Abkhazia: Europe's Trap Door

The American Spectator ^ | 8/9/2005 | James G. Poulos

[AliVeritas]

Chaos swirls around Abkhazia, breakaway republic in once-Soviet Georgia. The grenade-thrower who targeted President Bush in May, $80,000 on his head, has been captured in a raid which may or may not have involved the FBI. Last month, Russia agreed to pull its forces from all Georgian territory -- through Abkhazia, where the agreement has no force and the Kremlin keeps hundreds of peacekeepers. And in 2003, Georgian Minister of State Security Valeri Khaburdzania warned anyone reading the National Interest that "Wahhabi organizations have sprung up on the territory of Abkhazia, and where Wahhabis are, terrorists are not far behind." Abkhazia had by then already been "turned into a transit point for the smuggling of narcotics and radioactive materials," but not until June 15 of this year did Sir Brian Fall, Britain's Special Representative for the South Caucasus, meet with the Abkhaz leadership, ranking diplomats in tow. It was the adjacent Pankisi gorge that Khaburdzania declared to be the source of Ricin-producing components two years ago, and where, in February 2002, the United States sent some 200 Special Ops forces on a counter-terror mission.

[XHogPilot]

Oh great! Another corner of the world which I can't pronounce yielding tomorrows Islamists.

[Nathan Zachary]

It's amazing that they call some of these places "countries".
What's even more amazing is that Muslim "fundamentalists" find their way into them.
I suppose the reason they do is because they are isolated backward cesspools who's people are easly recruited.
It's also a source of white skinned blue eyed people for islamic fundamentalists; people that, once recruited, can slip under the radar easier than the desert rats.

[Tailgunner Joe]

ping

[Larry381]

If I'm not mistaken Abkhazia was the area where Stalin was born.

[MarMema]

Stalin was born in Gori, which is in the Republic of Georgia.

[MarMema]

Thank you so much for the ping. You might also be interested in reading this

[SauronOfMordor]

What's even more amazing is that Muslim "fundamentalists" find their way into them.

The radical madrassas are Islam's welfare program. You get food and shelter in exchange for submitting to indoctrination. Naturally, they gravitate to places where a dollar goes a long way

[MarMema]

Shamil Basayev believes that all of the Caucasus should be Wahhabi, including Georgia. There are a ton of Abkhaz refugees living in huge hotels on the outskirts of Tbilisi - even with sheep.

If Russia still has military in Abkhazia, they should be keeping the Wahhabis out.

[MarMema]

ping

[jb6]

Abhazia is a Eastern Orthodox nation, the muslim Abhaz left with the Turks 200 years ago. As a whole, the Georgian, who owned everything major anyways in the 1990s (note until Stalin "attached" Abhazia to Georgia in the 1920s, it had NEVER been part of Georgia) tried to exterminate the Abhaz. With the help of Russian and Armenian mercenaries and the Russia air force, the Abhaz, out numbered 6 to 1 were able to stop the Georgian advance in 1992, and reverse it and then with a surprise attack in 1993 they routed the Georgian forces and took back everything plus. Sukhumi, a subtropical resort city and the Abhaz capital, was totally ruined.

Baseyov is actually a bit more ambitious then that. He wants a Caliphate that stretches from the Caspian Sea, to the Volga Tartars and into Crimea and southern Ukraine. With him as master, of course.

The Abkhaz refugees in Tbilisi are actually Magrelian Georgians who were first settled in what is known as Magrellia (southern Abhazia and NE Georgia) by the Russian Tsar, along with Germans, as a buffer people to the Turks, who owned southern Georgia at that point. Some of these people have returned, but they often get preyed upon by their own people who are called "partisans" (supposable fighting the Abhaz) but who's more accurate name should be Mafia.

