Forced Migration
Repatriation in Georgia
Table of Contents
Part One: Background on the Region
The Abkhaz Capital of Sukhumi
The City of Gali and Its Environs
The Georgian Cities of Zugdidi and Kutaisi
Part Two: Views of the UNHCR Repatriation Plan
The Abkhaz Position
The Georgian Position
The Russian Position
The UN Observer Mission and the CIS Peacekeeping
Force
Part Three:The Repatriation Plan
Part Four: Resolving the Crisis
Establishing Basic Physical Security
Cooperation Among International Organizations
and NGOs
Linking Political Settlement and Economic Reconstruction
The Lessons of Abkhazia
Part Five: The International Response to Population Displacement in the Former Soviet Union
Understanding Political and Administrative
Structures
A Model Agreement for International Relief
Organizations
Educating the Public about Humanitarian
Principles
Preemptive Study and Planning
International Institutional
Mandates
Recruitment of More Effective UN Field Staff
Working with Russia toward a Long-term Solution
Ethnic tensions and conflict have caused significant dislocations of people in the region of the former Soviet Union, both internally and across international borders. The circumstances that give rise to displacements include armed conflicts, human rights violations, economic underdevelopment, environmental degradation, and other failures of governance. In other instances, individuals decide to migrate for more prosaic reasons, such as new perceptions of unease or insecurity (often with ethnic overtones) and fear of future discrimination, or simply because of loss of privilege in new social orders.
The potential for further dislocations in the region is enormous. Approximately 70 million people live outside their nations of ethnic origin, with 25 million Russians living outside the Russian Federation and more than 26 million non-Russians in Russia. While only a portion of this vast number of people is likely to be dislocated at any particular juncture, the displacement of even a small portion could pose significant national security issues in the region.
While the Cold War may be over, solutions remain scarce for persons displaced by the conflicts precipitated by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Despite the emergence of sovereign states, the international community has yet to address adequately a variety of regional responsibilities. The situation is well-illustrated by repatriation of displaced persons in the Republic of Georgia. The unique character of this program of return and the fragile state of peace there will place a premium on appropriate international action.
An examination of the frustrated repatriation program concerning Abkhazia reveals issues which have begun to form a pattern in post-Soviet conflict resolution. A basic dilemma, likely to be encountered again and again, is the attempt to find a durable solution for a displaced population before the underlying political conflict is resolved and the political status of the parties stabilized. The specific arrangements concerning Abkhazia give one party the right to prior review of potential repatriates in this unresolved conflict. There is no effective mechanism for protection or redress for persons deemed security risks and, therefore, barred from return.
Greater attention by the international community is required, including, for example, the deployment of United Nations civilian police forces to monitor and assist indigenous forces in the places of contemplated return. Such an arrangement might build confidence on the part of those considering repatriation and serve to prevent maltreatment of the returning population.
This special report examines the repatriation of displaced persons in the Republic of Georgia, with a particular focus on the return of asylum seekers displaced by armed conflict over Abkhazia. This report specifically discusses arrangements between the contending parties for a formal repatriation program, negotiated with the assistance of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The report assesses the prospects for successful repatriation, analyzes the implications of the return program, and offers recommendations for enhancing the protection of the affected populations in this instance as well as similar instances in the future.
This report is the first in an ongoing series of occasional papers on the complex and growing problems of population displacement in the region of the former Soviet Union is based on a mission of inquiry conducted in March 1995 by Kathleen Hunt, a writer and consultant, under the auspices of the Forced Migration Projects of the Open Society Institute. Ms. Hunt, a former Moscow correspondent for National Public Radio, is the principal author of this report.
Ms. Hunt conducted field research in the former Soviet republic of Georgia and the disputed region of Abkhazia. She was in Georgia and Abkhazia from March 2 through March 12, 1995, and in the Russian Federation from February 24 through March 1, 1995. On-site investigations were conducted in the Georgian cities of Tbilisi, Kutaisi and Zugdidi. The Gali region and Sukhumi were visited in the disputed Georgian region of Abkhazia. More than forty interviews were conducted with international relief and monitoring officials, local governmental authorities and non-governmental activists, the Russian Peacekeeping Force, residents of Georgia and Abkhazia, as well as internally displaced persons temporarily housed in western Georgia and returnees in Abkhazia. Prior to the field research, Ms. Hunt conducted interviews in the United States and Moscow with representatives of international relief organizations working in Georgia and Abkhazia. Ms. Hunt wishes to thank UNHCR, OSCE, government officials, and the many NGO representatives who helped her during the mission.
Population Statistics It is extremely difficult to establish absolute accuracy in numbers when analyzing human displacement in Georgia (and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union). In the first place, pre-war population figures are usually based on the last official census carried out by the Soviet authorities in 1989, and since the outbreak of the war, monumental movements have taken place both across and within AbkhaziaÕs border with Russia to the north and GeorgiaÕs Mengrelia district to the southeast. In the aftermath of the fighting, thousands of Abkhaz, Russians and Armenians have spontaneously returned from exile as have ethnic Georgians; hundreds continue to move back and forth across these borders every week. Finally, officials from both sides often present differing totals to buttress their respective claims.
The former Soviet republic of Georgia is a country spanning some 26,911 square miles in the Transcaucasus region to the south of the towering Caucasus mountain range.1 In 1989 the population of Georgia, which then included the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, stood at 5,443,359. The ethnic composition of the republic is situated between Russia to the north, Turkey and Armenia to the south, and Azerbaijan to the southeast is a mosaic depicting its rich and turbulent history. The Black Sea provides Georgia’s economic and cultural gateway to the West. Significantly, the Abkhaz region occupies half of this spectacular and fertile coastline.
