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Abkhazia
Legal basis of statehood and sovereignty
Chapter 3. Legal basis of statehood
3.6. About so-called “refugees”
Not having solved basic questions by defining the true originator of
aggression and instigator of war in Transcaucasia and, especially, by not having
applied international sanctions against it directed towards the suppression of
further attempts at aggression, the United Nations have untied the hands of
Georgia in its further claims on lands not belonging to it. The slogan “Abkhazia
is Georgia” has not been forgotten by officials from the United Nations and
their protege. Understanding that forcing Abkhazia to agree to a new
annexation will not be possible, steps towards the creation in Abkhazia of the
required demographic situation, which were carried out actively throughout the
previous century by their Georgian wards, have been undertaken again
within the United Nations. The problem is how to install in the country as large
a quantity of Georgians as possible, then having artificially created a
numerical superiority of this part of the population there, to return Abkhazia
by “legitimate” parliamentary means to the bosom of Georgia. This group of
Georgian people will naturally make a “fifth column”, by means of which it will
be possible to dethrone the unshakeable government of Abkhazia and to enable the
election in Abkhazia, as M.Saakashvili has stated, of a “proGeorgian”
president. With this aim in view, at the request of Georgian political
demagogues the United Nations declared all the Georgians wishing to settle in
Abkhazia as refugees, and in its annual decisions demanded that the Abkhazian
side provide Georgians with the opportunity of returning to the country.
Since the moment of connection of the United Nations to the peace-keeping
process in Abkhazia, in its documents items continuously appear from year to
year about “the political status of Abkhazia as a part of Georgia” and about the
returning of refugees to its territory. The aim is to return refugees at any
cost to Abkhazia, which belongs to Georgia. Georgia and world community
organisations forget that the formal recognition of the presence of refugees
from Abkhazia to Georgia is a recognition of Abkhazia as a sovereign country,
as “refugees” (by the definition of experts of the United Nations) cannot be in
one country, which is the category in which Georgia together with Abkhazia
considers itself. Inside the country there can be only “internally displaced
persons (IDP)”.
But this is not the main point. As Abkhazia is not a part of Georgia, the
Georgians who left Abkhazia after its finding of independence are not refugees,
but repatriates. The convention on the status of refugees, accepted on July
28th, 1951 by the Conference of Plenipotentiaries about the Status of Refugees
and Repatriates, called according to resolution 429 (V) of the General
Assembly from December 14th, 1950, makes the following definition of this
category of persons:
“Article 1 - Definition of concept “refugee”
A. In the present Convention the term “refugee” means a person who:
2)…owing to quite proven fears of becoming a victim of prosecutions on the
basis of race, creed, citizenship, an accessory to a certain social group or
political convictions, is out of the country of their civil affiliation and
cannot use the protection of this country or does not wish to use such
protection owing to such fears; or, not having certain citizenship and being out
of the country of the usual former residence as a result of similar events,
cannot or does not wish to return to it owing to such fears.
C. Regulations of the present Convention do not extend any further for a
person falling under the definitions of section A who:
1) voluntarily has again taken advantage of the protection of the country of
their civil affiliation; or
2) having lost the citizenship, again has obtained it voluntarily; or
3) has acquired new citizenship and uses the protection of the country of
their new civil affiliation; or
4) voluntarily has again settled in the country which they had left or out of
whose limits they had stayed owing to fears of prosecutions;
F. Regulations of the present Convention do not extend to all those persons
concerning whom there are serious reasons to assume that they:
a) have committed a crime against the world, a war crime or a crime
against humanity in the definition given to these actions in international
documents, which were drawn up with the aim of acceptance of measures concerning
similar crimes;
b) have committed a serious crime of a non-political nature outside of the
country which has given them refuge and before they have been admitted into this
country as refugees;
c) are guilty of committing acts contradicting the purposes and principles
of the United Nations Organization”.
Thus, though officials from the United Nations consider that “all Georgians
who left Abkhazia, running from the horrors of war, are refugees”, in reality
it is a different matter. According to the international documents on this
question, the right to define “who is who” belongs only to the country which
people left. For the country into which the people from another state arrive,
refugees are only foreigners. Convention rules “do not extend any further for
a person falling under the definitions of section A (refugee - author)”..., in
the case where that person... “voluntarily has again taken advantage of the
protection of the country of their civil affiliation” (i.e. for Georgians who
returned to Georgia).
