Some news items about events in and around Georgia during the last week which have attracted less attention than they deserve:
RUSSIAN ACTION IN GEORGIA CHANGES POLICY CALCULATIONS OF NEIGHBORS. According to Vitaly Kulik, the director of the Kyiv Center for Research on the Problems of Civil Society, Russia’s military action in Georgia is forcing all the countries of the region to rethink their foreign policies, possibly leading some to be more deferential to Moscow and others to seek protection either by allying themselves more closely with the West or building up their own military forces. In the past, he said, almost all of these countries operated on the assumption that whatever else Moscow might do, it was unlikely to use military force against them (forum.msk.ru/material/fpolitic/517911.html).
IS MOSCOW NOW TRYING TO DESTABILIZE AZERBAIJAN? While there is much debate about who is responsible for both the explosion at Baku’s Abu Bakr mosque and another at an electric power relay station there, at least some people in Azerbaijan now believe that these actions are intended to destabilize Azerbaijan and that Russian special forces are one of the groups that might have an interest in doing so (1news.az/interview/20080818051647158.html).
KAZAKHSTAN SAYS GEORGIA’S EXIT FROM CIS WON’T AFFECT TIES. Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry announced that a decision by Georgia to leave the Commonwealth of Independent States would not have any impact on Astana’s bilateral ties with Tbilisi. The relationship, a ministry representative said, is based on mutual interests and bilateral accords. Such a statement, of course, may make it easier for other countries to consider leaving that post-Soviet grouping, steps Moscow very much opposes (www.easttime.ru/news/1/3/689.html).
ESTONIA’S ILVES CALLS FOR ADMITTING ‘WHAT’S LEFT OF GEORGIA’ TO NATO. Many commentators and officials in the West are arguing that NATO cannot possibly move to include Georgia in its ranks because of the presence of Russian military forces there, but Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves has suggested that this should not be an impediment but rather a reason for quick action. And he has called for admitting to NATO’s ranks both Ukraine and “what’s left of Georgia” as soon as possible (evrazia.org/n.php?id=3150).
VORONEZH DEMOCRATS PROTEST MOSCOW’S ACTIONS IN GEORGIA. The democratic opposition in Voronezh on August 22 staged a protest against Russian actions in Georgia, the Sobkorr.ru portal reported. Organizers, who included RNDS, OGF and the Soldiers’ Mothers Movement distributed broadsides against the war, and some ordinary citizens who joined the protest denounced what they called “the senseless ‘hurrah patriotism’” informing Russian moves (www.sobkorr.ru/news/48AEB3582CE50.html).
SOLDIERS’ MOTHERS SEEKS INVESTIGATION ON USE OF DRAFTEES IN GEORGIA. The Russian defense ministry after promising earlier that it would no longer sent draftees into harm’s way acknowledged that it had done just that in the case of the introduction of the 58th Russian Army into Georgia. Now the Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers has called on military prosecutors to investigate how this happened, something the union said was a violation not only of official promises but of Russian laws (www.agentura.ru/?id=1219262400).
RUSSIAN ACTION IN GEORGIA EXACERBATES EAST-WEST DIVIDE IN UKRAINE. A poll conducted by “Segodnya” and the Research 7 Branding Group found that 56 percent of people in Eastern Ukraine back Moscow’s actions in Georgia while 51 percent of those sampled in Western Ukraine support Georgia, an indication of the continuing split in that country and one that at least some in Moscow may hope to provoke and exploit (www.vlasti.net/news/20342).
RUSSIAN MYSTIC DOESN’T SEE A GEORGIA IN THE FUTURE. Vanga, a Russian seer whom many Russians look to for predictions, says that he cannot see Georgia continuing to exist in the future (topnews.ru/media_id_4781.html#georgia). Meanwhile, a Russian forensic psychiatrist has said that a picture showing President Mihkiel Saakashvili eating his tie indicates the Georgian leader is mad (www.rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=178086) And the Amal Research Center, a Muslim organization, said that the recent fighting shows that “Georgia is to Russia what Cuba is to the US” (www.rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=178086).
MOSCOW SAYS GEORGIAN REFUGEES CAN RETURN TO SOUTH OSSETIA. Even though South Ossetian leaders have announced that their republic no longer has any ethnic Georgians living there and that they do not plan to allow them to return, the Russian foreign ministry has said, possibly to make itself look good in the West, that Georgian refugees have the right to return there (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1227382.html).
DETAILED MAPS RELEASED ON MILITARY OPS, AIRSTRIKES IN GEORGIA. Several Moscow websites have carried detailed maps of the positions of troops, the location of battles, and the sites of airstrikes. Among the most informative of these maps are those to be found at forum.msk.ru/material/power/519672.html.
NEW UNPO REPORT ON SELF-DETERMINATION IN CAUCASUS AFTER GEORGIA. The conflict in Georgia has reordered many things, including thinking about self-determination in many of the minority nationality areas in the Caucasus. For an update, see the 30-page paper prepared and released by the Unrecognized Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) online at www.unpo.org/images/reports/unpo%20report%20-%20caucasian%20concerns.pdf.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query georgia. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query georgia. Sort by date Show all posts
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Window on Eurasia: Georgia’s New Rights Party Calls for Saakashvili to Resign
Paul Goble
Vienna, September 9 – Georgia’s New Rights Party, which had refrained from criticizing the Georgian government during the war with Russia, says that Georgia must admit that “there was a war in the country and [Georgia] lost it and that President Mikheil Saakashvili, who bears responsibility for allowing Tbilisi to be drawn into a Russian trap, must resign.
The party’s press release notes that “more than a thousand citizens of Georgia” were injured or killed, the number of IDPs and refugees is more than 100,000, that the Georgian military has been “destroyed, demoralized and disarmed, and that Georgia has “totally lost its reliability” as a place for outside investment.
Worst of all, the press release says, “one-third of Georgian territory has been occupied and annexed by Russia,” the “outcome of a big shady enterprise into which our country was pulled.” And as a result, any chance that Georgia will be included in NATO in the near term has almost certainly been lost.
The underlying reasons for this tragedy, the New Rights Party says, is “Russia’s imperial policy”and its desire to control Georgia and the pipelines flowing through it, on the one hand, and Georgia’s aspirations for freedom, “real independence,” and membership in Western institutions, on the other.
But the release goes on to say that the Georgian government bears some responsibility as well. Its “ill-considered and emotional policy” regarding Russia, Abkhazia and the former South Ossetia” which were crafted for “internal PR” and President Mikhail Saakashvili’s decision to bomb Tskhinvali represented “a fatal step for Georgia.
In doing so, Saakashvili led Georgia into a Russian trap, something the United States, the European Union, and many in Georgia itself had warned against. But “despite these cautionary notices, Saakashvili single-handedly took the irresponsible and criminal decision” to use military force in this way, something that virtually guaranteed a Russian military response.
“Consequently,” the New Rights Party says, “Mikheil Saakashvili no longer has the political or moral right to be the president and commander in chief of Georgia. He should resign,” and elections for both a new president and a new parliament should be organized, “the media freed,” and constitutional reforms “carried out to establish real and effective democracy.”
Given recent moves by the Georgian president, the press release concludes, “we are certain that the authorities [in Tbilisi] and the mass media controlled by them will declare us to be enemies, traitors and Russian spies,” but but if speaking the truth in Georgia generates such attacks, "then we are ready to accept even such slander” for the good of Georgia.
As long as Russia’s military actions in Georgia were in the active phase, the Georgian opposition remained relatively quiet inside the country, because its members did not want to do anything that might weaken Georgia and did not want to do anything that might look as if it were bowing to Russian demands.
President Saakashvili counted on such calculations, clearly aware that after the war, many Georgians would raise questions about his decisions and their impact on Georgia. What is surprising is not that such questions are being asked so insistently but that they are being asked so soon.
And that in turn almost certainly points to new political turmoil in Georgia, as President Saakashvili and his supporters try to hold on to their posts, despite the recent debacle, Georgian opposition figures call for investigations and resignations, and Moscow, both directly and through its people on the ground, seeks to exploit all of this.
Note: This press release in English translation has circulated so far only via email. I would be happy to provide a copy to anyone who sends me an email at paul.goble@gmail.com
Vienna, September 9 – Georgia’s New Rights Party, which had refrained from criticizing the Georgian government during the war with Russia, says that Georgia must admit that “there was a war in the country and [Georgia] lost it and that President Mikheil Saakashvili, who bears responsibility for allowing Tbilisi to be drawn into a Russian trap, must resign.
The party’s press release notes that “more than a thousand citizens of Georgia” were injured or killed, the number of IDPs and refugees is more than 100,000, that the Georgian military has been “destroyed, demoralized and disarmed, and that Georgia has “totally lost its reliability” as a place for outside investment.
Worst of all, the press release says, “one-third of Georgian territory has been occupied and annexed by Russia,” the “outcome of a big shady enterprise into which our country was pulled.” And as a result, any chance that Georgia will be included in NATO in the near term has almost certainly been lost.
The underlying reasons for this tragedy, the New Rights Party says, is “Russia’s imperial policy”and its desire to control Georgia and the pipelines flowing through it, on the one hand, and Georgia’s aspirations for freedom, “real independence,” and membership in Western institutions, on the other.
But the release goes on to say that the Georgian government bears some responsibility as well. Its “ill-considered and emotional policy” regarding Russia, Abkhazia and the former South Ossetia” which were crafted for “internal PR” and President Mikhail Saakashvili’s decision to bomb Tskhinvali represented “a fatal step for Georgia.
In doing so, Saakashvili led Georgia into a Russian trap, something the United States, the European Union, and many in Georgia itself had warned against. But “despite these cautionary notices, Saakashvili single-handedly took the irresponsible and criminal decision” to use military force in this way, something that virtually guaranteed a Russian military response.
“Consequently,” the New Rights Party says, “Mikheil Saakashvili no longer has the political or moral right to be the president and commander in chief of Georgia. He should resign,” and elections for both a new president and a new parliament should be organized, “the media freed,” and constitutional reforms “carried out to establish real and effective democracy.”
Given recent moves by the Georgian president, the press release concludes, “we are certain that the authorities [in Tbilisi] and the mass media controlled by them will declare us to be enemies, traitors and Russian spies,” but but if speaking the truth in Georgia generates such attacks, "then we are ready to accept even such slander” for the good of Georgia.
As long as Russia’s military actions in Georgia were in the active phase, the Georgian opposition remained relatively quiet inside the country, because its members did not want to do anything that might weaken Georgia and did not want to do anything that might look as if it were bowing to Russian demands.
President Saakashvili counted on such calculations, clearly aware that after the war, many Georgians would raise questions about his decisions and their impact on Georgia. What is surprising is not that such questions are being asked so insistently but that they are being asked so soon.
And that in turn almost certainly points to new political turmoil in Georgia, as President Saakashvili and his supporters try to hold on to their posts, despite the recent debacle, Georgian opposition figures call for investigations and resignations, and Moscow, both directly and through its people on the ground, seeks to exploit all of this.
Note: This press release in English translation has circulated so far only via email. I would be happy to provide a copy to anyone who sends me an email at paul.goble@gmail.com
Monday, August 17, 2009
Window on Eurasia: Leaving the CIS, Georgia Becomes Part of Russia’s ‘Far Abroad’
Paul Goble
Vienna, August 17 – Tomorrow, one year after Tbilisi declared its intention to do so, Georgia will officially cease to be a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and thus, in the words of one Moscow paper, should now be considered part of Russia’s ‘far abroad,’ the term Moscow uses for countries beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union.
The meaning of this step may be both less and more than meets the eye. On the one hand, Georgia’s participation in the Russian-led group has been largely nominal for the last five years, and Tbilisi has indicated that it will continue to honor some 70 of the 113 agreements it signed as part of the CIS (svpressa.ru/world/article/12744/).
But on the other, Georgia’s action, precisely because it is unlikely to be accompanied by any cataclysmic consequences, may make it easier for some other former Soviet republics, Ukraine in particular, to take this step and thus bring to an end an organization that increasingly has resembled a club of presidents rather than an effective regional organization.
Georgia’s involvement with the CIS has been more troubled than that of any other member. Tbilisi was the last of the former Soviet republics to join, doing so in March 1994 only because then-President Eduard Shevardnadze insisted that membership would help Georgia maintain its territorial integrity (www.vremya.ru/2009/147/5/235265.html).
During Boris Yeltsin’s time in office as Russian president, Tbilisi regularly secured CIS declarations on behalf of Georgia’s territorial integrity. But under his successors, Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, the situation changed, culminating in Russia’s use of force against Georgia a year ago and its extension of diplomatic recognition to Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
On August 12, 2008, near the end of “the five-day war,” Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili declared that his country would leave the CIS because that organization had done nothing to prevent Russian “aggression and occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Nine days later, the Georgian foreign ministry informed the CIS of Tbilisi’s intention.
Now, after the conclusion of the one-year notice required for such a step, Georgia will not be formally a member of a grouping it has had little to do with in recent years. Like some Russian officials, a few Georgians think this is unfortunate. Among them is Shevardnadze who urged Georgia to join in the first place.
He told “Vremya novostei” that “the CIS as a rule always shared the position of Georgia on the separatists” and that in his view, “one should not take a decision about leaving so quickly. Undoubtedly,” he said, “we could still use the Commonwealth [of Independent States] in a positive way for Georgia.”
Zurab Khonelidze, Georgia’s last permanent representative to the CIS, agreed. “The departure of Georgia will only free Russia from many obligations, including recognition in the framework of this organization of the territorial integrity of Georgia. We could have still used [it] to achieve something useful for our country.”
But the die is now cast. A Georgian foreign ministry official observed that Putin’s visit to Abkhazia last week “removed all illusions” by showing that Moscow intends to use Abkhazia, which the CIS and the international community had recognized as an inalienable part of Georgia, for use as a military base.
And Mikhail Machavariani, the first deputy chairman of the Georgian parliament, added that in his view, “The CIS will soon cease to exist. Or Russia will remain its only member. Over the last year, Moscow has succeeded in worsening its ties with Belarus and Ukraine, and the Uzbeks too are dissatisfied with many aspects of [the CIS].”
According to “Vremya novostei,” Georgia’s new status as part of the “far abroad” was signaled already last Saturday when “the first group of American military instructors arrived in Georgia” in order to begin training Georgian “peacekeepers” for service in NATO-led operations in Afghanistan.
Vienna, August 17 – Tomorrow, one year after Tbilisi declared its intention to do so, Georgia will officially cease to be a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and thus, in the words of one Moscow paper, should now be considered part of Russia’s ‘far abroad,’ the term Moscow uses for countries beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union.
The meaning of this step may be both less and more than meets the eye. On the one hand, Georgia’s participation in the Russian-led group has been largely nominal for the last five years, and Tbilisi has indicated that it will continue to honor some 70 of the 113 agreements it signed as part of the CIS (svpressa.ru/world/article/12744/).
But on the other, Georgia’s action, precisely because it is unlikely to be accompanied by any cataclysmic consequences, may make it easier for some other former Soviet republics, Ukraine in particular, to take this step and thus bring to an end an organization that increasingly has resembled a club of presidents rather than an effective regional organization.
Georgia’s involvement with the CIS has been more troubled than that of any other member. Tbilisi was the last of the former Soviet republics to join, doing so in March 1994 only because then-President Eduard Shevardnadze insisted that membership would help Georgia maintain its territorial integrity (www.vremya.ru/2009/147/5/235265.html).
During Boris Yeltsin’s time in office as Russian president, Tbilisi regularly secured CIS declarations on behalf of Georgia’s territorial integrity. But under his successors, Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, the situation changed, culminating in Russia’s use of force against Georgia a year ago and its extension of diplomatic recognition to Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
On August 12, 2008, near the end of “the five-day war,” Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili declared that his country would leave the CIS because that organization had done nothing to prevent Russian “aggression and occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Nine days later, the Georgian foreign ministry informed the CIS of Tbilisi’s intention.
Now, after the conclusion of the one-year notice required for such a step, Georgia will not be formally a member of a grouping it has had little to do with in recent years. Like some Russian officials, a few Georgians think this is unfortunate. Among them is Shevardnadze who urged Georgia to join in the first place.
He told “Vremya novostei” that “the CIS as a rule always shared the position of Georgia on the separatists” and that in his view, “one should not take a decision about leaving so quickly. Undoubtedly,” he said, “we could still use the Commonwealth [of Independent States] in a positive way for Georgia.”
Zurab Khonelidze, Georgia’s last permanent representative to the CIS, agreed. “The departure of Georgia will only free Russia from many obligations, including recognition in the framework of this organization of the territorial integrity of Georgia. We could have still used [it] to achieve something useful for our country.”
But the die is now cast. A Georgian foreign ministry official observed that Putin’s visit to Abkhazia last week “removed all illusions” by showing that Moscow intends to use Abkhazia, which the CIS and the international community had recognized as an inalienable part of Georgia, for use as a military base.
And Mikhail Machavariani, the first deputy chairman of the Georgian parliament, added that in his view, “The CIS will soon cease to exist. Or Russia will remain its only member. Over the last year, Moscow has succeeded in worsening its ties with Belarus and Ukraine, and the Uzbeks too are dissatisfied with many aspects of [the CIS].”
According to “Vremya novostei,” Georgia’s new status as part of the “far abroad” was signaled already last Saturday when “the first group of American military instructors arrived in Georgia” in order to begin training Georgian “peacekeepers” for service in NATO-led operations in Afghanistan.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Window on Eurasia Shorts for November 16 – Georgian Events
Some news items about events in and around Georgia during the last week which have attracted less attention than they deserve:
US SAID PREPARING ‘SOFT VARIANT’ FOR GETTING GEORGIA INTO NATO. Western and Russian news agencies report that the United States is preparing what some officials call “a soft variant” for including Georgia and Ukraine on the path to NATO membership. Presumably, the agencies say, this would be a declaration going further than the one made at the Bucharest summit last spring but not as far as the extension of a formal membership action plan (MAP) when NATO ministers meet later this year (www.nr2.ru/policy/206488.html).
MEDVEDEV SAYS RUSSIA WILL RECOGNIZE GEORGIA’S TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY BUT WITHOUT BREAKAWAY REGIONS. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told European leaders in Nice that Moscow is ready to recognize the territorial integrity of Georgia as it exists now without Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Speaking about Russia’s recognition of the two breakaway republics, Medvedev said that this action was “final and irreversible” (www.annews.ru/news/detail.php?ID=172357).
RUSSIAN BASES WILL PROTECT ABKHAZIA, SOUTH OSSETIA FROM OUTSIDE INTERFERENCE, CHIEF OF GENERAL STAFF SAYS. General Nikolai Makarov, the chief of the Russian general staff, said that the establishment and strengthening of Russian bases in Abkhazia and South Ossetia will prevent anyone from interfering in their internal affairs ever again (evrazia.org/news/5977).
SARKOZY SAYS MOSCOW HAS ‘MOSTLY FULFILLED’ OBLIGATIONS ON GEORGIA. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that Russia has “mostly fulfilled” its ceasefire commitments, although he suggested that Russia still must withdraw its forces from Akhalgori and Perevi, which are not part of South Ossetia (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19961). In other comments, Sarkozy lashed out at US President George W. Bush’s suggestion that Washington had played a key role in ending the Georgian war, noting that it was the EU and not the Americans who took the lead role (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19955).
EU READY TO HAVE ABKHAZIA, SOUTH OSSETIA AT GENEVA, ABKHAZ FM SAYS. Russian, Abkhaz and South Ossetian officials say the EU has agreed to have the two breakaway republics as equal participants at the upcoming Geneva talks, but EU officials so far in public have not confirmed that (www.gzt.ru/politics/2008/11/12/144111.html). Georgia has indicated that it will not take part in any talks where the two are treated in that way.
SAAKASHVILI INSISTS GEORGIA STILL ‘HIGH ON EU’S AGENDA.’ Despite the restarting of EU-Russian partnership talks, which were suspended after the Russian invasion of Georgia, President Mikhail Saakashvili said in Paris that Georgia remains “high on the EU’s agenda” and that he expects European support to continue in the future (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19938).
