On the Political Relations between Abkhazia and Georgia in the Pre-War Period (1988 to 1992), by Aslan Avidzba

This article traces the political confrontation between Abkhazia and Georgia across the four years that preceded the war, beginning with the 'Abkhazian Letter' of June 1988, which raised the question of restoring Abkhazia's status as a union republic, and ending with the Georgian invasion of 14 August 1992. Between those two dates it follows the Lykhny assembly of March 1989 and the bloodshed that summer, the declaration of Abkhazian sovereignty in August 1990 and the 'war of laws' it provoked, the rupture over the all-Union referendum of March 1991, the quota-based elections to the Supreme Council, the fall of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the entry of Georgian National Guard units into Abkhazia, and the steady militarisation of Georgian policy after the Tashkent agreement divided the Soviet armed forces. Its argument is stated without qualification. Georgian troops crossed into Abkhazia a few hours before the Abkhazian parliament was due to debate a draft treaty with Tbilisi, and the purpose of that invasion was the forcible preservation of Abkhazia's colonial status.

The article was first published in Russian by ApsnyPress in 2012. Translated into English by AbkhazWorld.com.

Aslan Avidzba is an Abkhazian historian and Doctor of Historical Sciences, specialising in the modern history of Abkhazia. He fought in the Patriotic War of the People of Abkhazia of 1992 to 1993 with the 1st Separate Mountain Rifle Company, and his doctoral dissertation, defended in 2016, addressed the military and political history of that war. He heads the History Department of the Dmitry Gulia Abkhazian Institute for Humanitarian Studies and is a professor in the Department of History, Archaeology and Ethnology of Abkhazia at Abkhazian State University. This article was written in 2012.

On the Political Relations between Abkhazia and Georgia in the Pre-War Period (1988 to 1992)

The beginning of the latest round of confrontation between Abkhazia and Georgia was brought about by the political and socio-economic changes taking place in the Soviet Union during the second half of the 1980s. At that time, against the background of the serious processes of disintegration then under way in the USSR, Georgia intensified its policy of dissolving the Abkhaz within the Georgian ethno-cultural environment, a policy which the Abkhaz naturally resisted.

The starting point of this new stage in the Abkhazian people's struggle for self-preservation was the 'Abkhazian Letter' of 17 June 1988, which raised the question of restoring to Abkhazia the status of a Union Socialist Republic. An identical demand was put forward by the popular assembly held in the village of Lykhny on 18 March 1989. That assembly was the first major action of the People's Forum of Abkhazia 'Aidgylara', whose founding congress had taken place in Sukhum on 13 December 1988.

The events in Abkhazia, and the Lykhny Appeal in particular, served as the pretext for a rally lasting several days that was convened in Tbilisi at the beginning of April. The true aims of its organisers, however, extended far beyond the 'Abkhazian problem'. This is borne out by the fact that the preliminary conclusion of the investigative sub-commission of the Georgian Supreme Council's commission on the events of 9 April in Tbilisi, a document consisting of twenty-seven points, mentions neither Abkhazia nor the 'Abkhazian question'.

On 6 May a sit-in strike began in Sukhum among students of the Georgian sector of the Abkhazian State University, who demanded the creation of a Sukhum branch of Tbilisi State University. On 14 May this demand was granted by a decision of the Georgian authorities. In response, on 15 May Abkhaz gathered in Sukhum to protest against the opening of the branch, which they regarded as an intensification of Georgian expansion into Abkhazia. The confrontation ultimately reached its climax, and on the night of 15 to 16 July clashes broke out between Georgians and Abkhaz in which, according to official figures, seventeen people were killed.

These events acted as the detonator for the creation, on 26 August 1989, of the Assembly of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus (AMPC), which became a restraining factor in the Abkhaz-Georgian confrontation.

On 25 August 1990 the Supreme Council of Abkhazia adopted the resolution 'On Legal Guarantees for the Protection of Abkhazia's Statehood', which stated that 'the lawful form of Abkhazia's statehood is the SSR of Abkhazia'. At that same session a Declaration was also adopted, in accordance with which the state sovereignty of Abkhazia was proclaimed.

The following day, on 26 August, the Presidium of the Supreme Council of Georgia declared the Declaration and the resolution of the Supreme Council of Abkhazia 'invalid and devoid of legal force'. This act by the Georgian authorities marked the beginning of the 'war of laws' between Georgia and Abkhazia.