The ethnic composition of pre-war Georgia was 68.8 percent Georgian (including several regional subgroups speaking distinct languages in addition to Georgian, e.g. Mengrelians, Gurians, Svanetians); 9 percent Armenian; 7.4 percent Russian; 5.1 percent Azerbaijani; 3.2 percent Ossetian; 1.9 percent Greek; and 1.7 percent Abkhazian. Most of the population is of the Christian faith (followers of the Georgian Orthodox church) but Islam is professed by the people of Ajaria in southwestern Georgia, by Azerbaijanis in southeastern Georgia, and by the small population of Kurds.
In the northwestern corner of Georgia lie the 3,300 square miles of snow-capped mountains and subtropical coastline that form the territory of Abkhazia. Prior to the war, the total population of Abkhazia was roughly 537,000, with just under 100,000 people of ethnic Abkhaz origin. Historically, the Abkhaz people allied themselves with the Russian-speaking population (notably Russians and Armenians). Together, these groups comprised roughly half of the region’s population. Ethnic Georgians comprised some 46 percent of the population.
During the 1920s, Abkhazia enjoyed the status of a full Soviet Socialist Republic, only to see itself reduced a decade later to an autonomous republic within Georgia. With the decline of Soviet central power in the late 1980s, Abkhazia intensified its demands for more cultural, linguistic, and political autonomy from Tbilisi. Georgia rejected these demands and, under the controversial leadership of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, mounted a nationalistic campaign to crush secessionist tendencies in the region. From August 1992 through September 1993, Tbilisi waged an unsuccessful war with Abkhazia. Thousands of civilians were killed, and hundreds of thousands fled the fighting. As of April 1995, some 250,000 people from Abkhazia, mostly ethnic Georgians, were internally displaced in Georgia.
The status of Abkhazia is still the subject of negotiation between the warring parties, with participation from the Russian Federation and the United Nations. In November 1994, the Supreme Soviet of Abkhazia adopted a constitution declaring Abkhazia an independent state, but the UN Security Council has reaffirmed its commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Georgia. Meanwhile, a CIS peacekeeping force (PKF), comprised mostly of Russians, and a 136-member international military observation force from the United Nations have helped to prevent the resumption of full-scale fighting since the agreement on a cease-fire and separation of forces was signed in Moscow on May 14, 1994.
Sukhumi’s pre-war population was roughly 122,000. Today, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) estimate the population to be between 30,000 and 40,000, of which roughly 10,000 are reportedly ethnic Georgians who remained behind. These are mostly elderly people whose precarious existence depends on their relations with the ethnic Abkhaz. The heavy combat in the city largely ended with the retreat of Georgian forces in October 1993. Fleeing with the soldiers over the craggy mountains, tens of thousands of ethnic Georgians were eventually rescued and transported to the central city of Kutaisi. Others fled southeastward across the Inguri river to Mengrelia in western Georgia.
Though buses run sporadically, very few cars rumble through Sukhumi’s somber streets due to the scarcity and expense of gasoline. Electricity is still provided by a huge power plant in the mountains, but gas supplies from Georgia ended long ago when Georgia’s own gas supply from Russia was cut. Factories are operating, if at all, at about 20 percent of capacity. The central market is full of food and household goods but at prices few people can afford. The enthusiasm which accompanied the ouster of Georgian troops at the close of 1993 has dissipated, and the city remains littered with the rubble of blasted houses and gutted government buildings.
In Sukhumi, as throughout Abkhazia, two overriding problems have prevented any significant post-war reconstruction: economic collapse and the widespread possession of automatic weapons among thousands of young, idle Abkhaz men. Following the outbreak of the Chechen war in December 1994, Russia sealed its border with Abkhazia, virtually choking off all trade, reconstruction, and potential economic development. With the increasing economic desperation, armed bands have taken to the streets, robbing cars and looting apartments with impunity.
Earlier this year, lawlessness throughout the coastal republic became so acute that President Vladislav Ardzinba appointed a tough war veteran to head Sukhumi’s police force. The new chief soon deployed a force of special officers known ominously as the Black Masks (so called for the masks that conceal their identities to prevent revenge attacks). Local residents say that the streets are quieter and safer. But in the villages surrounding Sukhumi, representatives of NGOs report that Abkhaz bands continue to loot houses and evict people from their homes, targeting the Abkhaz as well as their ethnic Armenian allies.
The highway running from Sukhumi to the southeast is scarred with potholes and mangled bridges. The burnt-out carcasses of armored vehicles flank the roadside, and charred, abandoned houses punctuate the miles of derelict citrus orchards and tea plantations. Drivers are at the mercy of armed highwaymen, and NGO workers in the area are warned never to hitch a ride or even to hire private local cars to travel in Abkhazia.
Located in Abkhazia along the regional border with the Georgian district of Mengrelia, the Gali region had a pre-war population of roughly 90,000, of whom 95 percent belonged to the same ethnic Mengrelian-Georgian group. NGOs working in the area estimate that following the mass flight from the advancing Abkhaz forces in September 1993, the population had climbed back to 30,000 by early March 1995.
Various international officials working in the Gali area blame the Abkhaz police, at times working in tandem with the PKF, for condoning, if not perpetrating, many of the crimes. Abkhaz authorities in Sukhumi claim that they cannot control the gangs, though international officials believe that for many months the Sukhumi authorities did not really try.
Although 30,000 people reportedly live in the Gali region, many areas resemble ghost towns. Once a prosperous agricultural district where people lived in large, neatly fenced houses adorned with flowering gardens, today house after house has its windows blasted out and its walls pocked and shattered from rifle fire and artillery shells. Hardly a roof is intact. Debris lies all around. As Georgian homes were torched, their owners took flight, losing everything they left behind. The extent of destruction and personal loss is daunting, and must be taken into account in any plan to repatriate the displaced, who would have to rebuild their lives brick by brick bereft of financial means.
