The ethno-demographic aspect of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict, by Teymuraz A. Achugba

CONFERENCE

Abkhazia in the Context of Contemporary International Relations
Pitsunda, The Republic of Abkhazia: June 29 - July 1, 2004

The ethno-demographic aspect of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict
by Teymuraz A. Achugba

The Georgian-Abkhaz conflict is one of the most intractable of all the post-Soviet conflicts. The historic origins of this confrontation are inextricably connected to the ethno-demographic cataclysms in Abkhazia at the end of the 19th century: the mass deportation of the Abkhaz and the ensuing colonization of Abkhazia.[1] The ethno-demographic aspect, namely, the ratio of different ethnic groups in the total population of Abkhazia largely determined the character of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict and the levels of tension in it. It was the demographic dominance of Georgians in Abkhazia, resulting from the artificial resettlement of Georgians and the ‘Georgianisation’ of some of the Abkhaz, which became the decisive factor transforming the Georgian-Abkhaz confrontation into a full scale war between Abkhazia and Georgia. The ethno-demographic factor still plays a significant role at the present stage of the G-A conflict resolution. Even today Georgia cannot accept the loss of political control over Abkhazia, nor the exodus from Abkhazia of the majority of its Georgian population who formed the military and political foundation of its colonial regime in Abkhazia.

It all began when the vast majority of the Abkhaz were expelled into the Ottoman empire, as a result of the tsarist Russia’s colonial policies in the Caucasus. Abkhazia became the object of mass colonization. The Russian Empire intended to populate the abandoned Abkhaz lands, known at the time as the ‘Black Sea’s dead coast’[2] with mainly Russian settlers who were the most reliable category of settlers, both militarily and politically. It soon turned out, however, that for a variety of reasons – geographical, climatic, cultural and others, the Russian peasant settlers were not destined to become the dominant population of Abkhazia. The inhabitants of the neighbouring Georgia were quick to seize the opportunity to settle Abkhaz lands.

It was during this process of developing and settling the lands abandoned by the indigenous peoples of the Caucasus (the Abkhaz, Ubykh, Adyg etc) that the Georgian intelligentsia began to acquire its colonial mentality. Back in 1873 the Georgian writer and collumnist Georgii Tsereteli explained to the readers of his newspaper that the whole of the Caucasus was the native land of the Georgians, or ‘Georgian land.’[3] In 1879 the same author expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that Russia ‘was trying to appropriate the deserted lands of our Caucasus along the Caspian and Black Sea coasts, which used to be occupied by the Georgian nation’.[4] In fact, he was speaking of the demographic expansion of the Georgians into Abkhazia and the assimilation of those Abkhaz, who had escaped exile, with a view to appropriate their native land/motherland.

It is a paradox, that the actions taken by the dependent Georgia, aimed at the resettlement of the Georgian population in Abkhazia and the process of the ‘Georgianisation’ of the Abkhaz, pursued long term political aims – to incorporate Abkhazia into the future Georgian state. At the turn of the century this aspiration was shared by many Georgian parties: the Constitutional Democratic Party[5], the Social Federative Party[6], the Social Democratic Party[7] etc.

The resettlement of Georgians in Abkhazia took place on a mass scale. It was no accident that the Georgian newspaper ‘Shroma’ considered Georgian acquisition of the land in Abkhazia and Circassiya as ‘one of the most wonderful events’ in the life of the Georgian nation.[8] On 4 Feburary 1879 another newspaper, the ‘Droeba’, urged its readers: ‘Let us expand while there is still time to do it, before other peoples come and settle the empty spaces of our Caucasus.’ While the aforementioned issue of ‘Shroma’ pleaded with its readers: ‘Send us lots of Rachintsy, Lechkhumtsians, Upper Imeretians and Mingrelians from our mountainous regions!’[9]

Overall, according to reports in the Georgian press, by the end of 19th century the Mingrelians and Imeretians occupied ‘best lands’ in the Sukhum okrug[10] . Even on the public land settled by the Russian, German, Mingrelian, Greek, Estonian, Armenian and other ‘colonists’, Mingrelians constituted’ if not the largest, then the second largest nationality.’[11]

