Resolution of the People's Assembly Parliament of the Republic of Abkhazia
15 October 1997
On condemnation of genocide, ethnic cleansing and other crimes committed by the military-political authorities of Georgia against the population of Abkhazia during the Georgian-Abkhazian war of 1992-1993.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, fearing the break-up of the Georgian "empire", the Georgian leadership decided to keep Abkhazia, South Ossetia and other non-Georgian regions within Georgia by means of force. Beginning from late 80-s, counting on the assistance of thousands of Georgians of Abkhazia, who found themselves here as a result of demographic expansion, the Georgian authorities launched an anti-Abkhazian campaign. Following the government's directives, scholars, intellectuals, informal organizations, clergy and Georgian mass media were accusing the "newcomers" on the Georgian land, Abkhazians, in all failures of the Georgian nation, particularly, in "blocking" their way towards national independence. In reality, the misanthropic ideology of aggressive Georgian nationalism was aimed at stirring up inter-ethnic animosity in Abkhazia, intimidating the Abkhazians and representatives of other nationalities living in Abkhazia, at abolishing the statehood of Abkhazia and the creation on the territory of the Georgian SSR of a unitary mono-ethnic independent Georgian state. The opponents of the cherished goal were threatened with physical annihilation or eviction from Abkhazia.
Bloody events in Abkhazia in July 1989, inspired by the Georgian authorities, became a dress rehearsal for a planned large-scale inter-ethnic and inter-state armed confrontation.
In the years that followed, at the bidding of the Tbilisi emissaries, the Georgian ultranationalists started the division of institutions, enterprises, arts associations and other unions and even sport teams according to the ethnicity, and the citizens of non-Georgian nationality were dismissed from their jobs. Later the Ministry of Interior, the Procurator's Office, the Supreme Council and the Government of Abkhazia became also divided along the ethnic lines. Simultaneously to this, illegal Georgian armed formations were created, which were engaged in blackmailing and looting of peaceful civilians, in terror and subversive activities on the territory of Abkhazia.
The artificially created complex social-political and criminal situation forced thousands of Russians, Armenians, Greeks, Estonians and representatives of other nationalities to leave the Republic. Simultaneously, ethnic Georgians from Georgia were moving to Abkhazia and were getting permanent residence.
The leadership of Abkhazia repeatedly appealed to the Georgian authorities demanding to halt these explosive processes, but all in vain.
In the course of ever growing Georgian-Abkhazian opposition, which was taking place against the background of the collapse of the USSR and, accordingly, the Georgian SSR, the state-legal relations between Georgia and Abkhazia were disrupted. On 25 August 1990 the Supreme Council of Abkhazia, fearing the encroachment upon Abkhazia's statehood, and realising the right of the Abkhazian nation to self-determination, adopted the "Declaration on the State Sovereignty of Abkhazia" and the Resolution "On Legal Guarantees for the Protection of the Statehood of Abkhazia". On 21 February 1992 the Military Council of Georgia reinstated the Constitution of 1921 in which the state status of Abkhazia was not determined, and somewhat later, on 23 July 1992, the Supreme Council of Abkhazia restored the 1925 Constitution of Abkhazia, according to which Abkhazia was a sovereign state.
On 14 August 1992 the Republic of Georgia launched an armed attack against Abkhazia aiming at abolishment of the statehood of Abkhazia and at depriving of its people of their political independence. The Georgian occupational forces, among whom were thousands of criminals deliberately released from their prisons, perpetrated war crimes: they destroyed towns and other settlements, destroyed items of great cultural value for the nation, including the Central State Archives of Abkhazia and the unique Abkhazological Research Institute, treated prisoners of war and the wounded with cruelty, killed and raped peaceful civilians, looted and seized public and private property. The Georgian military-political authorities were guided by the principle "Abkhazia without the Abkhazians", which was officially confirmed on 25 August 1992 by G. Karkarashvili, the Commander-in-Chief of the occupational troops in his televised address. The Georgian population of Abkhazia, especially the inhabitants of the settlements created during the Stalin period, took a most active part in mass killings of Abkhazians, including children, women and elderly.
