Details: Category: Reviews

Review of JONATHAN COHEN (ed.) 'A question of sovereignty: the Georgia-Abkhazia peace process', Issue 7 1999 of Accord -- an international review of peace initiatives, in Central Asian Survey

The editor has been grappling with this particular dispute since his days at the NGO International Alert. Alert, having despatched a poorly chosen team to the war-zone in the early months of the fighting (Oct-Nov 1992), had produced a deplorably biased report in January 1993, for which anti-Abkhazian publication the organisation's then-director (Kumar Rupesinghe) felt obliged to apologise one month later to the Abkhazian delegation attending that year's International Negotiating Network conference at the Carter Center (Atlanta, Georgia, USA). It was as Alert was having to deal with this negative Abkhazian reaction that Cohen joined them and quickly managed to introduce a more balanced approach. This exemplary even-handedness has continued to characterise his involvement during his time at Conciliation Resources, and, buttressed by an ever deepening understanding of the conflict, it puts him in an excellent position to contribute to ongoing attempts to resolve this bitter and complex problem.

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