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Abkhazia Prepares to Become Part of Georgia
// As far as the Russian military is concerned
Friendship of the Nations
Abkhazian President Sergey Bagapsh has returned from his first visit to Moscow as president. He told a press conference on Tuesday that the issues he discussed there were of a purely economic nature. Something else was clear from his statements, however. Everything that is economic in the unrecognized state is inseparable from the political.
Bagapsh did not specify whom he met with in Moscow. He only said that he met with Russian ministers and businessmen and discussed potential investments in the resort industry and energy supplies. He also said that he raised the question of restoring railroad connections between Russia and Abkhazia and beyond, through Georgia to Armenia. It is hard to say whether that question is more pressing for Moscow or Sukhumi. That rail line connects Abkhazia with Russia, and Russia with its military bases in Armenia. Georgia will have a different reaction to the issue, since the restoration of the rail line will strengthen both Abkhazia and the Russian military presence in the Transcaucasus. But Abkhazian officials intend to win Georgia's agreement to the project in their next negotiations. It is likely to be another one of the issues that Georgia will have to settle in order to attain other concessions from Abkhazia. The next meeting between Abkhazian, Georgian and Russian officials on settlement of the regional conflict will take place in Geneva in April.
The Abkhazians reacted quickly to the strain over Russian military bases in Georgia. They offered the Russian military accommodation in Abkhazia in exchange for the bases that they are sooner or later sure to lose in Georgia. The possibility of a Russian base returning to Gudauta is, in the words of Bagapsh, “a positive factor.” He mentioned that Russian and Georgia were negotiating the establishment of a joint antiterrorism center and, in that connection, he met with “several law-enforcement officials” and suggested that “one of those centers could be a military base in Gudauta, where all the conditions for it already are in place. That is a normal process and we have always been in favor of keeping the bases, since the Russian bases in Abkhazia are a factor for the stability of the republic. Therefore, our position here is unequivocal.”
Georgia has been insistently raising the issue of replacing Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia with contingents from other countries, from Ukraine or NATO, for instance. “Of course, one side can demand the withdrawal of the Russian peacekeepers,” Bagapsh commented. “But it requires the agreement of both sides to introduce a new contingent. Our side has a very definite opinion about it and it is very simple. There is no need to talk about Russian aggression in the Transcaucasus and so on. It's just that, when we were having a hard time after the war in 1992-1993, nobody and came stood along that line. Only Russia came. No other republic of the CIS sent its soldiers. The Russian peacekeepers took the hardest part on themselves. And they left behind 96 dead. We shouldn't forget that. That means that we will not let any other peacekeeping forces except Russian onto our territory. And if it happens that the Russian peacekeepers leave, we will take up their positions ourselves. But that will mean an escalation.” With that statement, the president ended the months-long discussion of the pro-Georgian position of his block. It is clear that he had no pro-Georgian position, and never will now. It can also be seen that his trip to Moscow was even more productive than he admits.
That may be why Bagapsh has stated very strongly that rumors of disagreements between him and vice president Raul Khadzhimba, who is considered a Kremlin puppet, are groundless. And that the recent attempt on the life of Abkhazian Prime Minister and presidential adviser Alexander Ankvaba s not the doing of the Kremlin, but of the local criminal groups that control the political life of the republic.
“The investigation is continuing, but no one has been arrested so far,” Bagapsh said. “Several people from the criminal elements were taken into custody and then released because investigators think it was a political act. I hope that the investigation will uncover who is behind it, although the handwriting is similar to notorious murders in Abkhazia before it. Therefore, it has been suggested that it was a directed effort by someone's henchmen. We'll find out whose.”
Bagapsh also met with Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II on Tuesday. They discussed the participation of the Russian Orthodox Church in the restoration of the Novoafonsky and Iversky Monasteries. The Church has actually been involved supporting those monasteries for a long time already. The Abkhazian president understood, of course, while talking of the importance of restoring those monasteries, that, in Russia, where Church and state are practically inseparable, a meeting with the Patriarch is a strong sign of support from the Kremlin.
Olga Allenova
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 16, 2005
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