Today some of the roofless houses are actually inhabited, often by owners who have quietly returned on their own to patch up a corner of the building in the back, where they hide for the better part of every day. Such was the case in early March in the area behind the shattered railway station where one family was living amid the rubble. Only two days earlier, a gang of armed Abkhaz men had barged into the battered home next door. Their neighbor recounted with terror in his eyes how the intruders threw him against the wall, stole his television and demanded his women. He had not dared to venture out of his surroundings since. As in Sukhumi, a tough new police chief has recently been appointed in Gali, and many say that he has brought about a decline in the attacks. But others, including at least one international official, regard the police chief himself as a bandit who often turns a blind eye to the ravages of armed gangs.
Unfortunately, no respite appears to be in sight. As recently as mid-March, 400 to 600 Abkhaz militiamen swept into the Gali region, killing at least 20 people, torturing dozens, and sending hundreds fleeing across the Inguri river for refuge in Georgia. In Geneva, the UNHCR issued a statement condemning the new wave of violence.2
Southeast of Gali, the highway reaches a bridge across the Inguri river, which marks the official border between Abkhazia and Georgia. Abkhaz forces and the PKF guard separate checkpoints, allowing women and children to pass on a case-by-case basis. At any time there can be a dozen to 50 people waiting to cross the bridge, to trade cigarettes and fruit or to check on homes left behind. In March 1995, the border crossing was quiet, but skirmishes have broken out in the past.
Zugdidi, too, was once a prosperous agricultural town of neat private houses, but since war broke out, virtually all of its economic activity has halted. Residents shivered through the winter with no heat or hot water, and parts of the town had no water at all. Security is relatively stable, though tensions have flared over the two years since approximately 72,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) crowded in alongside the 110,000 regular residents. Here, as elsewhere in Georgia, the majority of IDPs have been taken in by local families who have depleted their own resources to feed and shelter them.
Security ends at the city limits, however, and the road from Zugdidi to the eastern part of Georgia is often attacked by Georgian robbers, widely believed to be affiliated with the paramilitary group known as the Mkhedrioni. Translated as Horsemen, the Mkhedrioni are headed by Jaba Ioseliani, a leader during the 1991 armed ouster of Zviad Gamsakhurdia and a powerful rival of Eduard Shevardnadze. In early March, a car belonging to an international aid organization was attacked and hijacked on the road between Zugdidi and Khobi, the headquarters of the regional Mkhedrioni chief.
Kutaisi, the gateway to GeorgiaÕs west, had a pre-war population of 236,000.3 Today its schoolhouses, hotels, and grand Soviet-era resorts are overflowing with IDPs who fled through the mountains of Svanetia. Never having suffered as a battleground itself, Kutaisi is intact, though tattered after many years of neglect. Many homes have been without heat and reliable water for more than a year and, until recently, criminal gangs rampaged through town.
Security is far from guaranteed. Earlier this year, the office of a prominent international aid organization located in the center of town was attacked by robbers, who forced the staff at gunpoint to empty their safe of thousands of dollars. Kutaisi’s mayor, another strongman, was recently named governor of the entire region. Although some international relief officials have found him ineffective, most Georgians interviewed in western Georgia praised the mayor’s tough stand on crime.
From the outset, the Abkhaz government has officially supported the UNHCR-supervised repatriation plan as defined in the Quadripartite Agreement on the Voluntary Return of Refugees and Displaced Persons signed in Moscow on April 4, 1994, by Abkhazia, Georgia, Russia and the UNHCR.
At the time the plan was introduced, there were several compelling reasons for Abkhaz authorities to support the plan for the swift repatriation of IDPs back to Gali. Under the agreement, the return of IDPs was a prerequisite to the next stage in Abkhaz normalization, a referendum on the status of the breakaway region. This, the Abkhaz hoped, would open the way for international recognition of Abkhazia as an independent state. Another reason for supporting rapid repatriation was to bring the IDPs back to their homes in the Gali region, where they had traditionally furnished the labor force for the republic’s lucrative tea plantations and other agricultural enterprises. Were the IDPs not to return in time for last year’s growing season, and they did not,vital cash crops would be forfeited, and the fields would fall to greater neglect.
In practice, however, official support for the repatriation plan was consistently contradicted by the statements and actions of Abkhaz representatives both in Sukhumi and the Gali region. International NGOs report that in preliminary meetings in Sukhumi in May 1994, Abkhaz officials, notably Deputy Prime Minister Enver Kanba, expressed open hostility toward ethnic Georgians. Officials in the Gali region did the same. While fighting continued around Gali, there were almost daily reports of violent attacks on ethnic Georgians who had tried to return from Gali to check on their homes and gardens. The Abkhaz authorities attributed these deaths to landmines and bandits, taking no responsibility for the ethnic targeting that was in fact taking place.
Abkhazia’s continuing resistance to repatriation was summarized in March 1995 by a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) delegation in Tbilisi: [The Abkhaz] are using obstructionist tactics. They say they do not want to rejoin Georgia. They can accept any other option, other than becoming part of Georgia again. The delegate believed that a key factor underlying Abkhazia’s resistance to repatriation was the critical demographic issue. Prior to the war, ethnic Abkhaz constituted only 18 percent of the overall population, and were thus a minority in their own republic. If Abkhazia were to rejoin Georgia, ethnic Georgians would flood back into the Black Sea region, and once again dominate the political scene by virtue of their superior numbers.
In March 1995, President Vladislav Ardzinba confirmed the same stand he had held during an interview on the eve of the war in 1992. Ardzinba was still firm about the goal of Abkhazian independence and maintenance of the present borders of the republic. He firmly denied reports that he had recently offered to cede to Georgia a small strip of land in the traditionally Mengrelian region of Gali as far as Gali Canal. This area, just north of the Inguri river, has been the scene of the many of the gravest human rights abuses by Abkhaz bands. The Sukhumi government has admitted it has difficulty controlling the area.
Ardzinba’s position was echoed by several other officials in Sukhumi, including the deputy foreign minister, the speaker and deputy speaker of the Parliament, and the head of the Abkhazian human rights commission. In general, officials blamed the violence in Gali on Georgian infiltrators from Zugdidi, and added that because of the continuing threat of invasion from Georgia, Abkhazia was unable to disarm its own young men. Abkhaz officials rejected the use of the term ethnic cleansing to describe the beatings and murders of Georgians to discourage them from returning. The human rights commissioner complained that the OSCE had never sent a mission to Abkhazia to investigate such allegations, and that the UN had sent a mission only once.
