Russia heats up frozen conflict

Quote: The trouble with frozen conflicts is that they seldom stay that way. The unrecognised rebel region of Abkhazia looks like being the latest that could easily tip back into violence.
Georgia and Russia are at loggerheads over the territory, once the holiday playground of Moscow's elite. Georgia accuses Russia of creeping annexation, Abkhazia accuses Georgia of provocation and Russia is merrily exploiting their antagonism to demonstrate that it remains the dominant power.
Moscow has chosen an acutely sensitive moment, when Georgia is in the throes of a hotly disputed parliamentary election, to step up its formal ties with the secessionist republic. Tbilisi is incensed; the US, Nato and the European Union have expressed concern. That was before Monday, when a Georgian unmanned reconnaissance aircraft was shot down - allegedly by a Russian MiG-29 - over Abkhazia. Yesterday the United Nations Security Council held a closed session at Georgia's request to hear the claims and counter-claims.
"It's a very bad game that Moscow is playing," says Giorgi Baramidze, Georgia's deputy prime minister. "It is very dangerous and provocative. Russia is flexing its muscles. It is a challenge for the west."
Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, says he is being reasonable and legal, acting to protect Russian citizens in those regions. He adds that Georgia should never be flying aircraft over Abkhazia, in terms of the UN-secured ceasefire there.
Yet the Russian action is also a deliberate response to two other western moves in recent weeks, seen as hostile in Moscow: the US-backed decision by Kosovo, supported by most of the EU, to declare unilateral independence from Russia's ally Serbia; and the tentative agreement by Nato allies at their Bucharest summit to open the door to eventual membership for both Georgia and Ukraine.
It may well be more. Mr Putin seems to have opted to back hard-liners in Moscow, who favour de facto annexation of Abkhazia while stopping short of recognising independence, presenting a fait accompli to his successor, Dmitry Medvedev. Cooler Russian analysts have argued against any action that would appear to encourage self-determination for a former Soviet region. After all, just such an action was the excuse for two wars in Chechnya.
The Abkhazian conflict goes back to the 19th century, when thousands of Abkhazians were deported or forced to flee when they resisted Moscow's rule. In the Soviet era, Stalin subjected them to forced Georgianisation, closing Abkhaz language schools, and then encouraged further mass migration of other minorities to repopulate the region.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, resurgent nationalism tipped Georgia and Abkhazia into a civil war. Today there are still at least 200,000 refugees in Georgia. For Tbilisi, it is a burning issue of national pride: no party in the election is prepared to defend Abkhazian independence, or Russia's actions. They are convinced that Russia is stirring it up.
Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian president, has offered a form of federal state, with a guaranteed post of vice-president for Abkhazia, and a veto on any changes to the constitution. But it seems it is too late. The Abkhaz population is trapped between a desire to escape Georgia, and fear of being sucked back into Russia.

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