Upper Abkhazia
Upper Abkhazia ( Abkhazian Аҧсны хыхьтәи Apsny khykh'twi , Georgian ზემო აფხაზეთი Semo Apchaseti ) was a Georgian administrative district in the upper Kodori Valley in the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia in Georgia . From May 1994 to August 2008 it was not controlled by the secessionist government in Sukhumi , but by the Georgian central government in Tbilisi . The district capital was Chchalta .
geography
The district was bounded in the north by Russia , in the east by the Georgian administrative region Samegrelo-Semo Svaneti . It covered about 30 percent of Abkhazia and consisted of the upper Kodori Gorge, the Chchalta mountain range and the Maruchi Pass. The area was inhabited by around 1,956 people (as of 2002), mainly Georgians from the Swan population . Because of its location on Sochumer Heerstrasse, only 20 kilometers from the Abkhaz capital, it was of strategic military importance.
history
The upper Kodori valley initially belonged to the Abkhazian district of Gulripschi . In the Abkhazian armistice agreement of May 14, 1994, it was assigned to the Georgian government in Tbilisi and controlled by an envoy of the Georgian president.
The envoy Emsar Kwitsiani , appointed by President Eduard Shevardnadze , developed into a warlord in the 1990s , who, contrary to the ceasefire agreement, consolidated his power through a 200-strong militant unit called tkis dsmebi (German forest brothers ). The United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG), which was supposed to watch over demilitarization, had criticized this several times. As a revenge, several UN observers were kidnapped on June 5, 2003 in the upper part of the Kodori Valley. UNOMIG then stopped its control activities.
After the Rose Revolution , Kwitsiani was released from office. His irregulars should be disarmed. Because he refused to follow orders from Tbilisi, a police action took place on July 25 and 26, 2006 in the Kodori Valley, during which Kwitsiani and his paramilitary unit were evicted.
Seat of the Abkhaz government in exile
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili named the district Upper Abkhazia on September 27, 2006 and on the same day relocated the Abkhaz government-in-exile, expelled from Sukhumi to Tbilisi by the secessionists in 1993, to the district capital, Chchalta. It was under the Georgian government. Members of diplomatic missions in Georgia who want to visit the secessionist government in Sukhumi had to pay a visit to the government in exile in Chchalta beforehand.
According to UNOMIG, the government in Tbilisi had deployed 250 uniformed men in Upper Abkhazia, who were subordinate to the Georgian Interior Ministry. The area had already become a new Georgian constituency on September 2, 2006. It was numbered 86. Tbilisi had announced that it wanted to expand the Upper Abkhazian infrastructure with new schools, hospitals and police stations.
UN demands
On October 13, 2006, the United Nations Security Council requested Georgia in resolution 1716 to withdraw military units from the district. The Georgian government pointed out that the uniformed men in Upper Abkhazia were police officers. UNOMIG then checked the identity of various Georgian uniforms in Upper Abkhazia. No affiliation to military units could be established.
safety
The security situation in Upper Abkhazia has always been tense. On October 25, 2006, rifle shots were fired at a convoy of Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili , who had come to inspect the police, in the town of Aschara . On March 11, 2007, the headquarters of the Abkhaz government-in-exile in Chchalta was shelled with grenades . Three army helicopters are said to have been involved, which are said to have penetrated into Upper Abkhazia from Russian airspace. A commission of inquiry made up of UNOMIG , the CIS Peacekeeping Forces (CISPKR) and Georgian and Abkhazian representatives tried to determine who was behind the attacks.
On August 9, 2008, the Upper Abkhazian villages Sakeni and Kwapshara were shot at by fighter planes. According to the government in Sukhumi, these were Abkhaz fighter jets. The Georgian government claimed it was Russian airmen.
On August 12, 2008, Abkhaz and Russian troops occupied the administrative district and took down the Georgian flag on the government building in Chalta. According to the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, all local Georgians were subsequently expelled from the Kodori Valley. The Abkhaz government in exile had already left Chchalta in the previous days.