On 4 December Vladislav Ardzinba was elected Chairman of the Supreme Council of Abkhazia, an event that raised the Abkhazian people's struggle for self-determination to a qualitatively new level.

On 16 January 1991 the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a resolution on the holding, on 17 March, of a referendum on the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

On 28 February the Supreme Council of Georgia resolved not to hold the all-Union referendum, but to conduct instead a referendum on the restoration of Georgia's independence. On that same day the Supreme Council of Abkhazia, by contrast, adopted a resolution to hold the all-Union referendum. This led to a sharp aggravation of the contradictions not only between Georgia and Abkhazia, but also between the supporters and the opponents of the referendum within Abkhazia itself.

Despite serious opposition, the all-Union referendum did take place in Abkhazia. The supporters of the poll on Georgian independence likewise declared their own victory.

Between 23 April and 23 July 1991 the sittings of the Commission for the preparation of a new Union Treaty were held. Abkhazia took part in the Novo-Ogaryovo process, while Georgia became a co-founder of the 'Kishinev Forum', which brought together those republics opposed to the Union.

On the night of 18 to 19 August an attempted coup d'état was mounted in Moscow, and its principal ideologues were opponents of the new Union Treaty.

In response to the demand for obedience issued by the State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP), Zviad Gamsakhurdia signed a decree disbanding the National Guard of Georgia and incorporating it into the structures of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. Its commander, Tengiz Kitovani, however, refused to comply, and the National Guard turned into an armed opposition.

Meanwhile, the term of office of the Supreme Council of Abkhazia had already expired in February 1990. The situation was complicated by the fact that, as a result of historical cataclysms, the proportion of Abkhaz in Abkhazia had been artificially reduced to 17 per cent. Under such conditions, to proceed to direct elections would have been tantamount to suicide, since they would have left the Abkhaz unable to influence the decisions taken in their own parliament.

In the course of negotiations between Tbilisi and Sukhum on the drafting of an electoral law, the Abkhazian side proposed a draft providing for the creation of a bicameral parliament consisting of a Council of the Republic and a Council of Nationalities.

This draft, however, was rejected by the Georgian side. Thanks to a 'gentlemen's agreement', at the session of the Supreme Council of Abkhazia on 9 July an Electoral Law was adopted which provided for the allocation of quotas: 28 seats to the Abkhaz as the indigenous people, 26 to the Georgians and 11 to the Russian-speaking population. At the next session, held on 27 August against the background of the failed putsch, the deputies adopted an amendment to the electoral law. Article 2 specified precisely the numbers of those constituencies in which candidates could be nominated from one particular nationality alone. In all, after every round of voting, 64 deputies were elected to the Supreme Council of Abkhazia: 28 Abkhaz and 25 Georgians. Of the remaining deputies, 6 supported the Georgian side and 5 the Abkhazian side.

On 29 December 1991, against the background of the dissolution of the USSR and the continuing 'Tbilisi Revolution', two bodies were created: the Separate Regiment of the Internal Troops of Abkhazia, which was subordinated personally to Vladislav Ardzinba, and a Provisional Council for coordinating the activity of, and transferring the subordination of, the military and militia units stationed on the territory of Abkhazia.

On 6 January 1992 the 'Tbilisi Revolution' ended with the seizure of the bunker of the Government House, in which Zviad Gamsakhurdia had taken refuge. Power in Georgia passed to the Military Council, formed as early as 1 January, which on 2 January had already taken the decision to terminate the operation of the Constitution of the Georgian SSR.

On 6 January the first sitting of the newly elected Supreme Council of Abkhazia took place. The deputies elected Vladislav Ardzinba as Chairman, Tamaz Nadareishvili as his first deputy and A. Topolyan as deputy. The work of parliament, however, was complicated by the coup d'état in Georgia. Life in Abkhazia was paralysed by endless rallies, marches and demonstrations, whose participants demanded the return to power of the lawful President of Georgia.

On 4 February a unit of the Georgian National Guard was brought into Abkhazia to combat the Zviadists. Once there, however, the Georgian guardsmen occupied themselves with quite different matters: looting, robbery, brigandage and murder. They then made a forced march in 'Ikarus' buses to the river Psou, where a 'theatrical performance' was staged, complete with the kissing of the 'native soil' and the ritual drinking of water from a 'Georgian' river.

On 7 March Eduard Shevardnadze flew into Tbilisi, and on 10 March the State Council of Georgia was created under his chairmanship. On 11 March, meanwhile, the Progressive Democratic Union of Abkhazia (PDUA) was established in Sukhum, its aim being to overcome the differences among the Georgian organisations in Abkhazia and to consolidate them for the struggle against 'Abkhazian separatism'.

