Border attack spurs fresh tension between Georgia, Abkhazia

Paul Rimple: 5/22/08

For many Georgians, May 21 was as much about a mysterious armed incident near the border with the breakaway region of Abkhazia, as it was about electing a new parliament. While details remain murky, the incident is stoking tension between Georgia and the renegade territory.

Various versions of the attack story exist. According to the official Georgian version, rocket-propelled grenades struck two buses in a Georgian-controlled village on the Inguri River, which forms the border with Abkhazia, in the early afternoon of May 21. The buses were being used to ferry approximately 20 villagers across the river into Georgia's Zugdidi district to vote. The village, Khurcha, is situated between Georgian and Abkhaz territory, with bridges leading to either side.

Located less than a kilometer from the Abkhaz border, the buses have since been cordoned off pending an investigation. Journalists were not allowed to examine the buses on May 21.

Two women from Khurcha were reportedly wounded in the attack. One woman was hit by a bullet or piece of shrapnel that penetrated her lung; the second suffered a gunshot wound to the leg. Both have been hospitalized.

The incident was followed by a round of heavy gunfire, although between whom and where precisely remains unclear.

An official Georgian government statement affirms that the identity of the assailants is unknown, and states that the gunshots came from the Abkhaz side of the line of control.

At a May 21 news conference in Moscow, Abkhaz de facto leader Sergei Bagapsh claimed the gunfire occurred within Georgia proper, in the Zugdidi region, and denied any responsibility for the incident. He went on to characterize the episode as "a Hollywood show."

"For what reason would we blow up a bus? So, a bus came, or two buses, they came to vote – that's what? ... Going to change the political set-up in Georgia?" the Interfax news agency reported Bagapsh as saying.

During a press trip to the site organized by the Georgian government, the only available witnesses were being treated in a Zugdidi hospital and were unable to speak.

A reporter from the private Georgian broadcaster Rustavi-2, however, says that she was on the scene when the attack occurred. Her identification of the site, though, varies. "The Abkhaz ambushed the people from a corridor as they entered Georgian territory and shot in the air to scare them," said Emma Goguxia.

Goguxia has said the assailants were heavily armed – "grenades, automatics and rocket launchers" – but has also stated that she did not actually see these individuals.

Several Khurcha villagers who were at hand after the attack told EurasiaNet they did not see anything. Rustavi-2 footage showed several individuals running through a clearing amidst the sound of heavy gunfire. A dark grey plume of smoke rose in the background.

Shota Utiashvili, spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior, states that Georgian police returned fire to protect the villagers and to retrieve the wounded in an exchange that lasted about one hour. No casualties were reported.

Police on the ground believe the Abkhaz attacked to prevent Gali Georgians from voting in Georgia's parliamentary election. In the past, though, Georgians from Abkhazia reportedly have simply been prevented from crossing the bridge into Georgia.

Utiashvili thinks the attack was a provocation to disrupt the parliamentary elections and a means of flaunting Abkhazia's Russian backing. "They want to show locals [in Gali] who's in charge now," he said.

In Moscow, Abkhaz leader Bagapsh called his envoy to Gali, Ruslan Kishmaria, and had him address Georgian television reporters via speakerphone to deny that the shooting took place in Gali.

The Abkhazia issue cast a long shadow over Georgia's parliamentary campaign and the election itself. Beyond Georgian efforts to reintegrate the separatist territory, officials in Tbilisi are pressing for permanent solutions for thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs). Georgia hailed as an historic victory a May 15 non-binding United Nations resolution that recognizes the right of return for IDPs to Abkhazia, and the preservation of their property rights.

The resolution, however, appears to be falling on deaf ears throughout the unrecognized republic of Abkhazia. Abkhaz leaders claim they have met previous obligations for the return of IDPs by allowing approximately 40,000 Georgians to return to the Gali region in southern Abkhazia. "The people who voted [for the resolution] don't understand the situation," stated Natella Akeba, chairperson of the Sukhumi People's Chamber, or city council, and a specialist on ethnic minorities. As has Tbilisi, Akeba stresses that negotiations between the two sides are the only way to resolve the issue. (Direct talks stopped in 2006 after Georgian police forces moved into the Upper Kodori Gorge.)