A key theme raised by Abkhaz leaders (as well as by PKF members interviewed), was that a political settlement on Abkhazia was needed before or concurrent with any repatriation effort. Without official status, Abkhaz leaders argued, returnees would not know whether they were going back to an independent state with a seat in the UN or simply to a region of Georgia. Abkhaz leaders prefer the status of an independent state, of course, because if Abkhazia were to remain part of Georgia, the returnees would be inclined to obey the laws issued by Tbilisi and the Abkhaz would be back where they started from. The intransigence of Abkhaz leaders is buttressed by the anger of ordinary people. Many support the idea of repatriation in principle, but the scars of the initial assault, the death and displacement that afflicted nearly every family, and the vast destruction still surrounding them are all daily reminders of their rage.
While rarely opposed to the return of women and children, many people raise concern that the women and children probably supported their male relatives as they took up arms against their Abkhaz neighbors. Most Abkhaz may appear uncomfortable admitting it, but say it will take a long time, ranging from five years to a generation, for their wounds to heal sufficiently to live side-by-side with the Georgians.
The presence of as many as 280,000 IDPs from its secessionist regions is an increasing source of political and economic tension in Georgia. The shabby hotels of Tbilisi are bursting with IDPs from Sukhumi, compounding the existing burden from thousands of ethnic Georgians displaced by the fighting in 1991 and 1992 during South Ossetia’s bid for independence. Few of them have found work in the morass of Georgia’s economic collapse. Most of them have sold whatever possessions they escaped with in order to buy a few basic goods.
The Georgian government and international organizations have provided IDPs with basics, including a much coveted supply of electricity and heat. This has stirred resentment among Tbilisi’s permanent residents, who spent much of last winter bundled up in dark apartments without heat, hot water, or cooking gas. Those who could installed small wood-burning stoves in their homes, but the majority subsisted on whatever cold food they could afford.
Not only are the IDPs a drain on Georgia’s strapped economy, but they are a constant reminder of the military defeats in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. More importantly, they are a symbolic warning that the struggle to maintain a unitary state is not over, and that Eduard Shevardnadze may not be winning. Georgian nationalists excoriate Shevardnadze for losing South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and advocate the hard line of never ceding an inch of Georgian territory to the leaders of these two republics.
This uncompromising stand is supported by Georgians far and wide, who invariably argue that the two republics have not been sufficiently grateful for all the language rights and autonomy measures granted them by the Tbilisi government during the Soviet period. Rebutting the Abkhaz argument, Georgians invoke their own historical facts to prove that Georgia’s claim to this territory dates to antiquity. Given the intransigence of Georgians over this issue, the only durable solution entertained has been prompt resettlement in Abkhazia.
Local integration, an alternative solution sometimes advocated by UNHCR, has not been discussed seriously, even though the IDPs in western Georgia belong to the same ethnic group (Mengrelian) and get along well with their local hosts. According to NGOs working in the field, after more than two years of displacement, many of these IDPs have acheived some degree of integration by attrition. Openly considering a policy of large-scale local integration would be seen as the abandonment of territory to the Abkhaz, and this is unthinkable for Shevardnadze’s political survival.
Meanwhile, pressure has been mounting among the frustrated IDPs, particularly those living in Zugdidi, who can practically see their homes on the other side of the Inguri river. Thousands are believed to have gone back to their homes unofficially, slipping across the Inguri river through the bush or bribing border guards at the official crossing. Many stay for a week at a time to trade or to work in their gardens. Figures on the number of returnees vary; Abkhaz authorities claim that as many as 70,000 have returned.
When UNHCR-sponsored repatriation finally began last year, thousands were eager to return. But reports immediately reached Zugdidi of attacks on returning families, and terrified returnees began to filter back across the river to the IDP centers and local host families. Those who did not try to return to Gali remain tired and exasperated in Zugdidi. Several times over the last year, thousands of IDPs have held angry demonstrations on the bridge which serves as the border crossing into Abkhazia, which is guarded by detachments of Russian PKF and Abkhaz troops.
At the time of this writing, anger among IDPs continues to mount and international officials warn that the stalemate cannot go on forever. There are partisans in western Georgia who are ready to fight again, and several of them have already slipped across the river to participate in hit-and-run operations on the other side.
Though officially neutral throughout the conflict, Russian political and military leaders reportedly supported the Abkhazians with military material and manpower, playing a crucial role in the Abkhaz victory over Georgian forces in September 1993. In the wake of that defeat, the Georgian government was still embroiled in a conflict with supporters of deposed President Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Seeing little chance of winning that battle with its exhausted and demoralized troops, Georgia then turned to Russia for military support. In exchange, Shevardnadze was forced to make the politically unpopular concession of joining the Moscow-dominated CIS. Immediately thereafter, Russia installed troops to maintain security along roads and rail lines in western Georgia. By the end of 1993, the civil war had sputtered to an end and Gamsakhurdia had died under mysterious circumstances.
Since then, the Russian Federation has signed the April 1994 Quadripartite Agreement, and has served as facilitator in the ongoing search for a comprehensive political settlement of the conflict. While both groups acknowledge deep dependency on Russia, they both harbor equally deep resentment and distrust of the former imperial power.
Georgians condemn Russia for helping the Abkhaz defeat them and for choking the Georgian economy. But the Abkhaz also condemn the Russians for sealing their border with the rest of the “mainland” on the pretext of blocking Abkhaz fighters from rushing to support their Chechen brothers in battle against Moscow. The sealed border has blocked travel from Russia as well, cutting off vital imports of food, medicine and construction material. The Abkhaz bitterly interpret this development as the result of a new alliance between Russia and Georgia aimed at forcing Abkhazia to rejoin Georgia, or face economic strangulation and a new military invasion by Tbilisi. It is imprudent to try to predict Russia’s next moves, but Russia’s position, with its perpetual shifts and turns, will remain a pivotal factor in reaching or failing to reach a long-term settlement to Abkhazia’s conflict with Georgia.