As a result of the ethnic cleansing, practically no Abkhazian population was left on the occupied part of Abkhazia, including the towns of Ochamchyra, Sukhum and Gagra. For example, according to the data of the Procurator's Office of Abkhazia, out of 7 thousand of Abkhazians residing in the city of Ochamchyra, over 400 were forced to be registered as Georgians, hundreds of Abkhazians were killed, and the rest had to flee in order to save their lives.
The Georgian occupants transferred the main focus of their operations onto the territory of Eastern Abkhazia. Following the directives of the Georgian leadership, they surrounded and isolated from the outside world all Abkhazian settlements in this area, including the town of Tkuarchal. Using modern weaponry, including the weapons of mass destruction, such as artillery systems "Grad", "Uragan", cluster shells and other kinds of weapons banned by the Geneva Convention of 1949, the aggressor was deliberately and systematically destroying the Abkhazian population of Abzhywan Abkhazia, which made up nearly a half of the entire Abkhazian nation. In the course of military operations a number of Abkhazian settlements were razed to the ground. It is noteworthy that among the documents of the headquarters of the 24th brigade of the Georgian military forces, captured by the Abkhazian fighters, a plan was found of launching on 26 December 1992 of a massive nuclear attack directed at 34 objects, including the settlements in Eastern Abkhazia.
Trying to escape genocide, the Abkhazians and representatives of other nationalities from Sukhum, Gagra and other areas of the Republic were thronging into Bzyp Abkhazia, which, encircled by the enemy and isolated from the outer world, was engaged in unequal struggle. Thus, in the end of the XXth century, before the eyes of the civilized world, the Georgian nationalists were carrying out a deliberate extermination of the Abkhazian nation, which, according to the Convention of the UN General Assembly of 9 December 1948, can be qualified as genocide.
The Procurator's Office of the Republic of Abkhazia, conducting criminal investigation of numerous crimes committed by the Georgian occupational forces in Abkhazia, instituted more than three thousand criminal cases. Thousands of Armenians, Greeks, Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Estonians, Turks and others were forced to leave Abkhazia. For example, during only one day, on 15 August 1993, 1200 ethnic Greeks were expelled from the city of Sukhum. As a rule, the authorities discontinued the residence permits of the citizens who had to leave the occupied territory, and they had to produce written obligations stating that they would not return back to Abkhazia. The houses and apartments of the deported citizens of Abkhazia were given over exclusively to ethnic Georgians, to those who were fighting in Abkhazia, or to those hastily brought in from Georgia.
The Supreme Council of the Republic of Abkhazia, at the very outset of the war, qualified in its special Resolutions of 15.09.1992 the actions of the Georgian military-political authorities against Abkhazia and its people as an aggression and genocide. The leadership of Abkhazia, public and political organizations, scientific institutions and individual citizens of Abkhazia have been repeatedly appealing to the world community with the request to stop the genocide, ethnic cleansing and other crimes being committed in Abkhazia by the Georgian authorities. However, no adequate practical measures were taken by the world community in order to save the Abkhazians and all multi-ethnic population of Abkhazia.
The people of Abkhazia, at the cost of incredible efforts and a considerable number of lives have heroically defended the liberty and independence of their motherland. A great assistance in this holy struggle was provided by the volunteers from the North Caucasus, the South of Russia and by the representatives of the Abkhazo-Adyghean Diaspora, by the people of good will. The majority of the Georgian population of the Republic, who played here the role of the "fifth column", had left Abkhazia together with the retreating Georgian troops.
Since the end of active military activity, the Georgian authorities have been trying to conceal from the world community their crimes committed in Abkhazia. Moreover, they are trying to groundlessly accuse the Abkhazian side in "aggressive separatism" and "genocide" of the Georgians, thus creating a false public opinion concerning the lawfulness and necessity of solving the problem by means of force.
