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Putting Broken Georgia Back Together Again

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  • Putting Broken Georgia Back Together Again

    Los Angeles Times , CA
    April 4 2004

    Putting Broken Georgia Back Together Again

    Saakashvili must navigate political minefields while reviving the
    economy.

    By Rajan Menon, Rajan Menon is Monroe J. Rathbone professor of
    international relations at Lehigh University.


    NEW YORK - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili had better savor
    his party's overwhelming victory in last Sunday's parliamentary
    elections, because his chances for similar triumphs as he tackles his
    country's serious and longstanding problems are clouded.

    For openers, his government doesn't control much of the territory
    over which it has nominal jurisdiction - and hasn't since 1992.
    Abkhazia, the northwestern segment of Georgia's Black Sea coast, is,
    in effect, independent. The Abkhaz, a predominantly Muslim Caucasian
    people that, with Russian help, broke away from Tbilisi more than a
    decade ago, maintain a special relationship with Moscow and are
    wedded to outright independence. Saakashvili is determined to regain
    Abkhazia, as are most Georgians, especially the thousands who were
    expelled from the region. Clashes between Abkhaz and Georgian forces
    routinely puncture a tenuous cease-fire overseen by a predominantly
    Russian-dominated contingent. Peace talks have been fruitless.
    Abkhazia remains a flashpoint and a symbol of the precariousness of
    Georgia's political equilibrium.

    Another slice of Georgia's Black Sea coast, which includes the port
    of Batumi, runs through the dissident region of Adzharia, whose
    indigenous people are predominantly, albeit nominally, Muslim, a
    legacy of several centuries under the Ottoman Empire. The local
    strongman, Aslan Abashidze, rules with scant regard for the central
    government in Tbilisi. He hasn't sought full-fledged independence
    largely because he already possesses its attributes: a constitution,
    control of local revenues, a police and militia, and unchecked power.

    But Adzharia is a crisis-in-waiting. Earlier this month, Abashidze
    banned Saakashvili from entering his fiefdom, then relented after the
    Georgian president imposed an economic blockade. The incident
    highlighted the fragility of Georgian unity. Bringing Adzharia under
    Tbilisi's control won't be easy because Abashidze has independent
    economic resources, an extensive patronage network and connections to
    Russia, which maintains a military base at Batumi.

    A similar situation prevails in South Ossetia. The Georgia
    government's writ doesn't hold in the region, and Russia exercises
    considerable leverage there, not least because the Ossetians are a
    nation divided by state boundaries: Russia's republic of North
    Ossetia holds open the dream of unification for Georgian Ossetians -
    and for Georgians the nightmare of political disintegration.

    Saakashvili's most formidable challenge, then, is to reunite Georgia
    - or at least prevent its fragmentation.

    Another more urgent, but also more doable challenge is to revive
    Georgia's economy. Despite respectable rates of growth in the last
    several years and low inflation and little foreign debt, the
    country's gross national product is still only 40% of its 1989 level.
    About the same proportion of people live below the poverty line, and
    pervasive corruption and persistent doubts about Georgia's ability to
    remain whole have made foreign investors leery.

    But two pipelines - one carrying oil from the Azerbaijani port of
    Baku to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, the other transporting
    natural gas between Baku and the Turkish city of Erzurum - are under
    construction, and their transit revenues will be a significant and
    steady source of income, or so Georgia hopes. But political chaos
    could undo both economic ventures, and not only because of Abkhazia,
    Adzharia and South Ossetia.

    The durability of the Saakashvili's political alliance with Zurab
    Zhvania, the prime minister, and Nino Burjanadze, the parliamentary
    speaker, is uncertain. There are no strong personal or political
    bonds uniting the three. In the weeks before the elections, members
    of Zhvania and Burjanadze's Democrats, which united with
    Saakashvili's National Movement for the parliamentary vote, were
    unhappy that the president's party insisted on getting most of the
    spots on the party list. While Saakashvili remains immensely popular,
    murmurs about an imperial presidency, his dislike of press criticism
    and the inexperience of his top lieutenants have surfaced.

    The bigger question concerns the political opposition. Eleven
    parties, most of them tiny and chaotic, contested Sunday's elections.
    To qualify for representation in parliament, a party had to win at
    least 7% of the overall votes. Some opposition parties complained
    that the high threshold would freeze them out; three, including the
    Citizen's Union, the party of former President Eduard A.
    Shevardnadze, boycotted the vote; and since the elections, complaints
    have arisen about irregularities that put the opposition parties at a
    disadvantage. The problem is that parties left outside the political
    system may choose to disrupt it.

    Then there is Russia, which is determined to keep Georgia within its
    orbit. Ever since its independence, Georgia has battled to break
    Russia's grip, and Saakashvili will not stop that struggle. To
    diminish Russia's leverage and create stability and prosperity, he
    will have to continue Shevardnadze's policies of more trade with and
    investment from the West, as well as solidifying political and
    strategic ties with Europe and the U.S. The pipelines, Georgia's
    participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Partnership
    for Peace and continuing American training for Georgian
    border-security forces are examples of such efforts.

    Russia, which views the South Caucasus, the larger region of which
    Georgia is part, as its historic sphere of influence, has plenty of
    strings to pull. Thousands of Georgians work in Russia, and their
    remittances are vital for many Georgian families. Moscow can impose
    travel and employment restrictions on Georgians, and has done so in
    the past. Georgia owes Russia $157 million (for Georgia, a
    considerable sum) in unpaid debts, and Moscow has used debt
    rescheduling as both carrot and stick. Georgia's economic problems
    and its dependence on Russian energy have enabled Moscow to link the
    resumption of gas supplies to an agreement on the debt. This is a
    matter of simple economics and shrewd accounting; it is also an
    object lesson to Georgia on the necessity of taking Russia seriously.

    Moscow has military sources of influence as well. Russian troops
    remain stationed at Batumi and Akhalkalaki, the predominantly
    Armenian region in the south of Georgia and talks to negotiate a
    schedule for closing the bases have stalled. Russia insists that it
    needs until 2014 to complete the closures, and, despite reaping a
    windfall from surging oil prices, also says that it needs help paying
    for the relocation of its troops. The bases give Moscow leverage on
    important issues.

    Georgia wants to join NATO. Russia wants it to declare neutrality or,
    preferably, to align with Moscow. The bases act as an impediment to
    Georgian membership in NATO. While the possibility of Georgia
    aligning with Russia seems remote, in Moscow's eyes, Tbilisi's
    political course remains uncertain and thus changeable. Its bases in
    Georgia also give Russia a bargaining chip to prevent the U.S. from
    relocating some of its forces from Western Europe to NATO's new East
    European members.

    Finally, the quasi-independence of Abkhazia, Adzharia and South
    Ossetia gives Russia a foothold in Georgia, which controls the road
    and rail links to Armenia, a key Russian ally and host to Russian
    military bases. Not surprisingly, Moscow insists that Tbilisi must
    agree not to forcibly annex these regions before a deal can be
    reached on the bases.

    The parliamentary elections significantly increased Saakashvili's
    political capital, but there are many ways in which his account could
    be drawn down - and rapidly. Georgia's seemingly intractable problems
    can easily transform heroes into villains. Just ask Shevardnadze.
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