This was the process of turning the mono-ethnic Abkhazia into a multiethnic [land]. Hand in hand with the settlement of the land, went measures to assimilate the Abkhaz. On the insistence of the Georgian public services were held and classed taught in Georgian in the majority of the churches and church schools in Abkhazia. Moreoever, Georgian priests used to change the names of the newborn and repeatedly baptized Abkhaz babies, or simply register them according to the Mingrelian fashion. For example, they would change Abkhaz surnames adding the endings ‘aia’, ‘ia’, ‘va’ etc.[12]

In order to carry out the ‘Georginisation’ of the Abkhaz and their country, the history of the indigenous population of Abkhazia was falsified. According to the author of the 1907 book ‘Abkhazia is not Georgia’ ‘in recent times a whole range of Georgian authors have addressed the Russian public with booklets and articles, proving that the Abkhaz live on the Georgian coast of the Black Sea and that Abkhazia is a province of Georgia, while the Abkhaz language and people are of Georgian origin.’[13] Written sources dating back to the beginning of the 20th century testify to Abkhaz dissatisfaction with these Georgian actions in Abkhazia. For instance, there is a reference to one occasion when the new head of the Sukhum okrug, an ethnic Georgian called Djandieri, ‘demanded that the Abkhaz should declare that they expressly wish to have their local self government carried out in Georgian’, the Abkhaz refused to do this. Moreover, they came fully armed to Sukhum and announced that if the Georgians ‘did not stop the revolution they were going to cut their throats’. Although this threat calmed down passions in Sukhum and Georgia, Djandieri recommended eight Abkhaz princes for deportation, as a punishment for these actions.[14]

The new wave of Georgian settlement of Abkhazia continued to the turn of the century. It acquired a more organized and purposeful nature with the restoration of Georgian sovereignty in 1918. Immediately after the occupation of Abkhazia in June 1918, the Georgian Menshevik authorities used repressive measures against the Abkhaz in order to start an organized resettlement of Georgian peasants from different regions of Georgia in Abkhazia. The specially created resettlement departments in Tbilisi and Sukhum, financed by the Georgian government, allocated available land plots to the new settlers as a matter of urgency. They also expelled Greeks and Armenians from Abkhazia, buying their houses, estates and other property at low prices.[15]

After the establishment of the Soviet rule in Abkhazia and the creation of the independent Soviet Socialist Republic on 31 March 1921, the mass influx of Georgian settlers into Abkhazia was temporarily stalled.

However, in 1931 after the Abkhaz SSR was incorporated into the Georgian SSR, as an autonomous entity, the process of artificial assimilation of the indigenous population of Abkhazia again became more active, together with the planned resettlement of Georgians, Mingrelians and Svans with the knowledge and the support of the highest echelons of Soviet political power. As a result, the Georgian authorities succeeded in changing the ethnodemographic situation in favour of the Georgians. The Abkhazpereselnstroj resettlement department which functioned for almost two decades built over 50 large settlements in Abkhazia. [16] Georgian settlers who served as envoys of the smaller Georgian empire, became a tool for the colonisation and Georgianisation indigenous population of Abkhazia. There is no doubt that the geography and the structure of Georgian settlements in Ochamchiry, Gudauty and Gagry - regions with the predominantly Abkhaz population, the compact nature of these settlements, their monoethnic character, their position inside and in between the Abkhaz villages, along car and railway routes etc, fulfilled the de-ethnisizing function in the times of peace. It acquired a military and strategic dimension when the Abkhaz showed resistance against the assimilatory practices of the Georgian authorities. All this would be considered genocide under modern international law. In the period of 20 years between the 1939 and 1959 General Census, the number of Georgians in Abkhazia increased by 66.2 thousand people. This was 5 thousand more than the increase in the numbers of the Abkhaz who lived on their historic native land at the time. It is worth noting that from 1886 and until 1959, i.e., over a period of 73 years, the number of the Abkhaz living in Abkhazia increased by 2.2 thousand people, while the Georgians, Mingrelians and Svans – by 154.2 thousand people (see table).