Regrettably, referring to one-sided information provided by Georgia, and with silent approval of international and regional organizations, the Russian Federation, in its capacity of facilitator of negotiations, is carrying out an economic and informational blockade of Abkhazia, thus aggravating the hardships and living standards of the multi-ethnic population of Abkhazia, which suffered during the war.
Giving the political and legal assessment to the events of 1992-1993 in Abkhazia, the People's Assembly of the Republic of Abkhazia resolves:
1. Considering the Resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Abkhazia of 15 September 1992 "On the Armed Aggression of the Troops of the State Council of Georgia Against Abkhazia" and basing upon the principles of international law, to regard the introduction in August 1992 into the territory of Abkhazia of Georgian armed forces as an act of aggression aimed at abolishing the Abkhazian statehood, at depriving of its people of their political will and at restoring on its territory of a colonial regime.
2. To consider the Georgian-Abkhazian war of 1992-1993 as a military-political conflict of the international, inter-state character, the conflicting sides of which were the two states: the Republic of Georgia and the Republic of Abkhazia, and that the armed forces of the national-liberation movement of the Republic of Abkhazia and of the former metropolis, the Republic of Georgia, had the status of the warring sides.
3. To acknowledge that the military forces of the Republic of Georgia, in violation of rules of conducting military operations as stipulated by international laws, have committed crimes against peace, gross military crimes on the territory of Abkhazia.
4. Taking into consideration the Resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Abkhazia of 15 September 1992 "On the Genocide of the Abkhazian People", on the basis of the Convention of the UN General Assembly of 9 December 1948, the People's Assembly of the Republic of Abkhazia confirms and condemns the genocide and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the military-political leadership of Georgia against the Abkhazian people with the aim of its complete annihilation as a distinct nation.
5. To ask the Procurator-General of the Republic of Abkhazia to accelerate the process of bringing to court and issuing arrest warrants for the organizers, the immediate executors and participants of the genocide, ethnic cleansing and other crimes committed against the Abkhazians and representatives of other peoples of Abkhazia.
6. To ask the Human Rights Commission of the People's Assembly of the Republic of Abkhazia and the Procurator's Office of the Republic of Abkhazia to accelerate the work on elucidating and condemnation of the facts of genocide, ethnic cleansing and other crimes perpetrated by the Georgian regime in Abkhazia.
7. To recommend to the President and the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Abkhazia to consider the deliberate acts of genocide perpetrated in the past by the Georgian authorities against the Abkhazian nation and the encroachment upon the statehood of Abkhazia, when formulating and implementing the foreign policy, in particular, the basic principles of the relationship between Georgia and Abkhazia.
8. To suggest to the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Abkhazia that it demands from the Government of Georgia the compensation to the Republic of Abkhazia of the material and moral damage inflicted during the Georgian-Abkhazian military-political and ideological confrontation.
9. To pass over to the UN Security Council, OSCE, Heads of States and Parliaments of the CIS, for their information and appropriate response, the materials presented by the Procurator's Office of the Republic of Abkhazia on the facts of genocide, ethnic cleansing and other crimes violating international laws, which have been committed in Abkhazia by the Georgian aggressors. To publish these materials in the press and disseminate them in the United Nations Organization.
10. To request the UN Security Council:
to acknowledge the acts committed by the Georgian occupational regime against the people of Abkhazia in 1992-1993 as genocide and crime against humanity;
to set up an International Military Tribunal for bringing to justice criminals, their collaborators and inciters, who committed especially grave crimes against the Abkhazians and representatives of other peoples residing in Abkhazia
to set up a competent international Commission for an appropriate response concerning the establishment of facts of attempts by the Georgian authorities to use nuclear weapons in Abkhazia.