PUTIN DENIES USING CRUDE LANGUAGE ABOUT SAAKASHVILI. The media in Europe have given extensive coverage to reports that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin used extremely crude words during his Moscow conversations with French President Nicolas Sarkozy about what the Russian leader would do to Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. Putin’s spokesmen have denied that he said what the French participants insist that he did (www.annews.ru/news/detail.php?ID=172303).
RUSSIA’S UPPER HOUSE RATIFIES ACCORDS WITH ABKHAZIA, SOUTH OSSETIA. Following the action of the Duma, the Federation Council has ratified the treaties of friendship with Abkhazia and South Ossetia (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1233063.html). Immediately thereafter, Abkhazia named its permanent representative in Moscow ambassador to the Russian Federation (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1233177.html).
SOUTH OSSETIA WILL SURVIVE WINTER WITHOUT GAS FROM GEORGIA. South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity said that his republic will survive the winter even though Georgia has blocked the flow of gas into the territory, an action that he said shows the lack of “humanity” in Tbilisi’s position (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1233196.html).
GALLOPING INFLATION THREATENS SOCIAL STABILITY IN GEORGIA. Inflation is increasing so rapidly in Georgia that it now threatens social and even political stability there, according to Caucasus Knot reporters (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1233207.html). Some prices have jumped at what would be annualized rates of more than 700 percent. Meanwhile, exchange rates for the national currency, the lari, continued to fall as well.
ELECTRONIC MEDIA IN GEORGIA TOTALLY CONTROLLED BY GOVERNMENT, OMBUDSMAN SAYS. In an annual report on the media in Georgia, Sozar Subari, the nation’s ombudsman, said that none of the electronic media outlets in that country is free and that “we are witnessing a very serious censorship every evening during the news programs” (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19964). The independent Moscow based, media watchdog organization, the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations confirmed his findings (www.iamik.ru/?op=full&what=content&ident=40921).
MORE DETAILS ABOUT MILITARY ACTIONS IN AUGUST AND THEIR IMPACT. Among the new details that surfaced this week: Russian helicopters shot down each other because of inadequate FOF systems (www.mk.ru/blogs/MK/2008/11/12/society/380622/), Moscow has decided to purchase Israeli drones to supplement its own inadequate supply (www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=27320), Georgia did use cluster bombs, purchased from Israel, during the fighting (www.rosbalt.ru/2008/11/13/541269.html), and eyewitness accounts confirm Russian and South Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages at the start of the war (www.rferl.org/Content/Eyewitness_Accounts_Confirm_Shelling_Of_Georgian_Villages/1349256.html).
TRANSDNIESTRIA PUBLISHES BOOK ABOUT SOUTH OSSETIA. In an action with more than symbolic meaning, a Transdniestria-based publishing house has released in Tskhinvali a book about the war in South Ossetia (http://www.osetinfo.ru/main/211).
MOSCOW MULLS BUYING LESS LAND FOR SOCHI GAMES. Reflecting anger in Sochi about the way in which Russian officials have ridden roughshod over local residents, members of the United Russia Party have proposed cutting back on the amount of land that the organizers of the 2014 games will need (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1232966.html).
US SAID PREPARING ‘SOFT VARIANT’ FOR GETTING GEORGIA INTO NATO. Western and Russian news agencies report that the United States is preparing what some officials call “a soft variant” for including Georgia and Ukraine on the path to NATO membership. Presumably, the agencies say, this would be a declaration going further than the one made at the Bucharest summit last spring but not as far as the extension of a formal membership action plan (MAP) when NATO ministers meet later this year (www.nr2.ru/policy/206488.html).
MEDVEDEV SAYS RUSSIA WILL RECOGNIZE GEORGIA’S TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY BUT WITHOUT BREAKAWAY REGIONS. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told European leaders in Nice that Moscow is ready to recognize the territorial integrity of Georgia as it exists now without Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Speaking about Russia’s recognition of the two breakaway republics, Medvedev said that this action was “final and irreversible” (www.annews.ru/news/detail.php?ID=172357).
RUSSIAN BASES WILL PROTECT ABKHAZIA, SOUTH OSSETIA FROM OUTSIDE INTERFERENCE, CHIEF OF GENERAL STAFF SAYS. General Nikolai Makarov, the chief of the Russian general staff, said that the establishment and strengthening of Russian bases in Abkhazia and South Ossetia will prevent anyone from interfering in their internal affairs ever again (evrazia.org/news/5977).
SARKOZY SAYS MOSCOW HAS ‘MOSTLY FULFILLED’ OBLIGATIONS ON GEORGIA. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that Russia has “mostly fulfilled” its ceasefire commitments, although he suggested that Russia still must withdraw its forces from Akhalgori and Perevi, which are not part of South Ossetia (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19961). In other comments, Sarkozy lashed out at US President George W. Bush’s suggestion that Washington had played a key role in ending the Georgian war, noting that it was the EU and not the Americans who took the lead role (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19955).
EU READY TO HAVE ABKHAZIA, SOUTH OSSETIA AT GENEVA, ABKHAZ FM SAYS. Russian, Abkhaz and South Ossetian officials say the EU has agreed to have the two breakaway republics as equal participants at the upcoming Geneva talks, but EU officials so far in public have not confirmed that (www.gzt.ru/politics/2008/11/12/144111.html). Georgia has indicated that it will not take part in any talks where the two are treated in that way.
SAAKASHVILI INSISTS GEORGIA STILL ‘HIGH ON EU’S AGENDA.’ Despite the restarting of EU-Russian partnership talks, which were suspended after the Russian invasion of Georgia, President Mikhail Saakashvili said in Paris that Georgia remains “high on the EU’s agenda” and that he expects European support to continue in the future (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19938).
PUTIN DENIES USING CRUDE LANGUAGE ABOUT SAAKASHVILI. The media in Europe have given extensive coverage to reports that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin used extremely crude words during his Moscow conversations with French President Nicolas Sarkozy about what the Russian leader would do to Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. Putin’s spokesmen have denied that he said what the French participants insist that he did (www.annews.ru/news/detail.php?ID=172303).
RUSSIA’S UPPER HOUSE RATIFIES ACCORDS WITH ABKHAZIA, SOUTH OSSETIA. Following the action of the Duma, the Federation Council has ratified the treaties of friendship with Abkhazia and South Ossetia (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1233063.html). Immediately thereafter, Abkhazia named its permanent representative in Moscow ambassador to the Russian Federation (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1233177.html).
SOUTH OSSETIA WILL SURVIVE WINTER WITHOUT GAS FROM GEORGIA. South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity said that his republic will survive the winter even though Georgia has blocked the flow of gas into the territory, an action that he said shows the lack of “humanity” in Tbilisi’s position (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1233196.html).
GALLOPING INFLATION THREATENS SOCIAL STABILITY IN GEORGIA. Inflation is increasing so rapidly in Georgia that it now threatens social and even political stability there, according to Caucasus Knot reporters (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1233207.html). Some prices have jumped at what would be annualized rates of more than 700 percent. Meanwhile, exchange rates for the national currency, the lari, continued to fall as well.
ELECTRONIC MEDIA IN GEORGIA TOTALLY CONTROLLED BY GOVERNMENT, OMBUDSMAN SAYS. In an annual report on the media in Georgia, Sozar Subari, the nation’s ombudsman, said that none of the electronic media outlets in that country is free and that “we are witnessing a very serious censorship every evening during the news programs” (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19964). The independent Moscow based, media watchdog organization, the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations confirmed his findings (www.iamik.ru/?op=full&what=content&ident=40921).
MORE DETAILS ABOUT MILITARY ACTIONS IN AUGUST AND THEIR IMPACT. Among the new details that surfaced this week: Russian helicopters shot down each other because of inadequate FOF systems (www.mk.ru/blogs/MK/2008/11/12/society/380622/), Moscow has decided to purchase Israeli drones to supplement its own inadequate supply (www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=27320), Georgia did use cluster bombs, purchased from Israel, during the fighting (www.rosbalt.ru/2008/11/13/541269.html), and eyewitness accounts confirm Russian and South Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages at the start of the war (www.rferl.org/Content/Eyewitness_Accounts_Confirm_Shelling_Of_Georgian_Villages/1349256.html).
TRANSDNIESTRIA PUBLISHES BOOK ABOUT SOUTH OSSETIA. In an action with more than symbolic meaning, a Transdniestria-based publishing house has released in Tskhinvali a book about the war in South Ossetia (http://www.osetinfo.ru/main/211).
MOSCOW MULLS BUYING LESS LAND FOR SOCHI GAMES. Reflecting anger in Sochi about the way in which Russian officials have ridden roughshod over local residents, members of the United Russia Party have proposed cutting back on the amount of land that the organizers of the 2014 games will need (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1232966.html).
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Window on Eurasia Shorts for September 27 – Georgian Events
Some news items about events in and around Georgia during the last week which have attracted less attention than they deserve:
SAAKASHVILI CALLS ON WEST TO ARTICULATE NON-RECOGNITION POLICY… In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili called on the international community to support the ceasefire, promote conflict resolution, and adopt a non-recognition policy with respect to Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In other comments, he said that Georgia will be launching “a second rose revolution” in response to Russia’s attack and that Georgia would soon be “stronger and more democratic than ever before (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19587).
…AS NO ADDITIONAL COUNTRIES RECOGNIZE ABKHAZIA, SOUTH OSSETIA. Despite the efforts and expectations of many in Moscow, no country recognized the two breakaway republics over the past week. Sergei Markov, a political commentator and Duma member, said there were three main reasons for this: First, many countries have problems with separatists and do not want to encourage them. Second, many of them believe that Russia will ultimately back down on its extension of recognition as a result of Western pressure. And third, many in the CIS fear that any approval by them might open the way for a Russian move against them as well (www.nr2.ru/moskow/197332.html). Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka explains his government’s slowness in following Russia’s lead: He pointed out that the West is stronger than Moscow (www.sobkorr.ru/news/48D9DBF6A2E46.html).
GEORGIAN PARLIAMENT TO INVESTIGATE HOW WAR BEGAN. By a unanimous vote, the Georgian parliament established a special commission to study the events at the beginning of the Russian-Georgian war, a measure that some members of the opposition there had been calling for but one that is unlikely to be as independent of President Mikhail Saakashvili as they would have liked (grani.ru/Politics/World/Europe/Georgia/m.141959.html).
SWEDISH RESEARCHERS SAY ISRAEL NOT US PUSHED GEORGIA INTO WAR. Researchers at the Stockholm Institute of Defense Studies, a group not connected with the Swedish government, say that the United States warned Tbilisi against sending forces into South Ossetia and did not support his actions when he did so. Instead, they say, in a report entitled “The Caucasus Litmus Test,” that Israel by its provision of advisors and equipment bore a significant share of responsibility for Mikhail Saakashvili’s decision to start the conflict. They added that the attack on Tskhinvali was undertaken according to a plan drawn up by an Israeli general (www.rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=178730).
CORRECTION TO THE ABOVE: A study discussing Israel’s involvement in Georgia that was prepared by the Stockholm Institute of Defense Studies (FOI) did not say what Russian media have reported and Western media have then picked up. That report – which is available in Swedish at www2.foi.se/rapp/foir2563.pdf – specifically did not say that the attack on Tskhinvali was undertaken according to a plan drawn up by an Israeli general or that Israel thus bore a significant share of the responsibility for the conflict, as I reported, on the basis of Russian articles, in my Window on Eurasia Shorts on Georgia on September 27. Nor did FOI make a number of other statements about Israeli involvement which have appeared in other Russian and Western outlets. I am grateful to FOI’s Robert Larsson for bringing this to my attention. This case appears to be yet another example of the Russian government’s increasing proclivity to engage in disinformation.
DRONE WAR POINTS TO SERIOUS PROBLEMS IN RUSSIAN MILITARY. Georgia’s downing of a Russian drone after the conclusion of the active phase of the military conflict highlights problems in the Russian military and points to trouble ahead. The Russian 58th army did not have any drones, military analyst Pavel Felgengauer says, and consequently, it was forced to send piloted planes over Georgia for reconnaissance, losing two in the process. Now, Russian forces there have drones, he continues, but they appear to be so old that the Georgians are able to shoot them down easily. Georgia in contrast has a number of advanced Israeli-supplied drones in its arsenal (www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2008/71/03.html).
PACE REJECTS MOSCOW’S CHARGE THAT GEORGIA COMMITTED GENOCIDE. A delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the council of Europe said that Georgians had not engaged in any act of genocide against the South Ossetians at the beginning of August as the Russian government has insisted (grani.ru/Politics/Russia/m.141905.html).
GEORGIA CREATES CAUCASUS PEOPLES CONGRESS TO COUNTER RUSSIA. Tbilisi has created a Congress of Peoples of the Caucasus to unite the nations living there against Russian aggression. Its primary organizer, Tamaz Gugunishvili, the head of the Our Country party, said that the NGO will work for the restoration of the “historic ties” among the peoples of the Caucasus and the promotion of their distinctive cultures and spiritual values (www.interfax.ru/society/news.asp?id=34171&sw=%EA%EE%ED%E3%F0%E5%F1%F1&bd=21&bm=8&by=2008&ed=21&em=9&ey=2008&secid=0&mp=0&p=1
GEORGIA TO SET UP MUSEUM ON RUSSIAN AGGRESSION NEAR STALIN’S BIRTHPLACE. Tbilisi plans to create a Museum of Russian Aggression within the complex of the Stalin House Museum in Gori. In this effort, the Georgian cultural ministry said that it is hoping for cooperation from those in Poland and the Baltic countries who set up analogous museums many years ago (www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1031352&NodesID=7).
DUGIN WANTS TO DIVIDE UP GEORGIA ON ETHNIC, SUB-ETHNIC LINES…Aleksandr Dugin, the outspoken Eurasian commentator, says that “it is not excluded” that soon in place of the Republic of Georgia there will appear not only South Ossetia and Abkhazia but also “an independent Mingrelia, Ajaria, Javakhetia, Guriya [and] Svanetia” (evrazia.org/news/4922).
…AS SCHOLAR WONDERS WHETHER GEORGIA COULD BECOME A FEDERATION. Meanwhile, Georgian commentator Mamuka Areshidze said that it could not be excluded that Georgia might succeed in the formation of a confederative state in which Abkhazia and South Ossetia would take part (www.ethnoglobus.com/?page=full&id=376).
US DECISION ON MINSK GROUP OPENS DOOR FOR TURKEY, IRAN ON KARABAKH. U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary Matthew Bryze’s statement that Washington will not work with Moscow in the Minsk Group until Russia fulfills its obligations in Georgia has opened the way for Iran to play an expanded role in discussions on the future of Karabakh, Russian experts say. For Bryze’s original statement, see www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1229219.html; for a discussion of it, see Sergey Markedonov’s analysis at www.politcom.ru/article.php?id=6890. Moscow may be especially angry at Bryze because he also reportedly said that Russia was too weak to conduct a new cold war with the West (lenta.ru/news/2008/09/22/weak/).
SAAKASHVILI CALLS ON WEST TO ARTICULATE NON-RECOGNITION POLICY… In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili called on the international community to support the ceasefire, promote conflict resolution, and adopt a non-recognition policy with respect to Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In other comments, he said that Georgia will be launching “a second rose revolution” in response to Russia’s attack and that Georgia would soon be “stronger and more democratic than ever before (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19587).
…AS NO ADDITIONAL COUNTRIES RECOGNIZE ABKHAZIA, SOUTH OSSETIA. Despite the efforts and expectations of many in Moscow, no country recognized the two breakaway republics over the past week. Sergei Markov, a political commentator and Duma member, said there were three main reasons for this: First, many countries have problems with separatists and do not want to encourage them. Second, many of them believe that Russia will ultimately back down on its extension of recognition as a result of Western pressure. And third, many in the CIS fear that any approval by them might open the way for a Russian move against them as well (www.nr2.ru/moskow/197332.html). Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka explains his government’s slowness in following Russia’s lead: He pointed out that the West is stronger than Moscow (www.sobkorr.ru/news/48D9DBF6A2E46.html).
GEORGIAN PARLIAMENT TO INVESTIGATE HOW WAR BEGAN. By a unanimous vote, the Georgian parliament established a special commission to study the events at the beginning of the Russian-Georgian war, a measure that some members of the opposition there had been calling for but one that is unlikely to be as independent of President Mikhail Saakashvili as they would have liked (grani.ru/Politics/World/Europe/Georgia/m.141959.html).
SWEDISH RESEARCHERS SAY ISRAEL NOT US PUSHED GEORGIA INTO WAR. Researchers at the Stockholm Institute of Defense Studies, a group not connected with the Swedish government, say that the United States warned Tbilisi against sending forces into South Ossetia and did not support his actions when he did so. Instead, they say, in a report entitled “The Caucasus Litmus Test,” that Israel by its provision of advisors and equipment bore a significant share of responsibility for Mikhail Saakashvili’s decision to start the conflict. They added that the attack on Tskhinvali was undertaken according to a plan drawn up by an Israeli general (www.rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=178730).
CORRECTION TO THE ABOVE: A study discussing Israel’s involvement in Georgia that was prepared by the Stockholm Institute of Defense Studies (FOI) did not say what Russian media have reported and Western media have then picked up. That report – which is available in Swedish at www2.foi.se/rapp/foir2563.pdf – specifically did not say that the attack on Tskhinvali was undertaken according to a plan drawn up by an Israeli general or that Israel thus bore a significant share of the responsibility for the conflict, as I reported, on the basis of Russian articles, in my Window on Eurasia Shorts on Georgia on September 27. Nor did FOI make a number of other statements about Israeli involvement which have appeared in other Russian and Western outlets. I am grateful to FOI’s Robert Larsson for bringing this to my attention. This case appears to be yet another example of the Russian government’s increasing proclivity to engage in disinformation.
DRONE WAR POINTS TO SERIOUS PROBLEMS IN RUSSIAN MILITARY. Georgia’s downing of a Russian drone after the conclusion of the active phase of the military conflict highlights problems in the Russian military and points to trouble ahead. The Russian 58th army did not have any drones, military analyst Pavel Felgengauer says, and consequently, it was forced to send piloted planes over Georgia for reconnaissance, losing two in the process. Now, Russian forces there have drones, he continues, but they appear to be so old that the Georgians are able to shoot them down easily. Georgia in contrast has a number of advanced Israeli-supplied drones in its arsenal (www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2008/71/03.html).
PACE REJECTS MOSCOW’S CHARGE THAT GEORGIA COMMITTED GENOCIDE. A delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the council of Europe said that Georgians had not engaged in any act of genocide against the South Ossetians at the beginning of August as the Russian government has insisted (grani.ru/Politics/Russia/m.141905.html).
GEORGIA CREATES CAUCASUS PEOPLES CONGRESS TO COUNTER RUSSIA. Tbilisi has created a Congress of Peoples of the Caucasus to unite the nations living there against Russian aggression. Its primary organizer, Tamaz Gugunishvili, the head of the Our Country party, said that the NGO will work for the restoration of the “historic ties” among the peoples of the Caucasus and the promotion of their distinctive cultures and spiritual values (www.interfax.ru/society/news.asp?id=34171&sw=%EA%EE%ED%E3%F0%E5%F1%F1&bd=21&bm=8&by=2008&ed=21&em=9&ey=2008&secid=0&mp=0&p=1
GEORGIA TO SET UP MUSEUM ON RUSSIAN AGGRESSION NEAR STALIN’S BIRTHPLACE. Tbilisi plans to create a Museum of Russian Aggression within the complex of the Stalin House Museum in Gori. In this effort, the Georgian cultural ministry said that it is hoping for cooperation from those in Poland and the Baltic countries who set up analogous museums many years ago (www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1031352&NodesID=7).
