From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 9/24/2006 6:37 AM
 Proud Abkhazia fiercely resists pull into Georgia's orbit
- Michael Mainville, Chronicle Foreign Service
Sunday, September 24, 2006

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(09-24) 04:00 PDT Sukhumi, Georgia -- Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the lush region of Abkhazia was a playground of the Soviet elite.

Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev and Mikhail Gorbachev all had opulent summer homes along its shores. Soviet holidaymakers crowded its beaches, and the boardwalk of the capital, Sukhumi, was renowned for its nightlife.

Locals like to say that when he met Khrushchev in Abkhazia, Cuban President Fidel Castro raved that its beauty matched that of his homeland.

Today's Abkhazia is a far cry from its halcyon days. More than a decade after a devastating war with Georgia over its post-Soviet status, the tiny self-declared state is a gutted, desperately poor shell of its former self, its once-exclusive hotels now derelict and whole villages lying in ruins.

Largely cut off from the rest of the world, it is also a potential flash point for renewed violence in the volatile region along Russia's southern border.

"In a way, our problem is that we live in such a beautiful place," said Abkhazia's de facto president, Sergei Bagapsh. "That is why there are those who want to take it away from us."

The status of the would-be state came up before the United Nations on Friday when Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who came to power after the 2003 "Rose Revolution," told the U.N. General Assembly that Abkhazia is part of his country, as is Georgia's other violence-torn separatist enclave, South Ossetia.

"If the purpose of our revolution was to guarantee all citizens of Georgia have the right to participate fully in the life and decisions of the state -- then our revolution remains unfinished," said Saakashvili, a U.S.-educated lawyer. "Let us be under no illusions. The residents of our disputed territories are under a form of gangster occupation which hopes the international community will lose interest and reward the results of ethnic cleansing."

Backed by other former Soviet states seeking closer ties with the West, including Ukraine and Moldova, Georgia pushed successfully for discussion of "protracted conflicts" in the region to be included on the General Assembly's agenda. A Russian-backed attempt to block the debate failed by one vote.

The Abkhazians, who speak their own language, declared independence in November 1994 and set up their own government, complete with a president, parliament and Cabinet, but have failed to win recognition from any country. Georgia has maintained an economic blockade -- the only access to the outside world for its 200,000 residents is a 100-yard border crossing with Russia.

Abkhazia's survival, in fact, depends on generous support from Russia, which finances the separatist government and has provided Russian passports to more than 90 percent of its citizens. Russian tourists have started to return to its beaches, and income from tourism last year helped double the local budget to $35 million.

Saakashvili has said that only "peaceful means" will be used to restore Abkhazia to Georgian control, but Abkhazians fear otherwise. They point to Georgian defense expenditures, which surged more than 140 percent last year to $146 million -- the biggest increase worldwide in 2005. Georgian officials say the spending increase is part of the country's plan to modernize the military in its effort to join NATO.

"Why do they need these weapons? What could they be for, except to attack Abkhazia?" Bagapsh said.

Over the summer, Georgia retook control of a strip of Abkhazia called the Kodori Gorge. The move was backed by the Bush administration, but it raised alarm bells among Kremlin-backed Abkhazian officials.

"We fear that the operation in Kodori was only designed to establish a bridgehead for a wider invasion," said Sergei Shamba, Abkhazia's de facto foreign minister.

Indeed, tensions inside Abkhazia have soared since the Georgian operation.

"We are ready to fight them, even if they have the support of the Americans," said Bagapsh. "We have enough weapons, enough soldiers and enough friends to defend our nation."

Russia, meanwhile, has installed hundreds of its soldiers in the region as peacekeepers. Georgia accuses the soldiers of backing the separatists, and the Georgian parliament has called for them to be removed.

After the takeover of the Kodori Gorge, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that Russia would protect its citizens and peacekeepers in Abkhazia "by all available means." Russian forces also conducted a series of extensive military exercises last month along the Georgian border.

In Sukhumi, many Abkhazians believe war is inevitable.

"We don't want to fight, we don't want blood," Astamar Basaria, a 39-year-old unemployed laborer, said as he drank coffee under the shade of a palm tree. "But the Georgians will never accept that we have our own country. And if they try to take it away from us, we will defend our homeland."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/09/24/MNGSSLBNK81.DTL&type=politics