If there is one issue all the participants in the fragile peace settlement in Abkhazia agree upon, it is the need for the Security Council to maintain the mandate of the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia, which was in fact extended from May 12, 1995, to January 12, 1996 (Resolution 993). In the Gali region, the main duty of the PKF is to prevent arms and armed contingents of both sides from entering a 12-kilometer zone on either side of the Inguri river.
The United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia, introduced into Abkhazia in August 1993, provides an international contingent of unarmed professional military officers to monitor the work of the PKF. Headquartered in Sukhumi, with sector headquarters in Zugdidi and Gali, the 136-member force also performs the informal but vital function of patrolling the towns and villages where criminal bands have roamed and, in certain instances, brings abuses to the attention of Russian and Abkhaz officials. Everyone interviewed for this report predicted that without the two uniformed groups, “a bloodbath”, “very big violence”, or even another full-scale war could occur.
Both the PKF and the UNOMIG officers interviewed in March insisted that if they were to pull out at the end of their latest term in May 1995, their absence would plunge Abkhazia into a spiral of deadly violence. Agreeing with this view, NGO officials and local people would like the UN to toughen its mandate by giving the forces a policing function which could markedly curtail criminal violence. In the absence of any rule of law in Abkhazia, and to a great degree in Georgia as well, the only improvements in security have come through the equally brutal punishment meted out by hardline mayors and police chiefs. Many recommended adding a policing function to the PKF and UNOMIG mandates to achieve the day-to-day stability Abkhazia desperately needs.
The plan endorsed in April 1994 by Abkhazia, Georgia, Russia and the UNHCR called for the repatriation of the displaced population in stages, starting with some 80,000 people who fled the Gali region in southeastern Abkhazia as defeated Georgian troops retreated in September 1993. Most of these people abandoned their homes before Abkhaz troops reached the region, seeking refuge with the local population in and around the Georgian town of Zugdidi across the Inguri river. Nongovernmental organizations working in Sukhumi believe that about 30,000 have already returned to the Gali region.
According to the UNHCR plan, some 80,000 IDPs were to be repatriated before the end of October 1994. The plan included, among other features, a computerized inventory of all potential returnees; provision of materials to the returnees for reconstruction of homes; a media campaign to inform and prepare the populations on both sides of the border; and a controversial prior review process whereby Abkhaz authorities reserved the right to screen potential returnees, excluding anyone who had taken up arms on the Georgian side (the majority of able-bodied men), or who intended to take up arms in the future. Abkhaz authorities later extended the exclusion criteria to persons having sent money out of Abkhazia. By autumn 1994, the NGO community believed Abkhaz officials had complied a list of 14,000 to 25,000 Georgians not permitted to return to their homes.
Since the summer of 1994, UNHCR has spent $4 million for its programs in Georgia, of which $1.5 million was spent on repatriation and pre-positioning. Some of the goods purchased for distribution to the resettlers were stored and later sold to the UNHCR emergency operation in Chechnya. In 1994, UNHCR’s projected budget for Georgia was $11 million for repatriation and $3 million for IDPs (of which only $1.5 million was received). In 1995, UNHCR budgeted $3 million for repatriation and $4 million for IDPs (of which only $400,000 has been received).4
At the time of the plan’s conception in the spring of 1994, barely half a year had passed since Abkhaz forces launched their stunning offensive on Georgian troops in Sukhumi and sent the vast majority of ethnic Georgians fleeing in fear of ferocious retribution. Shock and bitterness were and still are palpable on both sides.
The Abkhaz point to the brutality of Georgia’s first armored assault on Sukhumi in August 1992, which triggered a rampage of looting, murder and gross human rights abuses against Abkhaz and other non-Georgian civilians, Russians, Armenians, and Greeks residing in the Black Sea republic. When the war turned in favor of the Abkhaz forces in September 1993, similar atrocities were committed against the resident Georgian civilians: part vengeance, and part gratuitous looting, vandalism and murder.5 Critics of the UNHCR repatriation program, including the NGO community in Tbilisi, faulted the plan for its hasty preparation, particularly for ignoring some of the refugee organization’s own standard procedures in assessing community attitudes on both sides of the border before promoting a mass repatriation. Following are the main criticisms of the plan cited by leading NGOs working in Georgia:
UNHCR declined to participate in a January 1994 household survey of IDPs in Tbilisi conducted by NGOs, UNICEF, WHO and the Georgian government.
During 1994, UNHCR stated that it conducted monthly trips to Abkhazia, though it did not conduct a systematic survey of attitudes among the resident population who would have to receive the returnees.
At least 70,000 landmines (UNHCR estimates run as high as 700,000 with a rough middle figure of 150,000) are believed to be widely spread around the border area between the Gali and Zugdidi regions. They are found on tea plantations and roadsides, as well as in the Gumista river valley further northwest. Planted by both sides, landmines pose an enormous risk to all civilians. UNHCR presented no detailed plan for detecting and removing them, even though managing this risk would be crucial to ensuring a safe and dignified return.
In the post-war lawlessness of Abkhazia, no credible institution was iden-tified or established to ensure the safety of the returnees and the potentially hostile population into which they were expected to reintegrate. Neither PKF nor the UNOMIG observers have been given a mandate to maintain law and order locally.
An exclusionary clause included in the Quadripartite Agreement allows authorities to exclude former Georgian combatants from repatriating to their Abkhaz homes. But it also casts a wide net over all men of fighting age, excluding them for past as well as possible future activity; moreover, the time-frame for the screening process is open-ended, allowing the authorities to assess someone at any time. While the women and children related to excluded men would be allowed to return, critics point to the destabilizing effect of long-term family separation, and the massing of a restive male exile population on the Zugdidi side of the border.