DUGIN WANTS TO DIVIDE UP GEORGIA ON ETHNIC, SUB-ETHNIC LINES…Aleksandr Dugin, the outspoken Eurasian commentator, says that “it is not excluded” that soon in place of the Republic of Georgia there will appear not only South Ossetia and Abkhazia but also “an independent Mingrelia, Ajaria, Javakhetia, Guriya [and] Svanetia” (evrazia.org/news/4922).
…AS SCHOLAR WONDERS WHETHER GEORGIA COULD BECOME A FEDERATION. Meanwhile, Georgian commentator Mamuka Areshidze said that it could not be excluded that Georgia might succeed in the formation of a confederative state in which Abkhazia and South Ossetia would take part (www.ethnoglobus.com/?page=full&id=376).
US DECISION ON MINSK GROUP OPENS DOOR FOR TURKEY, IRAN ON KARABAKH. U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary Matthew Bryze’s statement that Washington will not work with Moscow in the Minsk Group until Russia fulfills its obligations in Georgia has opened the way for Iran to play an expanded role in discussions on the future of Karabakh, Russian experts say. For Bryze’s original statement, see www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1229219.html; for a discussion of it, see Sergey Markedonov’s analysis at www.politcom.ru/article.php?id=6890. Moscow may be especially angry at Bryze because he also reportedly said that Russia was too weak to conduct a new cold war with the West (lenta.ru/news/2008/09/22/weak/).
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Window on Eurasia Shorts for September 20 – Georgian Events
Window on Eurasia Shorts for September 20 – Georgian Events
Some news items about events in and around Georgia during the last week which have attracted less attention than they deserve:
RUSSIAN BANK RESERVES HIT FIRST BY GEORGIA, THEN BY WORLD FINANCIAL CRISIS. Prior to the war in Georgia, the Russian Central Bank’s hard currency reserves had been growing approximately five billion U.S. dollars a week in 2008. In the six weeks since the conflict began, they have declined more than 40 billion, initially because of the war and more recently because of the world financial crisis (www.nr2.ru/economy/196838.html).
TWO GEORGIANS IN FIV E THINK TBILISI COULD HAVE AVOIDED CONFLICT. According to a telephone poll conducted by Georgian IPResearch in early September, 42.4 percent of 450 Georgians surveyed said that Tbilisi could have avoided the conflict if the Georgian government had acted differently. Three out of four said the international community had played a key role in stopping Russian aggression, more than 70 percent said the United States is the “most friendly” to Georgia or any foreign country, and more than four out of five said they expect NATO to extend a membership action plan (MAP) to Georgia in the near future
(crrc-caucasus.blogspot.com/2008/09/georgia-post-conflict-phone-survey-may.html).
MEDVEDEV SAYS GEORGIAN WAR SHOWS NEED FOR MILITARY UPGRADES. President Dmitry Medvedev said that the performance of the Russian military in Georgia shows that the Russian army must be significantly upgraded both in terms of equipment and frequency of e exercises (www.rg.ru/2008/09/12/medvedev-armia.html). His statement comes on the heels of a series of articles by military commentators who have been sharply critical of the Russian army’s performance (www.rian.ru/defense_safety/20080910/151134340.html and
www.polit.ru/analytics/2008/09/18/war.html).
RUSSIANS, GEORGIANS DISPUTE WAR LOSSES. As is the case in almost all military conflicts, each of the sides says the other is understating its losses and overstating the number of casualties it inflicted. In this case, some Russian articles have suggested that as many as 3,000 Georgian soldiers died in South Ossetia, a number that is 20 times more than Tbilisi acknowledges (www.rian.ru/defense_safety/20080915/151263408.html), and Georgian sources say that the real losses of Russian forces were as much as five times greater than Moscow has said (grani.ru/War/m.141453.html). For a survey of the debate and the various figures being offered, see www.point.ru/daily/2008/09/15/17698.
GEORGIA PLANS TO BUY MORE FROM UKRAINE, LESS FROM RUSSIA. Valery Chchelashvili, the secretary general of GUAM, said that Georgia will purchase less from Russia and more from Ukraine, with the latter country moving from third or fourth place in terms of bilateral trade to first (grani.ru/Politics/World/Europe/Georgia/m.141364.html).
CIS DEFENSE GROUP CAN’T INCLUDE ABKHAZIA, SOUTH OSSETIA UNTIL ALL MEMBERS RECOGNIZE THEM. Moscow may want to include the two states it has recognized to be included in the CIS Collective Security Group, but it cannot do so until all the current members of that organization extend diplomatic recognition to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, according to Nikolai Bordyuzha, the secretary general of that organization (www.annews.ru/news/detail.php?ID=167217). Bordyuzha’s statement raises questions about some of the provisions of the bilateral accords the Russian government has signed with these two republics.
TURKEY, IRAN EXPAND DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS IN CAUCASUS. Both Turkey and Iran have sought to expand their diplomatic presence and political leadership in the southern Caucasus in the wake of the conflict in Georgia, with Ankara presenting a new “stability platform” include most states in the region and Iran reaching out to the three states in the region and to Muslim republics within Russia (www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=177962 and www.islamrf.ru/news/russia/rusnews/4509/).
GEORGIA’S AZERBAIJANIS DON’T SEEK AUTONOMY. Azerbaijanis represent the largest ethnic minority in Georgia, but they have been overwhelmingly loyal to Tbilisi. During and after the conflict with Russia, the leaders of this community repeatedly stressed that they, unlike other groups such as the Armenians of Georgia, do not have any interest in an autonomous formation
(www.ethnoglobus.com/?page=full&id=370).
‘KOMMERSANT’ SAYS NATO DEFENDS SAAKASHVILI FROM INTERNAL ENEMIES. An article in Moscow’s “Kommersant” says that NATO is doing more to protect Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili from his domestic enemies than from his foreign opponents, a suggestion that appears intended to provoke discussions in NATO capitals about the Western alliance’s involvement with Tbilisi (www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1027108). Meanwhile, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the flamboyant leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that Washington has already decided to replace Saakashvili with Irakli Alasania, who, Zhirinovsky said, has been working for the CIA for a decade (www.vremya.ru/2008/171/4/212743.html).
CAUCASUS DIASPORA GROUPS IN TURKEY CONDEMN GEORGIA. Eighteen Caucasus diaspora groups in Turkey, which represent communities numbering some five million people in all, have denounced Georgia’s actions and welcomed Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Their declaration suggests they view Moscow’s move as a step toward the independence of their own homelands (www.kafkasevi.com/index.php/news/detail/1453).
Some news items about events in and around Georgia during the last week which have attracted less attention than they deserve:
RUSSIAN BANK RESERVES HIT FIRST BY GEORGIA, THEN BY WORLD FINANCIAL CRISIS. Prior to the war in Georgia, the Russian Central Bank’s hard currency reserves had been growing approximately five billion U.S. dollars a week in 2008. In the six weeks since the conflict began, they have declined more than 40 billion, initially because of the war and more recently because of the world financial crisis (www.nr2.ru/economy/196838.html).
TWO GEORGIANS IN FIV E THINK TBILISI COULD HAVE AVOIDED CONFLICT. According to a telephone poll conducted by Georgian IPResearch in early September, 42.4 percent of 450 Georgians surveyed said that Tbilisi could have avoided the conflict if the Georgian government had acted differently. Three out of four said the international community had played a key role in stopping Russian aggression, more than 70 percent said the United States is the “most friendly” to Georgia or any foreign country, and more than four out of five said they expect NATO to extend a membership action plan (MAP) to Georgia in the near future
(crrc-caucasus.blogspot.com/2008/09/georgia-post-conflict-phone-survey-may.html).
MEDVEDEV SAYS GEORGIAN WAR SHOWS NEED FOR MILITARY UPGRADES. President Dmitry Medvedev said that the performance of the Russian military in Georgia shows that the Russian army must be significantly upgraded both in terms of equipment and frequency of e exercises (www.rg.ru/2008/09/12/medvedev-armia.html). His statement comes on the heels of a series of articles by military commentators who have been sharply critical of the Russian army’s performance (www.rian.ru/defense_safety/20080910/151134340.html and
www.polit.ru/analytics/2008/09/18/war.html).
RUSSIANS, GEORGIANS DISPUTE WAR LOSSES. As is the case in almost all military conflicts, each of the sides says the other is understating its losses and overstating the number of casualties it inflicted. In this case, some Russian articles have suggested that as many as 3,000 Georgian soldiers died in South Ossetia, a number that is 20 times more than Tbilisi acknowledges (www.rian.ru/defense_safety/20080915/151263408.html), and Georgian sources say that the real losses of Russian forces were as much as five times greater than Moscow has said (grani.ru/War/m.141453.html). For a survey of the debate and the various figures being offered, see www.point.ru/daily/2008/09/15/17698.
GEORGIA PLANS TO BUY MORE FROM UKRAINE, LESS FROM RUSSIA. Valery Chchelashvili, the secretary general of GUAM, said that Georgia will purchase less from Russia and more from Ukraine, with the latter country moving from third or fourth place in terms of bilateral trade to first (grani.ru/Politics/World/Europe/Georgia/m.141364.html).
CIS DEFENSE GROUP CAN’T INCLUDE ABKHAZIA, SOUTH OSSETIA UNTIL ALL MEMBERS RECOGNIZE THEM. Moscow may want to include the two states it has recognized to be included in the CIS Collective Security Group, but it cannot do so until all the current members of that organization extend diplomatic recognition to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, according to Nikolai Bordyuzha, the secretary general of that organization (www.annews.ru/news/detail.php?ID=167217). Bordyuzha’s statement raises questions about some of the provisions of the bilateral accords the Russian government has signed with these two republics.
TURKEY, IRAN EXPAND DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS IN CAUCASUS. Both Turkey and Iran have sought to expand their diplomatic presence and political leadership in the southern Caucasus in the wake of the conflict in Georgia, with Ankara presenting a new “stability platform” include most states in the region and Iran reaching out to the three states in the region and to Muslim republics within Russia (www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=177962 and www.islamrf.ru/news/russia/rusnews/4509/).
GEORGIA’S AZERBAIJANIS DON’T SEEK AUTONOMY. Azerbaijanis represent the largest ethnic minority in Georgia, but they have been overwhelmingly loyal to Tbilisi. During and after the conflict with Russia, the leaders of this community repeatedly stressed that they, unlike other groups such as the Armenians of Georgia, do not have any interest in an autonomous formation
(www.ethnoglobus.com/?page=full&id=370).
‘KOMMERSANT’ SAYS NATO DEFENDS SAAKASHVILI FROM INTERNAL ENEMIES. An article in Moscow’s “Kommersant” says that NATO is doing more to protect Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili from his domestic enemies than from his foreign opponents, a suggestion that appears intended to provoke discussions in NATO capitals about the Western alliance’s involvement with Tbilisi (www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1027108). Meanwhile, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the flamboyant leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that Washington has already decided to replace Saakashvili with Irakli Alasania, who, Zhirinovsky said, has been working for the CIA for a decade (www.vremya.ru/2008/171/4/212743.html).
CAUCASUS DIASPORA GROUPS IN TURKEY CONDEMN GEORGIA. Eighteen Caucasus diaspora groups in Turkey, which represent communities numbering some five million people in all, have denounced Georgia’s actions and welcomed Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Their declaration suggests they view Moscow’s move as a step toward the independence of their own homelands (www.kafkasevi.com/index.php/news/detail/1453).
Monday, September 22, 2008
Window on Eurasia: Kazakhstan Drops Plan to Export Grain via Georgia
Paul Goble
Vienna, September 22 – Citing “the situation in Georgia,” Kazakhstan’s agricultural minister said today than Astana will not build a grain terminal in Poti as it had planned to export Kazakhstan’s grain, a decision that Georgian officials said had “surprised” them but one that highlights the emerging balance of forces in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Akulbek Kurishbayev, Kazakhstan’s minister for agriculture, told the parliament there that “a letter has been sent to the government urging it not to go ahead with the investment,” adding that “it’s clear that this is linked to international problems, to the situation in Georgia” (uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKLM54886020080922).
That decision does not extend to oil, at least not yet – Kazakhstan suspended oil shipments through Georgia when the Russian invasion began but restored them two weeks ago – but because it suggests the way in which regional leaders are thinking, it has disturbed many in Tbilisi (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19569).
Vakhtang Lezhava, Georgia’s first deputy ministry of the economy, told Reuters that Tbilisi was “very surprised” by Astana’s decision to stop the construction of a plant expected to handle up to 500,000 tons a year because “only Kazakh companies decided after the war to abandon investment plans in Georgia, while others continue to invest in our country.”
If Kazakhstan is in fact the only country to take such a step and if Kazakhstan and other Caspian Basin countries continue to export petroleum via Georgia, then the impact of today’s announcement would be relatively small, but Astana’s decision and especially its invocation of “instability” as the reason almost certainly will have a much larger one than that.
First, and especially under conditions of international financial turmoil, Kazakhstan’s declaration that it has concluded Georgia is too unstable for investment will undoubtedly lead others to make similar decisions, and those decisions will put even more pressure on the Georgian economy and consequently on the Georgian government.
Since the start of the war, Georgia has already suffered a sizeable although much debated reduction in the amount of transfer payments from Georgians working in the Russian Federation, and Tbilisi has the enormous and costly task of rebuilding the country following the Russian invasion. Consequently, any further cuts in international direct investment are going to hurt.
Second, and even more important, Kazakhstan’s decision is likely to lead other countries to decide that they too do not want to move cargo across Georgia, something that will give Russia a victory in its drive to punish Georgia and a defeat to the United States and Europe which have sought to promote just such an East-West route.
If goods flow from the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus across the Russian Federation rather than across Georgia, Moscow will gain leverage in all of these capitals at the expense of the US and Europe, and if the goods flow from these countries across Iran or toward China, the West will lose in other ways as well.
And third, and most important of all, Kazakhstan’s decision about grain is likely to extend to petroleum products, either because Astana and other oil and gas exporters will decide that Georgia is too “unstable” for them either on the basis of the current situation or as a result of one that might be created by a new round of attacks on pipelines and pumping stations there.
During the course of the Russian invasion of Georgia, various media outlets distributed photographs of a bomb crater within 100 meters of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. It did not harm that pathway, some commentators pointed out, but it demonstrated a capacity to do so, if Moscow wanted to take that step.
Kazakhstan’s decision thus raises the stakes, possibly tempting Moscow either directly by means of its own forces to disrupt the pipeline – unlikely in the short term – or indirectly through the sponsorship of groups on the ground – including potentially the ethnic Armenians of Javakhetia, a region in southern Georgia, who are increasingly restive.
However that may turn out to be, it is certain that Tbilisi and its supporters are not only “surprised” by what Astana has decided but are very, very concerned about an action that may prove to be a bellwether of the emerging geopolitics of Eurasia, a geopolitics in which Russia will play a larger role and the West a smaller one, with all the consequences that shift will entail.
Vienna, September 22 – Citing “the situation in Georgia,” Kazakhstan’s agricultural minister said today than Astana will not build a grain terminal in Poti as it had planned to export Kazakhstan’s grain, a decision that Georgian officials said had “surprised” them but one that highlights the emerging balance of forces in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Akulbek Kurishbayev, Kazakhstan’s minister for agriculture, told the parliament there that “a letter has been sent to the government urging it not to go ahead with the investment,” adding that “it’s clear that this is linked to international problems, to the situation in Georgia” (uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKLM54886020080922).
That decision does not extend to oil, at least not yet – Kazakhstan suspended oil shipments through Georgia when the Russian invasion began but restored them two weeks ago – but because it suggests the way in which regional leaders are thinking, it has disturbed many in Tbilisi (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19569).
Vakhtang Lezhava, Georgia’s first deputy ministry of the economy, told Reuters that Tbilisi was “very surprised” by Astana’s decision to stop the construction of a plant expected to handle up to 500,000 tons a year because “only Kazakh companies decided after the war to abandon investment plans in Georgia, while others continue to invest in our country.”
If Kazakhstan is in fact the only country to take such a step and if Kazakhstan and other Caspian Basin countries continue to export petroleum via Georgia, then the impact of today’s announcement would be relatively small, but Astana’s decision and especially its invocation of “instability” as the reason almost certainly will have a much larger one than that.
First, and especially under conditions of international financial turmoil, Kazakhstan’s declaration that it has concluded Georgia is too unstable for investment will undoubtedly lead others to make similar decisions, and those decisions will put even more pressure on the Georgian economy and consequently on the Georgian government.
Since the start of the war, Georgia has already suffered a sizeable although much debated reduction in the amount of transfer payments from Georgians working in the Russian Federation, and Tbilisi has the enormous and costly task of rebuilding the country following the Russian invasion. Consequently, any further cuts in international direct investment are going to hurt.
Second, and even more important, Kazakhstan’s decision is likely to lead other countries to decide that they too do not want to move cargo across Georgia, something that will give Russia a victory in its drive to punish Georgia and a defeat to the United States and Europe which have sought to promote just such an East-West route.
If goods flow from the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus across the Russian Federation rather than across Georgia, Moscow will gain leverage in all of these capitals at the expense of the US and Europe, and if the goods flow from these countries across Iran or toward China, the West will lose in other ways as well.
And third, and most important of all, Kazakhstan’s decision about grain is likely to extend to petroleum products, either because Astana and other oil and gas exporters will decide that Georgia is too “unstable” for them either on the basis of the current situation or as a result of one that might be created by a new round of attacks on pipelines and pumping stations there.
During the course of the Russian invasion of Georgia, various media outlets distributed photographs of a bomb crater within 100 meters of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. It did not harm that pathway, some commentators pointed out, but it demonstrated a capacity to do so, if Moscow wanted to take that step.
Kazakhstan’s decision thus raises the stakes, possibly tempting Moscow either directly by means of its own forces to disrupt the pipeline – unlikely in the short term – or indirectly through the sponsorship of groups on the ground – including potentially the ethnic Armenians of Javakhetia, a region in southern Georgia, who are increasingly restive.
However that may turn out to be, it is certain that Tbilisi and its supporters are not only “surprised” by what Astana has decided but are very, very concerned about an action that may prove to be a bellwether of the emerging geopolitics of Eurasia, a geopolitics in which Russia will play a larger role and the West a smaller one, with all the consequences that shift will entail.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Window on Eurasia: Could the Georgian Diaspora Become a Bridge between Moscow and Tbilisi?
Paul Goble
New York, October 30 – The one million ethnic Georgians now living and working in Russia must organize themselves to defend their own interests as a community, to press for change in their own homeland lest it lose even more territories, and to serve as a bridge between Moscow and Tbilisi, which at present do not have diplomatic relations.
In an appeal to that community posted online this week, Vladimir Khomeriki, the president of the Unity of the Russian and Georgian Peoples, did not minimize either the dangers facing his community or his homeland or the difficulties that community faces in organizing itself to play that role (www.ia-centr.ru/expert/2771/).
Indeed, so dire are both situations in Khomeriki’s view and so many difficulties would lie for anyone to do what he suggests that his words sound more like a cri de coeur than a genuine call to action, but because they provide insights into several broader Georgian problems, they merit close attention by all those concerned about the region.
According to Khomeriki, Georgia now faces “political collapse and the complete loss of economic independence, freedom and statehood.” Indeed, he says, Georgia is “one of the first states on the post-Soviet space which has begun to destroy itself,” taking actions that represent a form of “self-destruction.”
While earlier Georgian presidents were responsible for many problems, he continues, current President Mikhail Saakashvili by unleashing “a fratricidal war” has not only cost Georgia “lands that had been Georgian from time immemorial” but has undermined its economy, its freedom and its relations with its neighbors including Russia.
“Blindly and traitorously serving the interests of the United States,” Khomeriki continues, Saakashvili “did not consider the national and practical interests of Georgia and its peoples.” Indeed, one could say that he “’forgot’” that he is president of Georgia and not the governor of the [American] state of Georgia.”
All this has generated concern among ethnic Georgians living and working in the Russian Federation, a group that could help in “the restoration of Georgia and the lobbying of its interests in Russia.” But instead of reaching out to them, he has taken steps both directly and indirectly that put them at greater risk.
