Koba Lomidze
Old Dominion University
Introduction
Since the end of the Cold War, a wave of ethnic conflict has swept across parts of Eastern Europe, particularly in the former Yugoslavia; the former Soviet Union – Chechnya, Abkahzia, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Osetia; and Africa – Sudan, Nigeria, Ethiopia. Localities, states, and sometimes whole regions have been engulfed in convulsive fits of ethnic insecurity, violence, and ethnic cleansing. Early optimism that the end of the Cold War might usher in a new world order has been quickly shattered. Before the threat of nuclear Armageddon could fully fade, new threats of state meltdown and ethnic cleansing have rippled across the international community (Lake, Rothchild 1996).
The extent and intensity of ethnic conflict varies from relatively peaceful manifestation of institutionalized ethnic interest, e. g. demonstrations, to violent struggle, civil war and ethnic cleansing. The scope of ethnic conflict characterized by the use of coercion extends from demonstrations, riots, strikes, destruction of property and sabotage to attacks on persons, violent clashes between groups, arrests, killing of people, rebellions, terrorism, forceful deportation of people, ethnic guerrilla war, separatist war, ethnic civil war, ethnic cleansing and genocide (Vanhanen, 1999).
Social scientists have studied intensively different aspects of ethnicity and ethnic conflict, especially since the 1970s, but they have not yet found or agreed on any satisfactory theoretical explanation. Different terms are used to describe ethnicity and ethnic conflict, with the terms ethnic, national, primordial, cultural, tribal, racial, linguistic, caste and communal being used to describe conflicting groups. Some researchers speak of ethnicity and ethnic conflict; others speak of nations, nationalism, ethno-centrism, ethno-nationalism, minorities, ethno-political conflict, communal conflict, or they use other terms (Vanhanen, 1999).
Ethnic conflict theories
Vanhanen argues that there may be a common theoretical explanation for the universality of ethnic conflict and that this explanation can be derived from our evolved disposition to nepotism, which is a concept introduced by Pierre L. van den Berghe. The members of the same ethnic group tend to support each other in conflict situations. Our tendency to favor kin over non-kin has extended to include large linguistic, national, racial, religious and other ethnic groups. The term 'ethnic nepotism' describes this kind of nepotism at the level of extended kin groups (Vanhanen, 1999).
A problem with this definition is that people are related to each other at many levels. We are related he level of nuclear family tfrom to the level of Homo sapiens. Consequently, ethnic groups are never absolutely distinct and exclusive. Any level can provide a basis for ethnic nepotism. The situation determines what level of ethnic group becomes politically relevant. This means that ethnic groups are always, to some extent, socially constructed. They are not predetermined and unchanging (Vanhanen, 1999).
Vanhanen formulates two hypotheses on the political consequences of ethnic nepotism: (1) Significant ethnic divisions tend to lead to ethnic interest conflicts in all societies. (2) The more a society is ethnically divided, the more political and other interest conflict tends to become channeled into ethnic lines (Vanhanen, 1999).
As an approximate measure of genetic distance, Vanhanen uses the period of time that the two or more compared groups have been separated from each other, in the sense that intergroup marriages have been rare. The longer the period of endogamous separation, the more the groups have had time to differentiate from each other genetically. If each endogamous population occupies its own territory, they are also geographically separated from each other. However, geographical barriers have not always been needed to maintain endogamous populations (Vanhanen, 1999).
Ethnic groups can be perceived as extended kin groups. The members of an ethnic group tend to favor their group members over non-members because they are more related to their group members than to the remainder of the population. The members of the same ethnic group tend to support each other in conflict situations (Vanhanen, 1999).
Joel Kotkin argues, economic globalization is breeding a new wave of ethnic awareness in reaction to the homogenizing influences of the global culture. This ‘great revival’ of ethnic identity would promote prosperity for some groups, but for many others globalization would produce a ‘throwback to the kind of clannishness . . . increased emphasis on religion and ethnic culture often suggest the prospect of a humanity breaking itself into narrow, exclusive and hostile groups’ (Kotkin, 1993).
For Naisbitt just as economic globalization has led to the decentralization of large capital into smaller economic units, so would economic globalization lead to the breakup of states and the creation of a thousand new countries (Naisbitt, 1994).