11. To ask the UN Security Council, OSCE, CIS to exert political, diplomatic, economic and other forms of pressure on the Georgian authorities in order to:
compensate the material and moral damage inflicted on Abkhazia during the Georgian-Abkhazian war and the following period;
eradicate the aggressive nationalism in Georgia, including colonial stereotypes which continually create an explosive situation in Georgia and in the whole of the Caucasus.
Sokrat DJINDJOLIA
SPEAKER OF THE PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLY
PARLIAMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF ABKHAZIA
City of SUKHUM
15 October 1997 No. 363-c-XIII
On denunciation of genocide and other repressive measures taken by the authorities of the Georgian Democratic Republic and the Soviet Georgia against the Abkhazian people and other peoples living in Abkhazia and on the ways of overcoming of their consequences
At the end of the XIX century, after the deportation of the overwhelming majority of the Abkhazo-Adyghean, Vainakh and other peoples, during the process of incorporation of Caucasian lands which were cleansed from their indigenous population, an idea was born among the nationalist circles of Georgian intelligentsia, nobility and bourgeoisie of creating a small Georgian empire. However, the military, political, ethno-demographic and other circumstances of that time in the region did not allow them to realize this idea throughout the whole Caucasus. In the years that followed the Georgian nationalists directed their efforts on theoretical substantiation of colonial claims of Georgia and of its special rights on Abkhazia, which, in practice, meant the incorporation of Abkhazian lands into the newly created Georgian state.
Despite the fact that the authorities, social and political formations, and the whole generations of Georgian politicians were changing, the intentions of the latter of incorporation of Abkhazia were never put aside, but, on the contrary, became even stronger. Two ways were chosen for complete absorption of Abkhazia into Georgia: the first, a peaceful way: the mechanical growth of the Georgian population in Abkhazia and artificial assimilation of Abkhazians, and the second, military way, produced by aggressive nationalism: the occupation of the country, the extermination of the indigenous people.
The main obstacle for the Georgian colonizers towards achieving their aims were those Abkhazians who remained on their Homeland after the deportation, so all the efforts were directed against them.
Measures on assimilation of the Abkhazians, manifested in mass resettlement of ethnic Georgians into Abkhazia, distortion of the history of the nation, etc. were undertaken already under Tsarism. With the collapse of the Russian Empire and the creation of the Georgian Democratic Republic (1918-1921) a new wave of calamities befell the Abkhazian nation. The military-political leadership of Georgia committed an act of aggression against Abkhazia and, having occupied its territory, under the pretense of fighting against Bolshevism, began premeditated extermination of the Abkhazian population, expelling from Abkhazia of the Armenians, Greeks, representatives of other nationalities, and resettling their houses with new colonists from Western Georgia; only Georgian schools were opened, and Georgian was made the language of practically all administration.
The revival in March 1921 of the Abkhazian statehood in the form of the SSR of Abkhazia created conditions for physical preservation and social, economic and cultural development of the Abkhazian people and of all the multi-ethnic population of the Republic. However, later the same year, Stalin forced Abkhazia to sign a "special union treaty" with Georgia, and ten years later, on 19 February 1931, Abkhazia was transformed into an Autonomous Republic and incorporated into the Georgian SSR. The reduction of the status of Abkhazia to that of an Autonomy caused an all-nation meeting of the Abkhazian people (on 18-26 February 1931) which lasted for several days and which expressed its distrust in the Soviet power.
Starting from mid-1930-s, the Georgian authorities, with active support of Moscow, subjected to repressions the political leadership of Abkhazia, national intelligentsia, progressive peasantry and the Abkhazian nation as a whole. This was followed by the conversion of the Abkhazian alphabet into the Georgian script, the artificial inclusion of Georgian words into the Abkhazian vocabulary, the closure of Abkhazian schools, the halting of the radio broadcasting in the Abkhazian language, the changing of geographical names, impudent distortion of the history of the Abkhazian nation, etc. Soon afterwards practically all administration was made to be conducted in the Georgian language. The Abkhazians were forced to change their names and ethnicity. Parallel to this a large-scale campaign on resettlement of ethnic Georgians from Georgia into Abkhazia was carried out. To this aim a powerful construction firm "Abkhazpereselenstroi" was formed, as well as a special administrative staff within both Georgian and Abkhazian Governments. The resettlement was not voluntary, and sometimes even forceful. In violation to the existing laws, pieces of land were taken away from Abkhazian villages in order to resettle them with the Georgian peasants who, against their own will, had been brought here from different parts of Georgia.