On the one hand, he seized and then sold the Georgian cultural center in Moscow’s Arbat district. And on the other, his actions in South Ossetia have enflamed Russian opinion against Georgians and thus put at risk the one million ethnic Georgians who live among them and the two billion dollars that these Georgians have been sending home each year.
While Russia’s Georgians are naturally concerned about their future, they are “most of all” worried about “the catastrophic situation of Georgia, the poverty and misfortunes of [their] relatives and compatriots in [their] ethnic motherland” and the all too real possibility that Saakashvili’s policies will lead to a further disintegration of Georgia itself
In this situation, the Georgian diaspora in Russia has “the potential” to play a role but so far it has done “practically nothing.” Unfortunately, Khomeriki says, many Georgians in Russia have no interest in doing more than supporting cultural projects and are unwilling to engage in politics, in some cases because of fears for the lives and well-being of their relatives at home.
“The chief misfortune of the Georgian diaspora in Russia,” he suggests, “is that it is not a fully-formed nation and thus is not able unlike the Jews, the Armenians and Azerbaijanis to work together in a cooperative way and both and support the interests of the diaspora and their own nation.”
Moreover, Khomeriki says, with Georgians in Russia and at home, there is “an insufficient assessment of reality, an eternal search for someone to blame, an expectation that someone will appear will solve everything for us, and a short memory” concerning what Russia has done for Georgia.
Saakashvili, according to the diaspora leader, has created a situation in which fear, an exaggerated patriotism, have combined with “zombification,” “the loss of the instinct for self-preservation,” and even “a mass psychosis” to create a real threat to “the degeneration of the proud and unique Georgian nation.”
Georgia has already crossed “the Rubicon” and consequently it is time to demand that Saakashvili not only explain himself and apologize for what he has done but “go into retirement in order to give the Georgian people the opportunity to stabilize the situation, stop the processes of the further disintegration of Georgia, and choose” someone who can correct his mistakes.
In addition, Khomeriki says, the Georgian diaspora must unite into a Committee of National Salvation in order to push for economic assistance to Georgians at home, seek to restore democratic freedoms in Georgia, and promote “good-neighborly relations” between Georgia and the Russian Federation.
Specifically, he argues, the diaspora must work to lay the foundations for “relations of trust and a negotiation process [between Georgia and] Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Russia,” promote economic and political ties between Tbilisi and Moscow, and work to ensure that Georgians will continue to be able to work in Russia.
On the one hand, Khomeriki’s views are sufficiently close to those of Moscow that many will dismiss this as only another attempt by the Russian government to blacken the reputation of Saakashvili. But on the other, the appearance of Khomeriki’s declaration could mean that some in Moscow hope to use the diaspora as a backchannel for talks with Tbilisi in the near future.
New York, October 30 – The one million ethnic Georgians now living and working in Russia must organize themselves to defend their own interests as a community, to press for change in their own homeland lest it lose even more territories, and to serve as a bridge between Moscow and Tbilisi, which at present do not have diplomatic relations.
In an appeal to that community posted online this week, Vladimir Khomeriki, the president of the Unity of the Russian and Georgian Peoples, did not minimize either the dangers facing his community or his homeland or the difficulties that community faces in organizing itself to play that role (www.ia-centr.ru/expert/2771/).
Indeed, so dire are both situations in Khomeriki’s view and so many difficulties would lie for anyone to do what he suggests that his words sound more like a cri de coeur than a genuine call to action, but because they provide insights into several broader Georgian problems, they merit close attention by all those concerned about the region.
According to Khomeriki, Georgia now faces “political collapse and the complete loss of economic independence, freedom and statehood.” Indeed, he says, Georgia is “one of the first states on the post-Soviet space which has begun to destroy itself,” taking actions that represent a form of “self-destruction.”
While earlier Georgian presidents were responsible for many problems, he continues, current President Mikhail Saakashvili by unleashing “a fratricidal war” has not only cost Georgia “lands that had been Georgian from time immemorial” but has undermined its economy, its freedom and its relations with its neighbors including Russia.
“Blindly and traitorously serving the interests of the United States,” Khomeriki continues, Saakashvili “did not consider the national and practical interests of Georgia and its peoples.” Indeed, one could say that he “’forgot’” that he is president of Georgia and not the governor of the [American] state of Georgia.”
All this has generated concern among ethnic Georgians living and working in the Russian Federation, a group that could help in “the restoration of Georgia and the lobbying of its interests in Russia.” But instead of reaching out to them, he has taken steps both directly and indirectly that put them at greater risk.
On the one hand, he seized and then sold the Georgian cultural center in Moscow’s Arbat district. And on the other, his actions in South Ossetia have enflamed Russian opinion against Georgians and thus put at risk the one million ethnic Georgians who live among them and the two billion dollars that these Georgians have been sending home each year.
While Russia’s Georgians are naturally concerned about their future, they are “most of all” worried about “the catastrophic situation of Georgia, the poverty and misfortunes of [their] relatives and compatriots in [their] ethnic motherland” and the all too real possibility that Saakashvili’s policies will lead to a further disintegration of Georgia itself
In this situation, the Georgian diaspora in Russia has “the potential” to play a role but so far it has done “practically nothing.” Unfortunately, Khomeriki says, many Georgians in Russia have no interest in doing more than supporting cultural projects and are unwilling to engage in politics, in some cases because of fears for the lives and well-being of their relatives at home.
“The chief misfortune of the Georgian diaspora in Russia,” he suggests, “is that it is not a fully-formed nation and thus is not able unlike the Jews, the Armenians and Azerbaijanis to work together in a cooperative way and both and support the interests of the diaspora and their own nation.”
Moreover, Khomeriki says, with Georgians in Russia and at home, there is “an insufficient assessment of reality, an eternal search for someone to blame, an expectation that someone will appear will solve everything for us, and a short memory” concerning what Russia has done for Georgia.
Saakashvili, according to the diaspora leader, has created a situation in which fear, an exaggerated patriotism, have combined with “zombification,” “the loss of the instinct for self-preservation,” and even “a mass psychosis” to create a real threat to “the degeneration of the proud and unique Georgian nation.”
Georgia has already crossed “the Rubicon” and consequently it is time to demand that Saakashvili not only explain himself and apologize for what he has done but “go into retirement in order to give the Georgian people the opportunity to stabilize the situation, stop the processes of the further disintegration of Georgia, and choose” someone who can correct his mistakes.
In addition, Khomeriki says, the Georgian diaspora must unite into a Committee of National Salvation in order to push for economic assistance to Georgians at home, seek to restore democratic freedoms in Georgia, and promote “good-neighborly relations” between Georgia and the Russian Federation.
Specifically, he argues, the diaspora must work to lay the foundations for “relations of trust and a negotiation process [between Georgia and] Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Russia,” promote economic and political ties between Tbilisi and Moscow, and work to ensure that Georgians will continue to be able to work in Russia.
On the one hand, Khomeriki’s views are sufficiently close to those of Moscow that many will dismiss this as only another attempt by the Russian government to blacken the reputation of Saakashvili. But on the other, the appearance of Khomeriki’s declaration could mean that some in Moscow hope to use the diaspora as a backchannel for talks with Tbilisi in the near future.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Window on Eurasia: Moscow Began Preparing for Georgian War Four Years Ago, Illarionov Says
Paul Goble
Eagles Meer, PA, October 1 – The Russian government began preparing for the invasion of Georgia four years ago as part of a more general attack on the West and the West’s democratic, free market, and security ideas in the post-Soviet states, according to former Putin economics advisor and more recently Kremlin critic Andrei Illarionov.
In a speech delivered to the Cato Institute in Ukraine on September 4 but posted online only this week, Illarionov described what Moscow’s political leaders had said about Georgia over that period and what Russian intelligence services had done against Georgia well before the first of August (abkhazeti.info/news/1222739236.php).
And he described precisely what Russian forces had been doing in the weeks leading up to the outbreak of hostilities and what they did after that time, actions that in both cases show just how false are all Russian claims that Tbilisi started the war and that Moscow intervened to defend its citizens or the right of nations to self-determination.
If one examines this history, Illarionov said, then it becomes clear why Moscow went to war against Georgia and why it is so critical that everyone understand that “the Russian-Georgian war is part of another, very major war that Russia intends to launch as a responsive strike to the West.”
After disposing of Russia’s “propaganda” arguments about its invasion of Georgia – the defense of Russian citizens, the right of nations to self-determination, and the supposed Georgian genocide of Ossetians – Illarionov focused on two things: the reasons Moscow decided to move against Georgia after the “rose” revolution and the specific steps it took.
According to Illarionov, the reasons for the Russian-Georgian war are to be found in Moscow’s reaction to the changes Georgia has undertaken in the last four years and to Mikhail Saakashvili’s success in restoring Tbilisi’s control over the Ajar region which had more often looked to Russia than to Georgia.
Over the last four years, Illarionov said, “a contemporary, European, democratic state, responsible to the population, has been created.” And he added that as a specialist on economic reform, he was prepared to assert that there has not been any other country in the world which “has carried out so many reforms in such a short time.”
Those reforms, the former Kremlin advisor said, made it possible for Mikhail Saakashvili to turn from Moscow to the West and to indicate that he wanted his country to become a member of NATO and other Western institutions. Such goals were unacceptable to the Russian leadership, and consequently, it set as its “task” the removal of Saakashvili.
After the Georgian president “resolved” the Ajar problem, Moscow “began to think” about replacing him. In December 2005, the Kremlin ordered the heads of Russian energy companies to begin a blockade of Georgia, but when that effort failed, the Russian government turned to other means.
Several pipelines and electric power lines passing from Russia to Georgia were blown up, actions that many blamed on Islamic terrorists but which, Illarionov said, investigations showed were in fact the work of Russian special services. And “after that, there was an attempt at the liquidation of the leader of the [Georgian] opposition,” presumably by the same agencies.
In 2006, the Georgian special services arrested several Russian agencies but, Illarionov noted, “Georgia followed diplomatic etiquette and without any noise sent them back to Moscow.” Moscow stepped up its penetration efforts, and in September, Tbilisi announced the arrest of four Russian agents, and Moscow responded with an economic blockade.
Over the same period, Russia “strengthened its military presence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” and Russia diplomats told their colleagues quite openly that Moscow would engage in military actions in Georgia before September 2008, statements that many were inclined to dismiss but that proved to be quite true.
And then Illarionov details the specific steps from July through mid-August that show that Russia was planning to move well before Saakashvili transferred his forces into South Ossetia, the action that the Russian government continues to insist was the proximate cause of the war.
Most of the details he provided about that period have been reported in the Western media, although they, like Illarionov’s speech in Kyiv itself, have not been given much attention in the mainstream Russian media. (On that failure, see the discussion of Illarionov’s remarks at
www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2008/09/30/61325.shtml.)
But the former Kremlin advisor’s conclusion is if not new at least more clearly articulated than those which have been offered by most others. He pointed out that Russia continues to want a change of leadership in Tbilisi because for the Kremlin, “the western choice of Georgia is unacceptable.”
Consequently, Illarionov said, Moscow’s war against Western influence in the post-Soviet states and hence against the West itself has just begun. From the Kremlin’s perspective, Georgia was the weak link, a place where unlike in the Baltic countries or even Ukraine, it could act.
But because it did not achieve its goal in Georgia, Moscow will continue to push there and elsewhere because Illarionov suggests, the Russian leadership knows that if the Western combination of democracy and free markets succeed in these countries, not only will Russia’s influence there decline but the power of Russia’s current leaders will be at risk as well.
Eagles Meer, PA, October 1 – The Russian government began preparing for the invasion of Georgia four years ago as part of a more general attack on the West and the West’s democratic, free market, and security ideas in the post-Soviet states, according to former Putin economics advisor and more recently Kremlin critic Andrei Illarionov.
In a speech delivered to the Cato Institute in Ukraine on September 4 but posted online only this week, Illarionov described what Moscow’s political leaders had said about Georgia over that period and what Russian intelligence services had done against Georgia well before the first of August (abkhazeti.info/news/1222739236.php).
And he described precisely what Russian forces had been doing in the weeks leading up to the outbreak of hostilities and what they did after that time, actions that in both cases show just how false are all Russian claims that Tbilisi started the war and that Moscow intervened to defend its citizens or the right of nations to self-determination.
If one examines this history, Illarionov said, then it becomes clear why Moscow went to war against Georgia and why it is so critical that everyone understand that “the Russian-Georgian war is part of another, very major war that Russia intends to launch as a responsive strike to the West.”
After disposing of Russia’s “propaganda” arguments about its invasion of Georgia – the defense of Russian citizens, the right of nations to self-determination, and the supposed Georgian genocide of Ossetians – Illarionov focused on two things: the reasons Moscow decided to move against Georgia after the “rose” revolution and the specific steps it took.
According to Illarionov, the reasons for the Russian-Georgian war are to be found in Moscow’s reaction to the changes Georgia has undertaken in the last four years and to Mikhail Saakashvili’s success in restoring Tbilisi’s control over the Ajar region which had more often looked to Russia than to Georgia.
Over the last four years, Illarionov said, “a contemporary, European, democratic state, responsible to the population, has been created.” And he added that as a specialist on economic reform, he was prepared to assert that there has not been any other country in the world which “has carried out so many reforms in such a short time.”
Those reforms, the former Kremlin advisor said, made it possible for Mikhail Saakashvili to turn from Moscow to the West and to indicate that he wanted his country to become a member of NATO and other Western institutions. Such goals were unacceptable to the Russian leadership, and consequently, it set as its “task” the removal of Saakashvili.
After the Georgian president “resolved” the Ajar problem, Moscow “began to think” about replacing him. In December 2005, the Kremlin ordered the heads of Russian energy companies to begin a blockade of Georgia, but when that effort failed, the Russian government turned to other means.
Several pipelines and electric power lines passing from Russia to Georgia were blown up, actions that many blamed on Islamic terrorists but which, Illarionov said, investigations showed were in fact the work of Russian special services. And “after that, there was an attempt at the liquidation of the leader of the [Georgian] opposition,” presumably by the same agencies.
In 2006, the Georgian special services arrested several Russian agencies but, Illarionov noted, “Georgia followed diplomatic etiquette and without any noise sent them back to Moscow.” Moscow stepped up its penetration efforts, and in September, Tbilisi announced the arrest of four Russian agents, and Moscow responded with an economic blockade.
Over the same period, Russia “strengthened its military presence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” and Russia diplomats told their colleagues quite openly that Moscow would engage in military actions in Georgia before September 2008, statements that many were inclined to dismiss but that proved to be quite true.
And then Illarionov details the specific steps from July through mid-August that show that Russia was planning to move well before Saakashvili transferred his forces into South Ossetia, the action that the Russian government continues to insist was the proximate cause of the war.
Most of the details he provided about that period have been reported in the Western media, although they, like Illarionov’s speech in Kyiv itself, have not been given much attention in the mainstream Russian media. (On that failure, see the discussion of Illarionov’s remarks at
www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2008/09/30/61325.shtml.)
But the former Kremlin advisor’s conclusion is if not new at least more clearly articulated than those which have been offered by most others. He pointed out that Russia continues to want a change of leadership in Tbilisi because for the Kremlin, “the western choice of Georgia is unacceptable.”
Consequently, Illarionov said, Moscow’s war against Western influence in the post-Soviet states and hence against the West itself has just begun. From the Kremlin’s perspective, Georgia was the weak link, a place where unlike in the Baltic countries or even Ukraine, it could act.
But because it did not achieve its goal in Georgia, Moscow will continue to push there and elsewhere because Illarionov suggests, the Russian leadership knows that if the Western combination of democracy and free markets succeed in these countries, not only will Russia’s influence there decline but the power of Russia’s current leaders will be at risk as well.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Window on Eurasia: How Georgia Made South Ossetians ‘Separatists in Spite of Themselves’
Paul Goble
Vienna, September 22 – Unlike the Abkhazians who have a long tradition of opposing Georgian rule, South Ossetians do not, according to a leading Russian analysts, and they might have been content to remain in Georgia had Tbilisi, first under Zviad Gamsakhurdia and now under Mikhail Saakashvili, not made them “separatists in spite of themselves.”
And unless the Georgian government learns the lesson from its loss of South Ossetia – and Sergei Markedonov insists that there is no way Tbilisi will ever get that “partially recognized state formation” back – and changes its approach, it risks pushing the ethnic Armenian community and perhaps others in the same direction (www.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=1629).
Many observers in both Moscow and the West currently view South Ossetia and Abkhazia as equivalent phenomenon, but that is an enormous mistake, the Moscow analyst says. “Even in Stalin’s times,” he points out, Abkhazians protested – most famously in 1931 when their republic was reduced SSR Socialist Republic.
(Between 1921 and 1931, Abkhazia had the status of a union republic – albeit of a very special kind. Unlike all other union republics which were constitutionally subordinate to Moscow, the Abkhaz SSR was subordinate to Georgia. Many Abkhazians recalled that when the Soviet Union broke up along union republic lines.)
After the death of Stalin as conditions in the Soviet Union became less oppressive, Abkhazians more or less regularly protested against Georgian rule with demonstrations and petition drives in 1967, 1977-78, and 1989. And a genuine national movement which spread from the intelligentsia to the population can be said to have emerged.
But the situation in South Ossetia was very different. It was, Markedonov, “much better integrated as a unit within Georgia, and Ossetians were much better integrated within Georgian society.” On the one hand, in Soviet times, there were more Ossetian schools in South Ossetia than in the RSFSR’s North Ossetia.
On the other, the two communities continued to live amongst each other. Until the 1990s, 100,000 Ossetians lived in Georgia proper, a figure that has fallen to less than 30,000 now. And until the August 2008 conflict, many ethnic Georgians lived in Ossetia, although most of them have now fled.
This split, one that has now cost Tbilisi its control over South Ossetia, Markedonov argues, is the direct result of the proclamation by Georgian leaders like Gamsakhurdia and Saakashvili of “a slogan that is absolutely unacceptable under the conditions of the poly-ethnic Caucasus: ‘Georgia for the Georgians.’”
That becomes obvious if one considers the events of 18 years ago that the South Ossetians now say was the beginning of their drive for independence. In November 1989, the legislature of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast called for its transformation into an autonomous republic “within Georgia.”
Then on September 20, 1990, the Ossetian government as part of what became known as “the parade of sovereignties” declared the formation of the South-Ossetian Soviet Democratic Republic, but in that document as well, there was no suggestion that it would be independent of Georgia.
Georgians responded to this trend with extreme hostility. Immediately after the first, thousands of Georgians marched in Tskhinvali against Ossetian pretensions. Then in June 1990, the Georgian Supreme Soviet declared all laws and treaties concluded after 1921 null and void, thus undermining the foundation of the South Ossetian Autonomous District.
And finally, on December 11, 1990, the Georgian Supreme Soviet explicitly abolished South Ossetia’s autonomous status, an action that led to the first blockade of what Georgians began to speak of as “the mutinous territory” and to four military advances into Tskhinvali (February 1991, March 1991, June 1992, and August 2008).
But even after the events of the early 1990s, the Georgian population was never expelled from South Ossetia, and the South Ossetian authorities declared Georgian an official language. Both communities continued to trade, often in the shadow economy, but even that continued to tie South Ossetia to Georgia, Markedonov says.
And even efforts to resolve the tensions between Tskhinvali and Tbilisi had some positive effects, he argues. Georgian and Russian Federation battalions of peacekeepers generally were able to work together, and the sides signed documents which allowed for the rehabilitation of the territory and even the return of IDPs after the conflicts of the 1990s.
Indeed, after the coming to power of Eduard Shevardnadze in place of the openly nationalist Gamsakhurdia, there was an expectation among most South Ossetians that a formula would be found to restore their autonomy within Georgia rather than that they would be forced out.
But “ the coming to power of Mikhail Saakashvili and his demonstrative desire to resolve this problem now, ‘instead of waiting a hundred years,’ finally buried hopes” for such an outcome, especially after he declared on July 20, 2004, that he was ready to denounce the Dragomys accords if the Georgian flag did not fly over the South Ossetian capital.
