Roots That Bind One Man to His People : Georgia: Ex-O.C. resident Mike Abzakh finds himself aiding the Abkhazians in their war.

Mike Abzakh’s piercing blue eyes welled up with tears as he walked over to the freshly dug grave bearing the body of a 28-year-old soldier who had died defending his homeland.

Family members bowed their heads as the American poured half a glass of cognac around the grave--a 1,000-year-old ritual of the Abkhazian people that ensures the soul will rise to heaven.

When the small, dignified funeral was over, the bereaved widow and the soldier’s parents embraced the stranger as if he were family.

Said Abzakh, who had never even met the deceased: “These are my people.”

They are, indeed, for the Jordanian-born Abzakh’s forebears hail from the Adygeya tribe, one of the scores of ancient Caucasian tribes to be exiled from the Abkhazian region of Georgia.

But Abzakh, 37, is an American citizen. In fact, he has spent most of his adult life in Orange County, where he owned a gas station and auto repair shop in Stanton and raised two sons. He used to race dirt bikes in the desert and spend nearly every weekend in Palm Springs.

Two years ago, he transported his wife, father and sons to Maykop, a tiny Russian town hundreds of miles from the Abkhazian border, in hopes of establishing a business.

But what started out as an opportunity for Abzakh to become rich by brokering a few oil deals with the Abkhazian government has evolved into one man’s journey to reconnect with his roots, and to aid his people, who have been at war since August.

Abzakh has found himself at the flash point of an outbreak of ethnic unrest in the former Soviet Union. Abkhazian separatists are demanding autonomy from the republic of Georgia. But last summer, Georgian leader and former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze sent in troops to quash the independence movement.

At least 1,700 people have been killed on both sides since August. Constant shelling has left buildings riddled with bullet holes and tanks stranded on the main highway. The streets are often deserted and store shelves are empty.

Abzakh has trekked to the Abkhazian region from Russia six times as a self-appointed humanitarian aid envoy. Each journey he meets with friends, activists and even the region’s leader, Vladislav Ardzinba, to see what is needed most.

Then he solicits clothes, food and money from the Adygeya people whom he knows, who are dispersed throughout the world, from Orange County--home to about 200 Adygeyas--to the Middle East.

“We are one people,” he said. “It is my duty to support Abkhazians. If I don’t do anything, it is treason.”

Abkhazia, 3,300 square miles of palm trees, tangerine groves and green-carpeted mountains bordered by the Black Sea and Russia, was once a playground for Josef Stalin and other Communist Party brass. Ghost towns, though, are all that remain now.

“Every time I come here, my feelings get deeper,” he said, standing near wreckage from recent shelling. “Every time I come here, I feel like I have to do more.”

It is less than 48 hours since the Georgians dropped their last bomb on the village of Gudauta, where the seat of Abkhazian government moved from the besieged former capital of Sukhumi.

Cattle, roosters and soldiers in eclectic camouflage outfits stroll down Ulitsa Lenina, once Gudauta’s main pedestrian mall. Only a handful of women are visible, all of whom wear black--a requirement for Muslim women who have lost an immediate family member.

Silence is interrupted by echoes of bombs exploding and gunfire erupting 60 miles away. But few seem distracted. These noises have become the din of the village.

Abzakh veers away in a rickety car from Gudauta’s main street to see the bomb’s damage firsthand. The car pulls up to 86 Ochanchyrskaya St. He silently walks up the stairs to the shell of what was once Guli Vozba’s home.

The windows are blown out. Glass, jagged metal casings from the bomb, children’s clothes, a stuffed donkey and dried blood on wood are piled up in what once were the upstairs bedrooms. Only a piano and table in the living room downstairs remain intact.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said, ankle deep in wood planks, nails and chipped paint.

Abzakh is led to a four-foot crater, the only barrier now separating Vozba from his neighbor Pyotr Kugov’s back yard.

“What shall I do?” cried Kugov, 64. “Where should I go? I built this house with my hands. I am an old man. How can I start living again?”

Kugov explained to Abzakh that he and his wife camp out in the kitchen now, the lone surviving room that is indistinguishable amid the rubble.

“I’m Russian,” Kugov said, in between sobs. “We all lived in peace before. Nobody wants war.”

Gudauta’s sole working hospital has doctors and rickety beds, but little else. Valery Akusya, 45, stands in the middle of a dimly lit room with a gun, guarding his son, Dima, 5; daughter, Elizabeth, 6, and his wife, Lorita, 32, all of whom were victims in the latest round of fire.

Abzakh will not cross the room’s threshold. He cannot bear the sight of Dima’s gouged and bloodstained face, plastic tubes flowing from a woman’s chest or Lorita’s bandaged head.

Valery Akusya steps into the hall to talk to Abzakh.

“I am a teacher, which is the most peaceful profession,” he said. “Now they made me a killer. I have to kill others to preserve my family.”

Bislan Gularia, 29, whose full head of white hair reveals the toll the war has taken on him, comes out of the next room where his wife lay, to ask Abzakh for advice. Gularia said he is ashamed because he cannot find the strength to continue to fight.

“Just hang on,” Abzakh said. “The fight does not mean just taking a weapon to the front line. You need to stick together and help in whatever way you can.”

Gudauta’s residents, whose numbers have ballooned to 60,000 since August as refugees poured in from Sukhumi, are devastated not only by the destruction of the latest attack, but also by its implications.

Gudauta was once perceived by Abkhazians as untouchable, because of the active Russian air force base thought of as a shield against Georgian air attacks.

Russian officials have vehemently denied Georgian charges that they supply arms and military know-how to Abkhazian soldiers, even though a Russian warplane was shot down near Sukhumi in March.

Russia has troops from the Soviet era stationed in Abkhazia, and has said it has no intention of withdrawing them until 1995.

Still, rebel soldiers insist that the only weapons they possess are ones that have been confiscated from their enemy in battle.

Abkhazia has become a rallying point for Caucasian ethnic groups who live abroad. Soldiers from the diaspora have come from Moscow, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and neighboring Caucasian regions to help the separatist movement resist assimilation.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the war are claims by both sides of atrocities. Both sides have bombed civilian territories and have kidnaped noncombatants for prisoner exchanges. Fighters from both sides have cut off fingers and ears from corpses as trophies.

Georgian military commanders have made repeated public threats that they are willing to sacrifice 100,000 Georgian soldiers and kill all 97,000 Abkhazians to get Abkhazia back under Georgian rule.

“We came to kill Abkhazians and pillage the land,” said Ludmilia Sagaria, referring to what she heard Georgians soldiers scream as they entered her home in Sukhumi 10 months ago.

Sagaria, who tries to get information in from the Georgian-controlled cities of Sukhumi and Tkvarcheli and out to the rest of the world, hands Abzakh scores of testimonies from Abkhazian civilians.

Each person’s story becomes more ghastly. The first explains how an Abkhazian soldier was tortured with electric shock by his Georgian captors; the next tells the tale of a woman raped by a string of Georgian soldiers in front of her family, while another describes how someone witnessed a neighbor set afire.

Abzakh was making preparations to meet with Abkhazia’s leader. He wanted to get a thank-you note addressed to one of Jordan’s top generals who, at his prompting, collected and donated tens of thousands of dollars to help Abkhazia.

“This time I saw kids hurt,” Abzakh said. “There is a lot of difference between hearing about it and seeing it with your own eyes, It makes my resolve stronger to do something.”