From: MSN Nicknamepsychoteddybear24  (Original Message)    Sent: 11/11/2005 7:28 AM
ABKHAZIA OFFERS CITIZENSHIP TO DIASPORA



A new law will offer citizenship to anyone of Abkhaz origin, even if they were not born in the republic.



By Inal Khashig in Sukhum



The breakaway republic of Abkhazia is offering citizenship to members of the diaspora, in a move intended to encourage them to boost the numbers of an ethnic group that currently accounts for less than half the population.



Since Abkhazia unilaterally declared itself independent from Georgia 12 years ago, its leaders have had to contend with the fact that Abkhaz do not make up the absolute majority. In a move intended to swell the numbers, the republic’s parliament approved a new law at the end of October that gives anyone who can claim Abkhaz origin the right to claim citizenship.



Diaspora Abkhaz will not be asked to give up their current nationality – except for those now living in Georgia. Nor will they have to take up residence in Abkhazia, unless they want the vote.



Georgi Khaindrava, Georgia’s minister for conflict regulation, dismissed the initiative, telling IWPR that it will have little real impact.



“This initiative is a fine reflection of the Abkhaz leadership’s level of political culture. As it turns out, this bunch of people that they call the Abkhaz parliament has no idea of the meaning of human rights. It merely underlines yet again that Georgia is absolutely right when it says that there is discrimination in Abkhazia on grounds of ethnicity.”



The last census conducted by the Soviet authorities in 1989 showed that the Abkhaz accounted for just 17 per cent of the then autonomous republic, while Georgians made up 43 per cent of the population.



The end of the conflict saw tens of thousands of Georgians flee their homes, so the balance shifted in favour of the Abkhaz. Nevertheless, they are still only a relative rather than absolute majority. accounting for 44 per cent of the population, with 26 per cent Armenians and 21 per cent Georgians, according to a census conducted last year.



It is impossible to say how many people in the diaspora would count themselves as ethnic Abkhaz, but some sources suggest that in Turkey, Syria and Jordan, the countries where most of them live, there are upwards of 500,000.



The proposed change to the citizenship rules is clearly intended as an incentive to encourage the diaspora to return. The communities abroad are descended several generations ago from the hundreds of thousands of Abkhaz and other North Caucasian people, who fled or were expelled to the Ottoman empire after Russia defeated them in the Caucasian wars.



According to Vladimir Nachach-ogly, the head of Abkhazia’s parliamentary legal committee, the new law will facilitate the return of Abkhaz.



“If you think about how few Abkhaz actually live in their historical homeland, the repatriation issue must become our national idea, since the future of our nation and our state depends on it,” he told IWPR.



Meeting Abkhazian president Sergei Bagapsh at the beginning of October, diaspora leaders in Turkey expressed approval of the proposed change to the law, saying it might well encourage people to go back.



Georgian political analyst Paata Zakareishvili thinks it unlikely that the Turkish Abkhaz will return in droves. “[Turkey] is about to join the European Union – why would its citizens want to go to an unfamiliar place – and what’s more, one that is always talking of imminent war with the Georgians?” he told IWPR.



Zakareishvili says that of just 600 diaspora members who settled in Abkhazia after 1993, all but 60 have since gone back to Turkey.



One obstacle facing the foreign nationals attempting to build new lives in Abkhazia is language, since they are unlikely to speak Russian. Even though Abkhaz is supposed to be the state language, – still the dominant language with government and parliamentary meetings conducted in it.



Only the Ministry of Culture and, naturally enough, the State Foundation for the Development of the Abkhaz Language, conduct their business in the indigenous language.



Boris Tuzhba, the editor of Apsny, the only Abkhaz-language newspaper thinks it is a disgrace that it sells only 100-150 copies on the newsstands every week – the rest of the print-run of 1,000 goes to government offices. “We have no [private] subscribers, only the government departments,” he said. “And I’m not even sure they actually read Apsny.”



The language is kept alive in Abkhaz villages, but urban residents tend to speak Russian. There have been few takers for the free language courses offered in the capital Sukhum for some years now.