The relationship between globalization and conflict is not however that simple. Without the consideration of economic, social and political factors that are not related to globalization the analysis of the reasons for ethnic conflict would not be complete.
Ethnic conflicts on the territory of Georgia
Abkhazia used to be an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Its status is now contested. Following violent armed conflict with Georgia over a period of 13 months in 1992/1993, Abkhazia became de facto independent. However, while not now under Georgian control, Abkhazia remains de jure part of the Republic of Georgia, which considers Abkhazia an integral component of its state. Abkhazia declared independence in 1999, a status that remains unrecognized by the international community (Clogg, 2008).
Abkhazia is located in the north-western corner of the Republic of Georgia and has an area of 8432 km2 or approximately 12.1% of Georgia’s total territory. The northern border of Abkhazia is contiguous with the border of the Russian Federation (Nielsen, 2009). The Abkhaz are ethnically and linguistically distinct from the Georgians. The Abkhaz call themselves Apsni and speak the north Caucasian language that is completely distinct from the Georgian language.
As in other parts of the Soviet Union, Soviet repression and nationalities policy exacerbated interethnic relations in the Georgian SSR. In order to maintain control in the Caucasus, ‘the Soviets systematically manipulated various ethnic groups in a strategy of divide and rule’ (Hunter, 2006). ‘In sum, by the time of perestroika and glasnost, mid 1980s, the Georgians and the Abkhaz had developed a mentality of mutual victimization’ (Hunter, 2006).
In August 1992, the conflict escalated dramatically in Abkhazia. The following months witnessed bitter fighting between Abkhaz separatists and Georgian troops, with increasing Russian support and engagement for the Abkhaz side. Despite initial victories by the Georgian side, most of Abkhazia was under Abkhaz control by the end of 1992. Abkhaz forces further augmented their control in fighting in the summer of 1993. By September 1993, the Abkhaz had succeeded in establishing a de facto state (Human Rights Watch/Helsinki 1995).
Because of geopolitical importance of Georgia there has been a tacit struggle between super powers, Russia and the United States, for the dominance in the region. Georgia is a part of historic Silk Road connecting East Asia with Europe. There are also several pipelines going on the territory of Georgia supplying Europe with Caspian oil and gas. Therefore Russia sees Georgia as part of its “vested interests” and a buffer zone between NATO affiliated country Turkey. It was dexterously using the ethnic conflicts on the territory of Georgia as a leverage to have some political influence in Caucasus region.
The conflict remained unresolved. In spite of the formal signing of a ceasefire and a framework agreement in 1994, the relationship between the two sides remained highly fragile. Negotiations have been ongoing since then, yet any achievements have been offset by periods of increased tension and escalation. There has been no substantive progress in reaching a political settlement on the key issues of political status and the return of displaced persons.
Since the 1990s, Russia granted Russian citizenship to inhabitants of South Ossetia and Abkhazia (Chivers 2004, 2008). Russia warned repeatedly that it would consider the use of military force to protect its ‘citizens’ in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. For example, on 21 March 2008, the Duma adopted a non-binding resolution urging the government ‘to intensify efforts aimed at the protection of the security of citizens of the Russian Federation, residing on the territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia’ and consider ‘the possibility of reinforcement of the [Russian] peacekeeping troops’ (International Crisis Group 2008b, 9).
After the recognition of Kosovo’s independence by a number of states Russia constantly tried to use it as the precedent for the separatist regions in Georgia. In the interlude between Kosovo’s declaration of independence and the outbreak of armed conflict in South Ossetia in August 2008, Russia at times sought to downplay the analogy. However, once fighting erupted between Russia and Georgia, Russian officials made explicit use of references to Kosovo and consciously mimicked Western rhetoric from the 1998–1999 Kosovo crisis. In addition, Russian officials made selected references to other aspects of the wars in the former Yugoslavia (Nielsen, 2009).
South Ossetia is located in the Republic of Georgia in the Southern Caucasus and covers an area of 3900 km2, or approximately 5.5% of Georgia’s total territory. A massive mountain range separates South Ossetia from the Republic of North Ossetia – Alania, which is part of the Russian Federation(Nielsen, 2009).
