Collaborative Projects Cut Through Abkhaz-Georgian Tensions

by Keti Bokolishvili, Arda Inal-Ipa, Galiya Kalimova, Simon Kvitsinia and Paata Zakareishvili & photo by Paula Garb

The first week of September, 11 representatives of Georgian and Abkhaz nongovernmental organizations met in Sochi, Russia, to discuss problems of shared interest and to plan cooperative programs. The meeting was part of a project to provide opportunities for ongoing communication and joint activities between organizations working in the aftermath of the armed conflict in Abkhazia/Georgia between August 1992 and September 1993. While formal negotiations seeking a peace settlement are underway, our objective is to build trust between our communities to enhance the peace process. The meeting led to several agreements, and some early results have been seen.

The five-day meeting of five Georgians from Tbilisi and six Abkhaz participants from Sukhum(i)* was facilitated by our project director, Paula Garb, a cultural anthropologist from the University of California, Irvine, who has done research in the region since 1979, and is a certified mediator. The other neutral participant and project facilitator was Martin Schumer, who has been Coordinator of United Nations Volunteers in Georgia for nearly two years. Both of them are sensitive and constructive facilitators, who know our people very well and have a great understanding and respect for them.

Half the participants had already met in previous confidence-building meetings. The others were seeing someone from the other side for the first time since before the fighting began. Many of us admitted to having been nervous before the meeting about being able to get along, but were relieved that the whole atmosphere of the interaction from the first day to the last was stress free, warm and friendly, despite serious differences in the positions of the two sides. Those who had attended other such meetings said this was one of the very few meetings that had been conflict-free and ended with tangible results and plans. This is largely due to the care taken in selecting the participants and to the even-handed facilitation.

The topics discussed covered a wide range of shared interests, from how to build the foundations of a civil society to advancing environmental protection education, and dialogue. Even when the subject of the war arose, the stories we told on both sides were about cooperative efforts in evacuating civilians, and exchanging prisoners and hostages.

Some of the goals expressed by all the participants were to strengthen our dialogue with action; understand what model of relations will work; agree on the mechanism and strategy for collaborative programs; and expand the number of people who are involved in this process. We are committed to work toward a civil society which we believe is a guarantee against war.

Two of the projects agreed on at the meeting are already underway. The Centre for Humanitarian Programmes and the Foundation for the Development of Human Resources have conducted the first in a series of Express Surveys in Tbilisi and Sukhum(i) using the same questions and methodology of random sampling to tap public opinion on the peace process, and have circulated the combined results in both communities.

We were surprised to find that more people than we expected in both cities indicated that they are generally positive about the renewed negotiations between the leaders (since August 14, 1997) and feel they stimulate citizen diplomacy and lead to peace. Skepticism about any quick results was also expressed in both cities, but the majority of those surveyed feel that the talks are the only way to avoid a new wave of military actions, victims and destruction. The results of the survey are interesting; the process of jointly designing the survey and carrying it out was crucial in cementing working relationships among the group members.

In addition to the Express Surveys, another tangible result of the Sochi meeting is the publication of the first issues of what we hope will become regular bulletins of dialogue between nongovernmental organizations in the two cities. Authors in each city are writing articles in Russian on the same topics, promoting a dialogue on our common problems and controversial issues. The bulletins are to be distributed in both cities in Russian and published on one home page on the internet in English. These articles will boost NGO development in both communities and help to show that it is possible to prevent war and discuss issues calmly and with a willingness to listen to and understand each other.

One more important agreement reached in Sochi was to collaborate on monitoring environmental conditions along the Black Sea coast. Our environmental scientists and activists at Sochi look forward to a follow up meeting at UC Irvine in early February where they will plan a long-term project with US counterparts. We realize that environmental problems do not recognize political boundaries, and therefore lend themselves to cooperative efforts.

More funding will be needed to continue these and the other cooperative projects conceived in Sochi, such as joint training of nongovernmental organizations; collaborative environmental field work and educational projects; and a series of meetings of youth, war widows and mothers, disabled war veterans, university professors and writers. We are planning more frequent meetings of the project coordinators, and more frequent collaborative activities that will involve increasing numbers of citizen diplomats.

We still have much to accomplish. No doubt there will be disagreements and misunderstandings ahead. However, all the participants at the Sochi meeting want to go forward and feel that already we have made significant progress toward our main goal, which is to promote mutual understanding and peace.

Keti Bokolishvili, Arda Inal-Ipa, Galiya Kalimova, Simon Kvitsinia and Paata Zakareishvili are Georgian and Abkhazian coordinators of the project on "Practical Peacemaking in the Caucasus Through Cross-Conflict NGO Interaction and Development," funded by the Winston Foundation for World Peace and the University of California, Irvine.