Discordant Neighbours: A Reassessment of the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-South-Ossetian Conflicts, <\/i><\/b>(Leiden: Brill, 2013, 389pp.)<\/b><\/p>\n
The UN Human Rights Report 2004 <\/i>offers a survey of methods used for state formation beyond killing and expulsion:<\/p>\n Variations and combinations of all these techniques including killing and expulsion have been tried in the Caucasus both by Joseph Stalin who as Commissar of Nationalities was particularly interested in nationality policies and by his successors.\u00a0 George Hewitt, a linguist\u00a0 and historian, has focused on Georgia and its recent relations with Abkhasia and South Ossetia, but the shadows of violence and ethnic-based demands in Chechenia and Dagistan as well as the continuing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabagh are part of the same story. \u201cThe narrow isthmus separating the Black Sea from the Caspian Sea is famed not only for housing the mighty Caucasian mountain range…but also for being one of the most complex ethno-linguistic regions on earth. \u201c<\/p>\n This has led to political policies, which, as one author wrote \u201cAll nations want to be ruled by people of their own kind, even if they are unkind and prefer their own to a kind majority of the other.\u201d<\/p>\n While the roots of the Georgia-Abkhazia tensions go back to the Russian Revolution and the short-lived Menshevik Republics before being incorporated into the Soviet Union, it was in 1992, shortly after the independence of Georgia that Abkhazia drew world attention.<\/p>\n After the erratic rule of Zviad Gamsakurdia, the first president of Georgia after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Eduard Shevardnadze had become president.\u00a0 He was well known at the United Nations for his efforts as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mikhail Gorbachev.\u00a0 On 14 August 1992, Georgian troops moved into Sukhum, the capital of Abkhazia, which had had different degrees of autonomy within Georgia depending on the period and overall Soviet policy.<\/p>\n Different reasons have been advanced as to why Shevardnadze (or his circle) took what he knew was a risky move to quash Abkhazia’s autonomy once and for all through military means when negotiations on the status of Abkhazia were going on.\u00a0 Most Abkhazian authorities left Sukhum to organize a resistance movement, helped by neighbors such as the Chechen who were part of the Confederation of Mountain People of the Caucasus.<\/p>\n Despite some ceasefires and efforts of UN mediation led by the Swiss Ambassador Eduard Brunner, fighting lasted for over a year until the end of September 1993. During this time a good number of people fled or were pushed out of Abkhazia. Refugees and their possible return or compensation have been an issue between Georgia and the independent government of Abkhazia.\u00a0 The fighting led to a rapid economic decline of Georgia.\u00a0 There was little Abkhazian economy to decline.<\/p>\n Had there not been armed violence, there might have been other possibilities for association than the current status of two independent States on bad terms.\u00a0 There had been proposed a number of federal or con-federal forms of association, but the possibilities were swept away by violence.<\/p>\n The same pattern was largely followed in Georgian-South Ossetian relations.\u00a0 At the start, the demands of the South Ossetians were more to be united with North Ossetia, part of the Russian Federation.\u00a0 However, again in August but of 2008, the president of Georgia, then the young and dynamic Mikheil Saakashvili decided to put an end to the troubled status of South Ossetia by sending in troops. However, the Russian troops stationed in nearby North Ossetia quickly intervened.<\/p>\n Again, South Ossetia is now an\u00a0 independent country on bad terms with Georgia.\u00a0 Both Abkhazia and South Ossetia are recognized by few major States beyond the Russian Federation, but independence of both countries came in ways that will prevent for political and psychological reasons any form of federation or integration with Georgia.\u00a0 As Hewitt notes \u201cHad the Georgian leadership proposed restructuring along federal lines, with meaningful power devolved to the regions (especially those where the main minorities resided) as Georgia moved from Soviet republic to independence, the transition might have been achieved harmoniously, as even the Abkhazians seemed ready for such a relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n Creating new types of political association takes time, goodwill and a willingness to compromise, to do with \u201cless than the best\u201d.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the years of Soviet rule did not create these traits in the leadership of the republics now become independent, nor within the ethnic-based regions within the new republics as we see currently in Ukraine.\u00a0 Hewitt’s book is a solid, detailed analysis of the events and will be essential reading for those who follow the Caucasus and federal structures.<\/p>\n _____________________________<\/p>\n Ren\u00e9 Wadlow, a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and of its Task Force on the Middle East, is president and U.N. representative (Geneva) of the Association of\u00a0World\u00a0Citizens. He is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Creating new types of political association takes time, goodwill and a willingness to compromise, to do with \u201cless than the best\u201d. Unfortunately, the years of Soviet rule did not create these traits in the leadership of the republics now become independent, nor within the ethnic-based regions within the new republics as we see currently in Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41619\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n