by GORDON HAHN, PhD
The former Soviet republics, now loosely connected under the CIS, have moved to the top of the agenda in U.S.-Russian relations. Western media tends to cover these issues from the U.S. perspective, which often lacks important aspects of the two countries in the CIS perhaps most contested in U.S.-West relations: Georgia and Ukraine. In this second installment, ROPV provides an overview of the key issues confronting U.S. and Russia in Georgia as they have developed since the collapse of the USSR.
The West’s efforts to expand NATO to Georgia are exacerbating three important relationships: 1) Russia’s relations with the West; 2) Russia’s relations with Georgia; and 3) Georgia’s relations with its two breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This confluence of conflicts threatens to spark yet another war in the ethnic powder keg known as the ‘Caucasus”. Western coverage of these issues is superficial, biased in favor of the West and Georgia, and dismissive of the historical and ethnic roots of these tensions.
Western press glosses over Georgia’s transgressions, in particular its role in the complex origins of the 1992 Georgian-Abkhazian war. The typical description of the war’s origins is that the Abkhaz ‘rebelled’ or sought independence from Georgia. In fact, Abkhazia’s demands for independence did not emerge until after the war started, and Georgia’s own move toward independence from the USSR is never tied to the sad outcome of war.
In 1990-91, Georgia’s Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia’s radical nationalist and chauvinist policies, aggravated Georgia’s relations with its ethnic minorities, including autonomy-minded Abkhazia and South Ossetia. As Georgia was declaring independence from Moscow, Abkhazia sought a restoration of the broader sovereignty and treaty-based relations with Tbilisi that existed in the 1920s under the early Soviet regime. However, Gamsakhurdia, the champion of Georgian independence, rejected even internal autonomy for Georgia’s regions, including Akhazia.
The West supported Gamsakhurdia because of his opposition to Moscow. At the time he was viewed as a radical reformer along the lines of Russian leader Boris Yeltsin. Western support was forthcoming despite Gamsakhurdia’s authoritarian rule, which included repressing the Georgian opposition as well as Abkhaz and South Ossetian autonomy and threatening the arrest of those who might vote against Georgian independence in the 1991 referendum.
At that same time, the Soviet Communist Party elite in Moscow split into several pro- and anti-reform factions. These factions attempted to weaken their opponents by using various nationalist elements against their opponents, shaking the Soviet state’s foundations. Russian leader Boris Yeltsin chose to support independence movements in union republics like Georgia and the Baltic. Meanwhile, Moscow Communist party hardliners and to some extent Gorbachev himself supported more local autonomy movements within the USSR’s often multi-ethnic ‘union republics’ and Russia. This was calculated to counter the attempts of Yeltsin and those secessionist union republics to break up the Union, since independence-minded union republics were put at risk of losing parts of their territory.
In December 1991, as the USSR was dissolved and Georgia won its independence, Gamsakhurdia was overthrown by informal military units because of rising unpopularity resulting from his authoritarian policies. He and his supporters fled to Gimri and other districts along Abkhazia’s border.
ABKHAZIA
In August 1992, Gamsakhurdia’s successor, former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, sent Georgian forces to Abkhazia ostensibly to rescue Georgian officials taken hostage by Gamsakhurdia and his militia and to secure the railroad line that was repeatedly the target of robberies by Gamsakhurdia’s men. However, the Georgian forces stormed Abkhazia’s capitol Sukhumi, starting a war against Abkhazia for its attempt to establish its autonomy within Georgia.
At this point, Yeltsin seemed to change sides and backed the Abkhaz against Georgia, though it remains unclear to what extent he controlled the Russian army. Russian military forces helped organize and provided safe passage for militias from the North Caucasus to fight on Abkhazia’s side. The predominantly Muslim Abkhaz are ethnically and culturally close to Russia's Kabard, Cherkess, and Adygei ethnic Muslim groups living just across the Russian-Georgia border. These North Caucasus militias and Russian forces helped Abkhazia rout Georgia’s poorly trained quasi-military forces in September 1993.
The war left hundreds dead, thousands injured, ethnically cleansed Georgian and Abkhaz villages, and an unresolved status for Abkhazia, which has retained de facto independence for over 15 years. With the defeat of Georgia, the ethnic Georgian population fled en masse from Abkhazia. The unresolved conflict continues to simmer with occasional incidents of low-scale violence.