With the beginning of military actions, heavy Georgian army weapons and
gangs of National Guard bandits came into the southern part of Abkhazia, and in
this region the arson of houses of Abkhazians and Armenians began, together with
beatings, tortures and shooting of the civilian population. The people left
possessions acquired over decades and ran from the Georgian aggressors and
the horrors of war, trying to escape from ethnic cleansing and their
destruction due to their nationality. They ran to the north, over the river Psou
to the Krasnodar region of Russia. No, the ethnic Georgians living in Abkhazia
did not run. They met the Georgian bands named “guards” with flowers, Georgian
flags, and greetings of welcome. From the horrors of war and ethnic cleansing
ran Abkhazians, from the horrors of war ran Russians, Armenians, Greeks, Jews
and people of other nationalities, as all of them on the lands seized by
Georgians were subjected to mockeries, robberies, violence, and physical
destruction. They ran beyond the borders of their country of residence and they,
and only they, are “refugees”. There is no mention of this in United Nations
documents, and the world community doesn’t want to know about it.
Having occupied the southern part of Abkhazia and seized Sukhum, Georgians
dethroned the lawful government by force (manu militari). The legitimate
Abkhazian government moved to Gudauta for the period of occupation. The
invaders, having created their own, Georgian, government, started to introduce
a military regime in the country. This was aimed at the destruction of all
Abkhazians without exception, from young to old, and the violent removal from
the territory of Abkhazia (in truth, only from its occupied part) of all
foreigners. With this end in view, the expulsion from the country of ten
thousand Greeks and Jews was organized. They were humiliated, compelled to board
chartered ships without things which had been stolen from them, lost their homes
and belongings, and were sent to Israel or Greece. There was a compulsory
exodus of a mass of the people, with the violent deprivation of their right to
live in their country of residence and of their citizenship. Nevertheless, this
category of persons, according to United Nations rules, also has no right to
the definition “refugees”, for although they were violently compelled to leave
their country of residence, they “voluntarily have again taken advantage of the
protection of the country of their civil affiliation”. This fact of a holocaust
does not trouble officials from the United Nations in any way, and they are
concerned only with the resettlement of the Georgian fanatics.
As for the category of “internally displaced persons”, the ethnic Georgians
who left Abkhazia together with the Georgian army in 1993 cannot be referred to
it by definition. The IDPs, according to decisions of the Viennese convention
from May 23rd, 1969 and the quadripartite Agreement from April 4th, 1994
(Moscow) about voluntary returning of refugees and displaced persons, in the
language of experts are called people who have left their native places but have
not left the country. Displaced persons cannot count on the protection and help
given to refugees.
The only real “internally displaced persons”, who left their houses during
the Georgian occupation and ran away to Bzyb Abkhazia, are Abkhazians,
Armenians, and Russians who ran from one part of their native land to another.
Unfortunately, this basic definition is not accepted in the legal documents of
Abkhazia.
Those who returned to their historical native land (in this case Georgia)
from the country in which they lived before, are called repatriates (from latin
“re” - a prefix designating renewal, + “patria” - “native land”). Such “returned
home” people were one million Algerian Frenchmen, and it was of no value that
the majority of them were born in Algeria, as was one of the presidents of
France. In the concept of repatriation, such circumstances as one’s birthplace,
or reasons for appearing in another country and returning from it, are not
included. Millions of citizens of European countries occupied by Hitler -
“displaced persons” who after the war returned to their countries - were
repatriates also. Some of them had given birth to children in concentration
camps or on German farms, but these children were not considered as refugees
from Germany, but were also repatriates coming back to their native land after
having been born in another country. As we have shown above, based on data from
population censuses, till the end of XIX century in Abkhazia there were
practically no Georgians. Therefore all Georgians of Abkhazia (excluding
Mingrelians from Samurzakan), possessed and still possess only Georgian
citizenship, and were newcomers on Abkhazian land, so it is not their
native land. We underline that the rules of Conventions “do not extend any
further for a person falling under the definitions of section A” (a refugee -
authors), in case that person “voluntarily has again taken advantage of the
protection of the country of their civil affiliation”.
One of the actions of the Georgian administration in the occupied territory
of Abkhazia, along with a genocide in relation to Abkhazians and a holocaust to
Greeks and Jews, was the issue of arms to all the suitable population -
ethnic Georgians. If Georgian statistics specify that the so-called “Georgian
refugees” make 250 thousand persons, in Abkhazia there is authentic data about
more than 45 thousand of them listed by surname who were armed recruits. The
Georgian military authorities gave out to each ethnic Georgian living in the
territory of Abkhazia an automatic gun or other fighting weapon (even the
numbers of the weapons which were given out to identified persons are known),
and they were entered into the structure of the armed forces. Each such
Georgian family provided a fighter against sovereign Abkhazia, or even two.