Under the Soviet regime, like in Tsarist Russia, representatives of many ethnic groups - Russians, Armenians, Greeks, Laz, Ukrainians, Estonians, Turks, Tatars and others - were keen to settle in Abkhazia. In the 1940s, however, Germans, Turks, Tatars, Greeks and Laz were exiled by the Stalinist regime to Central Asia and Kazakhstan, as well as to some regions in Siberia. Their houses and flats, together with the rest of their property, were given to the new settlers from Georgia, free of charge. After the rehabilitation of the repressed peoples in 1956 the Georgian authorities tried to opposed their return to Abkhazia. For example, the majority of the Greeks were not allowed to go back. For information: according to official statistics in 1939there were 34.6 thousand Greeks in Abkhazia, but only 9.1 thousand of them remained in 1959. The entire repressed nations of Turks, Tatars and Germans were not allowed to go back to Abkhazia, whereas only those Laz who officially changed their ethnisity from Laz to Georgian were allowed back. Earlier, at the end of 1930s, the 40 thousand Abkhaz, as well as Mingrelians and Svans who lived in the Gali region , were registered as Georgians, unbeknown to them. Therefore, unlike the 1886, 1897 and 1926 census, later censuses lack information about Mingrelians, Svans and Laz.[17]

The settlement of Abkhazia by representatives of other nationalities, in particular, the Georgians, continued, although the process was not as active as in Stalin’s time. The strategic course for demographic expansion pursued by the Georgian authorities remained unchanged – namely, to solve the problem of the final annexation of Abkhazia by reducing to the minimum the proportion of the Abkhaz in the overall population of the republic.

The last general census, held in 1989, once again demonstrated that the rate of growth of the Georgian population was much higher the rate of growth of the Abkhaz. According to the 1989 census, there were 93.3 thousand Abkhaz and 239.9 thousand Georgians in the republic. In other words, compared with the previous census (1979), the proportion of the former increased from 17.1% to 17.8%, while the proportion of the latter – from 43.9% to 45.7%. The proportion of Russians, Armenians, Greeks and other nationalities decreased both as a result of their slow expulsion from Abkhazia, and of the artificial boosting of the Georgian population. Due to the exodus of the representatives of non-Georgian ethnic groups from Abkhazia to other republics, their numbers in 1990-1991 decreased by another 6.7 thousand people.[18]

With the collapse of the Soviet Union these trends in the ethnodemographic process in Abkhzia were openly encouraged by the Georgian authorities.Under their direct patronage Georgian ultranationalist parties and movements blackmailed the non-Georgian population, forcing them to sell their houses and flats and leave the republic. There is no doubt that the first and foremost motive for the Georgian-Abkaz confrontation in June 1989, provoked by the Georgian leadership, was to ‘cleanse’ Abkhazia of all the non-Georgians, including the Abkhaz. In the majority of cases the former homes of those expelled were purchased by a variety of public bodies (the Georgian Demographic Society , the Kostava Foundation and so on) with the financial, administrative and legal assistance of the Georgian government. The aim was to sell them on to Georgian nationals brought over to Abkhazia. In order to carry out an organized immigration of people to Abkhazia a number of illegal immigration bodies operated in Abkhazia from 1989: the Immigration/Resettlement Committee of the Abkhaz region and the All Georgia Committee for large and landless families.[19]

Subsequent changes in the ethnodemographic situation in Abkhazia according to the plan set by the regime should have brought the leaders of the Georgian chauvinists to their cherished dream – to exceed the 50% threshold in the ratio of the Georgian population in Abkhazia. This would have allowed them to resolve cultural, ethnic and political problems such as the ‘Georgianisation’ of the Abkhaz, abolition of Abkhaz statehood and incorporation of Abkhazia into the unitary Georgian state.

The collapse of the Soviet Union, however, untied the hands of aggressive nationalists in Georgia to take more radical steps. In their haste to accelerate the events and relying on the huge mass of the Georgian population in Abkhazia they decided to finalise the ‘Abkhaz problem’ by means of military aggression. The G-A war (1992-1993), unleashed by the Georgian government, was a real humanitarian catastrophe for the multiethnic population of Abkhazia.[20] The Georgian military and political leaders adhering to the principle ‘Abkhazia without the Abkhaz’ were carrying out a premeditated extermination of the Abkhaz people as such. The commander-in-chief of the Georgian occupation forces in Abkhazia G.Karkarashvili said in his TV address on 25 August 1992 that he intended to exterminate the whole 97 thousand of the Abkhaz. The colonel’s statement was backed up by deeds. The occupation forces did not spare anyone: neither children, nor women, nor old people; they erased all traces of Abkhaz settlements. At the same time they were expelling representatives of other non-Georgian nationalities from Abkhazia.

