Vladislav Ardzinba

Infobox_President | name=Vladislav Ardzinba
Владислав Арӡынба
nationality=Abkhaz


order=1st President of Abkhazia
term_start=1994
term_end=February 12, 2005
predecessor=
successor=Sergei Bagapsh
birth_date=Birth date and age|1945|5|14|mf=y
birth_place=Lower Eshera, Abkhazian ASSR, Georgian SSR, USSR
dead=alive
death_date=
death_place=
spouse=Svetlana Djergenia
party=

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Vladislav Ardzinba (Abkhaz: IPA|"Владислав Григори-иҧа Арӡынба") (born May 14, 1945) is an Abkhaz politician who was the first President of the unrecognized, but "de facto" independent Republic of Abkhazia, a breakaway autonomous republic of Georgia, from 1994 to 2005.

Early life and career

Vladislav Ardzinba was born in the village of Lower Eshera, Abkhaz ASSR, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union. After graduating from the Historical Department of the Sukhumi Pedagogical Institute, Ardzinba studied at the Tbilisi State University where he received a doctor degree. He then worked for eighteen years in Moscow specialising in ancient Middle Eastern civilizations under Yevgeniy Primakov, then head of the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow, and later Russian foreign and Prime Minister. Back to Sukhumi, he served as the director of the Abkhazian Institute of Language, Literature and History from 1987 until 1989, when he was elected a Deputy to the USSR Supreme Soviet from Gudauta. From there, he was involved closely with national issues, including Abkhazia, and quickly emerged as one of the most active proponent of the Abkhaz secessionist cause. While a deputy to the USSR Supreme Soviet, Ardzinba, himself a conservative Communist, [Emmanuel Karagiannis (2002), "Energy and Security in the Caucasus", p. 76. Routledge, ISBN 0700714812.] forged a close ties with the hardliners in Moscow, particularly with the parliamentary chairman Anatoly Lukyanov, and other members of the right-wing groups in Moscow that were responsible for the August 1991 coup attempt. [Cornell, Svante E, Autonomy and Conflict: Ethnoterritoriality and Separatism in the South Caucasus – Case in Georgia, pp. 168, 180, 182. "Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Report No. 61". Uppsala. ISBN 91-506-1600-5.]

Role in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict

On December 4, 1990, Ardzinba was elected Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Abkhazia. Ardzinba, a charismatic but excitable figure popular among the Abkhaz was believed by Georgians to have helped to instigate the violence of July 1989. [Stuart J. Kaufman (2001), "Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War", p. 117. Cornell University Press, ISBN 0801487366.] Ardzinba managed to consolidate his power relatively quickly, and went back on promises of increasing the representation of Georgians in Abkhazia's autonomous structures he had made before being elected; since then, Ardzinba tried to rule Abkhazia relatively single-handedly, but avoided, for the time being, to enter into overt conflict with the central authorities in Tbilisi. In mid-1991, he negotiated and accepted the Georgian concession on the reform of the electoral law that granted the Abkhaz wide over-representation in the Supreme Soviet. However, Ardzinba created the Abkhazian National Guard that was mono-ethnically Abkhaz, and initiated a practice of replacing ethnic Georgians in leading positions with Abkhaz. As the Georgian-Abkhaz tensions rose, Ardzinba’s rhetoric mounted, as he claimed in late July 1992 that "Abkhazia is strong enough to fight Georgia." [Cornell, p. 180.]

In August 1992, a Georgian military force ousted Ardzinba and his group from Sukhumi. They took shelter in Gudauta, a home to the Soviet-era Russian military base. Ardzinba benefited from his contacts with the Russian hardliner circles and military leaders to garner a critical support in the war against Georgian government.

Presidency

After the hostilities ended in 1994 and a bulk of Georgian population was forced out of Abkhazia, the de facto Abkhazian parliament elected Ardzinba to the presidency, a move that was condemned by Georgia and the United Nations as illegal. He won the first direct polls on October 3, 1999, without an opponent and was re-elected as president of Abkhazia. [The International Crisis Group. "Abkhazia Today. Europe Report N°176", pp. 5, 12. 15 September 2006.] He installed an autocratic regime [Tunç Aybak (2001), "Politics of the Black Sea: Dynamics of Cooperation and Conflict", p. 193. I.B.Tauris, ISBN 1860644546.] and remained politically untouchable until his health seriously deteriorated in 2003. He has stated that independence from Georgia is not negotiable, and has tried to align the state with Russia whose political and economic support was essential to the de facto republic. As a leader of the Abkhaz side he met the two successive Russian presidents - Vladimir Putin and Boris Yeltsin, and Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia.

Under his rule, human right records were extremely poor as most of the pre-war Georgian population of Abkhazia were deprived the right to return and those who remained were subjected to systematic ethnic cleansing. Ardzinba aroused some further criticism from the international community after issuing a decree banning Jehovah's Witnesses in 1995.

During the last years of his presidency Ardzinba faced criticism for both failing to bring stability to Abkhazia and his increasingly low public profile. He has not appeared in public since 2002. As a result, the role of governing the state had been increasingly left to Prime Minister Raul Khajimba.

He has been in extremely poor health and has been undergoing treatment in Moscow for some time. Despite increasing calls from the opposition (particularly the Amtsakhara movement) for him to resign he had stated that he would finish his term, which was supposed to end in October 2004, but in fact did not end until February 12, 2005, due to disputes over the election of his successor. There were also calls for him to be impeached but although the Abkhaz Constitution allows for this the process would likely have not been completed before the end of his term and no serious steps were taken to bring it about. He was unable to run for a third term due to constitutional restrictions and it is unlikely that his health would have enabled him to do so even if this were allowed.

He was replaced by the winner of the presidential election of 12 January 2005, Sergei Bagapsh. A previous election had been held in late 2004 after the murder of opposition leader Garri Aiba, but it had resulted in considerable controversy over the results.

References

* [http://www.abkhaziagov.org/ru/president/status/presidents.php?phrase_id=8949 President of Abkhazia official site] ru icon