Crisis in the Caucasus - one year on
A poster along a Georgian highway featuring President Mikheil Saakashvili and the slogan "Let's unite Georgia". Photo by Dato Meskhi
The war over South Ossetia in August 2008, and Russia's subsequent recognition of Abkhaz and South Ossetian independence has profoundly changed the political landscape in the South Caucasus.
Existing problems have now been overlaid with new dilemmas, and the deeper divisions between the conflicting sides make the search for a lasting peace settlement more complex than ever.
Rebuilding relationships
Conciliation Resources has supported partners in Georgia and Abkhazia over the past year as they come to terms with new realities. This includes work to rebuild relationships - and lives - damaged by the renewed hostilities.
Public participation is a crucial part of any peace process and we continue to give people in the region the opportunity to meet and to exchange ideas. We have hosted meetings between civil society groups, journalists and young people from Georgia and Abkhazia. The first of these took place just two months after the South Ossetia conflict.
We have also supported various media activities including:
- a new Georgian film on how the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict is understood in Georgia today
- a local newspaper in Abkhazia for the local Georgian community
- a Georgian radio phone-in programme for listeners in Western Georgia and Abkhazia
- a series of Abkhaz radio documentaries about life following unilateral recognition by Russia.
Influencing policy and decision makers
We also continue to contribute to the longer-term debate about the conflict resolution process in Georgia, issuing recommendations and briefing international policymakers, donors and the media.
Such work has included a set of conflict-sensitive policy recommendations drafted with other international NGOs and presented at the Donors’ Conference on Georgia in Brussels on 22 October 2008, and our own recommendations after fighting broke out in August 2008 [English] and [Russian].
Recent media coverage in 2009 includes interviews for the BBC and international media outlets on the anniversary of the conflict, and an article by Thomas De Waal, Caucasus programme associate, in the Foreign Policy Institute’s July 2009 Spotlight on Georgia report. Read also past coverage in The Guardian and on BBC World Service's Newshour.