A.Otyrba gives the following information, making comments on a major
interview of the speaker of the Georgian parliament by the “Nezavisimaya
Gazeta”:
“The sensation is that since the termination of the Georgian-Abkhazian war,
Tbilisi has persistently asserted that the refugees who left Abkhazia are
innocent peaceful inhabitants, who were expelled by Abkhazians absolutely
groundlessly. And here for the first time at official level this was refuted. On
a comment from the correspondent that in Sukhum they declare today that they
consider it not only possible but also necessary to accept the return of those
refugees who did not commit crimes and were not at war against them, but the
Georgian authorities do not allow them to come back, Nino Burdjanadze answered
thus:
“I consider that those people who committed war crimes should be punished,
whether they be Georgian, Abkhazian, Russian or Chechen. But the fact is that
Abkhazians name as criminals all, without any exception, who took weapons and
protected their houses, wives, children and families. Because of this, it turns
out that none of the refugees should come back”.
Thereby, Nino Burdjanadze admitted that Georgian inhabitants of Abkhazia had
been armed without exception. But, as is known, a person who has taken a
fighting weapon in his hands is not a civilian person nor even a combatant.
Naturally, these persons also do not enter the category of “refugees” or
“displaced persons”. They are military criminals, and left Abkhazia together
with fleeing members of the Georgian troops.
According to norms of the United Nations, “Regulations of the present
Convention do not extend to all those persons concerning whom there are serious
reasons to assume that they:
a) have committed a crime against the world, a war crime or a crime
against humanity in the definition given to these actions in international
documents, which were drawn up with the aim of acceptance of measures concerning
similar crimes”.
Nevertheless, for officials of the United Nations, all these persons (though
all of them ran from a fair penalty for murders, and for betraying their country
of residence, together with fleeing Georgian troops) are “refugees”. All efforts
by this organisation are directed towards the return of this part of the
efficient aggressive population. The reason for this is clear.
The defeat of the aggressors and their flight was predetermined. The
president of Abkhazia, during the conduct of operations to clear Abkhazia of
invaders, stated that: with the proviso that ethnic Georgians did not take up
weapons in their hands and did not oppose the people of Abkhazia, the option was
offered to persons of Georgian nationality who were not participating in evil
deeds against the people of the country not to leave Abkhazia, and each of them
was guaranteed the rights of a citizen of the Republic of Abkhazia.
This address to Georgians did not achieve success. Euphoria at the beginning
of a victorious campaign by the Georgian armada in Abkhazia completely untied
hands for a genocide in relation to the peoples of Abkhazia, and impunity for
military and criminal offences turned the heads of ethnic Georgians. In this
dancing “on the graves of the murdered”, begun by Georgia on August 14th,
supporters and non-supporters of Gamsakhurdia joined together. Ethnic Georgians
living in Abkhazia only found such permissiveness with the arrival of regular
Georgian troops. In this, and with their returning to the so-called “Democratic
Republic of Georgia”, the essence of Georgian culture was shown. As the
newspaper “Droni” from September 4th, 1992 wrote: “input of the Georgian troops
has encouraged the Georgian population. The hope has appeared that we are not
alone”.
During the existence of the USSR, despite the evidence of a genocide and of
ethnic violence from the Georgian administration, there was no friction in its
relations with the multinational people of Abkhazia, including ethnic
Georgians. It was one community, an amicable family building socialism. But
the ambitions of political functionaries of Georgia extended much further, in
the area of creation of the Georgian empire, and were especially shown after the
disintegration of the USSR. Modern Georgian politicians, in achievement of
these other-wordly purposes, did not shun and do not shun anything - from
distortion of the history of Transcaucasia to the direct planning of Anschluss,
the capture by military force of everything that a thievish hand can get, and
its inclusion in the structure of Georgia. But there has come a day of
reckoning, and Georgians have received what they struggled for.
This should be understood by officials from the United Nations. But the
United Nations continue to prepare the next documents, trying to present these
homebrew fighters as “innocent lambs”, victims of Abkhazian aggression.
Moreover, there is a desire to drag into basic documents the subject of ethnic
cleansing in Abkhazia in relation to ethnic Georgians, as one of the worst
crimes against humanity, though special investigations have found no evidence of
this phenomenon. In this respect, the United Nations is guided by hypocrisy
and double standards.
Today Georgian officials, giving reasons for their claims to Abkhazia, refer
to the quantitative structure of refugees. They assert that the number of
refugees exceeds the quantity of people who have remained in Abkhazia, and this
gives them the right to define the future of Abkhazia. From such an argument it
appears that it is possible to justify any robbers, on the grounds that during a
previous unsuccessful robbery there were more robbers than planned victims, and
on this basis they should be allowed to repeat the crime. But according to all
laws and ethical standards, the superiority in strength of criminals over their
victims only accentuates the fault of the former.
As a result of the war started by the Georgian adventurers, and their utter
defeat and subsequent departure with a considerable part of the Georgian
population who had done evil deeds in the territory of Abkhazia, the status quo
was restored, which has led to normalisation of the ethnodemographic
situation.