“Thus began the narrow road which led both Georgia and South Ossetia to the Tskhinvali tragedy” of August 2008, Markedonov says, an event that showed that Georgia, given its policies, was not going to be able to say farewell to the Soviet past but preserve the territory of the Georgian SSR.
Seventeen years ago, Gamsakhurdia said that “in Georgia, there are Ossetians but no Ossetia.” He “has turned out to be a prophet,” the Moscow specialist says, because “in today’s Georgia, there is no longer a South Ossetia.” Tbilisi will not get it back, and if it does not change its current policies, Georgia will lose even more.
Indeed, the August 2008 events mean that there is now a 50-50 chance that ethnic Armenians in Javakhetia might decide to pursue independence if Tbilisi rejects their call on August 19 for “the formation of a federative state,” something the Javakhetia Armenians say is “the only possible variant for the development of Georgia.
Vienna, September 22 – Unlike the Abkhazians who have a long tradition of opposing Georgian rule, South Ossetians do not, according to a leading Russian analysts, and they might have been content to remain in Georgia had Tbilisi, first under Zviad Gamsakhurdia and now under Mikhail Saakashvili, not made them “separatists in spite of themselves.”
And unless the Georgian government learns the lesson from its loss of South Ossetia – and Sergei Markedonov insists that there is no way Tbilisi will ever get that “partially recognized state formation” back – and changes its approach, it risks pushing the ethnic Armenian community and perhaps others in the same direction (www.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=1629).
Many observers in both Moscow and the West currently view South Ossetia and Abkhazia as equivalent phenomenon, but that is an enormous mistake, the Moscow analyst says. “Even in Stalin’s times,” he points out, Abkhazians protested – most famously in 1931 when their republic was reduced SSR Socialist Republic.
(Between 1921 and 1931, Abkhazia had the status of a union republic – albeit of a very special kind. Unlike all other union republics which were constitutionally subordinate to Moscow, the Abkhaz SSR was subordinate to Georgia. Many Abkhazians recalled that when the Soviet Union broke up along union republic lines.)
After the death of Stalin as conditions in the Soviet Union became less oppressive, Abkhazians more or less regularly protested against Georgian rule with demonstrations and petition drives in 1967, 1977-78, and 1989. And a genuine national movement which spread from the intelligentsia to the population can be said to have emerged.
But the situation in South Ossetia was very different. It was, Markedonov, “much better integrated as a unit within Georgia, and Ossetians were much better integrated within Georgian society.” On the one hand, in Soviet times, there were more Ossetian schools in South Ossetia than in the RSFSR’s North Ossetia.
On the other, the two communities continued to live amongst each other. Until the 1990s, 100,000 Ossetians lived in Georgia proper, a figure that has fallen to less than 30,000 now. And until the August 2008 conflict, many ethnic Georgians lived in Ossetia, although most of them have now fled.
This split, one that has now cost Tbilisi its control over South Ossetia, Markedonov argues, is the direct result of the proclamation by Georgian leaders like Gamsakhurdia and Saakashvili of “a slogan that is absolutely unacceptable under the conditions of the poly-ethnic Caucasus: ‘Georgia for the Georgians.’”
That becomes obvious if one considers the events of 18 years ago that the South Ossetians now say was the beginning of their drive for independence. In November 1989, the legislature of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast called for its transformation into an autonomous republic “within Georgia.”
Then on September 20, 1990, the Ossetian government as part of what became known as “the parade of sovereignties” declared the formation of the South-Ossetian Soviet Democratic Republic, but in that document as well, there was no suggestion that it would be independent of Georgia.
Georgians responded to this trend with extreme hostility. Immediately after the first, thousands of Georgians marched in Tskhinvali against Ossetian pretensions. Then in June 1990, the Georgian Supreme Soviet declared all laws and treaties concluded after 1921 null and void, thus undermining the foundation of the South Ossetian Autonomous District.
And finally, on December 11, 1990, the Georgian Supreme Soviet explicitly abolished South Ossetia’s autonomous status, an action that led to the first blockade of what Georgians began to speak of as “the mutinous territory” and to four military advances into Tskhinvali (February 1991, March 1991, June 1992, and August 2008).
But even after the events of the early 1990s, the Georgian population was never expelled from South Ossetia, and the South Ossetian authorities declared Georgian an official language. Both communities continued to trade, often in the shadow economy, but even that continued to tie South Ossetia to Georgia, Markedonov says.
And even efforts to resolve the tensions between Tskhinvali and Tbilisi had some positive effects, he argues. Georgian and Russian Federation battalions of peacekeepers generally were able to work together, and the sides signed documents which allowed for the rehabilitation of the territory and even the return of IDPs after the conflicts of the 1990s.
Indeed, after the coming to power of Eduard Shevardnadze in place of the openly nationalist Gamsakhurdia, there was an expectation among most South Ossetians that a formula would be found to restore their autonomy within Georgia rather than that they would be forced out.
But “ the coming to power of Mikhail Saakashvili and his demonstrative desire to resolve this problem now, ‘instead of waiting a hundred years,’ finally buried hopes” for such an outcome, especially after he declared on July 20, 2004, that he was ready to denounce the Dragomys accords if the Georgian flag did not fly over the South Ossetian capital.
“Thus began the narrow road which led both Georgia and South Ossetia to the Tskhinvali tragedy” of August 2008, Markedonov says, an event that showed that Georgia, given its policies, was not going to be able to say farewell to the Soviet past but preserve the territory of the Georgian SSR.
Seventeen years ago, Gamsakhurdia said that “in Georgia, there are Ossetians but no Ossetia.” He “has turned out to be a prophet,” the Moscow specialist says, because “in today’s Georgia, there is no longer a South Ossetia.” Tbilisi will not get it back, and if it does not change its current policies, Georgia will lose even more.
Indeed, the August 2008 events mean that there is now a 50-50 chance that ethnic Armenians in Javakhetia might decide to pursue independence if Tbilisi rejects their call on August 19 for “the formation of a federative state,” something the Javakhetia Armenians say is “the only possible variant for the development of Georgia.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Window on Eurasia: Russian Nationalists Point to Israeli Support for and Role of Jews in Georgia
Paul Goble
Vienna, August 18 – In the overheated atmosphere of Russia today, Georgian President Mihkiel Saakashvili’s praise for the contribution Israel and Jews in his own country made to Georgia’s defense in its conflict with Moscow has attracted the attention of Russian nationalists, whose comments about this could spark a new outburst of anti-Semitism in Russia.
In an interview published in the Israeli newspaper “Ma’ariv,” Saakashvili said that “Israel took a small but extremely important part” in the war between Georgia and the Russian Federation. And he said that “Israeli military help” had allowed Georgia to destroy 50 Russian tanks, 19 plans and two helicopters (www.islamnews.ru/news-13797.html).
The Georgian president also told that paper that Jews in Georgia itself “occupy key positions” in his government: “the defense minister and the conflict resolution minister are Jews who have Israeli citizenship, and these positions involve the most critical questions of the future of our country and its security.”
Another Georgian official, Timur Yakubashvili, who is also Jewish, however, told “Ha'aretz” that Tbilisi was not happy when the Israeli government gave orders to its firms to stop shipping weapons when the fighting started. But he said that Georgia is “grateful” to Israeli firms which “gave us the chance” of developing the military and resisting the Russian advance.
Such comments, of course, are entirely natural when leaders give interviews to media outlets in another country. But certain extreme Russian nationalists are playing up these comments on Georgia’s ties to Israel and on the role it and Georgian Jews have had as part of their efforts to whip up Russian passions.
But if Georgia is their first target, it is unfortunately entirely possible given Russia’s long and disturbing history of anti-Semitism that some Russian nationalists may read such commentaries as a justification for attacking not only Georgians within the Russian , something that has already taken place, but Jews there as well.
An example of such writings is an article by Anatoly Gerasimov, head of the Russian Information-Cultural Center in Israel who earlier this year lost his position in the presidium of the International Council of Russian Compatriots Abroad for talking about Israeli military assistance to Georgia (www.homeru.com/news/content/view/6023/175/).
Gerasimov’s article repeats what Saakashvili and Yakubashvili said but portrays their remarks as indicative of some kind of Jewish conspiracy in Tbilisi against Russia: “Today in the entourage of Mikhail Nikolozovich Saakashvili there are many Jews – ministers and parliamentarians, successful businessmen, military instructors, advisors and consultants.”
“Israeli and Jewish businessmen from around the world have invested enormous sums in the economy of Georgia. There sphere of activity ranges from construction and sale of property to the provision of military technology.” And he cites a former Georgian ambassador to Israel has having said that Israelis have invested “a billion dollars” in Georgia.
Gerasimov provides a list of some of the companies involved, and then he focuses on his own travails when he attempted to “speak publicly in Moscow in the spring of 2008 about the growing deliveries of Israeli arms to Georgia and about the Israeli military instructors who considered that Georgia was actively preparing for war with its autonomies.”
His “warnings to Russia” about what was coming, his “criticism of Russian Jewish ministers,” Gerasimov said “cost [him] his place” in Russia’s program for working with Russian compatriots abroad. And he ends his article by “reminding” his readers that “thousands of Christians and Muslims” now are “defenseless before the Zionist aggressor.”
That there are individuals with such hateful views is tragically not surprising. But what is disturbing is that Gerasimov’s article has been picked up by other Internet sites – including “Russkaya liniya,” one close to the Orthodox Church (www.rusk.ru/st.php?idar=105386) – and his poisonous views are thus being spread to those Russians who are now looking for enemies.
Meanwhile, a curious twist on this story is provided by the comments of Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese terrorist organization Hizbullah. He said yesterday that “Russia had won [in the recent fighting] because Israel had sent to Georgia poor officers, including General Hirsh” (www.jewish.ru/israel/hot/2008/08/news994266065.php).
Vienna, August 18 – In the overheated atmosphere of Russia today, Georgian President Mihkiel Saakashvili’s praise for the contribution Israel and Jews in his own country made to Georgia’s defense in its conflict with Moscow has attracted the attention of Russian nationalists, whose comments about this could spark a new outburst of anti-Semitism in Russia.
In an interview published in the Israeli newspaper “Ma’ariv,” Saakashvili said that “Israel took a small but extremely important part” in the war between Georgia and the Russian Federation. And he said that “Israeli military help” had allowed Georgia to destroy 50 Russian tanks, 19 plans and two helicopters (www.islamnews.ru/news-13797.html).
The Georgian president also told that paper that Jews in Georgia itself “occupy key positions” in his government: “the defense minister and the conflict resolution minister are Jews who have Israeli citizenship, and these positions involve the most critical questions of the future of our country and its security.”
Another Georgian official, Timur Yakubashvili, who is also Jewish, however, told “Ha'aretz” that Tbilisi was not happy when the Israeli government gave orders to its firms to stop shipping weapons when the fighting started. But he said that Georgia is “grateful” to Israeli firms which “gave us the chance” of developing the military and resisting the Russian advance.
Such comments, of course, are entirely natural when leaders give interviews to media outlets in another country. But certain extreme Russian nationalists are playing up these comments on Georgia’s ties to Israel and on the role it and Georgian Jews have had as part of their efforts to whip up Russian passions.
But if Georgia is their first target, it is unfortunately entirely possible given Russia’s long and disturbing history of anti-Semitism that some Russian nationalists may read such commentaries as a justification for attacking not only Georgians within the Russian , something that has already taken place, but Jews there as well.
An example of such writings is an article by Anatoly Gerasimov, head of the Russian Information-Cultural Center in Israel who earlier this year lost his position in the presidium of the International Council of Russian Compatriots Abroad for talking about Israeli military assistance to Georgia (www.homeru.com/news/content/view/6023/175/).
Gerasimov’s article repeats what Saakashvili and Yakubashvili said but portrays their remarks as indicative of some kind of Jewish conspiracy in Tbilisi against Russia: “Today in the entourage of Mikhail Nikolozovich Saakashvili there are many Jews – ministers and parliamentarians, successful businessmen, military instructors, advisors and consultants.”
“Israeli and Jewish businessmen from around the world have invested enormous sums in the economy of Georgia. There sphere of activity ranges from construction and sale of property to the provision of military technology.” And he cites a former Georgian ambassador to Israel has having said that Israelis have invested “a billion dollars” in Georgia.
Gerasimov provides a list of some of the companies involved, and then he focuses on his own travails when he attempted to “speak publicly in Moscow in the spring of 2008 about the growing deliveries of Israeli arms to Georgia and about the Israeli military instructors who considered that Georgia was actively preparing for war with its autonomies.”
His “warnings to Russia” about what was coming, his “criticism of Russian Jewish ministers,” Gerasimov said “cost [him] his place” in Russia’s program for working with Russian compatriots abroad. And he ends his article by “reminding” his readers that “thousands of Christians and Muslims” now are “defenseless before the Zionist aggressor.”
That there are individuals with such hateful views is tragically not surprising. But what is disturbing is that Gerasimov’s article has been picked up by other Internet sites – including “Russkaya liniya,” one close to the Orthodox Church (www.rusk.ru/st.php?idar=105386) – and his poisonous views are thus being spread to those Russians who are now looking for enemies.
Meanwhile, a curious twist on this story is provided by the comments of Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese terrorist organization Hizbullah. He said yesterday that “Russia had won [in the recent fighting] because Israel had sent to Georgia poor officers, including General Hirsh” (www.jewish.ru/israel/hot/2008/08/news994266065.php).
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Window on Eurasia: Moscow Made Plans Months Ago to Invade Georgia, Felgengauer Says
Paul Goble
Vienna, August 14 – Despite Moscow’s claims that it was only responding to Georgian actions and therefore cannot be called the aggressor, Vladimir Putin in fact already in April set in motion plans to invade Georgia sometime this year and was only waiting for a propitious moment to do so, according to Moscow’s leading commentator on military affairs.
In an extensive article in today’s “Novaya gazeta,” Pavel Felgengauer says that “today it is perfectly obvious that the Russian intervention in Georgia was planned in advance” and that the available evidence shows that the Kremlin had decided “already in April to begin the war in August” (www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2008/59/04.html).
The plan, the Moscow analyst continues, was for “the Ossetians to intentionally provoke the Georgians” and then “any response, harsh or soft, [by Tbilisi] would be used as an occasion for the attack.” And if the response of the Georgians was one of restraint, then “the Abkhaz would begin as now the long prepared operation to ‘cleanse’ the upper part of the Kodori gorge.”
“If a war is planned,” Felgengauer points out, “then a pretext will always be found.”
The Russian wheels of war began to role after the NATO summit in Bucharest, one in which Putin participated and in which it became obvious that the Western alliance would sooner or later include Georgia and Ukraine in its ranks, something that the Russian leadership in general and Putin in particular were not prepared to tolerate without a fight.
At that time, Moscow officials said that Russia would use “any means” to block the entrance of Georgia into the alliance. But neither the Western powers nor Georgian President Mihkiel Saakashvili believed that the Kremlin was prepared to violate international law and go as far as it has in recent days.
But after Bucharest, Felgengauer notes, “events began to develop with increasing speed.” Putin directed the government “to develop measures for providing significant help” to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the two republics that reject the idea that they are part of the Republic of Georgia.
Then Russian forces knocked out of the sky a Georgian drone over Abkhazia, introduced more heavily armed Russian units in Abkhazia, sent Russian planes into Georgian airspace, and under various “invented” pretexts effectively ended any “diplomatic regulation of the conflict[s]” on Georgian territory.
It is clear, the Moscow analyst says, that Moscow hoped to intimidate Georgia into retreating from its effort to integrate itself into the West and that “in principle Moscow was even prepared to formally preserve the territorial integrity of Georgia in the form of some kind of confederation” if it did so and if it replaced Saakashvili with a leader the Kremlin liked.
But if Georgia did not back down, then Moscow was ready to go to war, he says, and in early August, all the pieces of such an invasion came together: The Caucasus 2008 maneuvers had just been completed, Russian forces in the region were in place, the railway forces in Abkhazia had prepared the way, and Moscow’s propaganda mill had gone into overdrive.
And once these pieces were in place, it was necessary for Moscow to act more or less quickly because as Felgengauer points out “one must not forever hold the forces and fleet at a high level of readiness 24 hours a day.” Moreover, the weather in this region is likely to deteriorate quickly, and thus “the second half of August” was set as the last date to act.
Felgengauer notes that Putin’s behavior in Georgia recalls what the Russian government did in 1999 prior to the invasion of Chechnya. Then too, Moscow decided in the early spring to begin operations in August and September. And Putin used the invasion of Chechen militants into Daghestan as the occasion for shunting Sergei Stepashin aside and invading Chechnya.
But there are two big differences between 1999 and 2008. On the one hand, most of the international community accepted Moscow’s argument that Chechnya was part of Russia, that its leaders were Islamic radicals, and that the Russian authorities had every reason for trying to crush its government.
And on the other, Moscow faces a far tougher military situation and opponent in Georgia than it did in Chechnya. Because the six-kilometer-long tunnel into South Ossetia is so narrow, Russia could introduce forces only “in comparatively small units,” and Russian commanders have acknowledged that Georgian forces are better trained and equipped than they expected.
“The deputy chief of the General Staff Anatoly Nogovitsyn,” Felgengauer writes, “has admitted that the armed forces of Georgia [today] are not those which lost the war to the separatists 15 years ago.” They are “contemporary,” “mobile” and “supplied with contemporary weapons.”
By withdrawing in the face of the Russian military invasion, the Moscow analyst points out, “the Georgian leadership preserved its regular army” and by doing so, Saakashvili has “preserved a united Georgia and at the same time the basis of his own regime” and thus is in a position to maneuver diplomatically even as Russian military actions continue.
“The military based and other infrastructure [the Russians have destroyed],” Felgengauer says, “will be rebuild with Western money and that will provide new jobs” for Georgians. Moreover, “the radars and weapons [the Georgians lost in this round of fighting] will be replaced by new and better ones.”
The West will do so, he argues, because “the Russian invasion woke Europe up.” It will not allow the Russians to continue to engage in a kind of peacekeeping which violates international rules. And “for Russia this can mean a military-political defeat as a result of what had appeared to be a successful invasion.”
And the West’s reaction to Russia’s military move will entail serious consequences for Russia and its economic elite. That elite needs integration with the West in order to continue to “grow” its wealth, and it is entirely possible that the objections of that elite to the impact the Kremlin’s actions were having on their wealth led Dmitry Medvedev to accept a ceasefire.
But Moscow’s hopes to overthrow Saakashvili and bring Georgia to heal are not over. The Russian military has introduced a large number of new weapons into Georgia – Felgengauer provides a detailed list – and rumors abound that Moscow will use other means against the Georgian leadership as well.
Consequently, the Moscow expert concludes, “the cease fire will be shaky until international peacekeeping contingents enter Georgia,” something that will change the balance of power in the Caucasus against Russia and a step that Putin and Medvedev will again try to do everything to prevent.
Vienna, August 14 – Despite Moscow’s claims that it was only responding to Georgian actions and therefore cannot be called the aggressor, Vladimir Putin in fact already in April set in motion plans to invade Georgia sometime this year and was only waiting for a propitious moment to do so, according to Moscow’s leading commentator on military affairs.
In an extensive article in today’s “Novaya gazeta,” Pavel Felgengauer says that “today it is perfectly obvious that the Russian intervention in Georgia was planned in advance” and that the available evidence shows that the Kremlin had decided “already in April to begin the war in August” (www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2008/59/04.html).
The plan, the Moscow analyst continues, was for “the Ossetians to intentionally provoke the Georgians” and then “any response, harsh or soft, [by Tbilisi] would be used as an occasion for the attack.” And if the response of the Georgians was one of restraint, then “the Abkhaz would begin as now the long prepared operation to ‘cleanse’ the upper part of the Kodori gorge.”
“If a war is planned,” Felgengauer points out, “then a pretext will always be found.”