In 1988, an organization calling itself the Ossetian Popular Front protested against what it perceived as attempts by the Georgian majority to impose its identity and language upon South Ossetians. The Ossetian Popular Front broadcast its plea towards Moscow and asked for the unification of South and North Ossetia. Predictably, ‘Georgians reacted strongly to these measures and called them a direct threat to Georgia’s territorial integrity’ (Hunter, 2006).
In the following years, South Ossetia and Georgia travelled down a path of escalation, as increasingly vocal South Ossetian calls for autonomy and independence (or annexation to Russia) competed with heavy-handed Georgian attempts to enforce strict centralization. Thus, Georgia in October 1990 not only annulled the South Ossetian declaration of an ‘Independent Soviet Democratic Republic’, but then also voided the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast. This led to armed skirmishes between Georgian security forces and South Ossetian militants, who quickly called for and received assistance from the Soviet Army. Already by December 1991, Helsinki Watch reported that the conflict had created more than 100,000 Ossetian refugees and had observed human rights abuses on both sides of the conflict (Helsinki Watch 1991).
Eruption of ethnic conflicts
The most widely discussed explanations of ethnic conflict are, at best, incomplete and, at worst, simply wrong. Ethnic conflict is not caused directly by inter-group differences, "ancient hatreds" and centuries-old feuds, or the stresses of modern life within a global economy nor were ethnic passions, long bottled up by repressive communist regimes, simply uncorked by the end of the Cold War (Lake, Rothchild, 1996).
Lake and Rothchild (1996) argue instead that intense ethnic conflict is most often caused by collective fears of the future. As groups begin to fear for their safety, dangerous and difficult-to-resolve strategic dilemmas arise that contain within them the potential for tremendous violence. As information failures, problems of credible commitment, and the security dilemma take hold, groups become apprehensive, the state weakens, and conflict becomes more likely. Ethnic activists and political entrepreneurs, operating within groups, build upon these fears of insecurity and polarize society. Political memories and emotions also magnify these anxieties, driving groups further apart. Together, these between-group and within-group strategic interactions produce a toxic brew of distrust and suspicion that can explode into murderous violence.
Managing an ethnic conflict
Managing ethnic conflicts, whether by local elites and governments or concerned members of the international community, is a continuing process with no end point or final resolution. It is also an imperfect process that, no matter how well-conducted, leaves some potential for violence in nearly all multiethnic polities. Ethnic conflict can be contained, but it cannot be entirely resolved. Effective management seeks to reassure minority groups of both their physical security and, because it is often a harbinger of future threats, their cultural security. Demonstrations of respect, power-sharing, elections engineered to produce the interdependence of groups, and the establishment of regional autonomy and federalism are important confidence-building measures that, by promoting the rights and positions of minority groups, mitigate the strategic dilemmas that produce violence (Lake, Rothchild, 1996).
Competition for resources typically lies at the heart of ethnic conflict. Property rights, jobs, scholarships, educational admissions, language rights, government contracts, and development allocations all confer benefits on individuals and groups. All such resources are scarce and, thus, objects of competition and occasionally struggle between individuals and, when organized, groups. In societies where ethnicity is an important basis for identity, group competition often forms along ethnic lines (Lake, Rothchild, 1996).
Politics matter because the state controls access to scarce resources. Individuals and groups that possess political power can often gain privileged access to these goods, and thus increase their welfare. Because the state sets the terms of competition between groups, it becomes an object of group struggle. Accordingly, the pursuit of particularistic objectives often becomes embodied in competing visions of just, legitimate, and appropriate political orders (Lake, Rothchild, 1996).
As the influence of one side declines, previously enforceable ethnic contracts become unenforceable. The checks and balances that safeguard the agreement today become insufficient tomorrow. Even if the group that is growing stronger promises not to exploit the weaker group in the future, there is nothing to prevent it from breaking its promise when it actually is stronger. Recognizing this, the declining side may choose to fight today rather than accede to an ethnic contract that will become increasingly unenforceable as time progresses (Lake, Rothchild, 1996).
Groups compensate for their informational limitations by acting on the basis of prior beliefs about the likely preferences of others (as well as the costs of resorting to violence and other variables). These beliefs are formed through historical experience-the "past," in Pe'sic's words-and represent each group's best guess about the other's intentions. Groups then update these beliefs as new information becomes available to them. Nonetheless, information is always incomplete and groups are forever uncertain about each other's purposes. Conflict, then, always remains possible in ethnic interactions(Lake, Rothchild, 1996).
