Abkhazia Counts the Cost of War

SUKHUMI, Georgia -- "Want to see my Kalashnikov?" Zhenya, 16, said as he greeted two Western correspondents. "Everyone here keeps them at home."Sukhumi is now the capital of the self-proclaimed Republic of Abkhazia, a lush, sub-tropical landscape of snow-capped peaks and palm-fringed beaches which was once a Black Sea playground of the Soviet communist elite. But the city once known for its graceful coastal villas, which came under fierce shelling in the final weeks before it fell to the separatists last September, is a ghost of its former self. Men toting automatic weapons and widows in black dresses -- the macho and the mourning -- mingle on the streets against a backdrop of looted and destroyed buildings. Abkhaz troops, backed by mercenaries from Russia's North Caucasus, drove leader Eduard Shevardnadze's troops out of the province last year after months of fighting. An estimated 7,000 people were killed. The departure of more than 60 percent of Sukhumi's 160,000 residents, ethnic Georgians who fled the separatist advance during the war, has left the city with a strange emptiness. Very few businesses have reopened. The conflict erupted in August 1992 when the central government sent a rag-tag, undisciplined army into the province after the local parliament voted for more autonomy. The soldiers went on a spree of looting, raping, and killing which often singled out the ethnic Abkhazians, who numbered only around 100,000 and made up less than one-fifth of the population. Fighting raged for a year until Abkhaz separatists stormed Sukhumi in a decisive assault. Thousands of homes belonging to ethnic Georgians were looted and burned. About 200,000 of them fled. Many now live in Georgia in squalid refugee centers. Abkhazia now has the trappings of statehood, with an army, national symbols, and visa regulations for foreigners. But its long-term future hinges on Russia -- a reality of which the Abkhaz leadership is uneasily aware. Russian peacekeepers, with the tacit consent of the United Nations, now patrol a 24-kilometer-wide zone on either side of the Inguri River which separates Abkhazia from Georgia. But many Abkhazians fear Moscow may use its 3,000-strong force as a smokescreen to tug Abkhazia back into Russia's orbit.At one point in 1993 the Abkhaz parliament in exile sent a letter asking to join the Russian Federation. Now after achieving de facto independence, few Abkhazians want to give it up. "After such a bloody war, I really don't want to be part of any country. Abkhazia must be independent," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Zurab Smyr. Abkhazians are especially wary of what Russian help in returning some 60,000 ethnic Georgians to the Gali region of the country will mean. Large-scale repatriation could tip the demographic balance against the Abkhazians again. At first Abkhaz leader Vladislav Ardzinba opposed the return of any Georgians who had taken part in fighting. He has softened his stance since. But with the deep mistrust between the two peoples it is hard to imagine repatriation on a big scale. "You can probably imagine that it will not be easy to guarantee the safety of a family where its head fought on Georgia's side during the war," he said in an interview. Meanwhile the would-be country is broke. Government workers have not been paid for eight months. Thrice-weekly bread handouts and occasional giveaways of a cup of sugar are the only fruits of victory for most of the population, which has dropped from 520,000 before the war to an estimated 200,000 now. A graveyard for heroes of the conflict now occupies what was a park in the center of the city, within sight of the burned-out 14-story parliament building where Shevardnadze was holed up in the last days of the war.