As for Tbilisi, the refugees are actually now the majority of the population. Those crowds of Tbilisians who were marching in 1991 screaming for independence from the Soviet Union and Moscow in particular are all gone. Where to you might ask? Easy, to Moscow. Yup, the big irony is, they thought their fantasy economy, made possible solely by the idiotic Soviet economic conditions (the very thing that brought the SU down) would continue once they were independent. They thought their factories would keep running, never mind that they have ZERO natural resources, no gas, oil, or coal or the fact that those factories produced crap that no one wanted (except the Politburo's central economic planning committees) and that the products sat in warehouses for decades. Once they figured out the mess they made for themselves, these protesters were the first to pull up roots and head to Moscow or Europe, about 1 million now live in Russia. The present people of Tbilisi are mostly village people from the mountains. Why that city is such a wreck.

[Alouette]

Wasn't this the country that Tom Hanks was a citizen of, in "The Terminal"?

[GOPJ]

I suppose the reason they do is because they are isolated backward cesspools who's people are easily recruited. It's also a source of white skinned blue eyed people for Islamic fundamentalists; people that, once recruited, can slip under the radar easier than the desert rats.

Recruiters target angry losers. It's why American prisons are up to the gills in Muslim recruiters. There aren't enough bombs or bullets to defeat these people. The battle will be fought over ideas.

[martin gibson]

Stalin was born in Gori, which is in the Republic of Georgia....

I believe Stalin was born in what is now Azerbaijan.

[MarMema]

No he was born in Gori, Georgia. As I said.

Stalin was born in Gori, Georgia, to a cobbler named Vissarion Jughashvili. His mother, Ekaterina Geladze, was born a serf. Their other three children died young; Joseph, nicknamed "Soso" (the Georgian pet name for Joseph, or the equivalent of the nickname "Joe" in the United States), was effectively an only child.

[MarMema]

The present people of Tbilisi are mostly village people from the mountains. Why that city is such a wreck.

You think? I fell madly in love with it, minus the hungry strays on the streets.

[jb6]

Wahhabi organizations have sprung up on the territory of Abkhazia, and where Wahhabis are, terrorists are not far behind."

That's a lie. The Abhaz are Eastern Orthodox Christian, the islamic Abhaz fled to Turkey with the Turks 200 years ago. The Abhaz resisted Georgian attempts to exterminate them in 1991-1993, winning a stunning victory. In 2001 the Georgians hired Gudanov and his Chechens/Arabs to start another war as an excuse for them to try for Abhazia again. Didn't work out. Something to also note: 90% of Abhaz now have Russian citizenship. Originally they wanted just independence from Georgia (until Stalin's redrawing of borders in the 1920s, Abhazia was NEVER in history a part of Georgia, just like northern Chechnya and Grozny were never part of Chechnya (they were part of the Tarek Russian Cossak lands until Stalin, the Communists and his Chechen allies exterminated the Tarek Cossaks for resisting communism). When the Georgians continued attacking, small scale, the Abhaz from 1993 to 2002, the Abhaz finally decided that the only way they'd have peace from the Georgians is as part of Russia. The same is true for the South Ossessians.

[jb6]

There are no islamists there, it's an Orthodox land, just like North Ossessia, even when the MSM tried to label them as islamics too, before Beslan.

[jb6]

Abhazia was a sovereign kingdom for 1,000 years until being absorbed into the Turkish empire (from whense some turned muslim, a minority) then it was absorbed by the expending Russian empire and the islamics retreated with their turkish masters. In 1918 it became an independent Soviet Republic (like Russia, Ukraine, etc). In 1920, Stalin attached it to Georgia, which had never owned it.

[jb6]

Young nuns read during a mass in Zugdidi, the capital of the Mingrelia region just south of Abkhazia in Georgia. Although Western reports routinely characterized the war for Abkhazia as a religious struggle between Moslem Abkhaz and Christian Georgians, the religious divide was greatly exaggerated. There are no mosques here, as many Abkhaz were Christianized when the region was absorbed by the Russian empire in the 19th century. In Georgia, Orthodoxy prevails, but Tbilisi also boasts mosques and a synagogue.