The security of ethnic peoples is in no small way based on reciprocity of respect. Unless each side views its opponent as honorable and having legitimate interests, relations are likely to be marred by a history of intended or unintended affronts that widen the social distance between groups and exacerbate fears among ethnic minorities that their children will be relegated indefinitely to second-class status (Lake, Rothchild, 1996).
The fears of ethnic minorities may often be overstated. Minorities in Eastern Europe are described as having "an exaggerated fear of the loss of identity," a legacy of distrust of majority authorities that causes them to make broad demands for legal guarantees. The majorities, fearful that this will start them down the slippery slope toward the breakup of their states, refuse to consent to these demands.41 But to build confidence it is imperative that dominant state elites take minority ethnic resentments and anxieties into account (Lake, Rothchild, 1996).
Conflict management requires an effort by the state to build representative ruling coalitions. In conceding to ethnic minority leaders and activists a proportionate share of cabinet, civil service, military, and high party positions, the state voluntarily reaches out to include minority representatives in public affairs, thereby offering the group as a whole an important incentive for cooperation (Lake, Rothchild, 1996).
When not applied with great care, power sharing arrangements can backfire. Ethnic elites must be prepared to interact with other elite representatives they find personally repugnant, something difficult to do under normal circumstances but especially so where the norms of collaborative politics are not in place. Where majority-dominated states remain unprepared to respond to legitimate minority demands for full participation in decision-making activities, power-sharing schemes are likely to unravel and become themselves a source of grave insecurity (Lake, Rothchild, 1996).
The international community should encourage states at risk of significant ethnic conflict to make use of confidence building measures. However, such confidence-building measures represent conflict management, not conflict resolution. They can reduce some of the factors giving rise to ethnic fears, but they do not alter the basic dilemmas that cause these fears in the first place. The risks in ethnic encounters remain in place, even if papered over by concessions. Because there is always the possibility that groups will adopt more threatening forms of interaction, these confidence-building measures never eliminate the information failures, problems of credible commitment, and security dilemmas that are embedded in ethnic encounters(Lake, Rothchild, 1996).
Unfortunately, even countries with strong interests in intervening often find themselves unable to offer credible external guarantees. Countries vitally affected by the fighting or the outcome either tend to be partisan or are perceived by the combatants as partisan(Lake, Rothchild, 1996).
One or both sides to the conflict, therefore, will doubt the willingness of the outside power to enforce the new ethnic contract in an evenhanded manner, and they will be less likely to reach an effective and enforceable agreement. However, when outside powers have interests in a stable outcome, rather than in the victory or loss of either side, they may be perceived by all as fair-minded facilitators (Lake, Rothchild, 1996).
Weak commitments produce ambiguous policies that may, in the end, exacerbate rather than resolve conflicts (Lake, Rothchild, 1996).
Conclusion
Ethnic conflicts have become the plague of the end of the twentieth century and there seems no tangible way to resolve them in the twenty-first century too. The involvement of peacekeeping forces often is counter-productive if any of the conflicting sides does not put faith in the impartial attitude to the peacekeepers or doubt the willingness of outside power to resolve the conflict fairly. This has been the case with the Russian peacekeeping troops in the Abkhazia, Georgia and South Ossetia, Georgia. The Georgian side has constantly demanding the internationalization of the peacekeeping forces in those conflicting regions as it saw Russia as on the evolved sides of those conflicts, which is credible if we take into consideration that Russia was trying to undermine the statehood of Georgia since the breakup of Soviet Union and declaration of independence by Georgia. Russian citizens were involved in significant number in the hostilities taking place in 1992-1993 in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Based on this it was ironical that the Russian forces could act as peacekeeper in any of those conflict regions.
Some of the researchers suggested ways to manage conflict. They are power sharing, delegation of responsibilities, certain confidence-building measures. However, no method has been suggested or has actually been tested to work that could completely eliminate the conflict and reconcile the conflicting sides.
References
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Clogg, R. (2008). The Politics of Identity in Post-Soviet Abkhazia: Managing Diversity and Unresolved Conflict. Nationalities Papers, 36(2), 305-329.
Helsinki Watch. 1991. Conflict in Georgia: Human right violations by the Government of Zviad Gamsakhurdia. December 27. http://www.hrw.org
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