Identity Crisis

The creation of a new country in Europe this week - tiny Montenegro in the Balkans - has inspired a posse of disputed territories in the former Soviet Union in their bids for independence.

They believe Montenegro's vote to secede from Yugoslavia and the ongoing talks in Vienna over the future of Kosovo, the majority Albanian province of Serbia under a UN protectorate, could set a vital benchmark.

European diplomats indicate that Kosovo has a chance to gain a form of independence and recognition by the international community later this year.

That suggestion has prompted a wave of hope in self-declared territories like Abkhazia, and South Ossetia, both disputed regions of Georgia, the republic of Trans-Dniester in Moldova and the disputed district of Nagorno Karabakh, an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan.

These scattered shards of the former Soviet Union have all been in limbo since its break up in the early 1990s, crying out to be released from "frozen conflicts" and integrated into the world community.

"Such a civilised road of self-determination can be only welcomed," Sergei Bagapsh, the de facto president of breakaway Abkhazia, said this week of Montenegro's independence vote last Sunday.

"Now that the process of self-determination of nations has resumed, Abkhazia and South Ossetia should get independence."

At first glance, the tiny self-declared republic of Abkhazia on the eastern coast of the Black Sea is an earthly paradise.

For decades its palm trees, warm scented air and sweeping beaches drew thousands of holidaymakers from across the USSR, including Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev, both of whom relaxed on its shores.

Even today, it is famed for its gentle climate, its mandarin oranges and its sweeping boughs of yellow mimosa blossom.

But look more closely and there are signs of an uglier past.

Sidestreets in the seaside capital, Sukhum, are dominated by the gutted remains of smoke-blackened houses, choked with weeds.

In the countryside not far away, whole settlements stand in silent desolation, abandoned in a furious war that raged here in the Caucasus more than a decade ago.

The conflict flared up in August 1992 when the armed forces of Georgia attacked Abkhazia, after it declared its intent to break away from the country after the Soviet collapse.

After a year of savage fighting, and atrocities on both sides, the Abkhazians drove out the Georgians - including hundreds of thousands of civilians - with the help of their Russian neighbours to the north, and declared independence.

Since then, this scrap of land which is home to about 200,000 people, has led its own lonely existence, cut off by an embargo and unrecognised by any country in the world.

"In the last 13 years, Abkhazia has formed a state with its own institutions, authorities, army and democratic development," Mr Bagapsh told Guardian Unlimited at his offices in downtown Sukhum.

"But the world ignores us when we have every right to gain international recognition."

He predicts Abkhazia's independence will be recognised "within three days" if Kosovo is granted status as a country.

Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, threw his weight behind Abkhazia's cause at the end of January, when he said that if Kosovo was granted independence, "why then should we deny it to Abkhazia and South Ossetia?".

"We need universal principles to find a fair solution to these problems," Mr Putin added.

Abkhazia's victory in the 1992 to 1993 war came at a bitter price, Georgia accused it of ethnic cleansing and severed all trade. Many buildings were destroyed and the republic is desperately poor.

Sukhum has no functioning airport, receives little direct bilateral aid and its coast is cut off by Georgian ships while its critics claim it is a haven for organised crime.

And its only link is with Russia, which buys its oranges and sends a trickle of tourists to the republic's crumbling resorts.

UN-led talks between Tbilisi and Sukhum have borne little fruit since the end of the armed conflict, but Abkhaz foreign minister Sergei Shamba has renewed hope.

"The international community needs to face up to the fact that obstacles put in front of people and their aspirations to self-determination only lead to bloodshed," he said, in a meeting at his three-room ministry.

"In that sense, Kosovo could become a kind of marker that determines a new world attitude towards these issues."

The issue of Georgian refugees is likely to remain the largest stumbling block. About 250,000 Georgians fled Abkhazia during the war, and only 60,000 have been able to return to the south of the region.

"I had to rebuild my life from scratch after they forced us out," Zviad Mirgatia, 38, a Georgian from Sukhum who now lives in Tbilisi, said.

"Now I can't go back. But I could never accept my home, my soil, being taken away from Georgia."