Negotiations have been sponsored on and off by a group of countries calling themselves ‘The Friends of Georgia’ under United Nations auspices with no results. Georgia refuses to sign an agreement rejecting the use of force to resolve the conflict, and Abkhazia has declared its unwillingness to be associated with the Georgian state in any way. Elements within Abkhazia favor an associated or full membership within the Russian Federation.
SOUTH OSSETIA
A similar situation prevails in Georgia’s South Ossetia. The unrecognized but de facto independent republic of South Ossetia, is part of the traditional homeland of the ethnic Ossets. The other part of that homeland is Russia’s republic of North Ossetia. The two Ossetias found themselves in separate countries upon the collapse of the USSR and Georgia’s independence. Ossets on both sides of the border prefer a either a united and independent Ossetia or a united Ossetia within the Russian Federation. North Ossetia and Abkhazia have declared mutual support in the event of an attack by Georgian forces.
These conflicts have put Moscow and Tbilisi on opposite sides of the barricades, threatening to spark a Georgian-Russia war.
RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN TENSIONS
Both sides have been engaged in brinksmanship including violating the other side’s state sovereignty and territorial integrity. Russia has distributed Russian passports to Abkhazia’s and South Ossetia’s residents in clear violation of Georgia’s sovereignty and of international law. More recently, Moscow has established special relations with both breakaway regions and sent railroad troops into Abkhazia ostensibly to repair the railroad connecting the region with Russia. Also, Tbilisi has blamed Moscow for several assassinations and attempted assassinations of Georgian officials.
For its part, Georgia has repeatedly denied, then acknowledged, then denied and acknowledged again the presence of Chechen militants and allied jihadists, including foreign and al Qaeda operatives, as well as their bases in its Pankisi Gorge. This game has given safe haven to terrorists who later were involved in numerous attacks throughout Russia.
On May 8, 2008, current Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili threatened to play the Caucasus jihadi card once more, declaring: “(I)f someone wants to annex a part of Georgia, this will inevitably provoke consequences in the North Caucasus, but we do not want this.” Former president Shevardnadze was more explicit: “The Chechens will be more active in the near future, and one should advise them not to waste this moment.”
NATO EXPANSION AND GEORGIA’S ROSE ‘REVOLUTION’
It is into this maelstrom that the U.S. and the West have entered with their efforts to expand the NATO military alliance to Georgia and train and equip its armed forces. Since NATO policy requires that any prospective member not only have sound democratic institutions, including free and fair elections, but also have no outstanding territorial or sovereignty disputes, Russia’s opposition to NATO’s presence on its borders means that Moscow has an interest in preventing a resolution of these unresolved conflicts.
The West seeks Georgia’s membership in NATO despite the marginal progress in democratization achieved by Mikhail Saakashvili’s 2005 ‘Rose Revolution’ against Shevardnadze. The rose ‘revolution’ is a misnomer. While the seizure of power by mobs in the streets led by Saakashvili was largely without violence, there was no appreciable regime change. The corrupt marginally democratic Shevardnadze regime simply made the mistake of seeking to retain power by fudging election results in part because of the heated rhetoric of the Saakashvili-led opposition, which threatened Shevardnadze and his allies with prison for corruption engaged in by regime and opposition forces alike. The Harvard-educated pro-Western Saakashvili has been provocative in relations with Russia but has made limited gains against corruption.
More recently, both the January 2008 presidential and May 2008 parliamentary elections were badly marred by election irregularities, including falsification, intimidation, and vote buying. President Saakashvili responded to the opposition’s demonstrations and refusal to recognize the results of the earlier election with a temporary ban on demonstrations and the closing of mass media outlets. An OSCE report finding that 33 percent of the presidential ballot was counted incorrectly. Reports by the Russian newspaper Novaya gazeta, a paper in opposition to the Putin regime, on the massive corruption in both elections were largely ignored by Western governments and media.
U.S. President George Bush reiterated his support for Georgia’s entry into NATO at the alliance’s April 2008 summit.
Forgot to mention about the mysterious disappearance of individuals who oppose Saakhaashvili..
Posted by: Russia Cruise | August 02, 2008 at 10:34 AM