As for the Georgian population of Abkhazia, the vast majority of them, as expected, took an active part in the war on the Georgian government’s side.[21] The Georgian military units set up before the war comprised of local young people and Georgian members of the Ministry of the Interior joined the regular Georgian army and police forces on the very first day. A wide scale recruitment campaign was started to set up new units staffed with local Georgians. One of the leaders of the Georgian population in Abkhazia, an active supporter of the Georgian intervention, reported with glee at the beginning of their military campaign that the ‘intervention of the Georgian army units has cheered up the Georgian population. We are now hopeful that we are not alone. Events of 14 August have put all Georgians – Zviadists or not – on the same side of the barricades!’[22]

Numerous documents left behind by Georgian forces are a testimony to the fact that dozens of battalions and companies, comprised of local Georgians, were used against the Abkhaz. It is worth noting that if at the beginning of the military campaign the bulk of the occupation forces consisted of Georgians coming from all over Georgia, gradually their number decreased due to the active involvement of local commissariats [military conscription units]. By the beginning of 1993 the 23d and 24th mechanised units, the whole of the 2nd army corps of the Georgian forces as well as the police units which constituted the basis of the Georgian military machine in Abkhazia, were staffed almost entirely by the local Georgians. The inhabitants of the Georgian settlements created in Stalin’s time were particularly active in setting up local military units and were noted for their violence and cruelty.

The Georgian settlers, brainwashed by the aggressive ideologues of Georgian nationalism carried out premeditated, ethnically motivated murders, looting, tortures, mostly against the Abkhaz. Their aggressive nationalism and xenophobia, condoned by the Georgian government, reached unprecedented levels. Mass murders, burning of people alive, rape, tortures, unprecedented in their cruelty, became a common occurrence. During this premeditated annihilation of the Abkhaz, the Georgians, as a rule, did not spare even their own neighbours, acquaintances, childhood friends and former classmates. All these actions were directed at cleansing Abkhazia and purging the Abkhaz. The Georgian press itself, a faithful servant of the Georgian strategic interests to restore the former minor empire, did not attempt to hide the terrible results of this ethnic cleansing in the occupied territories. The Shansi newspaper wrote, for example: ‘ We examined the battlefield in Stary Kyndgy. There is no village any more, just the charred remains of what was a village. Burnt down houses, trees, desecrated graves, no signs of life. Not a soul, no cattle, large or small. Not even a stray dog. In short, there is not much to say, it felt like Khatyn [a Belarus village burnt to the ground by the Nazis during the Second World War]. Although this is just a beginning, Kindgy is fiction/fantasy compared with Tamysh.’[23]

In order to exterminate the Abkhaz as a nation and as a state, the occupation forces used the Georgian population for a variety of purposes and not purely as a military tool. Practically all the Georgians, who had worked in the public sector, industry, various state departments and organizations joined the aggressors with enthusiasm. A military regime was introduced in numerous enterprises, factories, academic and other establishments. They began the production of armaments, ammunition, military uniforms etc. The police, prosecutor’s offices and the courts began to ‘enforce law and order’ Georgian-style – i.e. to punish the Abkhaz and to pardon the Georgians. The so-called ‘capture groups’ and ‘ filtration units’ arrested innocent civilians. The Abkhaz were being hunted down, removed from their homes, picked up in the streets and taken to different ‘headquarters’, where they would be beaten up. Some died; others disappeared without trace; others miraculously survived, but the experience had left them morally and physically handicapped.[24]

Georgian authorities and their puppet structures in Abkhazia paid particular attention to the ‘Georgianisation’ of the occupied territory. Apart from the methodic and purposeful process of turning multiethnic settlements into purely Georgian villages and townships, the Georgian ‘partiots’ were at pains to change street names a la Georgian.[25] Some official documents used the term “Abkhaz region’ or even “Sukhumi region’ instead of Abkhazia.[26] During the war the media, as well as various meetings and demonstrations emphasized that Abkhazia was an inseparable part of Georgia, while the Abkhaz were arrivals from beyond the mountains, occupants of Georgian land, with whom there could be no coexistence in the future.[27]

All these actions were masterminded and carried out by local Georgians, without the need of any prompting from above. They could not hide their joy at the fact that the ancient dream of the Georgian nation’s ‘forefathers’, including those of the 20th century, to appropriate Abkhazia, was coming true.
As a result of the genocide and ethnic cleansing, there was hardly any Abkhaz population remaining in the occupied territories, including the towns of Sukhum, Gagra and Ochamchira. The overall numbers of non-Georgians had also significantly reduced.