The Russian wheels of war began to role after the NATO summit in Bucharest, one in which Putin participated and in which it became obvious that the Western alliance would sooner or later include Georgia and Ukraine in its ranks, something that the Russian leadership in general and Putin in particular were not prepared to tolerate without a fight.
At that time, Moscow officials said that Russia would use “any means” to block the entrance of Georgia into the alliance. But neither the Western powers nor Georgian President Mihkiel Saakashvili believed that the Kremlin was prepared to violate international law and go as far as it has in recent days.
But after Bucharest, Felgengauer notes, “events began to develop with increasing speed.” Putin directed the government “to develop measures for providing significant help” to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the two republics that reject the idea that they are part of the Republic of Georgia.
Then Russian forces knocked out of the sky a Georgian drone over Abkhazia, introduced more heavily armed Russian units in Abkhazia, sent Russian planes into Georgian airspace, and under various “invented” pretexts effectively ended any “diplomatic regulation of the conflict[s]” on Georgian territory.
It is clear, the Moscow analyst says, that Moscow hoped to intimidate Georgia into retreating from its effort to integrate itself into the West and that “in principle Moscow was even prepared to formally preserve the territorial integrity of Georgia in the form of some kind of confederation” if it did so and if it replaced Saakashvili with a leader the Kremlin liked.
But if Georgia did not back down, then Moscow was ready to go to war, he says, and in early August, all the pieces of such an invasion came together: The Caucasus 2008 maneuvers had just been completed, Russian forces in the region were in place, the railway forces in Abkhazia had prepared the way, and Moscow’s propaganda mill had gone into overdrive.
And once these pieces were in place, it was necessary for Moscow to act more or less quickly because as Felgengauer points out “one must not forever hold the forces and fleet at a high level of readiness 24 hours a day.” Moreover, the weather in this region is likely to deteriorate quickly, and thus “the second half of August” was set as the last date to act.
Felgengauer notes that Putin’s behavior in Georgia recalls what the Russian government did in 1999 prior to the invasion of Chechnya. Then too, Moscow decided in the early spring to begin operations in August and September. And Putin used the invasion of Chechen militants into Daghestan as the occasion for shunting Sergei Stepashin aside and invading Chechnya.
But there are two big differences between 1999 and 2008. On the one hand, most of the international community accepted Moscow’s argument that Chechnya was part of Russia, that its leaders were Islamic radicals, and that the Russian authorities had every reason for trying to crush its government.
And on the other, Moscow faces a far tougher military situation and opponent in Georgia than it did in Chechnya. Because the six-kilometer-long tunnel into South Ossetia is so narrow, Russia could introduce forces only “in comparatively small units,” and Russian commanders have acknowledged that Georgian forces are better trained and equipped than they expected.
“The deputy chief of the General Staff Anatoly Nogovitsyn,” Felgengauer writes, “has admitted that the armed forces of Georgia [today] are not those which lost the war to the separatists 15 years ago.” They are “contemporary,” “mobile” and “supplied with contemporary weapons.”
By withdrawing in the face of the Russian military invasion, the Moscow analyst points out, “the Georgian leadership preserved its regular army” and by doing so, Saakashvili has “preserved a united Georgia and at the same time the basis of his own regime” and thus is in a position to maneuver diplomatically even as Russian military actions continue.
“The military based and other infrastructure [the Russians have destroyed],” Felgengauer says, “will be rebuild with Western money and that will provide new jobs” for Georgians. Moreover, “the radars and weapons [the Georgians lost in this round of fighting] will be replaced by new and better ones.”
The West will do so, he argues, because “the Russian invasion woke Europe up.” It will not allow the Russians to continue to engage in a kind of peacekeeping which violates international rules. And “for Russia this can mean a military-political defeat as a result of what had appeared to be a successful invasion.”
And the West’s reaction to Russia’s military move will entail serious consequences for Russia and its economic elite. That elite needs integration with the West in order to continue to “grow” its wealth, and it is entirely possible that the objections of that elite to the impact the Kremlin’s actions were having on their wealth led Dmitry Medvedev to accept a ceasefire.
But Moscow’s hopes to overthrow Saakashvili and bring Georgia to heal are not over. The Russian military has introduced a large number of new weapons into Georgia – Felgengauer provides a detailed list – and rumors abound that Moscow will use other means against the Georgian leadership as well.
Consequently, the Moscow expert concludes, “the cease fire will be shaky until international peacekeeping contingents enter Georgia,” something that will change the balance of power in the Caucasus against Russia and a step that Putin and Medvedev will again try to do everything to prevent.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Window on Eurasia Shorts for October 4 – Georgian Events
Window on Eurasia Shorts for October 4 – Georgian Events
Some news items about events in and around Georgia during the last week which have attracted less attention than they deserve:
PUTIN DENOUNCES KYIV FOR SUPPLYING WEAPONS TO GEORGIA. At a press conference after meeting visiting Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliya Timoshenko, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called Ukraine’s provision of military equipment to Georgia a crime and said that whoever was responsible for taking that decision was “a criminal” and had made “an enormous error” (korrespondent.net/russia/603256).
MUCH NOISE, NO MOVEMENT ON RECOGNITION OF ABKHAZIA, SOUTH OSSETIA. For 24 hours, it appeared that another country – Somalia – would become the third state to recognize the two breakaway republics, but Somalia’s foreign ministry told the Georgian government that the Somali ambassador in Moscow had misspoken when he said that his country planned to extend diplomatic recognition (www.polit.ru/event/2008/10/01/friend.html and (www.annews.ru/news/detail.php?ID=169076). Meanwhile, the government of Northern Cyprus said it would recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as soon as Moscow recognized it (www.islam.ru/rus/2008-10-03/23084).
SWEDEN WILL REPRESENT GEORGIAN INTERESTS IN MOSCOW; SWITZERLAND, RUSSIAN INTERESTS IN TBILISI. Now that Russia and Georgia have broken diplomatic relations, Sweden has agreed to represent Tbilisi’s interests in the Russian Federation, and Switzerland has said it will represent Moscow’s in Georgia (grani.ru/Politics/Russia/m.142259.html and www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1230247.html).
SAAKASHVILI SAYS HE HAS NO PLANS TO BUY MAJOR WEAPONS SYSTEMS. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili announced that he has no plans to purchase “serious new arms” for his country’s military in the wake of the conflict with the Russian Federation.
(www.sobkorr.ru/news/2/48E50F42390FF.html).
CZECH FOREIGN MINISTER CALLS RUSSIA A COLONIAL POWER … Czech Foreign Minister Karl Swartzenberg told the UN General Assembly that Russia had behaved in Georgia like “a colonizer” and must be opposed in this lest Moscow assume it could act in a similar way toward other countries (kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2008/10/01/61339.shtml).
.. AND POLISH FM SAYS MOSCOW MAY USE FORCE AGAINST UKRAINE. Speaking in Tokyo, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslav Sikorsky said that Russia may use force against Ukraine in much the same way it did against Georgia even though such action would destroy the existing balance of forces in Europe (ru.redtram.com/go/168893625/n4p/716/state-and-community/).
VERY FEW ETHNIC RUSSIANS IN UKRAINE HAVE RF CITIZENSHIP. According to the Ukrainian census of 2001, only 3.2 percent of the residents of Sevastopol have Russian citizenship and less than one percent of the population in the so-called Russian-language districts did at that time. While there may have been some increase since that time, it has not been anything like that in South Ossetia or Abkhazia, experts who have examined the question say
(www.argumenti.ru/publications/7951).
MOSCOW CALLS ON CASPIAN STATES TO FORM A NEW ECONOMIC GROUP. At a meeting of the Caspian littoral states, Russian First Vice Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov called for an organization to promote economic cooperation among Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and he said that to promote this, it would be possible to create a center of Caspian economic and political research and a center for the study of bio-resources
(www.itar-tass.com/level2.html?NewsID=13133638&PageNum=0).
GEORGIANS PLAN TO MOVE STALIN S TATUE TO OCCUPATION MUSEUM. Georgia’s vice prime minister Georgy Baramidze says that the statue of Stalin in the main square of Gori, the Soviet dictator’s birthplace, will soon be moved to the occupation museum that Tbilisi intends to establish. That is where it belongs, Baramidze told journalists (www.sobkorr.ru/news/48E6617FC6C85.html).
ISRAEL, AZERBAIJAN EXPAND TIES IN WAKE OF GEORGIAN WAR. Relations between Jerusalem and Baku have intensified in several areas, Israeli ambassador to Baku Arthur Lenk said, pointing to an agreement by Azerbaijan to purchase Israeli arms and an offer by Azerbaijan to allow Israeli planes to land at Baku and Ganca to evacuate Israelis from Georgia. “Though we did not use this help,” Lenk said, “we understood Azerbaijan was a country Israel could rely on in hard times” (www.infoisrael.net/cgi-local/text.pl?source=2/a/iv/021020081).
ANKARA, BAKU MAY SEEK TO REVIVE AJARIAN AUTONOMY. According to some analysts, Turkey and Azerbaijan may seek to revive the provisions of the 1921 Treaty of Kars which gives them a voice in the status of Ajaria, something Mikhail Saakashvili has generally ignored. Were they to do so, one analyst says, the two Turkic states might ask for full autonomy for the Ajars and some autonomy for Azerbaijanis living in eastern Georgia (www.regnum.ru/news/fd-abroad/georgia/1062596.html).
SOME RUSSIANS WANT TO DISMEMBER GEORGIA FURTHER. Some Russian commentators have extended Eurasianist Aleksandr Dugin’s proposals for Georgia and argued that Moscow must divide Georgia into a number of mini-states so that they will not be in a position to threaten Russia again (www.apn.ru/publications/article20753.htm).
COULD CASPIAN GAS FLOW THROUGH ARMENIA? As the fallout from the Georgian war continues to affect energy issues, some analysts have revived an idea that was first proposed 15 years ago – extending a pipeline (gas this time) through Armenia not only to link that republic more firmly with the West but also to settle the Karabakh dispute. To date, no government official has spoken out in favor of this idea (www.ia-centr.ru/expert/2457/ and
www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav093008a.shtml).
Some news items about events in and around Georgia during the last week which have attracted less attention than they deserve:
PUTIN DENOUNCES KYIV FOR SUPPLYING WEAPONS TO GEORGIA. At a press conference after meeting visiting Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliya Timoshenko, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called Ukraine’s provision of military equipment to Georgia a crime and said that whoever was responsible for taking that decision was “a criminal” and had made “an enormous error” (korrespondent.net/russia/603256).
MUCH NOISE, NO MOVEMENT ON RECOGNITION OF ABKHAZIA, SOUTH OSSETIA. For 24 hours, it appeared that another country – Somalia – would become the third state to recognize the two breakaway republics, but Somalia’s foreign ministry told the Georgian government that the Somali ambassador in Moscow had misspoken when he said that his country planned to extend diplomatic recognition (www.polit.ru/event/2008/10/01/friend.html and (www.annews.ru/news/detail.php?ID=169076). Meanwhile, the government of Northern Cyprus said it would recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as soon as Moscow recognized it (www.islam.ru/rus/2008-10-03/23084).
SWEDEN WILL REPRESENT GEORGIAN INTERESTS IN MOSCOW; SWITZERLAND, RUSSIAN INTERESTS IN TBILISI. Now that Russia and Georgia have broken diplomatic relations, Sweden has agreed to represent Tbilisi’s interests in the Russian Federation, and Switzerland has said it will represent Moscow’s in Georgia (grani.ru/Politics/Russia/m.142259.html and www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1230247.html).
SAAKASHVILI SAYS HE HAS NO PLANS TO BUY MAJOR WEAPONS SYSTEMS. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili announced that he has no plans to purchase “serious new arms” for his country’s military in the wake of the conflict with the Russian Federation.
(www.sobkorr.ru/news/2/48E50F42390FF.html).
CZECH FOREIGN MINISTER CALLS RUSSIA A COLONIAL POWER … Czech Foreign Minister Karl Swartzenberg told the UN General Assembly that Russia had behaved in Georgia like “a colonizer” and must be opposed in this lest Moscow assume it could act in a similar way toward other countries (kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2008/10/01/61339.shtml).
.. AND POLISH FM SAYS MOSCOW MAY USE FORCE AGAINST UKRAINE. Speaking in Tokyo, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslav Sikorsky said that Russia may use force against Ukraine in much the same way it did against Georgia even though such action would destroy the existing balance of forces in Europe (ru.redtram.com/go/168893625/n4p/716/state-and-community/).
VERY FEW ETHNIC RUSSIANS IN UKRAINE HAVE RF CITIZENSHIP. According to the Ukrainian census of 2001, only 3.2 percent of the residents of Sevastopol have Russian citizenship and less than one percent of the population in the so-called Russian-language districts did at that time. While there may have been some increase since that time, it has not been anything like that in South Ossetia or Abkhazia, experts who have examined the question say
(www.argumenti.ru/publications/7951).
MOSCOW CALLS ON CASPIAN STATES TO FORM A NEW ECONOMIC GROUP. At a meeting of the Caspian littoral states, Russian First Vice Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov called for an organization to promote economic cooperation among Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and he said that to promote this, it would be possible to create a center of Caspian economic and political research and a center for the study of bio-resources
(www.itar-tass.com/level2.html?NewsID=13133638&PageNum=0).
GEORGIANS PLAN TO MOVE STALIN S TATUE TO OCCUPATION MUSEUM. Georgia’s vice prime minister Georgy Baramidze says that the statue of Stalin in the main square of Gori, the Soviet dictator’s birthplace, will soon be moved to the occupation museum that Tbilisi intends to establish. That is where it belongs, Baramidze told journalists (www.sobkorr.ru/news/48E6617FC6C85.html).
ISRAEL, AZERBAIJAN EXPAND TIES IN WAKE OF GEORGIAN WAR. Relations between Jerusalem and Baku have intensified in several areas, Israeli ambassador to Baku Arthur Lenk said, pointing to an agreement by Azerbaijan to purchase Israeli arms and an offer by Azerbaijan to allow Israeli planes to land at Baku and Ganca to evacuate Israelis from Georgia. “Though we did not use this help,” Lenk said, “we understood Azerbaijan was a country Israel could rely on in hard times” (www.infoisrael.net/cgi-local/text.pl?source=2/a/iv/021020081).
ANKARA, BAKU MAY SEEK TO REVIVE AJARIAN AUTONOMY. According to some analysts, Turkey and Azerbaijan may seek to revive the provisions of the 1921 Treaty of Kars which gives them a voice in the status of Ajaria, something Mikhail Saakashvili has generally ignored. Were they to do so, one analyst says, the two Turkic states might ask for full autonomy for the Ajars and some autonomy for Azerbaijanis living in eastern Georgia (www.regnum.ru/news/fd-abroad/georgia/1062596.html).
SOME RUSSIANS WANT TO DISMEMBER GEORGIA FURTHER. Some Russian commentators have extended Eurasianist Aleksandr Dugin’s proposals for Georgia and argued that Moscow must divide Georgia into a number of mini-states so that they will not be in a position to threaten Russia again (www.apn.ru/publications/article20753.htm).
COULD CASPIAN GAS FLOW THROUGH ARMENIA? As the fallout from the Georgian war continues to affect energy issues, some analysts have revived an idea that was first proposed 15 years ago – extending a pipeline (gas this time) through Armenia not only to link that republic more firmly with the West but also to settle the Karabakh dispute. To date, no government official has spoken out in favor of this idea (www.ia-centr.ru/expert/2457/ and
www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav093008a.shtml).
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Georgia’s Visa Free Program for North Caucasians Winning Some Hearts and Minds
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 17 – Despite Moscow’s anger and criticism in Georgia itself, many people in Russia’s North Caucasus republics are delighted with Tbilisi’s decision to allow them visa-free travel to Georgia, although some say this opportunity should be open to all Russian citizens and others worry Moscow may block them from taking advantage of this opportunity.
The Kavkaz-uzel.ru news agency, one of the most objective journalist operations in the North Caucasus, interviewed people in Chechnya (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/175633/) and in Adygeya (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/175609/) on their reactions to the Georgian visa free program for North Caucasians.
While the news agency makes no claim that the people it interviewed are representative of the population as a whole – many spoke only on condition of anonymity, and Kavkaz-uzel.ru journalists did not have access to all groups – the comments that the agency provides suggest that the visa-free program is winning “the hearts and minds” of the North Caucasians.
(For a detailed discussion of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili’s plans in this regard, see Tbilisi historian and journalist Georgy Zedgenidze’s article “Georgia is Conducting a Struggle for the Minds and Hearts of Russian Mountaineers,” which is available in Russian at slon.ru/blogs/gzegenidze/post/479724/.)
Residents of Chechnya, Kavkaz-uzel.ru reports, “note that the elimination of Georgian of the visa regime for residents of the North Caucasus republics eliminates many problems arising in the cross of the border with this country” but add that they are fearful that “the Russian powers that be will tighten the rules for their own citizens of crossing state borders.”
“I cannot understand why the powers that be of Russia have reacted so negatively to this decision of Georgia. I would think that any government ought to express approval to the fact that its citizens do not have to experience additional problems in travelling to neighboring countries.” But Moscow instead chose to make “loud propaganda” against it.
“It turns out,” he continued, “that the leadership of Georgia is so bad that it decided to easy the life of part of the citizens of Russia living in the North Caucasus. Apparently, the Kremlin isn’t pleased that now residents of our region will not travel to Moscow for visas” from which officials there can make money.
Another Chechen, Ramzan M., said he welcomed the change because his wife has relatives in the Pankisi Gorge and now it will be much easier to visit them. “Of course,” he continued, “we can only greet this decision of the Georgian authorities. They think in the first instance about the interests of simple citizens and not about politics or something else.”
Abubakar, a resident of Grozny, added that he had been in Georgia during Soviet times and retains many friends there. “More than once they have invited me to come for a visit,” but getting a visa which required a trip to Moscow prevented him from doing so. “I hope that now I will be able to visit my friends,” who have already telephoned to ask him to come.
But he said that he is concerned that the Russian authorities, because of their anger at Georgia, will “toughen the rules” for border crossing into Georgia in order to prevent more people from visiting that country. Russian citizens have had to pay bribes to border guards in the past, “now [this requirement] may become still worse.”
Kavkaz-uzel.ru journalists also spoke with residents of the Republic of Adygeya. Most of those with whom they spoke said that “the opening of visa free entrance into Georgia was an incomplete step,” one that should be extended to all citizens of the Russian Federation rather than to only one part.
Timur Khuranov, a resident of Adygeysk, said that he had long wanted to visit Georgia but had been put off by the requirement that he travel to Moscow to get a visa. Now, he had he was “happy that the opportunity to realize his longtime dream had appeared.” Now all he has to do, he said, is “sit in his car and drive.”
Valentina Filatova, a Maikop resident, said that “of course, the removal of excessive limits for entrance into Georgia only brings our countries closer together and makes their residents closer to one another” – especially for those like herself who have “distant relatives” there and now have “a real chance” to visit them.
But others with whom Kavkaz-uzel.ru journalists spoke were more skeptical. “If we can travel to Georgia,” Aydamir Tleuzh, a resident of the Takhtamukaysk district of Adygeya, asked, “then why can’t the residents of Krasnodar who live only 10 kilometers from our village?”
And Alina Kononenko, a resident of Adygeya’s Krasnogvardeysk district, agreed. “I am sure,” she said, “that equal opportunities must be created for everyone. I have acquaintances who have close relatives in Georgia and who live in Kazan. How are things supposed to work for them? Are they worse than we?”
Consequently, Kononenko said, she had to conclude that “this step of the Georgian leadership is an instrument with which [Tbilisi] can ‘split’ Russians into various parts,” an outcome that she implied was totally unacceptable for her and should be for everyone in the region as well.
Staunton, October 17 – Despite Moscow’s anger and criticism in Georgia itself, many people in Russia’s North Caucasus republics are delighted with Tbilisi’s decision to allow them visa-free travel to Georgia, although some say this opportunity should be open to all Russian citizens and others worry Moscow may block them from taking advantage of this opportunity.
