The article describes Russia’s ”occupation “ of Abkhazia and
South Ossetia, thereby naively accepting the Georgian argument that
treats them as parts of Georgia. This prejudges the issue and presents
the American readership with a simplistic conclusion about a problem in
the far-distant Caucasus, which few in the West can probably locate on
a map, let alone properly understand.
No doubt, it is a
difficult lesson to learn that it was Georgian troops who crossed the
Georgian-Abkhazian border along the River Ingur when they invaded
Abkhazia on 14 August 1992 to fight a 13-month war to subjugate us
Abkhazians. The Abkhazian nation survived despite the attempt of the
Georgian establishment to rid itself of our nation for the impudence we
had shown in refusing to adopt Georgian nationality.
David
Bakradze, Chairman of the Parliament of Georgia, shamelessly plays with
words and seeks to take advantage of his readers' poor knowledge of
Caucasian history in this attempt to hoodwink them.
Russia has
already recognized Georgia without Abkhazia and South Ossetia. We are
all completely satisfied with the new reality, for both we and our
South Ossetian friends have finally released ourselves from the
Georgian yoke.
What can possibly lie behind the United
States' blind determination to maintain the territorial integrity of
Georgia within its Soviet frontiers, frontiers which were set by Joseph
Stalin, Georgian national? What aspect of the Georgian government's
authoritarianism or the anti-minority nationalism that has so long
scarred that country, which nevertheless manages to appeal to its many
Western visitors, can conceivably reflect American ideals?
Georgia
extended in Stalin's time to absorb both those Abkhazians who had
survived the Great Caucasian War with Russia in the XIX century,
declining to flee to the Ottoman Empire for refuge, and the South
Ossetians
Mr. Bakradze presents a very superficial approach
to the extremely serious and sensitive issues relating to the conflicts
between Abkhazia or South Ossetia and the former Soviet Socialist
Republic of Georgia, which was forcibly put together in Stalin`s time
and which was so unstable that it collapsed right after the
disintegration of the USSR.
It is utterly reprehensible to
suggest any parallelism between what is happening today in Abkhazia and
South Ossetia in the wake of the events of August 2008 and the Berlin
Wall, which for almost 30 years kept apart members of a single nation
for the sake of a disgusting ideology.
We would respectfully
remind both Mr. Bakradze and his readers of the recent EU Commission's
report on the August 2008 fighting. The Report observed that Georgian
troops had been deployed in Abkhazia's Kodor Valley (now back under
Abkhazian control) in July 2006 in violation of the Moscow Agreement of
May 1994; however, the Report signally failed to mention the quantity
and nature of the ordinance stored there (for what purpose?) by the
Georgian forces.
Such, then, might be the values to which Mr.
Bakradze and his government adhere, but are they truly describable as
“the same values" as those espoused by his American readers, who might
hesitate to proclaim them to be "worth defending”?
Asida Chichba and Liudmila Agrba
Abkhaz Civil Society Activists
Sukhum, ABKHAZIA
http://www.abkhazworld.com/articles/analysis/330