The geography and structuring of special Georgian kolkhoz settlements in the areas with predominantly Abkhazian population (Ochamchyra, Gudauta and Gagra districts), in particular, their high density and mono-ethnic character, as well as their location in relation to each other and within the Abkhazian villages or along the highways, etc., had, during peaceful time, an ethno-erosive function, and in the case of the Abkhazian resistance to Georgian assimilatory policy, could acquire a military-strategic function. All this, according to contemporary international law, can be qualified as genocide.
In order to increase the relative share of Georgians in the population total of Abkhazia, the leadership of Georgia gave the houses and apartments of the evicted Greeks, Turks, Laz, and others over to the Georgians brought here from Georgia. The unbearable conditions created by the Georgian aggressive nationalism in Abkhazia forced representatives of other nationalities, alongside with the Abkhazians, to leave the Republic. For instance, in 1949-1953 over 1500 Armenian families alone left Abkhazia.
As a result of genocide and various repressive measures undertaken in the middle of the XX century the Abkhazian ethnographic group of Samurzakanians was almost completely "georgianized", which made up over 40 000, while the total number of Abkhazians from 1886 (59,0 thousand) to 1959 (61,2 thousand), i.e. during more than 70 years, practically did not increase. At the same time, during the same period, due to migration and assimilation of the Abkhazians, the Georgian population increased from 4 thousand up to 158 thousand.
A complete ethnic and cultural disappearance of the Abkhazians from the ethnographic map of the world became a real danger. Only the change of the Stalinist totalitarian regime saved the Abkhazian nation. But Abkhazia still remained within Georgia, and the Georgian leadership still continued, in a more covert manner, by opening of new industrial enterprises, various educational institutions and many other establishments, the policy of mechanical increase of the Georgian population in Abkhazia and the pressure on the national culture of the indigenous people. That is why the whole following period of continued incorporation of Abkhazia into Georgia was marked by the struggle of the Abkhazian people for its liberation from the Tbilisi regime, which was expressed in anti-Georgian demonstrations in 1956, 1964, 1967, 1978 and 1989. With the collapse of the USSR the Georgian-Abkhazian opposition resulted in the military aggression of Georgia against Abkhazia, in the Georgian-Abkhazian war of 1992-1993.
Giving the political and legal assessment of the aforementioned facts and events in Abkhazia which occurred under the regime of the Georgian Democratic Republic and Soviet Georgia, the People's Assembly of the Republic of Abkhazia resolves:
1.To acknowledge:
the invasion in 1918-1921 of the troops of the Georgian Democratic Republic on the territory of Abkhazia as acts of aggression and occupation;
the physical extermination of Abkhazians, the artificial change of the demographic situation in Abkhazia, the forceful imposition of the Georgian language in Abkhazia, carried out in 1918-1921 by the military-political regime of the Georgian Democratic Republic as acts of genocide;
2.To acknowledge the incorporation of SSR Abkhazia into SSR Georgia as an Autonomy as a premeditated and illegal political act directed against the Abkhazian nation and its statehood.
3.To acknowledge as acts of genocide of the Abkhazian people the most grave crimes against humanity as committed in the 30-s and 40-s by the authorities of the Georgian SSR in Abkhazia, such as the extermination of the political leadership of Abkhazia, of the national intelligentsia, of the progressive peasantry, the changing of the Abkhazian alphabet into the Georgian script, the closure of the Abkhazian schools, the halting of the radio broadcasting in the Abkhazian language, the renaming of geographical places, the falsification of the history, the artificial change of the demographic situation in Abkhazia.