The active part played by the local Georgian population in the war and crimes committed by them against the Abkhaz decided the exodus of the majority of the Georgians from Abkhazia after the defeat of the Georgian army. The Georgian press had mentioned such a scenario at the very onset of the hostilities. “If the forces are withdrawn from Abkhazia before the settlement is achieved, the whole Georgian population – all the 250 thousand of them - would follow.”[28]

The Georgian side artificially inflates the number of Georgian refugees from Abkhazia to 300 000, following the principle ‘the end justifies the means’. The exaggerated estimates of IDPs and the complaints of the Georgian authorities about their poor living conditions, is one of the levers to exert political and moral pressure on the international community and on the Abkhaz authorities. In other words, while there are Georgian refugees, there is an Abkhaz problem/issue.’ One of the Council of Europe’s documents on Georgia clearly states that “Georgia considers that any improvement in the living conditions of the refugees would weaken the international pressure exerted on the Abkhaz authorities and as such would deprive them of any chances of ever going back.”[29] In reality, however, the number of Georgians living in Abkhazia in 1989 was nearing 200 thousand people, not 240 thousand, as stated in the reports of that year’s General Census (in other words, about 40 thousand Abkhaz had been counted as Georgians). At present there are around 80 thousand Kartvels (Georgians, Mingrelians and Svans) in Abkhazia, whereas the number of the Kartvelian population remaining outside Abkhazia is around 120 thousand. One has to bear in mind, however, that half of those live abroad, either in near abroad, mostly, Russia, or overseas. Moreover, the majority of these Georgians - former inhabitants of Abkhazia – have been granted Georgian, Russian, Ukrainian and other citizenships – therefore relinquishing their refugee status.

At present therefore, refugee status applies only to tens of thousands of those who have left Abkhazia, or even fewer. It would be wrong, therefore, to call all those, who left the Abkhaz territory during the war, refugees.

‘Georgian refugees’ exacerbate their situation even further by participating in various terrorist cells and groups set up by the Georgian secret services, the so-called partisan units, which have been carrying out subversive and terrorist activities on Abkhaz territory ever since the war, and have taken active part in May 1998 hostilities in the Gali region and in October 2001 events in the Kodor Gorge.

Crimes already committed and those which are still being committed by ‘refugees’ against the Abkhaz state and its people, and their unwillingness to be part of the independent Abkhazia are the main reason for the majority of the Georgian population from Abkhazia to support the military solution of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict. Sadly the Georgian public is also not ready or, more likely, does not want to make an objective assessment of the whole tragedy of the Georgian-Abkhaz confrontation, today or in the foreseeable future. Georgia does not intend to accept the blame/responsibility for the acts committed against the Abkhaz people over several decades, including the period of the Goergian-Abkhaz. war. Unfortunately, almost the entire Georgian society supports the idea of putting into practice the slogan of annexing Abkhazia and punishing the Abkhaz with the help of international forces and international courts. The more kind hearted Georgian public figures instead of the idea of using physical violence against the Abkhaz favour the idea of the gradual disappearance of the Abkhaz people inside the Georgian nation through ‘grafting the Abkhaz’ onto the Georgians. According to the Director of the Georgian-Abkhaz Institute in Tbilisi Zurab Shengeliya, “the space in which Abkhaz culture exists and develops is much more Georgian than Russian. In other words, when a plant is close to degeneration it has to be grafted onto a kindred but stronger stock.”[30]

The return of the revanchist ‘Georgian refugees’ to Abkhazia would inevitably lead to the resumption of new large scale hostilities between Georgia and Abkhazia, as well as to unpredictable and tragic consequences for the whole of the Caucasus region.

In this far from the ordinary situation around “Georgian refugees’, the Georgian government and international organizations who have an interest in resolving the conflict should exercise political wisdom. Instead of trying to force the return of the refugees to Abkhazia and reanimating the ethnodemographic situation which existed before the war and which contributed to the conflict they should deal with settling the repatriated people in Georgia, the historic motherland of the Georgian people.

Such a solution of the artificially protracted refugee problem could open a way to the mutual recognition of Georgia and Abkhazia as two independent states and to a honourable resolution of the conflict between two neighbouring nations and countries.