The Kavkaz-uzel.ru news agency, one of the most objective journalist operations in the North Caucasus, interviewed people in Chechnya (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/175633/) and in Adygeya (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/175609/) on their reactions to the Georgian visa free program for North Caucasians.
While the news agency makes no claim that the people it interviewed are representative of the population as a whole – many spoke only on condition of anonymity, and Kavkaz-uzel.ru journalists did not have access to all groups – the comments that the agency provides suggest that the visa-free program is winning “the hearts and minds” of the North Caucasians.
(For a detailed discussion of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili’s plans in this regard, see Tbilisi historian and journalist Georgy Zedgenidze’s article “Georgia is Conducting a Struggle for the Minds and Hearts of Russian Mountaineers,” which is available in Russian at slon.ru/blogs/gzegenidze/post/479724/.)
Residents of Chechnya, Kavkaz-uzel.ru reports, “note that the elimination of Georgian of the visa regime for residents of the North Caucasus republics eliminates many problems arising in the cross of the border with this country” but add that they are fearful that “the Russian powers that be will tighten the rules for their own citizens of crossing state borders.”
“I cannot understand why the powers that be of Russia have reacted so negatively to this decision of Georgia. I would think that any government ought to express approval to the fact that its citizens do not have to experience additional problems in travelling to neighboring countries.” But Moscow instead chose to make “loud propaganda” against it.
“It turns out,” he continued, “that the leadership of Georgia is so bad that it decided to easy the life of part of the citizens of Russia living in the North Caucasus. Apparently, the Kremlin isn’t pleased that now residents of our region will not travel to Moscow for visas” from which officials there can make money.
Another Chechen, Ramzan M., said he welcomed the change because his wife has relatives in the Pankisi Gorge and now it will be much easier to visit them. “Of course,” he continued, “we can only greet this decision of the Georgian authorities. They think in the first instance about the interests of simple citizens and not about politics or something else.”
Abubakar, a resident of Grozny, added that he had been in Georgia during Soviet times and retains many friends there. “More than once they have invited me to come for a visit,” but getting a visa which required a trip to Moscow prevented him from doing so. “I hope that now I will be able to visit my friends,” who have already telephoned to ask him to come.
But he said that he is concerned that the Russian authorities, because of their anger at Georgia, will “toughen the rules” for border crossing into Georgia in order to prevent more people from visiting that country. Russian citizens have had to pay bribes to border guards in the past, “now [this requirement] may become still worse.”
Kavkaz-uzel.ru journalists also spoke with residents of the Republic of Adygeya. Most of those with whom they spoke said that “the opening of visa free entrance into Georgia was an incomplete step,” one that should be extended to all citizens of the Russian Federation rather than to only one part.
Timur Khuranov, a resident of Adygeysk, said that he had long wanted to visit Georgia but had been put off by the requirement that he travel to Moscow to get a visa. Now, he had he was “happy that the opportunity to realize his longtime dream had appeared.” Now all he has to do, he said, is “sit in his car and drive.”
Valentina Filatova, a Maikop resident, said that “of course, the removal of excessive limits for entrance into Georgia only brings our countries closer together and makes their residents closer to one another” – especially for those like herself who have “distant relatives” there and now have “a real chance” to visit them.
But others with whom Kavkaz-uzel.ru journalists spoke were more skeptical. “If we can travel to Georgia,” Aydamir Tleuzh, a resident of the Takhtamukaysk district of Adygeya, asked, “then why can’t the residents of Krasnodar who live only 10 kilometers from our village?”
And Alina Kononenko, a resident of Adygeya’s Krasnogvardeysk district, agreed. “I am sure,” she said, “that equal opportunities must be created for everyone. I have acquaintances who have close relatives in Georgia and who live in Kazan. How are things supposed to work for them? Are they worse than we?”
Consequently, Kononenko said, she had to conclude that “this step of the Georgian leadership is an instrument with which [Tbilisi] can ‘split’ Russians into various parts,” an outcome that she implied was totally unacceptable for her and should be for everyone in the region as well.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Window on Eurasia: Russian Anti-Semites Play Up Links Between Georgia and Israel
Paul Goble
Vienna, August 28 – Russian anti-Semites are using their media outlets to play up the links between Georgia and Israel and what they claim is the central role of the Jewish state in helping Georgia to become a military threat to Russia, reportage that cannot fail in the current environment to rekindle anti-Semitic attitudes among some radical Russian nationalists.
And while both the number of Jews in Russia and the number of openly anti-Semitic Russians are smaller than in the past, the xenophobic passions whipped up by groups like the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) could at some point be directed against the Jewish community there if such efforts to link Israel and the Jews to Georgia continue unabated.
Up to now, most of the articles linking Georgians and Jews together and denouncing both have appeared on extremist blogs and websites rather than in the more generally accessible print or electronic media, but the same thing could be said about groups like DPNI which have used the web to mobilize their followers against immigrants and “people from the Caucasus.”
An example of this anti-Semitic attack on Israeli and Jewish ties to Georgia is provided by an article entitled “Why is Israel Helping the Georgians?” by Igor Savin, who is not identified by position, that first appeared on the “Russkaya ideya” portal but has since been reproduced on a number of others with larger audiences (srn.rusidea.org/?a=50027).
Savin said that he was “compelled” to bring to the attention of those Russian nationalists who share his views because Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of the Russian General Staff, had said at the end of last week that he could “confirm” that “Israel had delivered to Georgia arms and had helped train its military,” although the general offered no details.
But according to the author of this article, those details are available in Jewish publications, like “Yevreyskoye slovo” as well as regular Israeli news outlets for anyone who takes the time to read them. And he cites these sources extensively to show just how much Israeli aid both in equipment and training to Georgia there has been.
The more disturbing part of this attack, however, involves not what Israel has contributed to Georgia’s security but rather pictures highlighting Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili’s involvement with the Jewish community inside his own country and suggestions that his wife’s Jewish background is why Israel backed Georgia.
According to Savin, various Russian websites including the notorious Kompromat.ru have reported that among Saakashvili’s “ties” to the West are his “’western wife’ – Sandra Rulofs (also known as Sandra Eduardovna Rulovski or Rulovski). In all official biographies,” he said, Saakashvili’s wife is for some reason called Dutch, although Dutch is only her citizenship.”
“Her father,” the anti-Semitic writer continued, “migrated to Holland from the Czech Republic as a Jew, and her mother, according to some accounts is a Polish Jew and according to others a local Dutch one.” And all that, Savin said, is why a sign appeared in Jerusalem during the last Georgian elections urging all Georgian Jews there to “vote for Misha.”
“From all these facts,” Savin insists, “it becomes clear that in Georgia have come to power Georgian-speaking Jews who are supported by the United States and Israel with arms and money for the transparent goal of creating another source of tension in the Caucasus as an occasion for the interference of NATO” in that region’s affairs.
And he notes, that when what he calls “the Georgian attack on South Ossetia took place, a sizeable group of Israeli journalists, including from Ha’aretz and the Ynet portal arrived in Georgia to make sure that the world knew from the start precisely Georgia’s version of what was taking place rather than the truth.
Reasonable people would immediately dismiss this pastiche of salacious suggestions as dangerously wrong, but Russian xenophobes are not in that category. And in the overheated world they live in, at least some are likely to read the writings of Savin and others as being enough reason to attack Jews and well as Georgians living in the Russian Federation.
One can only hope that the Russian government will come to its senses and crack down on those who suggest attacking either, but so far, while Moscow has moved against those who criticize its policies in Georgia and elsewhere, it has done little or nothing to stop outlets like those expressed by Savin and his ilk that spew poisonous against Jews and other groups.
Vienna, August 28 – Russian anti-Semites are using their media outlets to play up the links between Georgia and Israel and what they claim is the central role of the Jewish state in helping Georgia to become a military threat to Russia, reportage that cannot fail in the current environment to rekindle anti-Semitic attitudes among some radical Russian nationalists.
And while both the number of Jews in Russia and the number of openly anti-Semitic Russians are smaller than in the past, the xenophobic passions whipped up by groups like the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) could at some point be directed against the Jewish community there if such efforts to link Israel and the Jews to Georgia continue unabated.
Up to now, most of the articles linking Georgians and Jews together and denouncing both have appeared on extremist blogs and websites rather than in the more generally accessible print or electronic media, but the same thing could be said about groups like DPNI which have used the web to mobilize their followers against immigrants and “people from the Caucasus.”
An example of this anti-Semitic attack on Israeli and Jewish ties to Georgia is provided by an article entitled “Why is Israel Helping the Georgians?” by Igor Savin, who is not identified by position, that first appeared on the “Russkaya ideya” portal but has since been reproduced on a number of others with larger audiences (srn.rusidea.org/?a=50027).
Savin said that he was “compelled” to bring to the attention of those Russian nationalists who share his views because Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of the Russian General Staff, had said at the end of last week that he could “confirm” that “Israel had delivered to Georgia arms and had helped train its military,” although the general offered no details.
But according to the author of this article, those details are available in Jewish publications, like “Yevreyskoye slovo” as well as regular Israeli news outlets for anyone who takes the time to read them. And he cites these sources extensively to show just how much Israeli aid both in equipment and training to Georgia there has been.
The more disturbing part of this attack, however, involves not what Israel has contributed to Georgia’s security but rather pictures highlighting Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili’s involvement with the Jewish community inside his own country and suggestions that his wife’s Jewish background is why Israel backed Georgia.
According to Savin, various Russian websites including the notorious Kompromat.ru have reported that among Saakashvili’s “ties” to the West are his “’western wife’ – Sandra Rulofs (also known as Sandra Eduardovna Rulovski or Rulovski). In all official biographies,” he said, Saakashvili’s wife is for some reason called Dutch, although Dutch is only her citizenship.”
“Her father,” the anti-Semitic writer continued, “migrated to Holland from the Czech Republic as a Jew, and her mother, according to some accounts is a Polish Jew and according to others a local Dutch one.” And all that, Savin said, is why a sign appeared in Jerusalem during the last Georgian elections urging all Georgian Jews there to “vote for Misha.”
“From all these facts,” Savin insists, “it becomes clear that in Georgia have come to power Georgian-speaking Jews who are supported by the United States and Israel with arms and money for the transparent goal of creating another source of tension in the Caucasus as an occasion for the interference of NATO” in that region’s affairs.
And he notes, that when what he calls “the Georgian attack on South Ossetia took place, a sizeable group of Israeli journalists, including from Ha’aretz and the Ynet portal arrived in Georgia to make sure that the world knew from the start precisely Georgia’s version of what was taking place rather than the truth.
Reasonable people would immediately dismiss this pastiche of salacious suggestions as dangerously wrong, but Russian xenophobes are not in that category. And in the overheated world they live in, at least some are likely to read the writings of Savin and others as being enough reason to attack Jews and well as Georgians living in the Russian Federation.
One can only hope that the Russian government will come to its senses and crack down on those who suggest attacking either, but so far, while Moscow has moved against those who criticize its policies in Georgia and elsewhere, it has done little or nothing to stop outlets like those expressed by Savin and his ilk that spew poisonous against Jews and other groups.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Window on Eurasia: Georgian Ombudsman Says Saakashvili’s Authoritarianism Must End
Paul Goble
Eagles Mere, PA, September 30 –Tbilisi’s public defender says that the authoritarianism of President Mikhail Saakashvili must be replaced by genuine democracy if Georgia is to avoid losing even more than it has up to now, and Sobzar Subari called for “all forms of peaceful protest” to persuade the government to make these changes.
In a statement issued last Thursday and posted online on Friday, Subari said that “a government that … listens only to itself and respects only its own judgment has lost the capacity for proper decision making,” something he said Moscow had “taken advantage of” to seize Georgian territory (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19614).
And he warned that “new disasters are to be expected” if the government does not reverse its course toward greater authoritarianism, one that sadly mirrors within Georgia, “the Russian model of authoritarian governance” that “envisages the settlement of problems inside and outside the country by unilateral force.”
That authoritarian style, he continued, constitutes “a fifth column responsible for Georgia’s failure.” And despite that failure, the Georgian president refuses to “face the truth” and analyze this sad reality. Instead, he continued, Saakashvili has contented himself with “shouts that ‘we won’” and other public relations efforts concerts.
What makes Subari’s statement so important is not so much his personal authority in Georgia but rather his insistence that Tbilisi lost control of Abkhazia and South Ossetia precisely because Moscow was in a position to exploit the presence of a Georgian leader who did not feel the need to listen to anyone but himself.
And “as a result” of this intolerance for the views of others and for an honest discussion of Georgia’s problems,” the public defender said, “from dawn to dusk we are fated to listen to propaganda claiming that ‘Misha is cool,’ that everything is fine, that we won and that Georgia will soon blossom.”
To transform the situation from the current authoritarianism to what he called “irreversible democracy, Subaria urged that the government end the persecution of those with different opinion, promote the rule of law and honest elections, abolish state control over the media, and create a system of checks and balances within the central government.
In addition, he said, Tbilisi must rein in presidential power, grant real authority to local governments, introduce the principle of accountability, guarantee property rights, and ensure the constitutional rights of freedom of assembly and protest, all things that will help end the attitude of those in power that Georgia belongs to them rather than to the Georgian people.
And while arguing that the Georgian people have a responsibility to take action to promote these changes, he called on the international community to help: “The Georgian people do not deserve an authoritarian regime,” he said. “Georgia is ready for democracy. Help us develop a democracy” lest the authoritarianism of the current regime lead to “catastrophe.”
Not surprisingly, pro-Saakashvili politicians denounced Subari’s statement. Givi Targamadze, a senior member of the ruling National Movement Party, said the public defender was acting like an opposition politician instead of performing his “immediate” duties as defined by law (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19616).
But Subari was not intimidated: he said over the weekend that in July 2008 he had submitted to the parliament a 1400-page report on the sad state of human rights in Georgia but that the government and its supporters had failed to address that, preferring to denounce him then as now for “political bias” and “incompetence.”
And yesterday, the ideas Subari has put forward attracted a new backer: Erosi Kitsmarishvili, who had served as ambassador in Moscow, announced that he could not “remain in Saakashvili’s power structures” after the Georgian president failed to avoid a war with Russia (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19625 and www.izvestia.ru/georgia1/article3121029/).
In an interview featured in the Georgian weekly “Kviris palitra,” Kitsmarishvili said that Tbilisi could have avoided this conflict if it had been more careful and “if the current Georgia leadership had spent even one percent of what is has on military needs [on addressing domestic problems], “the results would have exceeded all expectations.”
And the now former ambassador added that “very highly placed Western diplomats has written that each such conversation” with Saakashvili about the need to avoid taking steps that Moscow might exploit “had an impact for only two weeks, after which [the Georgian president’s] military rhetoric resumed” and Tbilisi fell into a carefully prepared Russian trap.
Subari’s declaration and the support he is getting from people like Kitsmarishvili, former parliament speaker Nino Burjanadze and former prime minister Zurab Nogaideli put those in the West who want to defend Georgia in a difficult position, a status that Saakashvili appears to be fully cognizant of and willing to exploit.
No one appalled by Russian aggression wants to give Moscow another victory by helping to overthrow Saakashvili, but at the same time, no one concerned about the fate of Georgia wants to see the approach that gave Moscow its initial triumphs continue and cost the long-suffering Georgian people even more.
As a result, the debate concerning what to do about Georgia is likely to be between those who take a short term perspective and back someone who they know has caused many of the problems in the hope that something will turn up and those who take a longer one and recognize that only democracy and a willingness to listen to all points of view can save Georgia.
Eagles Mere, PA, September 30 –Tbilisi’s public defender says that the authoritarianism of President Mikhail Saakashvili must be replaced by genuine democracy if Georgia is to avoid losing even more than it has up to now, and Sobzar Subari called for “all forms of peaceful protest” to persuade the government to make these changes.
In a statement issued last Thursday and posted online on Friday, Subari said that “a government that … listens only to itself and respects only its own judgment has lost the capacity for proper decision making,” something he said Moscow had “taken advantage of” to seize Georgian territory (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19614).
And he warned that “new disasters are to be expected” if the government does not reverse its course toward greater authoritarianism, one that sadly mirrors within Georgia, “the Russian model of authoritarian governance” that “envisages the settlement of problems inside and outside the country by unilateral force.”
That authoritarian style, he continued, constitutes “a fifth column responsible for Georgia’s failure.” And despite that failure, the Georgian president refuses to “face the truth” and analyze this sad reality. Instead, he continued, Saakashvili has contented himself with “shouts that ‘we won’” and other public relations efforts concerts.
What makes Subari’s statement so important is not so much his personal authority in Georgia but rather his insistence that Tbilisi lost control of Abkhazia and South Ossetia precisely because Moscow was in a position to exploit the presence of a Georgian leader who did not feel the need to listen to anyone but himself.
And “as a result” of this intolerance for the views of others and for an honest discussion of Georgia’s problems,” the public defender said, “from dawn to dusk we are fated to listen to propaganda claiming that ‘Misha is cool,’ that everything is fine, that we won and that Georgia will soon blossom.”
To transform the situation from the current authoritarianism to what he called “irreversible democracy, Subaria urged that the government end the persecution of those with different opinion, promote the rule of law and honest elections, abolish state control over the media, and create a system of checks and balances within the central government.
In addition, he said, Tbilisi must rein in presidential power, grant real authority to local governments, introduce the principle of accountability, guarantee property rights, and ensure the constitutional rights of freedom of assembly and protest, all things that will help end the attitude of those in power that Georgia belongs to them rather than to the Georgian people.
And while arguing that the Georgian people have a responsibility to take action to promote these changes, he called on the international community to help: “The Georgian people do not deserve an authoritarian regime,” he said. “Georgia is ready for democracy. Help us develop a democracy” lest the authoritarianism of the current regime lead to “catastrophe.”
Not surprisingly, pro-Saakashvili politicians denounced Subari’s statement. Givi Targamadze, a senior member of the ruling National Movement Party, said the public defender was acting like an opposition politician instead of performing his “immediate” duties as defined by law (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19616).
But Subari was not intimidated: he said over the weekend that in July 2008 he had submitted to the parliament a 1400-page report on the sad state of human rights in Georgia but that the government and its supporters had failed to address that, preferring to denounce him then as now for “political bias” and “incompetence.”
And yesterday, the ideas Subari has put forward attracted a new backer: Erosi Kitsmarishvili, who had served as ambassador in Moscow, announced that he could not “remain in Saakashvili’s power structures” after the Georgian president failed to avoid a war with Russia (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19625 and www.izvestia.ru/georgia1/article3121029/).
In an interview featured in the Georgian weekly “Kviris palitra,” Kitsmarishvili said that Tbilisi could have avoided this conflict if it had been more careful and “if the current Georgia leadership had spent even one percent of what is has on military needs [on addressing domestic problems], “the results would have exceeded all expectations.”
And the now former ambassador added that “very highly placed Western diplomats has written that each such conversation” with Saakashvili about the need to avoid taking steps that Moscow might exploit “had an impact for only two weeks, after which [the Georgian president’s] military rhetoric resumed” and Tbilisi fell into a carefully prepared Russian trap.
Subari’s declaration and the support he is getting from people like Kitsmarishvili, former parliament speaker Nino Burjanadze and former prime minister Zurab Nogaideli put those in the West who want to defend Georgia in a difficult position, a status that Saakashvili appears to be fully cognizant of and willing to exploit.
No one appalled by Russian aggression wants to give Moscow another victory by helping to overthrow Saakashvili, but at the same time, no one concerned about the fate of Georgia wants to see the approach that gave Moscow its initial triumphs continue and cost the long-suffering Georgian people even more.