4.To acknowledge the Abkhazian people as a previously repressed nation and the Greeks, Turks, Laz and representatives of other nationalities deported in the 40-s, as previously repressed ethnic groups of Abkhazia.
5.To acknowledge the popular mass rallies in Abkhazia in 1931, 1956, 1964, 1967, 1978 and 1989 as manifestations of national-liberation movement of the Abkhazian people directed against the colonial regime of the Soviet Georgia.
6.Taking into account the historical experience, to consider that the sovereign, democratic, lawful state of Abkhazia is the main guarantor of physical and ethnic preservation, of further social, economic and cultural revival of the Abkhazian people, of the protection of rights and freedoms of all the nationalities living in Abkhazia.
7.Considering the current complex demographic situation in Abkhazia, which is the heritage of the historical past, to recommend to the President and the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Abkhazia to determine a long term demographic policy of the state, to adopt a state programme for the demographic development of Abkhazia.
8.To entrust the Committee on Legislation, Committee on Science, Education and Culture and the Commission on the Problems of the Traditional Culture "Apsuara" of the People's Assembly of the Republic of Abkhazia with the elaboration of the draft laws and resolutions, which would facilitate the improvement in the demographic situation in Abkhazia, the preservation and development of the Abkhaz language, culture and traditions.
9.To recommend to the Committee on Science, Education and Culture of the People's Assembly of the Republic of Abkhazia to accelerate the elaboration of the draft laws concerning the full-scale restoration of historical names of settlements and other places of the Republic of Abkhazia.
10.To recommend to the Institute for Humanitarian Studies after the name of D. Gulia of the Academy of Sciences of Abkhazia and to the Abkhazian State University to accelerate the scientific research concerning the important issues of history, language and culture of the Abkhazian nation, their publication and popularization. To recommend to the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Abkhazia to allot for this aim additional financing.
11.To entrust the Committee on Legislation and the Commission on Human Rights of the People's Assembly of the Republic of Abkhazia with the elaboration of the draft laws on rehabilitation of the previously repressed ethnic groups in Abkhazia (Greeks, Laz, Turks, etc.)
Sokrat DJINDJOLIA
Speaker of the People's Assembly
Parliament of the Republic of Abkhazia
City of Sukhum
15 October 1997
No. 364-c-XIII
***
On the act of deportation of the Abkhazians (Abaza) in the XIX century
The colonial policy of the Russian Empire during the Russian-Caucasian war (1817-1864), and the periods that followed, inflicted irreparable damage on the Abkhazian (Abaza) nation and its genetic fund. For participation in the struggle for the freedom and independence of their country a part of this people was physically exterminated, and 80% of the survivors were expelled to the Ottoman Empire.
As a result of the war, of the repeated punitive measures and of the eviction of the Abkhazians (Abaza) from their historical Homeland, the North-Western and Central Abkhazia were completely devastated, and the ethnographic groups and territorial communities of the Sadz, Ahchypsaa, Aibga, Tsvydjy, Pshwy, Gumaa, Tsabalaa, Dalaa, and others, alongside with the closely related to Abkhazians (Abaza) Ubykhs, who used to inhabit the territory between the rivers Khosta and Shakhe, and the majority of the Abazinians (Abaza), who lived in the North Caucasus, have completely disappeared. The Bzypians, Abzhywans and Samyrzakanians remained in Abkhazia only as separate ethnic enclaves, which is true also for those Tapantas and Ashkharywans who remained in the North Caucasus. Over 300 000 Abkhazians (Abaza), deported in the XIX century, are, according to the current international laws, considered to be refugees.
