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Article: Georgia-Abkhazia Conflict: View from Abkhazia.
- Article from:
- Demokratizatsiya
- Article date:
- December 22, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Abkhazian-Georgian conflict is clearly ethno-political and the main issues of controversy are the following: The Georgian side claims authority over the territory, which was incorporated into Georgia by Stalin's decree in 1931. The Abkhazians are ethnically distinct from the Georgians, and they have a long history in which they had their own state with defined geographical boundaries, and they have a special claim to their territory and statehood. The outbreak of recent hostilities was preceded by years of tensions over political issues that started to develop along ethnic lines as issues of ethnic identity and the origins of the Abkhazians became the subject of ...