Given the UNHCR’s record of success with mass repatriations in countries such as Cambodia, Mozambique and Uganda, its hasty and seemingly blinkered approach to Abkhazia has surprised and exasperated many in the international community. Some international officials attribute the ill-conceived project to the personal enthusiasm of the first UNHCR representative in Georgia, who apparently believed that with the support of both the Georgian and Abkhaz governments the program would be a relatively neat success. Pushing forward with the program, he repeatedly dismissed NGO sector concerns about the continuing murders, beatings, and rapes in Abkhazia. Describing as a fait accompli the small-scale “spontaneous” repatriation, he reportedly told a meeting of NGOs last spring that it was the UNHCR’s duty to be there to help them since they are already going back on their own.
Despite numerous discussions with a skeptical NGO community, the UNHCR representative expressed confidence that with a mass media campaign, computerized inventories, and the sheer presence of NGO staff on the ground, UNHCR would be able to resettle 80,000 IDPs and restore peace to the Gali region. Indeed, NGO officials recalled meetings during which the UNHCR representative said that “peace will trickle down from the central authorities.”
The UNHCR headquarters staff in Geneva was aware of this program, and delegations were dispatched to Georgia to perform assessments. Geneva also deployed one of the most experienced field officers from its ex-Yugoslavia program to run the operation from Zugdidi. To the NGOs in Georgia it seemed inconceivable that the headquarters would proceed with a $4 million plan without considering the physical risks to the returnees and the potential for the program to end in disaster. By September 1994, many NGOs were even more adamantly opposed to proceeding under the terms of the plan, citing the above criticisms and underscoring the UN’s own weekly reports of rampant criminality in Abkhazia and daily assaults, abductions, rapes and house-burnings in the Gali region when Georgians tried to return from Zugdidi.
Still, the computers arrived, IDP lists were generated, an expert in mine clearance from the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (UNDPKO) in New York came out in August 1994 to assess the extent of the problem and to help initiate a mine-awareness program, and a public relations officer came from UNHCR Geneva. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Oxfam began small programs in rehabilitation and sanitation, while Medecins sans Frontieres took charge of vaccinating children and training local doctors and nurses.
Despite repeated appeals by the groups that were to serve as implementing partners in the repatriation plan, UNHCR did not sufficiently survey either the displaced population in Georgia or the resident population in Abkhazia into which the IDPs would have to be reintegrated. While thousands trickled home on their own, only 311 people finally opted to repatriate under the UNHCR plan.
The case of Abkhazia reveals the formidable obstacles to repatriating an uprooted population prior to reaching a political settlement to the conflict that forced them to flee in the first place. In this case, a further barrier to repatriation was erected in granting one party to the conflict the right to reject a wide range of returnees. Based on the research carried out for this report, several steps emerge as critical to solutions for persons displaced in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, in its secessionist region of Abkhazia, and in other disputed regions.
The most fundamental problem is the rampant lawlessness in the former war zones and parts of Georgia. The semblance of law and order under communism masked an elaborate system of political corruption and common crime. When the repressive apparatus disintegrated after the break-up of the Soviet Union, corruption and criminality sprang forth without restraint. While it will take years to build functioning institutions, such as a constitutional court, a civilian police force, and a professional criminal justice system, the UN can take several useful measures in the short term:
Expand UNOMIG’s mandate to include international policing and enforcement functions. Some success in maintaining law and order has been achieved in other locales through such an approach. The UN should also consider offering intensive training to candidates for a future civilian police force.
Increase the number of UN personnel deployed. A larger international presence will help assuage Abkhaz fears of a Georgian invasion. Of course, given the situation of insecurity, any significant repatriation should be accompanied by concerted monitoring by a wide variety of actors in the international community including NGOs.
Undertake a parallel program to disarm young men in Abkhazia and western Georgia under UN supervision. This is likely to succeed only if aggres-sive efforts are made to bring the parties together for discussions on a settlement. Otherwise the Abkhaz will continue to claim that they need their weapons for defense against Georgian attacks.
Neither the UN nor NGOs came to the Soviet republics with experience working in the former Soviet Union. On an interorganizational level, intergovernmental organizations and NGOs must develop liaison groups to share the information and insights they gain through the sometimes painful process of trial and error in the region. Obstructionism by state authorities is never a clear-cut matter, given the layers of former Soviet institutions which survive even to this day.
Compared to Russia, Georgia’s political and administrative structure is relatively uncomplicated, and NGO officials report that they have generally obtained government cooperation in carrying out their work. Periodic threats by Tbilisi officials to seize control of humanitarian programs are generally not pursued.
One key area where international organizations and NGOs need to elicit a greater government commitment is in guaranteeing the security of international and local staff, offices, and warehouses. Security, not only for international organizations but for the population at large, is a basic requirement for the development of transitional societies.
The international community in Georgia should plan to take several months to expand its population surveys and to assess the pitfalls facing repatriation. In the process, opportunities may open up, particularly with the right kind of development projects, for some of the IDPs to integrate locally within Georgia, without causing the Georgian government to feel it has lost the war.
Talks on a settlement must be tied to a visible--although not necessarily costly--economic reconstruction program. It is widely agreed that the rate of criminality will not decrease until the average person has adequate shelter over his or her head, enough to eat, and a job with a steady income.
Formerly, the people of Georgia were accustomed to a relatively good life, more luxurious than the average Russian under the Soviet system. Poverty and displacement have hardened them noticeably. Such conditions, if they continue or worsen, will only impede any efforts to elicit attitudes of tolerance and cooperation essential to long-term reconciliation between the Abkhazians and Georgians.