The deported population experienced innumerable calamities and endured great sufferings, tens of thousands of them became victims of hunger, cold and epidemics. Quite groundlessly, the Tsarist Russia accused the deported Abkhazians in "treason". They were denied the right to return to their Motherland. Thousands of Abkhazians who, despite incredible difficulties, managed to return from Turkey to Abkhazia's shores, were sent back by the local administration. Those Abkhazians who remained in Abkhazia were announced the "guilty" and "temporary" population of the country. They were deprived of the right to settle in Central and coastal parts of Abkhazia and were threatened to be expelled in their entirety even for a slightest anti-governmental protest. In 1907 the Russian authorities removed from the Abkhazians the insulting for their national dignity label of "guilty", and the status of a "temporary" population, but neither Tsarism, nor the Menshevik regime of the Georgian Democratic Republic (1918-1921), nor the authorities of the Soviet Georgia or the Government of the Soviet Union solved the problem of repatriation of Abkhazians, and numerous individual and collective appeals of the representatives of the Abkhaz (Abaza) Diaspora to the governments of the aforementioned states with a request to consider the issue of their return to their historical Homeland, as a rule, were left without any response. At the same time, both the Georgian authorities and their patrons in the Kremlin were conducting purposeful complex measures on a mass resettlement of ethnic Georgians from Georgia into Abkhazia and on assimilation of those Abkhazians who remained on their historical Homeland.
Today more than four thousand people from the Abkhazian Diaspora are waiting for an appropriate decision of the Government of the Republic of Abkhazia to their request to repatriate to their historical Homeland that would enable them to preserve their language, national culture, traditions and their national identity as a whole.
Giving the historical, political and legal assessment of the fatal for the Abkhazian (Abaza) people events that occurred in the XIX century, the People's Assembly of the Republic of Abkhazia resolves:
1.To acknowledge the mass extermination and the eviction in the XIX century of the Abkhazians (Abaza) to the Ottoman Empire as genocide: the gravest crime against humanity.
2.In accordance with the Convention of the UN General Assembly of 28 July 1951 to acknowledge the deported in the XIX century Abkhazians (Abaza) as refugees.
3.To acknowledge the inalienable right of the descendants of the deported in the XIX century Abkhazians (Abaza) on voluntary and unimpeded repatriation to their historical Homeland.
4.To appeal to the UN, OSCE, CIS and other international and regional organizations, to the Russian Federation as the legal successor of the Russian Empire and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with a request to render necessary political, financial and humanitarian assistance to the process of voluntary and unimpeded repatriation and integration of the descendants of the deported in the XIX century Abkhazians (Abaza).
5.To entrust the Committee on Legislation and the Commission on Inter-parliamentary Connections and Connections with the Compatriots of the People's Assembly of the Republic of Abkhazia with the elaboration of the draft laws on a planned repatriation of the Abkhazians (Abaza).
6.To recommend to the President and Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic Abkhazia to take into account, while determining and implementing the main directions of internal and foreign policy of the country, an importance for the state of the repatriation of the descendants of the Abkhazian refugees of the XIX century; to adopt a complex programme on repatriation and absorption of the Abkhazians (Abaza) living abroad.
7.To appeal to all republican and local governmental administrative bodies, political parties, public organizations, economical and commercial structures with a request to provide with necessary political, moral, psychological and financial assistance to the process of repatriation of the Abkhazians (Abaza).
8.To publish this Resolution in the press and broadcast it on radio and television.
Sokrat DJINDJOLIA
Speaker of the People's Assembly
Parliament of the Republic of Abkhazia
City of Sukhum
15 October 1997
362-c-XIII
***
Resolution of the People's Assembly Parliament of the Republic of Abkhazia
20 October 1997
On condemnation of facts of high treason and collaboration with the occupational authorities during the Georgian-Abkhazian war of 1992-1993.
The war imposed by the Georgian Government upon the sovereign state of Abkhazia came as a severe ordeal for the people of Abkhazia, especially for the Abkhazians, i.e. for those who bear historical responsibility for the fate of this country. In the face of the danger real patriots of Abkhazia stood next to the Abkhazians in defense of their Motherland. The war did not, and could not, bring the desired victory to Georgia, since it was the war aimed at annihilation of the century-old statehood of Abkhazia and of the nation whose name this ancient country bears.
