Situation tense in Abkhazia

The separatist leadership of Georgia’s breakaway territory of Abkhazia is facing a very serious crisis. The Russian backed separatist government and their President Aleksander Ankvab is under pressure from the opposition. As some analysts think, the activities are targeted not only against the leaders of the de-facto regions, but against the Georgian population living there.

Analysts suggest that Russia is visibly behind of the protests, that it is a plot masterminded in the Kremlin’s corridors, and its final aim is to play the Crimean game and annex Abkhazia.

A coordination council unites all opposition parties and other bodies, which organize protest rallies in Abkhazia.

This organization was created to suppress the Georgian ethnic population in Abkhazia, according to the leaders of the de-facto regime. Ethnic Georgians, they say, should be given Abkhaz passports for integrating them into the Abkhaz state.

This was the stand of the opposition:

They suggested that the distribution of passports to ethnic Georgians would create a threat to Abkhaz sovereignty. It was the initial idea that caused the unrest in Abkhazia. However, later social-economic and democratic reforms and issues were added to the initial issues.

The opposition criticized the moves of the puppet president Aleksander Ankvab. The major aim of the opposition force is the deficit of integration with Russia. The opposition leaders say that Abkhazian-Russian relations are national priority. The opposition also accuses the separatist president of appropriating money, which has been allotted to the regime by Russia. Analysts suspect that Ankvab indeed might have misdirected a certain amount of Russian money and spent it on infrastructural projects rather than pay for the regulation of social-economic problems.

One of the leaders of the Abkhaz opposition is Raul Khajimba, who had ran for Presidency of the region and is openly supported by Moscow. Although the Abkhazian puppet regime is completely controlled by Russia and in reality is an economic appendix of the Krasnodar region donated by the Kremlin, Ankvab still tries to preserve at least certain elements of “sovereignty” of Abkhazia. He has, for example, been resisting the pressure of the Russian demographic expansion there and has restricted Russian citizens from purchasing Abkhaz lands.

If Russia is behind the pressure on Ankvab, presumably, he will be forced to go. Khajimba will be substituted and he is very aggressively anti-Georgian and pro-Russian. Khajimba leadership means there will be pressure on the ethnic Georgian population to leave the territory, violate their rights, humiliate them… It should be said definitely as well that Abkhazia would be forced into the Eurasian Union. Thus, Moscow will create a more comfortable regime for its interests in Sokhumi.

The Georgian leadership has expressed its utmost concern over the situation in Abkhazia, clearly pointing at Russia. Tbilisi is trying to attract international attention over the events in Abkhazia so to prevent annexation and integration of the territory to the Russian Federation. In some regard the unrest in Abkhazia could be connected with the signing of the association agreement between Georgia and the EU set to take place on June 27. Probably, it is one of the forms of punitive actions against Georgia for its Western integration.