Georgia
From The Long Union, an encyclopedia of a world that didn't happen
Georgia is an independent nation occupying the region between the Black Sea and the Caucasus mountains, bordered to the north by the Russian Sovereign Republic, to the south and east by Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Turkey, and to the west by the sea. It departed from the Soviet Union in April 1991, five months before the August Emergency, and did not participate in the Novo-Ogaryovo Accords. Its population is ethnically diverse, with ethnic Georgians forming a clear majority but Abkhazian, Ossetian, Mingrelian, and other minorities holding significant territorial and demographic weight in its borderlands.
Georgia's transition to independence proved chaotic and violent. The nationalist government of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, elected in May 1990, pursued aggressive policies toward regional minorities and moved rapidly toward formal secession. The August Emergency and the subsequent failure of the hardliners to restore central Soviet control left Georgia without negotiating partners in Moscow; there was no Union government to treat with, and the Russian Republic under Boris Yeltsin took months to establish clear policy. Georgia's declaration of independence in April 1991 went unchallenged in practice, though it was never formally recognized by the deteriorating Union apparatus.
Internal conflict followed swiftly. Gamsakhurdia's rule grew increasingly authoritarian, and in December 1991 he was ousted by a military uprising in Tbilisi (the capital). The country descended into civil war between factions loyal to Gamsakhurdia and the transitional government that replaced him, with fighting spreading to the regions. In 1992, ethnic Ossetians in South Ossetia, backed by Russian units from across the border, declared their own independence and fought a brief war against Georgian forces. Abkhazia, in Georgia's northwest, launched a separatist rebellion in 1992 that devastated the region and resulted in the displacement of most of Georgia's Mingrelian and other non-Abkhazian population.
The transitional government, led by Eduard Shevardnadze, a former Soviet Foreign Minister, gradually stabilized central authority in Tbilisi but lost effective control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. By 1995 a ceasefire held in both regions, though no settlement was reached. The Union of Soviet Sovereign States did not intervene formally, though Russian forces remained in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, nominally as peacekeepers. Georgia did not request Union membership and did not seek it.
The status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia remained Georgia's defining problem after 1995. Both regions held de facto independence, governed by their own administrations and defended by their own armed forces, supplied and backed by the Russian Sovereign Republic. Georgia's central government refused to recognize either as independent and declared them to be occupied territories. The Union of Soviet Sovereign States, lacking a unified foreign policy and split between republics with different interests in the South Caucasus, took no collective position on the question, and the Russian Republic's interest in maintaining a sphere of influence conflicted with Georgia's claims.
International recognition followed Georgia's position. The United States and the European Union treated South Ossetia and Abkhazia as occupied or disputed territories, not as independent states, and did not establish formal relations with either. However, they were recognized by a limited set of nations, principally the Russian Sovereign Republic and a few others aligned with it. This created a frozen conflict: borders unresolved, territories partially controlled by the government in Tbilisi, partially by breakaway administrations, and the underlying disputes never negotiated to settlement.
References
- 1.The August Emergency and the Transformation of Soviet Power]], Leonid Shatalin, 1997, The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 341–358
- 2.Civil War in the Caucasus: The Georgian Conflicts, 1990–1995]], Svante Cornell, 2002, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, Report 61
- 3.Georgia's Transitional Government: Documents of the State Council, 1992–1993]], State Council of Georgia Archive, Tbilisi, File 4.1.7
- 4.Frozen Conflict: The Question of South Ossetia in Union-Georgian Relations]], Maria Lipman, ed., 2008, Moscow Carnegie Center, pp. 67–82