In Abkhazia, Saakashvili and his government are seen as another in a long line of Georgian aggressors, prone to inflammatory language and prepared to use force if necessary in order to achieve their goals. Recent events in the Kodori Gorge are cited to support this interpretation but the Western orientation of the country, growth of military expenditure and relations with Russia also encourage this view. If one asks people in Abkhazia their feelings towards Saakashvili and the Rose Revolution, one is presented with a literally unbelievable level of indifference. As Presidential Advisor Stanislav Lakoba stated, ‘People were indifferent to the revolution and do not care who is in charge in Georgia’. This indifference is clearly an overstatement, intended to present a political message of independence, but it also reflects a highly structural view of politics. According to this reasoning, individual politicians do not matter since their actions are dictated by geopolitical realities and nationalist populations.

To an Abkhazian, the consistency of Georgian aggression is an unarguable fact that has seen no interruption since the 2003 revolution. Increases in Georgia’s military budget (military expenditure in 2004 was $97 million, in 2005 $208 million, and in 2006 military expenditure was budgeted at $221 million but raised to $341 million in July.), statements by President Saakashvili and ex-Defense Minister Okruashvili, and the unwillingness of the Georgians to sign a declaration of non-aggression are all taken as clear signs of military intent. Most recently, the \"anti-criminal operation\" in Kodori Gorge that placed Georgian personnel in territories of Abkhazia not controlled by the separatists is almost universally seen by locals as the first step of a strategy intended to take back Abkhazia by force.

Similarly, the constitutional changes that Saakashvili’s government has made, which strengthened the power of the executive, and the example of Ajaria’s limited autonomy are both pushed forward to demonstrate that his administration has no interest in devolving power. In this way the Rose Revolution is seen as a ‘change-over of power…. through which nothing substantive changed’, as argued Deputy Foreign Minister Maxim Gvinjia.

Abkhazian analysis also characterize Saakashvili’s policies as a continuation of a great power competition in the region. This is odd to Westerners, since it seems obvious to many that the U.S. has little interest in either a territorial grab of Abkhazia or fermenting violence in the region. Some Abkhazians disagree, citing U.S. oil interests in the region and the Iraq war as a demonstration of U.S. belligerence. Most feel that even if the U.S. does not have a direct interest in encouraging war, oil and geo-strategic interests will limit America’s ability to punish Georgian aggression. Gvinjia argues that ‘many people say that he [President Saakashvili] will not do it [invade Abkhazia] because he will lose support for NATO membership and both European and U.S. economic assistance, but I think he is prepared to lose this support because he knows that Georgia will be forgiven. No one will guarantee Georgia’s pacifism anymore’.

As an extension of this logic, most Abkhazians consider that worsening Georgian-Russian relations improves the likelihood that Abkhazia will be recognized as an independent state by Russia. This view has been encouraged by Putin’s statement about the applicability of the Kosovo precedent to Georgia, statements passed by the Russian Duma, and a feeling that Russians generally are sympathetic to Abkhazia’s situation.

This belief has been encouraged not just by the statements of Russian politicians. Russian public opinion also seems to be supportive. The Russian TV show, ‘Judge Yourself,’ aired by the Russian state-run First Channel on November 16th (and shown several times on Abkhazian television) held a debate on secession that included the de facto Presidents of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria. The Russian phone vote that followed was overwhelmingly in favor of Russian recognition of these regions.

This geopolitical worldview also sees Georgian ‘westernization’ as a rhetorical justification for anti-Russian geopolitics. Americans who explain Georgian-U.S. relations in terms of the democratizating tendencies of either are unlikely to be taken seriously. As one student put it, ‘it is better that they are aligned with America, because otherwise they would be with Russia, and that would be bad for us’. This zero-sum logic makes life difficult for progressive NGOs. As Liana Kvarchelia, Deputy Director of the Centre for Humanitarian Programmes says, ‘the difficulty is persuading people that there is a difference between supporting Western (or universal) values, and agreeing with Western ambivalence to Abkhazia’.

This is unfortunate. Progressive strands certainly exist in Abkhazia and there is definite concern about what over-dependence on Russia might mean in the long-term. However, inflammatory actions by Georgia have produced a sense of embattlement and as long as Saakashvili does not take into account how his actions are interpreted in Abkhazia, it seems unlikely that his ‘life’s goal’ will be realized.