Akeba and other Abkhaz separatist representatives argue that the return of Georgian IDPs puts their own security at stake. A sudden influx of ethnic Georgians would tip the demographic scale against the Abkhaz, reducing them to minority status. Representatives of the separatist leadership say such a scenario is unacceptable.

But the dividing line between Abkhaz and Georgian is never clearly defined. Georgians occasionally return to Abkhazia to see family and old neighbors, or check on abandoned homes. De facto Abkhaz leader Bagapsh's own wife is an ethnic Georgian.

In the Black Sea coastal town of Ochamchira, some 53 kilometers south of Sukhumi, the tangled ties between Abkhaz and Georgian are thrown into sharp relief. A site of fierce fighting during Abkhazia's1992-1994 war with Georgia, the town's prewar population of 26,000 has dwindled to a mere 3,000 people, according to local estimates. The predominantly Georgian population fled long ago.

Forty-four-year-old Revaz is one of the few ethnic Georgians who remain. Revaz, who only gave his first name, fought with the Abkhaz in Ochamchira, and believes the odds are nil that Georgians will ever return to the town.

".I fought for the land I lived on with the people I lived with," Revaz said. "Those who returned to Gali didn't fight against us.... Here it's more complicated. Those who fought against us will never return."

That sentiment is echoed wherever the hardest fighting took place. In Sukhumi's Novy Rayon, just below the former front lines, one man said that "Georgians lived here with us like brothers, but if any were to try to come back here now, I'd kill [them]," he said. "They're traitors."

Such declarations feed into a second controversy – the disposal of residential property once owned by ethnic Georgians. Whether or not a Georgian property owner fought against the Abkhaz can determine the fate of these apartments and buildings.

Homes that once belonged to suspected Georgian fighters have been nationalized and given to Abkhaz war heroes, invalids and those whose homes were destroyed during the war. This is the case for Sukhumi city councilmember Akeba, who claims her own house was burned down by Georgian neighbors during the war. She received a Georgian home as compensation.

In towns like Ochamchira, where most of the population was Georgian, there is a surplus of nationalized homes. Georgians' derelict seaside houses have all been bought, say locals, for prices of up to $100,000. Only outsiders have snatched up Georgian homes because "we are ashamed to buy our neighbors' houses," pensioner Roland Shevardshidze asserted.

By law, however, only Abkhaz citizens are allowed to buy property in Abkhazia, officials say. After five years of residency within Abkhazia, a person may apply for citizenship and then be eligible to purchase property, according to de facto Deputy Foreign Minister Maxim Gunjia. Foreigners may rent property within Abkhazia, but not purchase it outright, Gunjia said in an earlier interview.

That assertion, however, has done nothing to assuage Georgian complaints that Russians have gone on a buying spree in the disputed territory.

The Georgian government recently threatened to submit to Interpol information about Russian businesses and banks operating within Abkhazia. "They are trying to conduct certain economic processes there, bypassing the legitimate Georgian authorities," State Minister for Reintegration Temur Iakobashvili told the Georgian daily Rezonansi on April 29. "This is in violation of international norms, which is punishable by law."

Where residential property in Abkhazia is concerned, getting around the legal issues is not difficult, according to Denis Solomko, a 25-year-old, US-educated deputy in the Ochamchira People's Council. Solomko admits there are ways to bypass ownership laws. The easiest route is to find a proxy Abkhaz owner. Locals tell EurasiaNet that bribing officials for citizenship is another possibility.

Solomko says that he does not know how often property ownership laws are bypassed, but concedes that changes are needed. "We must provide a civilized method for investment," he said.

Yet while other Abkhaz officials agree that Georgian property issues in Abkhazia will have to be addressed at some point, they stress that they do not see it as a pressing matter.

"I do not understand how we can talk about property issues when the relations between the two communities are completely destroyed," Sukhumi councilmember Akeba stated.

"We feel they do not think about the Abkhaz people, but only about land and houses," she added. "This is not the right way to peace."

Editor's Note: Paul Rimple is a freelance reporter based in Tbilisi.

Posted May 22, 2008 © Eurasianet