georgian dictator Stalin – ‘Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili’). For daring to defend our interests in the face of Georgian nationalist aggression, we were subjected to 14 months of savagery. In alliance with our allies from the Abkhazian diaspora or Abkhazians’ cousins in the North Caucasus, we succeeded in ejecting the invader and winning the war. All that Georgia under its various leaders/governments has been willing to offer us by way of a settlement is a return to the ‘status quo ante’— the sudden offer by Misha Saakashvili of asymmetric federation produced on the eve of the recent NATO summit in Bucharest was clearly aimed more at impressing the Western alliance than at appealing to Sukhum. How many examples are there in history where a people after being invaded, losing 4% of their population, and yet finally winning the war have meekly resigned themselves to accepting the selfsame subordinate status they had before the tragedy of a war inflicted upon them? This is something that the Georgian side and their international backers (who have no interest in the fate of minorities but think solely of the ‘big picture’ of preserving territorial integrity, of finding allies in an unstable part of the world, and of securing the flow of oil) would do well to remember. The Georgians lost Abkhazia in 1993. They should be told by their EU, NATO and US ‘friends’ to accept this fact, find a ‘modus vivendi’ with their neighbours (big and small alike), and then contribute to the creation of stability and prosperity for the Caucasus region as whole. We can all then get on with our lives in the peace that we all deserve.
The history of Abkhazia as a genuine region of Georgia is much older than just the last 60 years, and it has nothing to do with Stalin forcing upon Abkhazians the status of an Authonomus Republic. Abkhazia has been part of Georgian history since at least the 6th centry BC.
To keep control of the occupied terriotiries Russia has been using the tactic of “divide and Rule”. This tactic has prooved to work well with Ethnic minorities and that is exactly what they’ve done with Georgia after occupying it in 1921. The Authonomus Republics of Adjara, Abkhazia and South Ossetia were created.
After 1991 when Georgia finally achieved independance from the Russian, a.k.a. Soviet Empire, the drive in the aforementioned Autonomus Republics to separate from Georgia started. All regional conflicts in Georgia are and have been heavily backed by Russian military forces. And it has not even been camouflaghed well. Both Separatist Abkhazia and Ossetia Regions are bragging of Russian support and are openly declaring they are ready to join Russia in one form of another.
So the question is, do the “heads” of Abkhazia enjoy to feed from the hand of the big neighbour and serve their own interests in the region without caring what this will cost the people and the region?
This is nothing else but the annexation of the Georgian territory. The majority of the population of Abkhazia who did not agree suffered ethnic cleansing and were forced to leave their homes and run for their lives. The Georgian Government in 1992 was far from perfect and easily entered into a provoked war.
History repeats itself today and once again instead of peacfully settling the differences, Georgia has been provoked over and over again these last few months to start the conflict so that Russia can extend it’s presence in the region indefinataly.
Read the first response and learn the history
http://www.circassianworld.com/Andersen_Hewitt.html
redited text…
Plus!
Lets see the Kingdom of Abkhazia
http://www.euratlas.com/travel_time/europe_south_east_0800.html in year 800
http://www.euratlas.com/travel_time/europe_south_east_0900.html in year 900
http://www.euratlas.com/travel_time/europe_south_east_1000.html in year 1000
—
I w’d like to remind S. Lakoba’s speach again;
When people today describe the status of Abkhazia, they use such phrases as: ‘between heaven and earth’, ‘between East and West’, ‘between the hammer and the anvil’, ‘between…’ – such ‘in betweenness’ correctly describes our position.
We are lost somewhere between life and death - to be or not to be, because defeat in this war would be tantamount to the annihilation of our entire nation. We have proved to be a very ‘inconvenient’ people, but despite our small numbers it is not so easy to do away with us just like that. Perhaps this too is one of our failings!
Georgian and some Russian politicians do not seek to conceal their annoyance at the ‘unruly’ Abkhazians, who as far back as in the 19th century were officially declared ‘a guilty nation’ for their repeated uprisings in defence of their freedom and honour. Today we are impeding friendly relations between Georgia and Russia, for, let us say, ‘sticking in their throats’. In other words, we are guilty for the simple reason that we still exist.
Is it really true that being part of the world-community we Abkhazians, numbering about 100,000 in Abkhazia itself, are somehow doing harm to this community? Is it possible that if mankind, having already lost in the 19th century our brothers the Ubykhs, is now to lose us Abkhazians at the close of the 20th century, it will find itself in some way enriched in the 3rd millennium A.D.?!
The fact is that people are being exterminated and the world is keeping silent… Well, almost - for such news-agencies as Reuters, AP, the BBC, whenever they refer to us, our standard epithets are ‘separatists’ and ‘rebels’… How is it that we are separatists when we are actually not separating from, or attacking, anybody? Are there any resolutions of the Abkhazian Parliament adopted before the start of the war on 14th August 1992 (or even several months afterwards) which have declared secession from Georgia? There is not one! In fact, it was the Abkhazian side that suggested building our relations with Georgia on an agreed, federative basis. Therefore, it was the Abkhazian side which came out with proposals that would actually preserve the unity of Georgia. The response was the despatch to Abkhazia of tanks, fighter-bombers and guardsmen armed to the teeth…
We are being forced to adopt a separatist-position by the real separatists reigning in Tbilisi who are busy destroying their own country. They have transported their country, the unity of which was supported by the bayonets of the Stalinist Soviet Empire, back to the feudal division of the Middle Ages. The so-called separatists from Adjaria, Mingrelia, Kakhetia (not to mention Abkhazia and [South] Ossetia) are taking up an all-round defensive position against the central power in Tbilisi. The question is: «Why are there so many ‘separatists’ in Georgia?» When Russia appealed to her own former autonomies to conclude a federative treaty, the status of autonomies and many regions, including those in the North Caucasus, were raised to the level of republics. No obstacles were put in the way of the elections of presidents in these republics or of the adoption of their national flags and other state-symbols.
