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Tuesday,
August 14,
2007, #154 (1421)
15 years ago today Georgian forces were deployed to Abkhazia. Over a year of ensuing war took thousands of lives and wrought long-lasting and bloody divisions. Tens of thousands were displaced and thrust into penury and limbo, leaving the nation to struggle with an issue still omnipresent in state policy and discourse. The war is referred to as the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict, but the term misses the essence of the conflict. It would be better called the Georgian-Russian war for Abkhazia. Georgia's recent history has many bloody pages, and many details are still subject to debate and speculation. Who plotted the conflict? Where did they do it and how did they manage to rend apart a nation? What is known is convoluted. Tengiz Kitovani, a former defense minister in Gamsakhurdia's administration, lead the Georgian troops into Abkhazia. Together with warlord Jaba Ioseliani, Kitovani organized the coup which ousted Gamsakhurdia from power. Kitovani, thought to be friendly with Russian generals, would later go from jail under Eduard Shevardnadze to exile in Russia. Media reports distorted, not documented, the events. Russia media cast the conflict as Georgian aggression, while Western media could not or did not delve into the real story on the ground, instead using spin put out by Russian reports. Georgia lost the media war. The country was quickly outgunned in the physical war, too. Georgia's troops were poorly equipped and barely trained. Abkhaz militia forces were reinforced by Cossack and Chechen mercenaries from the North Caucasus. Then-president Shevardnadze tried in vain to attract Western support and attention, but the world largely turned a blind eye. "The timing was wrong," one Western diplomat said in explanation-Yeltsin's rule was tenuous, and the West was wary of putting pressure on his administration. And that reluctance to intervene cost Georgia dearly. Lives were destroyed, communities uprooted, and a strategically and economically vital part of the country lost. The immediate result of defeat was a northward policy swing. A weakened Georgia joined the post-Soviet CIS organization, something it had previously refused to do. Shevardnadze also agreed that Russia should deploy peacekeepers along the Enguri River, effectively demarcating and protecting a border between Georgia and separatist Abkhazia, as well as maintaining military bases within Georgia. All this was done on the promise that Russia would help Georgia recover its lost territory. Those were the actions of a defeated country. Georgia made concessions to Russia rather than condemning its imperialist aggression, and Moscow achieved what it wanted: a subordinated Georgia. It's now clear that Russia had no intention to fulfill its end of the bargain. For years, Georgia looked to Moscow as the potential architect of territorial restoration. That was a mistake. Saakashvili's administration realized that drawing in the West as allies offers the only hope of conflict resolution palatable to Georgians. Regardless of who holds power in Tbilisi, Georgians won't settle for anything less than regaining Sokhumi and Tskhinvali. Today, the Kremlin
is threatening to formally recognize the separatist regimes, bandying
a Kosovo precedent as justification. That would make Georgia's course
more arduous, but it won't change the overarching policy. It would only
make Russian an open enemy, illegitimating once and for all Moscow's
role as a 'mediator.' |
Questions
and hopes remain 15 years after a tragic war