How a tiny breakaway province could become the new cold war frontline

Luke Harding

The bridge over the Ingur does not feel like a place at war. There is no gunfire, merely the noisy croaking of frogs. Down on the river bank, anglers with homemade willow rods dip for trout in the swirling turquoise water.

But this tranquil spot, on what was once a coast of the Soviet Union, may be about to become a flashpoint - not just between Georgia and its breakaway province of Abkhazia, which fought a war here in 1992-93, but between Nato and the Russian Federation.

Fifteen years after driving out Georgian troops, Abkhazia is on the brink of winning recognition from Russia. Yesterday Vladimir Putin ordered his officials to strengthen economic ties and provide consular support to residents in the separatist republic.

The president said Russia would recognise legal entities registered in Abkhazia and in South Ossetia, another breakaway region. The move stops short of recognising Abkhazia's claim to independence, but only just.

Russia's foreign ministry yesterday insisted it did not want confrontation. But yesterday's move will enrage Georgia's pro-western and US-backed government, which accuses Moscow of attempting to annex its rebel regions

by stealth. Last night Georgia's foreign minister, David Bakradze, said Russia's move amounted to a "legalisation of the de facto annexation process". Georgian officials said Tbilisi was preparing "an adequate response". In London, the Foreign Office was moved to delve into the confrontation, saying the move "would only increase tensions in the region".

Putin's provocative action appears to be a deliberate response to Georgia's unsuccessful attempt this month to join Nato. Leaders of Nato, meeting in Bucharest, deferred Georgia's and Ukraine's application for the alliance's membership action plan, despite strong support from the US president, George Bush. But Nato countries agreed Georgia would join eventually. And when it does, the alliance's mutual defence commitment will include sorting out the problem of Abkhazia, a lush micro-republic on the Black Sea's eastern coast that is a 45-minute drive from Putin's summer residence in the resort of Sochi.

Abkhazia is a somnolent seaside paradise. In Soviet times, Russian workers holidayed there, relaxing in sanatoriums. Stalin visited, staying in a private dacha on Abkhazia's vertiginous coast.

Conflict

Now, Abkhaz generals talk darkly of another looming conflict. "Yes, I think there is going to be a war," said Jansukh Muratiya, head of security in the Abkhaz border town of Gal. "How else is Georgia to resolve the Abkhaz problem?" According to him, 2,000 Georgian troops were last week massing up in the Upper Kodori valley, a mountainous gorge blocked for much of the year by snow. Georgia re-occupied the disputed valley in 2006, Muratiya said, adding that there were regular skirmishes between Abkhaz and Georgian troops.

Eduard Turnaba, 42, an Abkhaz soldier, said: "They want to be in Nato. We are on the brink of recognition. That's why there is tension."

Turnaba said the situation at the border was dangerous; his brother Otar was blown up last year when his military vehicle ran over a Georgian mine.

Georgia, meanwhile, wants to re-establish control over its separatist territories but denies it has any military plans. Just before this month's Nato summit, Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, offered Abkhazia an autonomy package. Abkhazia's leadership, based in the charming riviera town of Sokhumi, said no.

The international community's job of resolving this row has been made more difficult by its recognition of Kosovo, the US-backed ethnic Albanian province of Serbia that won independence in February despite vehement opposition from Moscow and Belgrade. Abkhazia says its claim to independence is the same as Kosovo's. Beslan Baratelia, a professor at Abkhazia state university, said: "Abkhazia has better arguments than Kosovo. The difference is that Abkhazia is supported by Russia and Kosovo by the US. Kosovo is now a precedent for the rest of the world."

On Tuesday the US and Russia clashed over the issue at the UN security council. US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said he was deeply concerned about Russia's imminent plans to establish missions in Abkhazia. Russia decided he was a hypocrite, given the "illegal" US recognition of Kosovo.

Kosovo's independence also gives hope to other breakaway territories of the old Soviet Union. As well as Abkhazia and South Ossetia, there are the republic of Trans-Dniester in Moldova and the disputed district of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan.

About 1,000 Russian peacekeeping troops are in Abkhazia, in accordance with a 1994 UN ceasefire. In recent years Russia lifted economic sanctions and gave most Abkhazians Russian passports. Last year two million Russian tourists visited the territory, attracted by its subtropical climate and unspoilt scenery. "We are an unrecognised de-facto state," Abkhazia's vice-foreign minister, Maxim Gunjia, said.

Isolation

In many respects this is not quite true. Economic isolation has left Abkhazia cut off from the outside world. There are no automated cash machines for the public; people have to bring in Russian roubles. And there is little transport: a single train threads its way along a rusted coastal track, past crumbling neo-classical stations and palm trees.

Up the road from the river Ingur is the border village of Dikhazurga. Here cows wander among the walnut groves. But many of the attractive wisteria-covered villas are roofless, abandoned when their owners fled across the river in Georgia's civil war; almost half of Abkhazia's population, mostly ethnic Georgians, fled. Tbilisi wants the refugees to go back. Some have done so.

Abkhazia, meanwhile, claims it was itself the victim of migration politics when Stalin, a Georgian, settled Georgians here, following previous invasions by the Ottomans and Greeks.

Today residents seem unexercised by the fact that their bucolic neighbourhood, with its blossom and bird song, could soon be the venue of a new cold war between a resurgent Russia and an expansionist west. "We just eat fasol [a bean appetiser], do our work and sleep," said Hwicha Kobalya, a resident, as he walked back across the bridge. "We leave the politics to Putin."

Backstory

Abkhazia, a tiny separatist republic on the Black Sea's east coast, is surrounded by beaches and the Caucasus mountain range. The region broke away from Georgia after fighting a war against the country's troops in 1992-93. The territory now seeks independence from Georgia. So far it has failed to win recognition internationally but yesterday it came a step closer when Russia said that it would strengthen economic ties and provide consular support to Abkhazia's residents. Georgia wants to return the rebel region to its control. It also wants Georgian refugees, forced to flee Abkhazia during the war, to go home. The area is one of several breakaway territories left over from the collapse of the Soviet Union. With its mandarin groves and towering eucalyptus trees, Abkhazia was a popular holiday destination for Russian workers as well as for the Soviet elite. Stalin had a dacha here. Abkhazia now attracts about 2 million Russian tourists a year.

The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/17/russia.georgia