NGOs in Georgia theorize that it is economic inequalities which invariably spark the small-scale disputes that escalate into full-scale conflict with ethnic connotations or political goals. With this in mind, they have identified regions in addition to Abkhazia and South Ossetia where modest but well-targeted economic development assistance could alleviate economic unbalances and perhaps prevent conflict. In former war-zones, such programs will have to begin with the most basic rebuilding of burnt-out homes if the urge to seek revenge is to be diffused. Though Soviet Georgia was subjected to collectivization and communal ownership, more than elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, the attachment to private homes and the land around them remains deep and enduring. Residents of Abkhazia and IDPs in Georgia frequently cited the destruction of homes as one of the major wrongs suffered on account of the conflict.
Once it is clear to all parties that security can prevail and people will receive equal assistance in slowly rebuilding their homes, the international community can regain some of the credibility that has been squandered by the UNHCR’s hasty repatriation plan.
With the political stalemate, security crisis, and failure of repatriation in Abkhazia, it is instructive to consider as well the secessionist region of South Ossetia, where the conflict between the Georgian government and the local minority is still unresolved. The Ossetians are descendants of Iranian speaking tribes who settled on the northern and southern faces of the Caucasus mountain range in the 4th century. In the north, Ossetians were incorporated into the Russian Federation and became the Autonomous Republic of North Ossetia in 1936 (under Russian jurisdiction).
The Ossetians on the southern slope were incorporated into Georgia, with the status of Autonomous Oblast (district) of South Ossetia in 1922. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ossetians’ bid for increased cultural and political independence from Georgia spiralled into full-scale war in 1992, during which the South Ossetians received crucial support from their kin in North Ossetia.
Thousands of civilians on both sides fled the fighting. Ethnic Ossetians mainly fled north to the Russian Federation, while ethnic Georgians sought refuge with relatives further south in the Gori region and the capital. According to UNHCR, at the end of 1995, there were 30,000 IDPs from South Ossetia in Georgia and 37,000 South Ossetians across the border in the Russian republic of North Ossetia.
Since July 1992, when the cease-fire was signed and a mixed CIS peacekeeping force of Russians, Ossetians, and Georgians was installed, fighting has virtually come to a halt in the capital of South Ossetia and surrounding villages. Ethnic Ossetians began to return home to Tskhinvali, and thousands of ethnic Georgians have gradually returned to the region, mainly to the villages surrounding the capital. However, as in Abkhazia, South Ossetia has suffered a general breakdown of civil order and is plagued by brutal criminal gangs. According to international officials, the people in power are linked to a state criminal mafia which controls all important economic exchange.
The economy of South Ossetia is also at a standstill. According to a member of the 17-person OSCE delegation (which opened a mission there in October 1993), the economy is functioning at roughly 15 to 20 percent of capacity, with small scale trade being the main activity. Bread is available but vegetables and other produce, grown in Georgia, are prohibitively expensive. Homes in the city have no heat or gas (which would normally come from Georgia). Conditions are generally better in the villages, which are economically more self-sufficient.
Some NGOs and Georgian experts paint a brighter picture, saying that things are moving forward in South Ossetia. The UNDP is conducting a comprehensive economic and social survey of the area and the leaders of the republic have invited NGOs to set up programs there. A darker picture of frustration and pessimism was portrayed by the members of the OCSE delegation, which monitors the cease-fire and ‘facilitates dialogue,’ both official and unofficial, toward settling the dispute over South Ossetia’s bid for independence from Georgia.
After five months of weekly meetings, the delegate likened the intransigence of the South Ossetians to that of the Abkhaz leadership, saying that the delayed return of Georgians to their homes in Tskhinvali was conditioned on a political settlement. Despite the formal commitment on both sides to a political solution, the OSCE representative said that the Georgians were determined to take the territory by political settlement or, if necessary, by force.
Another potential hot spot is found in southern Georgia’s Armenian districts (Akhaltsikhe). Although the Armenian government would not likely lay claim to the territory in southern Georgia near the border with Turkey, one international official said, “all you need is a few hotheads in Armenia with a few Kalashnikovs, defending ‘Greater Armenia,’ and before you know it people will be believing they can be part of Armenia. There’s desperation in this region, and primitive thinking about roles and positions, and before you know it 50 to 60 people are out blocking a road, taking someone hostage, and someone gets killed.” In an attempt to prevent such a scenario from unfolding, a number of NGOs working in Georgia have been setting up small-scale relief and development programs in some of the most neglected areas of the country. The rationale is to prevent the pressures of deepening impoverishment from straining the sometimes delicate ethnic balance in poor regions. In addition to Akhaltsikhe, another potentially sensitive area is the Marneuli region, south of Tbilisi, which is largely populated by ethnic Azeris who are regularly implicated in attacks on the railroad that runs to the Armenian capital of Yerevan. This adds fuel to the long-running conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the mountain region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Finally, Georgia’s southwestern Autonomous Republic of Ajaria enjoys a strategic location with its major Black Sea port and a busy border crossing with Turkey. Throughout these turbulent years AjariaÕs leader, Aslan Ibragimovich Abashidze, has taken pains to maintain good relations with Tbilisi, and his mostly muslim republic has escaped the violent fate of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. But there have been reports of local dissent and severe repression against the dissenters.
Because Georgia’s outlets to external markets are few, the importance of Adjaria’s border crossing with Turkey cannot be exaggerated, particularly in view of the blockade by Russia to the north of Abkhazia. Turkish goods have flooded the market in much of Georgia, and control of that bountiful border crossing could be a cause of future dispute.
The former Soviet Union, like the crumbling Yugoslavia before it, brings into bold relief the urgent needs of disintegrating societies and the limits of the traditional international aid community to cope with them. As plans are underway for an international conference on displacement and migration in the former Soviet republics, the issues raised in Abkhazia are echoed in the following themes running through numerous interviews conducted in the United States, Moscow, Georgia and Abkhazia.
Many NGOs and international organizations have been frustrated by the maze of jurisdictions from Moscow to the local republics, overlaid with various ministries (central and local), military commands and police forces. International organizations and NGOs expend great amounts of energy and time obtaining permits, customs documents, and travel visas, only to have them contradicted at various turns. Though frustrated by this state of affairs, people interviewed for this report still expressed reservations about the formation of a statewide umbrella organization, fearing that it could evolve into something as cumbersome as the former Soviet system. Rather, they repeated the need for a mutual program of on-going consultations for NGOs and international organizations to learn how the region functions at the official level and vice versa.
