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Notes
1. This paper is based on empirical research conducted in Abkhazia in November and December 2005. While some elements in the text have been updated for publication, the majority of information and analysis pertain to the situation in 2005/2006. The author wishes to thank all those, in the region and outside, who provided comments on earlier drafts.
2. In the contemporary literature on Abkhazia, both by local academics and external observers, very little has been written on the question of internal relations between ethnic groups. Suggested English-language sources on the situation in Abkhazia and the conflict, include: Cohen, A Question of Sovereignty; for further reading see also: <http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/georgia-abkhazia/further-reading.php> (accessed 14 March 2008); ICG report Abkhazia Today; ICG report Abkhazia: Ways Forward; Coppieters and Legvold, Statehood and Security; Lynch, Engaging Eurasia's Separatist States.
3. Every effort was made to conduct the focus groups in such a way as to allow for maximum openness. In an environment of very little public discussion of these issues, however, and considerable mistrust between some groups, the degree to which responses are representative of views held must necessarily be qualified.
4. A note on terminology: place names are contested; for example, the Abkhaz call the capital Sukhum, the Georgians call it Sukhumi or Sokhumi, similarly Gal is the Abkhaz name, Gali the Georgian. This article uses the forms Sukhum/i and Gal/i to acknowledge the contested topography, but for simplicity sake it uses the Abkhaz appellation for other place names (e.g. Tkuarchal and not Tkvarcheli, Ochamchira and not Ochamchire). The use of these appellations is not intended to endorse either side's position on the final status of Abkhazia.
5. According to the ICG report Abkhazia Today, 1, there were approximately 8,000 deaths, 18,000 wounded and 240,000 displaced. For more details on the war, see Abkhazia Today, 5–6; and Cohen, A Question of Sovereignty.
6. The ethnic identity of those who left Abkhazia is a sensitive issue. The majority of Georgians living in Abkhazia prior to the war belonged to a sub-ethnic group called Mingrelians, though most, if not all, Mingrelians, consider themselves to be Georgian. Many do, however, speak Mingrelian, a language related to, but distinct from, Georgian. See the entry on Mingrelians in Olson et al., An Ethnohistorical Dictionary.
7. Georgians displaced as a result of the Georgian–Abkhaz war are referred to by the international community as IDPs or “internally displaced persons,” as Abkhazia is de jure part of Georgia. The Abkhaz refer to them as refugees, as they have left the boundaries of what they consider to be independent Abkhazia. For the purposes of this paper, I will use the term IDP to refer to ethnic Georgians displaced in Georgia proper as a result of the war. Very few people from other ethnic groups have ended up as IDPs in Georgia—ethnic Abkhaz, Russians and Armenians tended to leave for Russia, or in the latter case also Armenia. There are also Georgians displaced by the war who no longer reside in Georgia.
8. For example, the survey itself was conducted on Russian New Year's day (14 January), a time when many people tend not to be at home. There are significant doubts as to the accuracy of the reported figures.
9. ICG report Abkhazia Today, 9.
10. “United Nations Needs Assessment Mission to Abkhazia, Georgia.”
11. Some commentators estimate that there is very little difference in the population numbers of ethnic Abkhaz and Armenians; numbers of Georgians in the Gal/i region are arguably also not far behind.
12. The present-day Gal/i region does not include the entire territory of the pre-war Gal/i region following the reallocation of administrative boundaries in 1995, which saw some parts of what was the Gal/i region become part of the Tkuarchal and Ochamchira regions.
13. See n. 6 above.
14. In 2006, the estimate given by UNHCR was 45,000. The Abkhaz dispute this figure, claiming that more have returned. See ICG report Abkhazia Today, 11 (n. 116).
15. The Turkish Abkhaz are descendants of Abkhaz and Circassians forced to flee the conquest of the Russian Empire in the mid-nineteenth century. They live primarily in Turkey and the Middle East, with some small communities in Europe. Some, particularly the older generation, speak Abkhaz, but few speak Russian.
16. To an extent, this is a continuation of the practice originating during the Soviet period, when people were organized into groups according to their ethnic background (obshchiny), which focused primarily on cultural representation.
17. Although this unification of official representation of the Armenians has taken place, tensions still remain within the Armenian community.
18. See Broers, “The Politics of Non-recognition and Democratization,” 68–71.
19. This draft was prepared by Zurab Achba, a leading lawyer and human rights activist in Abkhazia who was assassinated on 15 August 2003. Zurab Achba prepared his draft bill on minority rights in the context of a 1997 round table on ethnic minority issues in Abkhazia that was convened by Natella Akaba, then Director of the Centre for the Support of Democracy and Human Rights. Some presentations during this round table, subsequently published in an independent newspaper, Nuzhnaya gazeta, sparked fierce debate. The response by the Chair of the National Commission on Human Rights was perhaps indicative of the official approach to these issues at the time, arguing as it did that Abkhazia did not have a problem in the sphere of minority relations. Certainly the then president, Vladislav Ardzinba, was reluctant to raise the issue of inter-ethnic relations in political or public discourse.
20. See Venediktova, “O polozhenii natsional'nykh men'shinstv v Abkhazii.”
21. At times, the former are generally referred to as the Abkhaz people (Abkhazskii narod), while the latter are referred to as the people or peoples of Abkhazia (narod/y Abkhazii).
22. The lack of legislation on minority relations should be viewed in context, however—it has not been prioritized within Abkhazia, but is one of many other areas of legislation that also remain outstanding.
23. Many Abkhaz have acquired Russian passports since a new citizenship law was adopted by the Russian parliament in 2002. They see this as their only option to have internationally valid documents, though they technically could hold Georgian passports. Previous discussion in the 1990s of the possibility of issuing a Nansen-type document to allow the Abkhaz to travel came to nothing. Estimates of the numbers vary—certainly a majority of residents now hold Russian passports, though evidence would suggest that significant numbers are either still waiting for their Russian passports to be processed, or have not applied.