But in our case the situation was quite the reverse. When we were putting forward proposals and trying to build bridges, we were repulsed and told: «Who are you? You should not even have autonomy, being so few!» This was and remains the only argument against us. So, we ‘separatists’, having been driven into a corner, have started to resist simply in order to survive, to save our women, children and old people. Try driving even a little creature into a corner - will that too be a separatist?
Freedom and independence for their own people vs dictatorship and open chauvinism towards other peoples - this is the double standard that underlies the Georgian policy in Abkhazia.
It is not by chance that in 1989 after the first Georgian-Abkhazian clashes Academician Sakharov in one of his last articles called Georgia a ‘mini-empire’ (Ogonёk 1989, 31). Later, describing the relationship between Abkhazia and Georgia, he wrote: «I tend to justify the Abkhazian position. I think we should regard with special attention the problems of small peoples: freedom and rights of big nations should not be exercised at the expense of small ones» (Znamja, 1991, No.10, p.69).
Today some people say that Abkhazia is Russia, others that it is Georgia, while the fact is that Abkhazia is Abkhazia. And at the end of the 20th and start of the 21st century we want to preserve our own identity and keep our own face for the simple reason that it is ours, even if somebody else may not find it to their liking.
What is the dispute:
That Abkhazia has not been a part of Georgian history from it’s early stages of creation?
That Russia, acting as peacekeeper, is not playing the major role of supporting Abkhazia’s separation from Georgia and driving the two sides towards war?
BTW - Abkhazia, the current and historic name for the region, is a Georgian word.
That Georgians did not suffer an Ethnic cleansing?
I have suggest you read (again and again) A. Andersen’s absurd claims and G. Hewitt’s responses. You will find the answers but i am SURE that you will not (WANT) understand.
Maybe we should ask: WHO is started the that dirty-FASCIST war? Who? Who said “if 100,000 Georgian lose their lives, then [on the Abkhazian side] all 97,000 will be killed”; and that “the Abkhaz Nation will be left without descendants.”? Who wanted destroy-kill all Abkhazia with Abkhazians? Who wanted to destroy Abkhazian history? And now who is saying SORRY!!!?
See: http://www.humanrights.ge/index.php?a=article&id=1546&lang=en
Some people says Georgians were ‘however’ the largest group to move into Abkhazia, constituting some quarter of a million of Abkhazia’s pre-war population. This is QUITE wrong, because the VAST majority of the so-called ‘Georgian’ pre-war population of the republic were Mingrelians.
The mass-immigration of Kartvelians (mostly Mingrelians) goes back to the late 1930s. Abkhaz’s script was then altered from a roman to a Georgian base. Abkhaz-language schools were summarily closed in 1945-6, following by a ban on broadcasting and publications. The Abkhazians as a nation were due to face transportation (like the numerous other peoples transported by Stalin from the Koreans in the late 1930s through to Abkhazia’s Greeks in the late 1940s), and, as a ’scholarly’ justification for that, the literary-historian Pavle Ingoroqva was commissioned to argue in print that the Abkhazians only arrived in Abkhazia in the 17th century, conquering the ‘original’ Abkhazians of history, who were thus a ‘Georgian’ tribe. This calumny was revived in the heady days of Georgian nationalism from 1988 AND IS WIDELY BELIEVED BY MANY ORDINARY KARTVELIANS, who for this reason still regard the Abkhazians as unentitled to be living in Abkhazia. The Georgian general leading the invading forces in the autumn of 1992, Gia Qarqarashvili, stated on TV that he would sacrifice 100,000 Georgians to kill all 93,000 Abkhazians, if that is what it took to keep Georgia’s borders inviolate’, and a similar threat came from the head of Georgia’s wartime administration, Giorgi Khaindrava, on the pages of Le Monde Diplomatique in April 1993. If you were an Abkhazian, would you welcome back your former Kartvelian neighbours, knowing how many of them think Abkhazians should not be in Abkhazia?
Hey Grassroots,
Georgian soliders and policemen murdered ethnic people about thirty or thirty-five in Aremnia Javakheti, Abkhazia, Kartlei and South Ossetia, this year. You see that is ethnic cleanising… I don’t believe that Georgian President is truth Fascist and murderer like Josef Stalin. I supported Georgian separatists to fight United States of America (Oil robber and imperialism over Russia), European Union (National Fascism) and NATO (Like Nazi Germany - illegal to bombing Kosovo)… Condi Rice is baddest and war crime woman and former Chervon Director that linked to Oil War over Russia or Iran…