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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Russia bids to rid Georgia of its folly |
| 2008-08-12 |
| MOSCOW - One word explains why the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union have obliged themselves to sit on their hands, while Russia's defends its citizens, and national interests, in the Caucasus, and liberates Georgians from the folly of their unpopular president, Mikheil Saakashvili. That word is Kosovo. Russia sent troops into the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia to take on Georgian troops that had advanced into the territory. Four days of heavy fighting have seen thousands of casualties and the Georgian forces withdrawing. Russian troops were reported on Monday to be continuing fighting in parts of Georgia, including around the capital Tbilisi. Eight hundred years of Caucasian history explain why Saakashvili has brought such destruction and ignominy on his countrymen over the past few days. Queen Tamar, the greatest of the Georgian sovereigns (1184-1213), is responsible for the habit Georgian rulers have displayed for the past millennium of treating neighboring Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ossetia and the Black Sea coast of Turkey as protectorates. But as Tamar also taught her countrymen, Georgian ambition always runs out of gas when the neighbors prove to be just as ambitious, richer or tougher. The number 300 explains what tougher means - that's the count of Russian artillery pieces that have been deployed to South Ossetia alone, once Saakashvili dispatched his United States and Israel-trained troops into action at Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. That push, according to Russian military thinking, was not intended to hold Tskhinvali for Georgia, but to destroy it, and withdraw swiftly back into Georgia - ending the South Ossetian secession by liquidating its people. Just how tough Russia's war aims are now - as distinct from the methods - remains to be seen. According to Georgian sources, there is no safe haven for the attackers in Georgia itself, as Russian artillery pounds Georgian military units within range; the Russian air force bombs every military unit and depot on Georgian territory; and the Russian Black Sea fleet counter-fires against Georgian naval vessels off Ochamchire, the Abkhazian regional port. For all Russians, not only those with relatives in Ossetia, the near-total destruction by Georgian guns of Tskhinvali is a war crime. The deaths of about 2,000 civilians in the Georgian attack, and the forced flight of about 35,000 survivors from the town - the last census of Tskhinvali's population reported 30,000 - has been described by Russian leaders, and is understood by Russian public opinion, as a form of genocide. Ninety percent of the town's population are Russian citizens . . . Saakashvili, the Russian argument runs, has initiated military escalation over the past year because his political base has cracked and his domestic support is dwindling. The Georgian political opposition at home, and in exile abroad, agrees. They charge the president and his family, including the powerful Timur Alasaniya, Saakashvili's uncle, of growing corruptly rich off the arms trade and of seizing the country's resource, port and trading concessions for themselves and their supporters. Alasaniya, brother to Saakashvili's mother, holds the official position of Georgian representative to a United Nations Commission on Disarmament in New York (no relation to Irakly Alasaniya, Georgia's ambassador to the United Nations). The leaders of the Georgian opposition nearly succeeded in toppling Saakashvili last autumn. The president was forced to impose military rule in Tbilisi, while his former defense minister, Irakly Okruashvili, publicly accused him of murder and corruption. Okruashvili is currently in Paris, where he has been granted political asylum by the French government. In June, a French court rejected Saakashvili's warrant for the arrest and extradition of his former friend and now bitterest critic. Okruashvili is uncompromised by early career links to Moscow, unlike a number of political party leaders in Tbilisi. Okruashvili is a likely candidate to replace Saakashvili, if and when Georgian public opinion turns against the president. Just your regular, pro-western democrat But this cannot happen while Russian military operations continue against Georgian targets. Leading opposition figures inside the country, like Shalva Natelashvili, head of the Georgian Labor Party, believe they must remain silent for the time being. According to Irakly Kakabadze, an independent opposition organizer based in New York, "Once the bombing stops, I believe Saakashvili will not survive." In the spring, Kakabadze was arrested and imprisoned in Tbilisi by Saakashvili security men trying to disrupt a street protest against the president's regime. Somebody asked me if I prefer a thug like Putin to a democrat like Saakashvili? Guess, I'll have to think about it. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |