For Abkhazia, a 'Special' Independence Day

This Year, Russia And Nicaragua Back the Region

SUKHUMI, Georgia, Sept. 30 -- Fifteen years ago this week, flames shot out the windows of the parliament building and the final battle of a separatist war raged over this seaside city. When it was over, the Georgian army had retreated and several hundred thousand ethnic Georgians had fled. Since then, the inhabitants of this 3,300-square-mile spit of subtropical coastline and snowcapped mountains have considered Sept. 30 their independence day.

On Tuesday, for the first time, they weren't the only ones to think so.

After war broke out between Russia and Georgia in August, Russia recognized the independence of the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The move, seconded by Nicaragua, set off international criticism but delighted the Abkhaz, who argue that they have long functioned as a separate state with their own government and army, albeit with borders secured by Russian peacekeepers.

"This is a special parade, a unique parade," said Timur Nadaraia, 39, a former commander in the 1992-93 war who watched tanks and personnel carriers rumble by as spectators waved Abkhazian flags. "This is the year that our independence was recognized by Russia and Nicaragua. . . . We've achieved our goal."

This summer's international standoff over Georgia's disputed regions has yet to be resolved. A cease-fire agreement in which Russia promised to pull its troops back to their positions before Aug. 7, when war started in South Ossetia, has been complicated by Moscow's recognition of the breakaway states. An area of Abkhazia previously under Georgian control will not be returned to Georgia, Abkhaz officials say.

They also say they will not admit European Union monitors who, according to the agreement, must be allowed in all of Georgian territory. "They won't be here," said Sergei Shamba, foreign affairs minister, in an interview Monday. "We categorically refuse the observers on our territory. They're not needed here."

He added that Abkhazia would consider allowing Russian military bases on its territory, in exchange for "the promise that there will no longer be war here."

Many here insist that they have achieved genuine independence and that this tiny state will not be folded into the Russian Federation, as some predict.

"It will never happen," said Hamida Shamba, 20, an economics student at Abkhazia State University who posed for pictures draped in the Abkhaz flag -- green and white stripes and a red box depicting a hand and seven stars. "We haven't even considered that thought."

Zarime Bariamov, who was selling rosaries at an outdoor market, was less categorical. "Now, you look at the street and you see what's going on and you can see that we're going to be subordinate to Russia," she said. "We want that. It'll be calmer then."

Shamba, the foreign minister, noted that Russia is a major investor here; Abkhazia uses the Russian ruble and has no plans to issue its own currency, he said.

On the streets this week, red-white-and-blue Russian flags hung alongside Abkhaz ones, and celebrators toasted their giant neighbor as a friend and savior. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's statement of recognition was reprinted in newspapers and Moscow's mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, was a prominent speaker at an official ceremony Monday.