As a result, the debate concerning what to do about Georgia is likely to be between those who take a short term perspective and back someone who they know has caused many of the problems in the hope that something will turn up and those who take a longer one and recognize that only democracy and a willingness to listen to all points of view can save Georgia.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Window on Eurasia Shorts for December 7 – Georgian Related Events
Some news items about events in and around Georgia during the last week which have attracted less attention than they deserve:
PUTIN SAYS GEORGIA HAS FORFEITED RIGHT TO BREAKAWAY REPUBLICS. In his televised town hall meeting, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that Tbilisi by its actions had lost the right to have Abkhazia and South Ossetia within its boundaries (kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2008/12/04/62600.shtml). In other comments, he said that Russia will never leave the Caucasus (http://www.annews.ru/news/detail.php?ID=174029).
MEDVEDEV SAYS MOSCOW HOPES OTHERS WILL BREAKAWAY STATES. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that Moscow will not require anyone to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent countries but will be very glad if others follow Russia’s lead in doing so (www.materik.ru/index.php?section=news&id=33619).
SAAKASHVILI SEES NO BASIS FOR TALKING TO MOSCOW. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said that he does not see any basis for talking to Moscow. (A spokesman for the Georgian foreign ministry said that Georgia was ready for talks with Moscow if the Russian government recognizes Georgia’s territorial integrity in its internationally recognized borders (www.mignews.com/news/politic/world/051208_234207_16995.html).) At the same time, he said, his government enjoys the supporting of incoming US President Barak Obama who the Georgian leader said had indicated that Washington will support Tbilisi “with all its forces” in (kvkz.ru/knews/gr/2010-saakashvili-u-gruzii-i-rossii-poka-net-perspektiv.html).
GEORGIAN GOVERNMENTS SAYS NATO IS BEING SUPPORTIVE… Even though NATO did not offer a Membership Action Plan to Georgia at its recent ministerial, official Tbilisi put the best face on things and said that the meeting nonetheless represented another step forward toward Georgian membership in NATO (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1234450.html).
…BUT SOME GEORGIANS UNHAPPY OVER NATO’S FAILURE TO OFFER AN MAP. But at least some Georgians, including conservative leader Kahka Kukava expressed their anger at NATO’s failure to take the step they felt alliance leaders had promised and said that Georgia as a result may shift from its consistent pro-Western stance (evrazia.org/news/6397).
NEW GEORGIAN CABINET WINS CONFIDENCE VOTE, PERSONNEL CHANGES FOLLOW. New Prime Minister Grigorl Mgaloblishvili, Tbilisi’s former ambassador to Turkey, won a vote of confidence for his government (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19872). At the time of the vote, he had made only minor changes, but since that time he has replaced the defense and foreign ministers.
NEW FOREIGN MINISTER ASKS AMBASSADORS TO SUBMIT RESIGNATIONS. Girgol Vashadze, the new Georgian foreign minister, has asked all of the countries ambassadors and deputy foreign ministers to submit their resignations so as to give him the chance to form his own team. At the same time, he indicated, that he does not expect to accept all of these resignations (grani.ru/Politics/World/Europe/Georgia/m.145008.html).
TBILISI BREAKS DIPLOMATIC TIES WITH NICARAGUA. After Nicaragua announced that it was establishing relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgia said that it was breaking diplomatic ties with that country. Georgia had had relations with Nicaragua since 1994, but neither country had a resident ambassador in the other (www.ia-centr.ru/publications/3089/).
ABKHAZ FIRE ON RUSSIAN SHIP. Abkhaz shore batteries fired on a Russian ship on patrol off that republic’s coast, an action that both sides expressed regret about but one that indicates just how tense the situation is there and how fragile relations are between Abkhazia and the Russian Federation (www.nr2.ru/moskow/209205.html).
ABKHAZIANS REINFORCE BORDER WITH GEORGIA, MULL NEW CONTACTS. Abkhaz officials say they will work to reinforce the border between their republic and Georgia (www.caucasustimes.com/article.asp?id=18122). Meanwhile, however, at least some Abkhazians reportedly are discussing how to arrange some kind of rapprochement with the Georgia authorities (abkhazeti.info/news/1228186741.php).
TURKISH GOVERNMENT TO SUPPORT MUSLIMS IN ABKHAZIA. Although Ankara has not recognized Abkhazia, the Turkish government has begun talks with Muslim groups there on how Turkey can help the Islamic community in that breakaway republic, including the dispatch to Abkhazia of Turkish imams who speak Abkhaz (religion.ng.ru/events/2008-12-03/3_turkey.html).
GOVERNMENT CRISIS IN SOUTH OSSETIA INTENSIFIES. South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoyty fired his finance minister after the latter had been in office only one week, apparently over issues of controlling money flows in that republic but at least in part because Aleksey Panteleyev was an outsider sent into the republic by Moscow (www.nr2.ru/incidents/210101.html).
SOUTH RUSSIA PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY ADMITS SOUTH OSSETIA AS ASSOCIATE MEMBER. The South Russian Parliamentary Assembly voted to include South Ossetia as an associate member, a step that the organization’s leadership said they hoped would make “not a small contribution to the process of t he establishment of the new republic” but one that inevitably will lower the existing divide between republics north and south of the border of the Russian Federation (www.natpress.net/stat.php?id=3735).
TSKHINVALI TO HAVE PUTIN AND MEDVEDEV STREETS. South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoyty has announced plans to name two streets in Tskhinvali after the incumbent Russian president and prime will cross at some point (evrazia.org/news/6398).
DAGHESTAN NOW ‘MOST EXPLOSIVE REGION’ IN RUSSIA. Although various commentators have warned that the security situation across the North Caucasus is decaying (see, among others, www.islamnews.ru/news-16042.html, www.ng.ru/politics/2008-11-28/3_kartblansh.html and www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=news&div=276220, ever more analysts are suggesting that Daghestan has become “the most explosive region of Russia,” far more unstable than any other (versia.ru/articles/2008/dec/01/situatsiya_v_dagestane).
FALLING PRICES FOR BUILDING MATERIALS MAY CUT COST OF SOCHI GAMES. Dmitry Kozak, Russia’s vice prime minister responsible for the construction of facilities for the 2014 Olympiad in Sochi says that the economic crisis has reduced the cost of construction materials by up to 30 percent, significantly cutting the cost of building many venues and making progress more likely (www.caucasustimes.com/article.asp?id=18092).
PUTIN SAYS GEORGIA HAS FORFEITED RIGHT TO BREAKAWAY REPUBLICS. In his televised town hall meeting, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that Tbilisi by its actions had lost the right to have Abkhazia and South Ossetia within its boundaries (kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2008/12/04/62600.shtml). In other comments, he said that Russia will never leave the Caucasus (http://www.annews.ru/news/detail.php?ID=174029).
MEDVEDEV SAYS MOSCOW HOPES OTHERS WILL BREAKAWAY STATES. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that Moscow will not require anyone to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent countries but will be very glad if others follow Russia’s lead in doing so (www.materik.ru/index.php?section=news&id=33619).
SAAKASHVILI SEES NO BASIS FOR TALKING TO MOSCOW. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said that he does not see any basis for talking to Moscow. (A spokesman for the Georgian foreign ministry said that Georgia was ready for talks with Moscow if the Russian government recognizes Georgia’s territorial integrity in its internationally recognized borders (www.mignews.com/news/politic/world/051208_234207_16995.html).) At the same time, he said, his government enjoys the supporting of incoming US President Barak Obama who the Georgian leader said had indicated that Washington will support Tbilisi “with all its forces” in (kvkz.ru/knews/gr/2010-saakashvili-u-gruzii-i-rossii-poka-net-perspektiv.html).
GEORGIAN GOVERNMENTS SAYS NATO IS BEING SUPPORTIVE… Even though NATO did not offer a Membership Action Plan to Georgia at its recent ministerial, official Tbilisi put the best face on things and said that the meeting nonetheless represented another step forward toward Georgian membership in NATO (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1234450.html).
…BUT SOME GEORGIANS UNHAPPY OVER NATO’S FAILURE TO OFFER AN MAP. But at least some Georgians, including conservative leader Kahka Kukava expressed their anger at NATO’s failure to take the step they felt alliance leaders had promised and said that Georgia as a result may shift from its consistent pro-Western stance (evrazia.org/news/6397).
NEW GEORGIAN CABINET WINS CONFIDENCE VOTE, PERSONNEL CHANGES FOLLOW. New Prime Minister Grigorl Mgaloblishvili, Tbilisi’s former ambassador to Turkey, won a vote of confidence for his government (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19872). At the time of the vote, he had made only minor changes, but since that time he has replaced the defense and foreign ministers.
NEW FOREIGN MINISTER ASKS AMBASSADORS TO SUBMIT RESIGNATIONS. Girgol Vashadze, the new Georgian foreign minister, has asked all of the countries ambassadors and deputy foreign ministers to submit their resignations so as to give him the chance to form his own team. At the same time, he indicated, that he does not expect to accept all of these resignations (grani.ru/Politics/World/Europe/Georgia/m.145008.html).
TBILISI BREAKS DIPLOMATIC TIES WITH NICARAGUA. After Nicaragua announced that it was establishing relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgia said that it was breaking diplomatic ties with that country. Georgia had had relations with Nicaragua since 1994, but neither country had a resident ambassador in the other (www.ia-centr.ru/publications/3089/).
ABKHAZ FIRE ON RUSSIAN SHIP. Abkhaz shore batteries fired on a Russian ship on patrol off that republic’s coast, an action that both sides expressed regret about but one that indicates just how tense the situation is there and how fragile relations are between Abkhazia and the Russian Federation (www.nr2.ru/moskow/209205.html).
ABKHAZIANS REINFORCE BORDER WITH GEORGIA, MULL NEW CONTACTS. Abkhaz officials say they will work to reinforce the border between their republic and Georgia (www.caucasustimes.com/article.asp?id=18122). Meanwhile, however, at least some Abkhazians reportedly are discussing how to arrange some kind of rapprochement with the Georgia authorities (abkhazeti.info/news/1228186741.php).
TURKISH GOVERNMENT TO SUPPORT MUSLIMS IN ABKHAZIA. Although Ankara has not recognized Abkhazia, the Turkish government has begun talks with Muslim groups there on how Turkey can help the Islamic community in that breakaway republic, including the dispatch to Abkhazia of Turkish imams who speak Abkhaz (religion.ng.ru/events/2008-12-03/3_turkey.html).
GOVERNMENT CRISIS IN SOUTH OSSETIA INTENSIFIES. South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoyty fired his finance minister after the latter had been in office only one week, apparently over issues of controlling money flows in that republic but at least in part because Aleksey Panteleyev was an outsider sent into the republic by Moscow (www.nr2.ru/incidents/210101.html).
SOUTH RUSSIA PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY ADMITS SOUTH OSSETIA AS ASSOCIATE MEMBER. The South Russian Parliamentary Assembly voted to include South Ossetia as an associate member, a step that the organization’s leadership said they hoped would make “not a small contribution to the process of t he establishment of the new republic” but one that inevitably will lower the existing divide between republics north and south of the border of the Russian Federation (www.natpress.net/stat.php?id=3735).
TSKHINVALI TO HAVE PUTIN AND MEDVEDEV STREETS. South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoyty has announced plans to name two streets in Tskhinvali after the incumbent Russian president and prime will cross at some point (evrazia.org/news/6398).
DAGHESTAN NOW ‘MOST EXPLOSIVE REGION’ IN RUSSIA. Although various commentators have warned that the security situation across the North Caucasus is decaying (see, among others, www.islamnews.ru/news-16042.html, www.ng.ru/politics/2008-11-28/3_kartblansh.html and www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=news&div=276220, ever more analysts are suggesting that Daghestan has become “the most explosive region of Russia,” far more unstable than any other (versia.ru/articles/2008/dec/01/situatsiya_v_dagestane).
FALLING PRICES FOR BUILDING MATERIALS MAY CUT COST OF SOCHI GAMES. Dmitry Kozak, Russia’s vice prime minister responsible for the construction of facilities for the 2014 Olympiad in Sochi says that the economic crisis has reduced the cost of construction materials by up to 30 percent, significantly cutting the cost of building many venues and making progress more likely (www.caucasustimes.com/article.asp?id=18092).
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Window on Eurasia: Russian Experts Divided on Probability of New War with Georgia
Paul Goble
Vienna, July 1 – As Moscow continues a military exercise in the North Caucasus that it says is designed to prevent conflicts, one leading Russian expert says that the probability of a new war between Russia and Georgia may be as high as 80 percent, while another suggests that such predictions themselves constitute “a dangerous provocation.”
Because Moscow’s invasion of Georgia in August 2008 followed summer Russian military maneuvers in the North Caucasus, its current maneuvers in the region have led many in Moscow, Tbilisi and elsewhere to speculate that the course of events last summer will be repeated during this one.
In an article on the Kavkaz-uzel.ru portal today, two leading analysts square off on the likelihood of a new military conflict, with Sergey Markedonov, a leading Russian specialist on the Caucasus, arguing there is unlikely to be a war and Pavel Felgengauer, a prominent military affairs commentator, presenting the opposite view (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/156045).
Markedonov argues that those who talk about a possible war “as if it were a accomplished fact” and even give “exact dates” for such a conflict are not writing “simply commentaries but rather [engaging in] a very dangerous provocation.” Neither Russia nor Georgia needs or wants a conflict now, he suggests.
“In the government of Russia, there are no idiots ready to take such steps,” he says, and he offers three reasons for that. First, there are the upcoming negotiations with US President Barak Obama about strategic nuclear weapons, talks which are “important to Russia” and which the outbreak of a conflict could threaten.
Suppose for a minute that as these talks are going on, “a war with Georgia” breaks out. “What do you think Obama would do? It is not excluded that he would break off the talks and leave,” not an outcome that the Moscow leadership or the American leadership for that matter would be very happy about.
Second, Markedonov argues that “after the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russia is not at all interested in a new escalation of the conflict.” It has its forces and regimes where it wants them. And “if there had been a desire to occupy Tbilisi, this would already have been done in August of last year.”
And third, he points out, “it is necessary to understand that any politician who comes to power after [Georgian President Mikhiel] Saakashvili be it [Irakli] Alasania or [Nino] Burjanadze will not be pro-Russian. And that will be even more true if this [change in Tbilisi] occurs in the course of military actions.
At the same time, Markedonov insists, Georgia too “cannot be interested in a war now” because “many of the illusions [its leadership had last year] have already been dispelled, since the situation now is far from the most favorable.” First of all, Saakashvili “does not have the sympathy of the West” that he did.
Second, “Georgia’s strategic positions are much worse than they were a year ago,” even if one considers that only from the point of view of geography. And third, Georgia, which has received negative comments from European institutions in the past for last year’s conflict, would receive even more negative ones if it appeared that Tbilisi had in any way triggered a new war.
But Markedonov says that the biggest mistake those who predicting a new conflict on the basis of the ongoing maneuvers are making is to assume that the war last year was a rapid reaction “to the events of August 7-8.” In fact, last year’s war was, in Markedonov’s view, “the result of a four-year-long policy of Georgia” and Moscow’s plans to counter it.
In response, Felgengauer argues that the probability of a new war is “quite high, from 50 to 80 percent,” with the conflict most likely to begin “in the middle of July because otherwise it would be senseless to conduct exercises if the war were being prepared for August, and September is already late.”
The Moscow military expert makes three arguments in support of his conclusion. First, Moscow’s military maneuvers in the region have grown larger and have become more focused on Georgia than in the past. Second, Georgia can be counted on to do something that Moscow can point to as a provocation.
These Georgian actions may be no more than German claims that the Poles attacked the Germans in 1939 or Soviet suggestions in the same year that the Finns fired on the territory of the USSR. But a similar claim about Georgia will be sufficient not only to allow Moscow to act but to explain its actions to others.
And third, Felgengauer notes, there is an important difference between 2008 and 2009. “In August of last year, Georgia was not planning to fight with Russia; it had prepared for war with the separatists and therefore it suffered complete defeat. Now it is preparing for a war with Russia,” a conflict it cannot win but one that might draw in others on its side.
But the Moscow writer’s clinching argument from his point of view appears to be this: Moscow was able to fight a war last year without being punished or even all that seriously condemned by the international community, and thus Russian leaders thus have concluded that they can engage in a new war at little or no cost.
Vienna, July 1 – As Moscow continues a military exercise in the North Caucasus that it says is designed to prevent conflicts, one leading Russian expert says that the probability of a new war between Russia and Georgia may be as high as 80 percent, while another suggests that such predictions themselves constitute “a dangerous provocation.”
Because Moscow’s invasion of Georgia in August 2008 followed summer Russian military maneuvers in the North Caucasus, its current maneuvers in the region have led many in Moscow, Tbilisi and elsewhere to speculate that the course of events last summer will be repeated during this one.
In an article on the Kavkaz-uzel.ru portal today, two leading analysts square off on the likelihood of a new military conflict, with Sergey Markedonov, a leading Russian specialist on the Caucasus, arguing there is unlikely to be a war and Pavel Felgengauer, a prominent military affairs commentator, presenting the opposite view (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/156045).
Markedonov argues that those who talk about a possible war “as if it were a accomplished fact” and even give “exact dates” for such a conflict are not writing “simply commentaries but rather [engaging in] a very dangerous provocation.” Neither Russia nor Georgia needs or wants a conflict now, he suggests.
“In the government of Russia, there are no idiots ready to take such steps,” he says, and he offers three reasons for that. First, there are the upcoming negotiations with US President Barak Obama about strategic nuclear weapons, talks which are “important to Russia” and which the outbreak of a conflict could threaten.
Suppose for a minute that as these talks are going on, “a war with Georgia” breaks out. “What do you think Obama would do? It is not excluded that he would break off the talks and leave,” not an outcome that the Moscow leadership or the American leadership for that matter would be very happy about.
Second, Markedonov argues that “after the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russia is not at all interested in a new escalation of the conflict.” It has its forces and regimes where it wants them. And “if there had been a desire to occupy Tbilisi, this would already have been done in August of last year.”
And third, he points out, “it is necessary to understand that any politician who comes to power after [Georgian President Mikhiel] Saakashvili be it [Irakli] Alasania or [Nino] Burjanadze will not be pro-Russian. And that will be even more true if this [change in Tbilisi] occurs in the course of military actions.
At the same time, Markedonov insists, Georgia too “cannot be interested in a war now” because “many of the illusions [its leadership had last year] have already been dispelled, since the situation now is far from the most favorable.” First of all, Saakashvili “does not have the sympathy of the West” that he did.
Second, “Georgia’s strategic positions are much worse than they were a year ago,” even if one considers that only from the point of view of geography. And third, Georgia, which has received negative comments from European institutions in the past for last year’s conflict, would receive even more negative ones if it appeared that Tbilisi had in any way triggered a new war.
But Markedonov says that the biggest mistake those who predicting a new conflict on the basis of the ongoing maneuvers are making is to assume that the war last year was a rapid reaction “to the events of August 7-8.” In fact, last year’s war was, in Markedonov’s view, “the result of a four-year-long policy of Georgia” and Moscow’s plans to counter it.
In response, Felgengauer argues that the probability of a new war is “quite high, from 50 to 80 percent,” with the conflict most likely to begin “in the middle of July because otherwise it would be senseless to conduct exercises if the war were being prepared for August, and September is already late.”
The Moscow military expert makes three arguments in support of his conclusion. First, Moscow’s military maneuvers in the region have grown larger and have become more focused on Georgia than in the past. Second, Georgia can be counted on to do something that Moscow can point to as a provocation.
These Georgian actions may be no more than German claims that the Poles attacked the Germans in 1939 or Soviet suggestions in the same year that the Finns fired on the territory of the USSR. But a similar claim about Georgia will be sufficient not only to allow Moscow to act but to explain its actions to others.
And third, Felgengauer notes, there is an important difference between 2008 and 2009. “In August of last year, Georgia was not planning to fight with Russia; it had prepared for war with the separatists and therefore it suffered complete defeat. Now it is preparing for a war with Russia,” a conflict it cannot win but one that might draw in others on its side.
But the Moscow writer’s clinching argument from his point of view appears to be this: Moscow was able to fight a war last year without being punished or even all that seriously condemned by the international community, and thus Russian leaders thus have concluded that they can engage in a new war at little or no cost.
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