Georgia puts one of the conditions for termination of the conflict as the
returning of all refugees to Abkhazia. However, as all Georgians who left
Abkhazia during the military Georgian expansion were either insurgents in the
army of aggressors or their helpers, i.e. were military criminals, and because
from the point of view of world practice their actions were illegal, their
return would be accompanied by criminal investigation or investigation of war
crimes, and the sentence of guilty in the courts. Regarding criminal and war
crimes against representatives of Russian, Abkhazian, Jewish, Armenian and
other sections of the population, more than 45 thousand persons of Georgian
nationality are under investigation for committing evil actions against the
people of Abkhazia. These criminals consider themselves as refugees, and most
actively demand their return, including through bodies of the United Nations,
the European Union, etc. They know that their hands are covered in the blood
of the innocent Abkhazian civilian population, and understand that upon their
returning to independent Abkhazia there is only one road for them - to a dock.
Therefore an indispensable condition of their returning is revenge, the
condition that Abkhazia will be a part of Georgia.
Are they refugees? No! Firstly they, unlike other members of the population
of Abkhazia having Abkhazian and Russian citizenship, were citizens only of
Georgia and, having left Abkhazia, returned to live in the country of their
own citizenship; secondly, they are not internally displaced persons, as they
left for another country. The fact that they consider the Abkhazia occupied
previously by them as a part of their country changes nothing. If the criminal
aspect of these people is ignored, it appears that they left the country by
their own free will according to their own decision, as is the right of each
citizen of a free democratic country. It was their choice, not made during the
year of military actions. They did not run from the horrors of war, in fact
during those horrors they freely lived in an occupied territory, enjoying the
possibility of plundering the houses of other people in the country, believing
that their lawlessness would remain unpunished.
Has the United Nations any right to demand the returning to Abkhazia of
persons of this category? No! Such a right is available only to the people who
left Abkhazia in 1992 and 1993, really running from the horrors of the war
started by the Georgian invaders, along with ethnic cleansings and
genocide conducted by them in the territory of sovereign Abkhazia. Do ethnic
Georgians have the right to return to Abkhazia? The answer is also no, as they
were repatriated, returned home, and left Abkhazia by their own free will. Do
they have the right to apply for residence in Abkhazia? Undoubtedly, as everyone
has the right to ask permission to reside in any country of the world. This,
as a rule, involves a check by relevant bodies about any previous offences, the
issue of a residence permit for a certain period, and decision by the host
state regarding the possibility and expediency of granting citizenship to this
person.
Georgia does not intend to solve this problem on the basis of compromise, as
it is necessary to solve (partially at least) the question of “refugees” on the
terms of the status of independence of Abkhazia existing today, and there
would be a necessity to recognise the sovereignty of Abkhazia de jure. This is
not included in Georgia’s revanchist plans.
The problem of “refugees” has one more aspect. As T.Achugba shows, the more
the problem of refugees is publicised by Georgia, the more strongly Georgia
can influence the international community, as the problem of mutual relations
with Abkhazia becomes more crucial. The Georgian government will not attempt to
improve the living conditions of “refugees” in Georgia, as in that case the
international pressure on Abkhazia would decrease at once, and the problem of
their return would never be solved.
We believe that any attempt to enable the uncontrolled return of so-called
“refugees” (ethnic Georgians) without assigning them Abkhazian citizenship and
cancelling their Georgian citizenship (which it is possible to name as
repatriation), is directed towards a change in the demographic situation in
the country, and the reconstruction of a “fifth column” whose purpose is to
overthrow the government and seize power in sovereign Abkhazia. It is known that
the settling of an independent state by foreigners deprives the indigenous
population of their right to free-willed self-determination. The United Nations
requirement about Georgian settlers, who ran from Abkhazia, returning from their
historic native land of Georgia, cannot be considered from the point of view
of international law as legal, as the fact of foreigners settling in Abkhazia
has all the elements of the colonial policy of an imperialist country and is a
nonsense in modern policy and practice.
If you have expelled aggressors (for example, fascists in the Second World
War) from an occupied territory of the USSR, are you now obliged to return them
to this territory for permanent residence, because during the occupation, within
three-four years they became accustomed to living there, and this place became
their native land? You will answer that this is an absurdity. Nevertheless, the
suggestion that this absurdity must be carried out in Abkhazia is made by the
international community, in the name of the United Nations and the European
Union.
History knows a precedent similar to the Abkhazian situation. After the
Second World War, Czechoslovakia evicted from their territory three
million ethnic Sudeten Germans who had lived there from time immemorial.
Nothing happened as a result, and nobody considers this fact as a genocide.
Moreover, it was not an obstacle for the introduction of the Czech Republic
into the European Union.
Shamba T., Neproshin А. Abkhazia: Legal basis of statehood and sovereignty. М: Open Company "In-Oktavo", 2005, 240 pages.
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