To some extent, the IOM, the UNHCR, and some international NGOs, including the Danish Refugee Council and Opportunity International, stepped in to fill the void. In 1993, the IOM provided the first set of direct international assistance under its Direct Assistance Programme, which supplied migrant organizations with equipment to help them set up small-scale private enterprises.
Later, the UNHCR, in conjunction with the two NGOs, implemented regional micro-credit projects targeting the resettling migrants with the similar objective of spurring sustainable livelihoods for the settlers. It also organized capacity-building programs to help migrants set up and manage regional associations, which were then provided with grants to enable them to undertake large-scale projects geared toward resettlement and integration of returnees. In addition, to deal with the more immediate needs, the UNHCR provided small-scale loans to those deemed internally displaced to aid them with essential needs such as housing.41
Assessment and Possible Lessons
The emigration of the Russian diaspora back to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union presents lessons that may be relevant for other secessions:
Negotiating and advocating for the protection of ethnic minorities in the states where they reside can be key to a strategy for migrant-receiving countries in avoiding a sudden flood of migrants. Russia did just that with many of the other NIS.
When a nation breaks up, mass population movements of ethnic minorities toward their ethnic home can ensue even in the absence of ethnic persecution and violence. It is therefore important for the migrant-receiving country to at least plan institutions and support for potential returnees from the onset.
The international community can play a positive role in assisting with the migration and settlement process, especially when the secession involves poor and inexperienced states. States should work with UN organizations, especially UNHCR, and NGOs to establish the required institutions as well as to direct support the returnees.
In terms of resettlement in the context of a decentralized state, it is important to align the goals and incentives of federal and regional institutions in order to provide consistent support to the settlers. Otherwise, the resettlement process will be nonuniform across the country, increasing the opaqueness of the process.
Georgia and Abkhazia
Issue and Outcome
Following Georgia’s independence from the FSU, two regions demanded independence from Georgia, including Abkhazia in 1992.42 The fighting that followed displaced more than 250,000 people, mostly ethnic Georgians. In 1994 a four-way agreement for the voluntary return of IDPs and refugees was negotiated among Abkhazia, Georgia, the Russian Federation, and the UNHCR. Over the more than a decade and a half since the conflict began, the UNHCR, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and other international organizations have been involved in efforts to establish peace in the region and facilitate the safe return of IDPs to their homes in Abkhazia.
Despite the presence of these international organizations, armed conflicts and ethnic cleansing have continued to flare up periodically. Thus, in spite of official agreement to repatriate ethnic Georgians to Abkhazia and participation by multiple international aid organizations, the return of IDPs to Abkhazia has been stymied by the political issues that remain unresolved between Georgia and Abkhazia. Nearly two decades after the conflict began, the vast majority of those who fled Abkhazia remain displaced, too fearful of further targeted violence to return to their homes in Abkhazia.
Course of the Dispute
Abkhazia is small region in the northwest corner of Georgia, bordering the Black Sea and Russia. Its primary economic activities are agriculture and tourism. Of strategic importance, the BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) oil pipeline traverses Abkhazia en route to Turkey. For decades Abkhazia has been a multiethnic society composed of people of Abkhaz, Georgian, Armenian, Jewish, and Greek descent, among others. During the Soviet era, Abkhazia was an autonomous republic within the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Georgia declared its independence and included in its international borders the region of Abkhazia.
Abkhazia declared its own independence from Georgia in the following year, sparking armed conflict between Abkhazia and Georgia, and “ethnic cleansing” between the Abkhaz and Georgian populations in Abkhazia.43 Ethnic Georgians in particular were targeted because over the previous several decades the demographics of the Abkhazia region had shifted, leaving ethnic Georgians constituting 46 percent of the population, up from 39 percent in 1959.44 The Abkhaz claim this was the result of deliberate demographic policy by Georgia in an effort to quell the ethnically driven call for Abkhaz independence. As a result of the fighting and persecution, most ethnic Georgians (approximately 250,000 to 280,000 people) fled Abkhazia as refugees.45 Little is known about those who were internally displaced within Abkhazia.
In 1994 Abkhazia and Georgia reached an agreement to end the armed conflict and repatriate those who had been displaced. The four-way agreement was negotiated; it is formally the Quadripartite Agreement on Voluntary Return of Refugees and Displaced Persons. According to the agreement, the parties “agree to cooperate and to interact in planning and conducting the activities aimed to safeguard and guarantee the safe, secure and dignified return of people who have fled from areas of the conflict zone to the areas of their previous permanent residence.”46 The four parties met periodically to address ongoing issues, but negotiations were often driven by other political issues among them.
In addition to the UNHCR, other international organizations—for instance, the Group of Friends, the OSCE, and the Commonwealth of Independent States Peace Keeping Force—became involved in efforts to restore peace and resettle returning IDPs in Abkhazia. In particular, UNOMIG sent a long-term peacekeeping force whose mission began in 1994. UNOMIG has helped to maintain the formal ceasefire for more than ten years but has not yet established a safe and secure environment to which IDPs might return. This stems largely from the fact that the fundamental disagreement between Abkhazia and Georgia regarding Abkhaz independence has not been resolved.
Demographics have played an important role in the conflict between Georgia and Abkhazia. Since expelling the near-majority ethnic Georgians, the Abkhaz have become the largest ethnic group in Abkhazia. By blocking the return of ethnic Georgians, the Abkhaz hope to hold onto their ethnic majority, thereby solidifying a consensus vote for independence. Demographics have played a part on the Georgian side, too, albeit in a less extreme manner. From 1990 to the mid-2000s, Georgia lost nearly 20 percent of its population to emigration.47 Thus the loss of Abkhazia would represent a further reduction of the Georgian population, as well as a substantial economic loss.
Given the circumstances, it is unsurprising that very few IDPs have returned to Abkhazia in the fifteen years since the ceasefire. The only notable exception is the Gali region, to which an estimated 45,000 ethnic Georgians have returned. However, those returnees were met by the Abkhaz militias’ attacks and efforts to intimidate, despite the presence of monitors from the UNHCR.48 In contrast, the formal repatriation process to which all parties agreed has resulted in only 311 returnees. Moreover, most settlers fled a second time in 1998 due to recurrent ethnic cleansing.49
Nor is it clear that the returnees to Gali are permanent since many ethnic Georgians return there temporarily during the hazelnut harvest out of economic necessity. In fact, what looks like a “success” from the perspective of the government’s repatriation agenda may in fact serve as a cautionary tale for ethnic Georgian who fled areas where Georgians were not in the majority. Given the extent to which returnees were terrorized in Gali, where they outnumbered the Abkhaz, there is little hope that smaller groups of returnees would fare better in areas where they were in the minority.
The inability of IDPs to return to Abkhazia means that Georgia has been faced with accommodating more than a quarter of a million