By Georgy Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
Dmitry Vishernyov, a secretary of the Russian Embassy in Abkhazia, was killed in Sukhumi on Monday morning. According to Abkhaz sources, “the murder happened near his house on Nazadze Street, where Vishernyov lived in a rented apartment. It is this circumstance that was pointed out by Georgy Gvazava, head of the pro-Georgian Supreme Council of the Abkhaz Autonomous Republic (in exile). “There has never been a Nazadze Street in Sukhumi. There is no such name. There was a street named after Nozadze in a village just behind a railway station, but the Abkhaz authorities changed all the Georgian names of streets and drove Georgians out in 1993. Sukhumi sources recalled the old name of the street to hint at a Georgian trace that has never been there in the first place,” Gvazava told Vestnik Kavkaza, assuming that the murder “would be put down as an ordinary homicide.” “Moscow and Sukhumi do not want to highlight their differences, that is why there are accusations of Vishernyov being a businessman or someone’s lover. In other words, the diplomat’s murder will be explained as a criminal skirmish,” Gvazava predicts.
Dmitry Vishernyov was working on the problem of returning Russians who had left the republic before recognition of Abkhaz independence by Russia and the problem of their rights to the apartments they had left. The topic provoked fierce disputes between Sukhumi and Moscow. Responding to fears of the Abkhaz public that Georgian citizens of Russia may make claims on apartments too, Dmitry Vishernyov officially stated that a joint Russian-Abkhaz commission formed for property issues will not consider claims of Russians citizens of Georgian origin, thus sparking outrage in Georgia.
Georgian State Minister for Reintegration Paata Zakareishvili said in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza: “It is a very sad instance. I hope that the murder will be solved and both the paymaster and the assassin will be found”. Zakareishvili abstained from comments on the impact of Vishernyov’s murder on Russian-Abkhaz relations: “I prefer not to comment, let’s wait for the results of the investigation.”
In this light, ex-Mayor of Batumi (Adjara), Aslan Smirba, who fled to Moscow on May 6, 2004, together with the ex-head of the Adjara Autonomy, Aslan Abashidze, made a sensational declaration that he was “personally having negotiations with Abkhaz leaders” to form a Georgian-Abkhaz Confederation. He named such partners as ex-head of the Abkhaz Presidential Administration Valery Arshba and ex-Foreign Minister Sergey Shamba, who were activists of the independence movement of Abkhazia. “I have very good relations with Valery Arshba and Sergey Shamba. I can say the same about the prime minister of Abkhazia. I guarantee that after October 27 (Georgian presidential polls), negotiations with Abkhazia will commence to resolve the problem of confederation. We will achieve it, I guarantee!” insisted Aslan Smirba, organizer of the meeting between “a high-ranking Abkhaz official” and Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili in Trabzon a few years ago. “If you want to know the truth, 80% of the issue has already been settled,” Smirba assures.
But can he be trusted?
Aslan Smirba is a descendant of Abkhaz Muhajirs who left Turkey in the 1860s and settled in Adjara, a territory of the Ottoman Empire of that time. It is possible that Sergey Shamba, Valery Arshba and other Abkhazians had contacts with him. But as concerns agreements to form a confederation – that is nonsense. Although the meeting of Merabishvili with an Abkhaz authority, according to Vestnik Kavkaza, did take place, in organizing the meeting with the help of Aslan Smirba, Abkhazia had a different goal. It wanted to hint to Moscow that a Georgian-Abkhaz compromise was possible, unless Russia stops putting pressure on Abkhazia in some sensitive issues (such as returning apartments to ethnic Russians who left Abkhazia before recognition of its independence and willing to move back to the breakaway republic; transferring state country houses of ex-heads of the USSR and their territories to Russian structures; lifting the ban on purchase of Abkhaz real estate by Russians and some other problems).
Tensions over the dispute will continue. This is why the Abkhaz authorities would not mind “a little blackmail” for Moscow. Any rapprochement (even symbolic) between Sukhumi and Tbilisi in the light of Georgia continuing a pro-Western course and refusing to restore diplomatic relations with Russia would be viewed as a levelling of the victory of 2008 and a major failure of the Russian government in the light of its public.
However, this does not mean that a Georgian-Abkhaz compromise is achievable, because any Georgian government will have to insist on a return of Georgian refugees to Abkhazia and any Abkhaz government, in its turn, would never agree to such preconditions when settling relations with Georgia.
PS: Commenting on the declaration of Smirba, a source of Vestnik Kavkaza in Sukhumi made an assumption that it was a provocation: “The Georgian side casts those texts in packs. Abkhazia does not pay much attention to them. Issues of such a scale cannot be resolved by individuals. Neither Smirba, nor Shamba nor Arshba have any power, that is why no confederation can be discussed. It is like imagining Japan’s Suishin-kai Gang saying that it was having negotiations with Kozyrev and Kasyanov and coming to an agreement on handing the Kuril Islands to Japan after October 27.”
