Georgians Far From Kodori Return

Winter is coming to the mountains of western Georgia and there is virtually no communication with the Upper Kodori Gorge. Several thousand Georgians who fled in August, when Russian and Abkhaz forces captured the gorge, are coming to terms with the fact that they will not be able to go home any time soon.



Since August 12, when the Abkhaz used the crisis over South Ossetia to move into the region – officially called Upper Abkhazia by the Georgian authorities and the only part of Abkhazia ruled from Tbilisi – almost the entire population has been refugees in the lowlands of western Georgia. The only information comes from a few people who have been allowed back by the Abkhaz and Russians to pick up personal belongings.



Mevlud Jachvliani was one of the last Georgian civilians to leave the gorge on August 11, when some units of the Georgian military were still there. There had not yet been a ground invasion but Georgian interior ministry buildings and the buildings of the Georgian government’s “Abkhaz government in exile” had already been attacked from the air.



“We were only bombed from the air,” said Jachvliani. “But the attacks were terrible. Ten airplanes swooped down on us at the same time. We were sitting in our car, when a bomb was dropped just 400 metres away from us. The shock wave was so powerful that we nearly burst out of our skins.



“All the [government] buildings burnt to the ground. The school was badly damaged too – it didn’t have a single pane left unbroken. Everything was destroyed.”



The region is now almost totally depopulated, said a Georgian priest, who is one of a handful of people still staying in the occupied gorge. The man, who did not want to be named, said that of the 2,500 civilians, who lived in the region before the conflict, only around 30, most of them elderly people, remain. He said an Abkhaz flag was now flying above the ruins of the building that used to house the Georgian-run “government in exile”.



The priest said that the gorge was given up without any casualties, “Luckily, no one was hurt, and only several uninhabited buildings were damaged. But on August 11, the units of the interior ministry and defence ministry began evacuating the population, and on the following day they left too.”



The Abkhaz landed in the gorge on August 12, followed three days later by the Russian military. “By that time, the Abkhaz and Cossacks had robbed the People’s Bank’s office and administration headquarters,” said the priest. “They took away a lot of ammunition and weapons that Georgian armed units had left behind undestroyed.”



The Georgian government took control of the gorge in July 2006 from a local warlord named Emzar Kvitsiani. There were reports that Kvitsiani had led the Abkhaz and Cossacks back into the area, but these have not been confirmed. Kakha Akishbaia, who is head of the pro-Georgian government of Abkhazia, said a certain Zaza Gurchiani, a close ally of Kvitsiani, was now in charge.



The inhabitants of the area are almost exclusively Svans, a Georgian ethnic sub-group with their own distinctive language.



There is passionate discussion in Georgia as to why the 1600-strong military force comprising both defence ministry and interior ministry troops abandoned the strategically important gorge without a fight, leaving behind many of their weapons.



There is virtually no official comment on what happened. In an interview with Batumelebi newspaper, an anonymous source from the defence ministry described the last moments before their withdrawal from the gorge.



“We took with us everything we could, except for our artillery,” said the source. “We destroyed everything we couldn’t possibly take with us, including government buildings and ammunition. We left behind our M-4 automatic weapons as well. Our group of 150 men was the last to leave [the gorge]. We mined the territory and set booby traps. And when we had done that, we left.”



The Russian media has published extensive material about what was discovered in the gorge, showing pictures of the large amounts of American-made weaponry it says was abandoned there.



Georgian experts say the reports are exaggerated. Retired colonel Giorgy Tavdgiridze says that all heavy weaponry was evacuated, adding, “Although, it’s possible that some group dropped their weapons out of fear or for some other reason.”



The Georgian authorities are calling for Abkhaz and Russian forces to withdraw from the gorge, but it appears to be low down their list of priorities. The region is 500 kilometres from Tbilisi and is not part of the two buffer zones around Abkhazia and South Ossetia which Russia pledged to pull out of by October 10.



Most attention is currently focused on the Georgian-majority Akhalgori region, where Russian troops are still present, which Moscow says is part of South Ossetia but the Georgians say is part of Georgia proper.



No progress was made at the talks in Geneva on October 15 between the two sides, which broke down almost immediately.



It is also unclear whether the European Union Monitoring Mission will be allowed into the Kodori Gorge. United Nations observers left the area before the Abkhaz offensive. The two roads up into the gorge through the village of Azhara are both entirely under the control of Abkhaz and Russian forces.



Dali Kvanchiani used to run a small café in Azhara. She planned to open a restaurant there next year but now she and her family are staying with her relatives in the village of Tskaltubo, having been displaced from her native Kodori Gorge for the second time since 1993.



“I left behind a lot of food and clothes in the café,” she said. “When I returned from Zugdidi to pick them all up, the Russians at the checkpoint in Khaishi let me in very easily, only asking me to show my documents. On the way back, they even gave me a special pass signed by a Russian colonel.



“But I found my café destroyed and the goods stolen. What could I do? I took everything I could carry in my hands and left. This café was both my home and my work, and the war took it all away in a single day.”



She is optimistic that one day she will be able to go back to the gorge and reopen her business, though she is sure it won’t happen until after the New Year.



The UN High Commission for Refugees advised in September that it is unsafe for refugees to return to the gorge before spring. It said in a statement, “With mountain passes blocked from November onwards, it would not be possible to provide enough

food and fire wood before winter sets in.”



The weather is already deciding the issue. In just a month’s time, the snow will cover the mountains, blocking whatever access the people of the Upper Kodori Gorge have to their homes.



Koba Liklikadze is a reporter for Radio Liberty in Tbilisi.