24. Interestingly, the new Abkhaz passports, unlike Russian passports, are similar to those from the Soviet era in that they specify the holder's nationality.
25. Voting in local elections in spring 2007, however, was possible for holders of either old Soviet passports, form no. 9 or the new Abkhaz passport. From 1 January 2008 Abkhaz passports are required in order to receive a pension and enter higher education.
26. The Georgians and Abkhaz were known as “state-forming peoples,” or gosudarstvo-obrazuiushchie narody. The Abkhaz express serious grievances about an imbalance in the allocation of political power among the Georgians and Abkhaz during the Soviet period.
27. The participation of women in the Abkhaz parliament is even lower—of the 35 MPs in 2006, only two were women (both ethnic Abkhaz).
28. In 2006, none of the positions of head of administration in the eight regions were held by non-Abkhaz.
29. The Gal/i population often feel their security threatened from both sides of the conflict. Pressure has been exerted on the Gal/i population by other Georgians not to vote in Abkhaz elections, and many resist for fear of being seen as collaborators with the separatist administration.
30. This also excludes a significant number of Abkhaz—not only does one need to be an ethnic Abkhaz (and the criteria for defining this have not been made explicit), one also needs to speak fluent Abkhaz and to have been resident continuously in Abkhazia for a period of five years prior to election.
31. At the time of updating this text in 2007, the law had just passed its third reading in parliament.
32. Unlike candidates for president, who must pass a language exam, there are no clear criteria for judging linguistic ability in other contexts.
33. In an interview conducted by the author in Sukhum/i in 2004, the de facto Speaker of Parliament, Nugzar Ashuba, spoke of his frustration with the lack of interpretation facilities.
34. Video materials have now been developed for use by people interested in learning Abkhaz. These are available for purchase from the Foundation for the Development of the Abkhaz Language.
35. Interestingly, although there are about 30 Armenian schools in Abkhazia, the Abkhaz Armenians are increasingly inclined to send their children to Russian schools as they see prospects in Russia ultimately as better than in Armenia. This perhaps relates to the fact that most Armenians living in Abkhazia are Hamshen Armenians, with closer links to the Armenian communities in southern Russia than to Armenia proper. It is also a product of Armenian government policy which offers no reserved higher education places or grants for students from Abkhazia, making it more expensive to study there than in the Russian Federation.
36. In Gal/i town, two schools operate—one Russian, the other Abkhaz (though both offer Georgian as an elective). See International Crisis Group interview with the head of the Gal/i district administration, June 2006 in ICG report, Abkhazia Today, 19.
37. On the whole, there is more tolerance of the Mingrelian language, which is seen to be distinct from the Tbilisi authorities, and perhaps less threatening for not being a written language.
38. The following sections are based largely on feedback from the 10 focus groups and 20 in-depth interviews conducted in Abkhazia in late 2005 by a range of volunteers from the non-governmental sector, including staff from the Association of Women of Abkhazia, the Centre for Humanitarian Programmes and the Sukhum/i Youth House. Ethnic Abkhaz, Armenians and Russians conducted the research. The focus groups, comprising between 7 and 11 participants, were held in Gal/i with Georgian participants, in Ochamchira with a mixed group, in Gudauta with an Abkhaz group, and in Sukhum/i with a non-Abkhaz group of varied background, an Abkhaz group of civil society activists, a group of Armenian professionals, a group of returned diaspora Abkhaz, a group of Abkhaz academics and intellectuals, a mixed group of non-Abkhaz youth, and a group representative of Abkhaz opposition views. Interviews were held with non-Abkhaz in business, government, journalism, parliament, and education and with Abkhaz in government, the judiciary, business, local government, and the arts.
39. Opinion differs as to the motivation behind these attacks; there is a view that they were the result of Georgian attempts to destabilize the situation in Abkhazia.
40. It should be noted that although tensions in the latter half of 2006 led to a deterioration of the situation, there was a marked improvement in law and order in the Gal/i region in the first half of 2006. Interview with United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) Field Officer, 24 July 2006. See also mention of a decrease in the crime rate in the Gal/i sector in the period March–June 2006, in Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation in Abkhazia, Georgia, 26 June 2006.
41. For more detail on the 2004 elections, see Antonenko, “Frozen Uncertainty,” 205–70.
42. Focus group, 22 November 2005, Sukhum/i.
43. The observations in this paragraph are made on the basis of numerous interviews conducted by the author in recent years.
44. There are those in Abkhazia who would welcome the need to be held accountable by the international community, and to have the associated support in implementing mechanisms for managing diversity.
45. Akaba, “Mezhnatsional'nye otnoshenia v usloviakh perekhoda k demokratii,” 159.
46. Titles such as The Tragedy of the Abkhaz People and Tragic Pages in the History of Abkhazia give an indication of the predominant concerns. At the same time, the history books point to more enlightened pre-Soviet periods of Abkhaz history, such as the “golden age” of King Leon II in the eighth century, and a short-lived period of independence in 1917/1918.
47. Akaba, “Mezhnatsional'nye otnoshenia v usloviakh perekhoda k demokratii,” 156.
48. See the debate on Soviet nationalities policy and indigenization in Popov and Kuznetsov, “Ethnic Discrimination and the Discourse of ‘Indigenization’” in this present special issue of Nationalities Papers.
49. See Chirikba, “Gruziia i Abkhaziia, predlozhenia k konstitutsionnoi modeli,” 426.
50. See Venediktova, “O polozhenii natsional'nykh men'shinstv v Abkhazii”; and Nersesyan, “Mezhnational'nye otnoshenia.” See also n. 19 above.