Population by nationality in Abkhazia - changes from 1886 to 1989

Source: The General Census ( in thousands of people)

[1] Дзидзария Г.А. Махаджирство и проблемы истории Абхазии ХIХ столетия. – Сухуми. 1975 (второе издание – 1982 г.); Анчабадзе З.В. Очерки этнической истории абхазского народа. – Сухуми. 1976; Лежава Г.П. Изменения классово-национальной структуры населения Абхазии (конец ХIХ – 70-е гг. ХХ вв.). – Сухуми. 1989; Инал-ипа Ш.Д. Этническая ситуация в Абхазии в ХIХ – нач. ХХ вв. Советская этнография. – М. 1990, № 1; Лакоба С.З. Очерки политической истории Абхазии. – Сухуми. 1990; Этническая «революция» в Абхазии (по следам грузинской периодики ХIХ в.). Составитель и ответственный редактор Ачугба Т.А. – Сухум. !995; Цвижба Л.И. Этно-демографические процессы в Абхазии в ХIХ в. – Сухум. 2001.
[2] ‘Droeba’,1879, №27 (in Georgian).
[3] ‘Droeba’,1873, № 399 (in Georgian).
[4] 'Droeba', 1879, № 36 (in Georgian)
[5] ‘Tsnobis Purceli’, 9 April 1906 (in Georgian)
[6] 'Droeba', 8 July 1909 (in Georgian)
[7] 'Droeba', 3 September 1909 (in Georgian)
[8] 'Shroma', 1882, №15 (in Georgian)
[9] 'Shroma', 1882, №15 (in Georgian)
[10] 'Iveria’, 1897, № 172 (in Georgian)
[11] 'Kvali', 1897, №12, p.252 (in Georgian)
[12] Achugba T.A. Abkhazia by nationality: second half ХIХ – ХХ, Sukhum, 1999. p.13.
[13] Abkhazia is not Georgia – М. Университетская типография. 1907
[14] Lenin Library Библиотека им. Ленина. Шифр II / 397 – Рп . 24/2. См.; 1909
[15] Архив Абхазского государственного музея. Ф.3, д. 39, л. 106-112
[16] Абхазия: документы свидетельствуют. 1937 – 1953. Составители: Сагария Б.Е. , Ачугба Т.А., Пачулия В. М. – Сухум . 1992
[17] Ачугба Т.А. Указ. труд. С. 11-12.
[18] 'Abkhazia', 2-10 April, 1992.
[19] Ачугба Т.А. К обоснованию государственной независимости Абхазии. – Сухум. 2002. С.36
[20] Подр.: Абхазия: хроника необъявленной войны. Ч. I. Сост.: Амкуаб Г.А., Илларионова Т.А. – М. 1992; Абхазия: хроника необъявленной войны. Ч. II. Сост.: Амкуаб Г.А., Илларионова Т.А. – М. 1993; Белая книга Абхазии. 1992-1993 гг. Документы, материалы, свидетельства. Сост.: Воронов Ю.Н., Флоренский П.В., Шутова Т.А. – М. 1993.; Шария В. Абхазская трагедия. – Сочи. 1994; Хагба В.Ш. Агрессия Грузии и международное право. – Гагра. 1995; Акаба Н.Н. Абхазия между любовью и ненавистью. – Сухум. 1996; Книга вечной памяти. Сост. и ответственный редактор Пачулия В.М. – Сухум. 1997; Аргун Ю.Г. Геноцид абхазов. – Сухум . 1998 и др.
[21] Отечественная война Абхазии и «грузинские беженцы». Документы и материалы. Т. I. Составитель, автор предисловия Ачугба Т.А.- Сухум . 2003
[22] 'Droni’, 4 September 1992 (in Georgian)
[23] 'Shansi', 4 August 1993 (in Georgian)
[24] Подр.: Отечественная война Абхазии
[25] Отечественная война Абхазии…С.134; Газ. «Очамчирис моамбе». 13 мая 1993 (на груз. яз.).
[26] Отечественная война Абхазии…С.129
[27] 'Ochamchiris moambe’, 16 May 1993 (in Georgian)
[28] 'Droni', 4 September 1992 (in Georgian)
[29] 'Alia', 10-11 May 2001 (in Georgian)
[30] 'Rezonansy', 14 August 2002 (in Georgian)