In the last few weeks, the issue of Georgian-Abkhazian relations has shifted from a purely diplomatic field to some other one once again. The subject of security on the border of Abkhazia with Georgia in the Gali district became the first priority. On 22 June, Stanislav Lakoba, the head of the Security Council of Abkhazia, made a statement which was pompous enough. We are talking about a new round of tensions that could lead to new instability on the Georgian-Abkhaz border, i. e. about destabilization, from which the people of Abkhazia became estranged in recent years. Stanislav Lakoba expressly stated that the cause must be sought not in the geopolitical sphere but in the political situation in Georgia, namely, the struggle for power between Mikhail Saakashvili and Bidzina Ivanishvili, the Georgian opposition leader. And the main round of it will take place not during the presidential elections of 2013 butt during the parliamentary elections of 2012 which will be held in less than three months. The Georgian constitution is already amended; according to the amendments, a key figure in the state in 2013 will be the prime minister. Thus, it is essential to Georgia what forces will win the Georgian parliamentary elections.
The bursts of political struggle in Tbilisi often coincide with the increase in tensions on the border with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This pattern ha been known for a long time. Typically, these conflicts (diplomatic and sometimes armed ones) are profitable for the current government of Georgia, because in the midst of anti-government demonstrations it is useful to remind people about the existence of an external enemy – Abkhazia, South Ossetia or Russia. In fact, these bursts in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict have become so commonplace that they are seen as an inevitable natural phenomenon.
However, the situation is not quite easy. Gali is the most difficult region of Abkhazia; the set of issues is intertwined here. Particularly, there were a lot of them till 2008 when Moscow recognized the independence of Abkhazia and the appearance of Russian border guards near the Inguri River. During the 1990s, the Abkhaz security forces (mainly the Interior Ministry units) several times restored the control over the area. Georgian saboteurs, infiltrating from the east bank of the river, made forays into the depths of Abkhazia and every time again and again took out the area from the power of Sukhumi. Russian peacekeeping forces did not have sufficient powers to deal with the saboteurs, and Abkhazian forces, according to the agreement of 1994, had no right to enter into the security zone (on the Abkhaz side, it covered the Gali district, and on the Georgian one - Zugdidi and Tsalenjikha). No wonder that from time to time on this narrow but fertile and densely populated strip there was a complete or relative lack of power; many villages were actually under the control of Georgia. If we consider that there has always been cross-border trading there, and the inhabitants of the Gali district freely visit other regions of Abkhazia and adjacent areas of West Georgia, you can imagine how difficult is to maintain stability in this area.
During 1994-1998 there were periods when the number of saboteurs operating in the Gali district reached hundreds of people and many times more than a thousand people. Later, their number became smaller, but even a group of about a dozen militants could mess things up. Nevertheless, the situation did not deteriorate so much to jeopardize the entire peace process. Not only the Abkhazians but also the Georgians always remembered that the presence of Russian peacekeeping forces could prevent many problems. August 2008 slightly changed the situation. The Russians left the Georgian territory in the security zone (and not all the residents were happy about this), but they remained on the Abkhaz side not as an intermediary separating the warring parties but as the defender not allowing the Georgian Army to break through the Inguri River. Russian border guards are now guarding the border with Georgia; the Abkhaz armed forces have the ability to control all the Gali district. In the first years after the recognition of the independence of Abkhazia many experts even hoped that the problem of the Gali district would soon be in the past. However, this did not happen; there are too many contradictions in any attempt to bring firm order in this region.
Abkhazia, in principle, has the ability to completely block the border with Georgia. However, the Abkhazians realize that such a measure would be too rigid towards the Georgian population in the Gali district which adapted to living in Abkhazia under the Abkhaz authorities. The current population of the Gali district is the Georgians who have returned to Abkhazia, but not by the requirements of the Georgian authorities but by the rules adopted by Abkhazia. In the Gali district, there are 30 thousand Georgians; in the surrounding villages of Tkuarchal and Ochamchira districts there are about 10 thousand Georgians, and they are separated by administrative boundaries, but in fact it is an area densely populated by local Georgians (Megrelians), constituting one-fifth of the whole population of Abkhazia. However, not all of them have Abkhazian passports, and during the last presidential and parliamentary elections of Abkhazia only a small part of them participated in the elections. They are afraid of reprisals by the Georgian government (there have been cases of arrests and imprisonment of different people, even of Armenians who had been in Abkhazia and then came to Georgia, in Tbilisi). Therefore, the Abkhazians allow the residents of the Gali district to live "in two houses," relying on the loyalty of the inhabitants of the Gali district. In general, such a policy is justified. We should keep in mind that much of the food in the capital of Abkhazia today is imported, either from the areas inhabited by the Georgian population, or directly from Georgia, that a lot of the residents of the Gali district arrive in Sukhumi and other cities in Abkhazia to work; at the same time, they go through the border river to visit relatives and friends. The presence of Russian troops on the border does not prevent the visits.
If we recall the sniper war in the zone of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, the Gali district can be regarded as a relatively stable area of the Caucasus. But the attacks on the representatives of the authorities do not stop; moreover, they have recently increased, and this endangers the whole fragile parity, which is kept mostly mechanically: the orders existing on the border were mostly developed before 2008; changing them would be extremely difficult. At the same time, the killings in the region are becoming more frequent, and the government of the republic faced the necessity to take action.
To be continued
