Taklama

In the ongoing row over whether local authorities in Abkhazia's Gali, Ochamchira and Tquarchal Districts have been handing out passports to Georgian residents too liberally, Stanislav Lakoba has been fired as Secretary of the Security Council on 28 October. His replacement is veteran politician Nugzar Ashuba, who was Speaker of …

Transparency International Georgia (TI Georgia) and the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) are spearheading a petition that calls on the Georgian government to boycott the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games. This not on account of the corruption and rights violations during their preparation, but because TI Georgia …

I have written a commentary for AbkhazWorld.com on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the end of the 1992–1993 war between Georgia and Abkhazia.

It can be read here.

Under Siege: Inter-Ethnic Relations in Abkhazia

Tom Trier, Hedvig Lohm, and David Szakonyi

Hurst & Company, London
September 2010
160 pages
ISBN: 978-1-84904-020-4

(co-published by Columbia University Press, ISBN: 978-0-231-70130-3)

The casual observer could be forgiven for thinking that after the exodus of much of Abkhazia's Georgian community in September 1993 …

The Georgian parliament may be moving in the direction of formally recognising the Circassian genocide perpetrated by Tsarist Russia in the 19th century. This genocide took place around the year 1864, the official end of the 50 year Caucasus war that more or less concluded Russia's conquest of the Caucasus …

Most independent observers will agree that President Mikheil Saakashvili and his government have their flaws. No one was happy with the November 2007 crackdown of opposition demonstrations, the attack on Imedi TV and its take-over by government-friendly owners, the unfair advantages enjoyed by government candidates in election campaigns and especially …

Three weeks ago, the Georgian investigative journalist Vakhtang Komakhidze requested asylum in Switzerland. Komakhidze worked for the Reportiori studio, which has been responsible for several government-critical documentaries. One documentary revealed that the attack on two buses in the village of Khurcha on the day of the 28 May 2008 parliamentary …

On 12 December 2009, Sergei Bagapsh won a second term in the Abkhazian presidential election - Alyksandr Ankvab, the current Prime Minister, will become Vice President. Before the pair will be inaugurated on 12 February, I want to take a look back and argue that Bagapsh's re-election was probably the best …

On 23 December the Council of Europe published the report of the Council's Anti-Torture Committee on its visit to Abkhazia from 27 April to 4 May 2009. Caucasian Knot reports that the publication is controversial, because Abkhazia claims that it had been agreed beforehand that the report would only be …