Given the context of social crisis, a model formal agreement should be considered to govern relations between international relief organizations and the central state authorities. Such an agreement would clearly spell out the NGO’s program goals, its impartiality, and its need to supervise the distribution of the aid it supplies.
International organizations and NGOs must devote significant time to educating the public, both government officials and local populations, about the role of international human rights and humanitarian law, the concept of individual rights, and the role of private voluntary organizations, all of which are still relatively new to the former Soviet Union. Dissemination programs similar to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) should be implemented immediately to acquaint government officials and the public with the relevant state responsibilities. On the most rudimentary level, several relief officials said that the local population can rarely differentiate among all the “big, white four-wheel-drives” marked with the classic red cross of the ICRC, the adapted red cross of Medecins sans Frontieres, and the various United Nations logos.
The former Soviet Union, virtually uncharted territory to the international humanitarian community until the end of 1991, poses a broader and more enduring challenge than the former Yugoslavia. International organizations and NGOs would do well to identify the numerous high-risk regions in the FSU for purposes of monitoring for early warning of conflict and mass displacement. New legal classifications should be considered to accommodate statelessness in territories which are themselves disputing their statehood. Such a scheme should immediately clarify which institutional actor should take charge of which aspects of a population’s emergency needs.
In the region, UNHCR is one of several international institutional actors, which also include OSCE and the International Organization for Migration. However, the increasing number of “forced migrants” in the former Soviet Union who elude the conventional refugee classification is sharpening the debate within the UNHCR over its institutional mandate. International relief officials working in Russia and the Caucasus, including UNHCR staff, repeatedly urged UNHCR to redefine its mandate on a regional basis, so that it could respond swiftly to crises as they continue to erupt in the former Soviet Union. Hundreds of thousands of former Soviet citizens are likely to be uprooted over the course of the coming decade.
Most commentators agree that the distinction between traditional cross-border refugees and IDPs is receding in practice. If the High Commissioner for Refugees determines that UNHCR should start an operation for IDPs, the necessary special authorization from the Secretary General is likely to be obtained. The debate, according to several insiders, is more a matter within UNHCR, where a number of staffers see the work with IDPs as a threat to funding for traditional refugee problems. “Donors say, ‘Yes. Definitely. Do conflict resolution. Try to prevent the crisis,’” one UNHCR official said. “But then there’s no funding.”
This UNHCR official argues that establishing an early presence, preferably prior to a full-blown crisis, is crucial to developing credibility with the local authorities and local populations involved. Even without a major assistance program, the UNHCR should consider establishing a preliminary administrative structure at a cost of only a few hundred thousand dollars, through which international and local NGOs could begin work similar to what the groups are doing in the poorest regions of Georgia. According to the same UNHCR official, Geneva is making some moves to address this issue. Headquarters convened a meeting to talk about its future plans, and also sent a mission from its Internal Evaluation Unit to assess the situation in the troubled program in Georgia.
Another UNHCR colleague working in the former Soviet Union, however, foresaw problems in expanding UNHCR’s role and a broader legal mandate. He preferred to take refugee crises ad hoc, and on the subject of Chechnya, for example, he opposed involvement inside the embattled republic because it was “in a state of total war.” The UNHCR should work in the environs, he said, and leave the war zone to other groups that are already there.
UNHCR may require some time to build a more productive relationship with the Russians and other republics. Relations got off to a strained start in the first throes of post-Soviet migration. According to some of its own employees, UNHCR can begin by recruiting field officers who speak one of the local languages, and failing that, by appointing representatives who have some knowledge of the former Soviet Union. Some of the repatriation plans for Abkhazia seemed to be conceived in ignorance of daily reality in the towns and villages, most notably in this instance with the notion that security for repatriates would be ensured by the “local Abkhaz police,” for example.
Finally, for a resolution to the specific problems of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, several people interviewed urged the international community to seek every diplomatic means of influencing Russia to endorse some kind of long-term settlement. It is widely believed that unrest in these former republics will not end until Russia finds a settlement suitable to its own interests. Those interests could be enhanced by the attachment of practical aid programs for reconstruction and resettlement, as well as ongoing assistance in potentially explosive areas. Along with diplomatic interventions, cooperation from the leading power in the region will most likely require an economic package from the international community designed to help the local authorities implement a long-term settlement.
1. Statistics in this section are cited from Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independet States. (London: Europa Publications Limited, 1994), pp. 305-322. Other population figures are estimates from local and international sources interviewed in March 1995.
2. Reuters, March 21, 1995.
3. Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. (London: Europa Publications Limited, 1994), p. 305.
4. UNHCR official, interviewed by Kathleen Hunt, March 1995, Georgia.
5. For a comprehensive account of atrocities by both sides, see Georgia/Abkhazia: Violations of the Laws of War and Russia's Role in the Conflict. (New York: Human Rights Watch Arms Project and Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, March 1995).
Copyright © 1995 by the Open Society Institute ISBN 0-9641568-1-4
The Open Society Institute's Forced Migration Projects monitor circumstances in the former Soviet Union and other parts of the world in order to give early warning of forced movements of people and to identify conditions which may cause dislocations. The Forced Migration Projects encourage early and effective humanitarian responses to migration emergencies; advocate the humane treatment of those unable to return; urge permanent solutions for those displaced; and promote measures that avert individuals' need to flee. The Open Society Institute (OSI) is a private operating foundation that was established in 1993 to promote the development of open societies around the world. Toward this goal, OSI engages in a number of regional and country-specific projects relating to education, media, legal reform, health care, and human rights. In addition, OSI undertakes projects aimed at encouraging debate and disseminating information on a range of issues which are insufficiently explored in the public realm.