In this unequal struggle the Abkhazians were supported by their kin people from the North Caucasus, the South of Russia, by representatives of many countries abroad, by the Abkhazian Diaspora from Turkey, Syria, Jordan and a number of West European countries and the United States.
Certain citizens of Abkhazia, however, failed to join their people at that crucial moment. These people proved to be indifferent to their nation's historical, spiritual and moral values and its political interests. At the time when the whole people of Abkhazia stood up in defense of their Motherland, some of those immoral people fled the Republic and took the position of outside observers. Some of those who by various reasons remained on the territory of Abkhazia occupied by the enemy, readily agreed to work in the occupational government's bodies, and a part of them, seeking closer collaboration and trying to win more confidence from the occupational regime, even voluntarily changed their nationality. L.M. Marshania was appointed the Vice-Premier of the puppet government, S.K. Ketsba became the Minister of Culture, A.Z. Kobakhia became the Minister of Forestry and R.R. Eshba became the Minister of Industry. Among the civilian population there were individuals who did not believe in the possibility of the Abkhazian victory over the enemy that had overwhelming preponderance, and who, together with the State Council's thugs, marauded and perpetrated crimes and atrocities against the civilians on the basis of their ethnicity.
The initiators, leaders and members of the so-called "Committee of the Salvation of Abkhazia" deserve special condemnation, as in the first days of the war they called the policy pursued by the legal leadership of Abkhazia adventurous. It is no secret that this notorious committee was not a neutral charitable organization, that it was set up at the initiative of Tbilisi. It was aimed at serving as an accomplice in ideological disarmament of the Abkhazian people, in neglecting their historical and ethnic identity. The participants and leaders of the Committee were L.M. Marshania, R.R. Eshba, A.M. Hashba, V.Z.Agrba, V.I.Akhuba, A.Z. Kobakhia, K.L.Anua, A.M. Kvitsinia, S.P. Ketsba, D.I. Mikeladze, V.I. Kodinets, S.A. Saakian, G.G.Gabunia, L.K. Sharangia, Sh.M. Misabishvili, and others. The Georgian faction of the then Supreme Council of the Republic of Abkhazia was one of the first to betray the interests of the Abkhazians and of the whole people of Abkhazia. Hoping to realize their chauvinistic intentions in regards to the Abkhazians and their historical Homeland, they, by their actions, provoked the war against Abkhazia. The Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Abkhazia has instituted a number of criminal proceedings against those who, during the Georgian-Abkhazian war, actively collaborated with the occupational regime on the part of the territory of Abkhazia that was temporarily occupied by the Georgian invaders.
The civilian consciousness of the elected representatives of the people demands the condemnation of those who put their personal interests above the interests of their own people, who committed high treason and joined those who infringed on the rights and freedoms of the Abkhazians and of the whole people of Abkhazia.
Being aware of its responsibility for the fate of the people of Abkhazia and realizing its Constitutional responsibilities, the People's Assembly of the Republic of Abkhazia resolves:
1.To note that during the war of 1992-1993 between Georgia and Abkhazia there took place facts of high treason and collaboration with the occupational regime.
2.To ask the Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Abkhazia to accelerate the process of instituting criminal proceedings against those individuals who collaborated with the occupational authorities during the Georgian-Abkhazian war of 1992-1993.
3.To recommend to the President of the Republic of Abkhazia, the Cabinet of Ministers, Heads of administrations, Heads of Departments and State Institutions to take into account the present Resolution of the People's Assembly while considering the personnel issues.
4.To make the present Resolution public through mass media.
Sokrat DJINDJOLIA
Speaker of the People's Assembly
Parliament of the Republic of Abkhazia
City of Sukhum
20 October 1997
No. 365-c-XIII