Abkhazia will one day return to Georgia-Saakashvili
Fri Sep 25, 2009 11:25am IST
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS, Sept 25 (Reuters) - The Georgian separatist
zone of Abkhazia, which seceded from Tbilisi last year, will
once again be part of the former Soviet republic, Georgian
President Mikheil Saakashvili told the United Nations.
"It will take time, but Abkhazia will once again be what it
was -- the most wonderful part of Georgia," Saakashvili said in
the written text of a speech to the U.N. General Assembly
released late on Thursday.
Russia crushed a Georgian assault on another separatist
enclave, South Ossetia, in August 2008, sending tanks deep into
Georgian territory and shaking Western confidence in oil and
gas routes running through the South Caucasus.
After the war, both Abkhazia and South Ossetia announced
their secession from Georgia. Only Russia and Nicaragua have
recognized their independence.
Saakashvili has said that he has no pretensions to take
back the two regions by force. But he painted a bleak portrait
of Abkhazia, which is on the eastern coast of the Black Sea,
for the 192-nation Assembly.
"Abkhazia today has been emptied of more than three-fourths
of its population," he said. "Gardens and hotels, theaters and
restaurants have been replaced by military bases and
graveyards."
The West condemned Russia response last year as
"disproportionate," but also faulted Saakashvili's assault on
South Ossetia, which, like Abkhazia, threw off Georgian rule in
wars in the early 1990s.
Russia says it was compelled to act to save civilians and
its peacekeepers. It says Saakashvili is dangerous, but
analysts doubt Moscow has any intention of going to war to oust
him.
Despite a ceasefire by which both sides agreed to withdraw
forces to pre-war positions, Russia has thousands of troops in
South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Tens of thousands of people were displaced on both sides.
Rights groups said Georgian shelling of the South Ossetian
capital Tskhinvali during the war was indiscriminate, and
Russian forces had failed to stop militias from looting and
razing Georgian villages.
A NEW BERLIN WALL?
Saakashvili cited former Czech President Vaclav Havel in
his speech, comparing the presence of Russian troops in his
region to Germany in the Cold War, when the Berlin Wall ran
through a democratic West Berlin and Communist East that was
allied to the Soviet Union.
"As Vaclav Havel and other leading voices of Europe's
conscience declared earlier this week, Europe is today divided
by a new wall, built by an outside force -- a wall that runs
through the middle of Georgia," he said.
He added that that wall "cuts off one-fifth of our
territory."
Saakashvili did not explicitly say that South Ossetia would
also return to Georgian control, though he did say, "We are
resolutely committed to our vision of a sovereign and unified
Georgia."
The South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity issued a statement
in response to Saakashvili's speech that blamed the Georgian
president for last year's war with Russia and said his
territory "will never again be a part of Georgia."
Saakashvili has survived months of protests by opponents
who accuse him of monopolizing power since becoming president
on the back of the 2003 "Rose Revolution."
A U.N. observer mission stationed in Abkhazia since the
early 1990s has had to shut down because Western powers failed
to persuade Russia to back a renewal of its mandate in the
Security Council earlier this year.
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