On 3 April the troops of the Georgian State Council approached the border of Abkhazia, where on 5 April armed clashes took place in which D. Agrba, a serviceman of the Separate Regiment of the Internal Troops of Abkhazia, was killed.

On 5 May the session of the Supreme Council addressed the question of the head of the Abkhazian government. The Georgian deputies put forward the candidacy of G. Lominadze, which failed to secure support in a secret ballot. The candidacy of V. Zarandia was then proposed. In response the Georgian deputies once again walked out of the chamber, but unlike similar démarches undertaken earlier, this time they never returned to it. On 9 May the Council of National Unity was created, which brought together all the Georgian organisations of Abkhazia with the exception of the 'Round Table'.

The Minister of Internal Affairs, G. Lominadze, relieved of his post at the session of 8 May, refused to vacate his official office. He declared, moreover, that the minister ought to be a Georgian, and placed his personnel on a barracks footing. All of this sharply aggravated an already difficult situation. Tensions were further inflamed by the fact that the Georgian deputies, together with the PDUA, had begun to form parallel structures of power in Abkhazia.

Meanwhile, as early as 15 May the former republics of the USSR had signed an agreement in Tashkent under which they divided the Soviet armed forces between themselves. It was, in all likelihood, the content of this treaty that allowed Eduard Shevardnadze to declare, on the night of 11 to 12 August: 'Georgia now has a fairly numerous armed army; it also has weapons enough.' From that moment on, this circumstance played the dominant role in the formulation and implementation of Georgia's policy towards Abkhazia.

On 23 July the Supreme Council of Abkhazia adopted the resolution 'On the Termination of the Operation of the Constitution of the Abkhazian ASSR of 1978'. Point 5 of the Constitution stated: 'Abkhazia is a sovereign state, exercising state power on its own territory independently and free of any other authority.' The session also adopted a new name for the country: the Republic of Abkhazia.

From 24 to 31 July Vladislav Ardzinba paid a visit to Turkey, which gave a powerful impetus to the movement of the Abkhazian diaspora in support of the historical homeland, something that became clearly apparent after the beginning of the Georgian aggression against Abkhazia.

On 31 July Georgia was admitted to the United Nations, which untied its hands with regard to Abkhazia.

+ The Patriotic War in Abkhazia (1992–1993), by Aslan Avidzba

+ The War in Abkhazia, 1992–1993: A Critical Response to G. Zhorzholiani’s “Reliable Facts”, by Aslan Avidzba

+ Full book: 'Mobilizing in Uncertainty: Collective Identities and War in Abkhazia'

+ Full book: Discordant Neighbours: A Reassessment of the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-South Ossetian Conflicts, by George Hewitt

On 11 August twelve representatives of the Georgian State Council were seized in Zugdidi. On 12 August a rally was held in Tbilisi which issued an ultimatum to those who had abducted the hostages and were allegedly holding them in Abkhazia; the ultimatum expired on 13 August. The Georgian Minister of Defence was thereupon 'entrusted with conducting operations to liquidate criminal groups, to guard the roads and to free the hostages'.

At the very time when preparations for war were under way in Georgia, on 12 August, the Supreme Council of Abkhazia approached the State Council of Georgia with a proposal to conclude a Treaty. The draft of this treaty was to have been discussed on 14 August at a session of the Supreme Council of Abkhazia. That session never took place, because a few hours before it was due to open Georgian troops invaded Abkhazia. The aim of the invasion was the forcible preservation of Abkhazia's colonial status, which 'constitutes a grave international crime entailing the international responsibility of the colonising state'. At the time, however, nobody, apart from the Abkhaz themselves and their brothers from the North Caucasus, so much as recalled human rights, the right of a nation to self-determination, or the other inalienable rights and freedoms enshrined in numerous instruments of international law.

Certain authors repeat, and press upon their readers, the notion that it was Ardzinba and the Abkhaz who started the war. Yet such a view can be imposed only upon those readers who, for one reason or another, prove unable or unwilling to keep company with simple logic: on 14 August 1992 it was Georgian troops that were halted at the Abkhazian capital, and not Abkhazian formations that were halted on the territory of Georgia.

And Vladislav Ardzinba's call to resist the Georgian aggression became the first stone in the monument to Abkhazian freedom!

Abkhazia won that war on 14 August 1992, the very day it began!