Georgia In Their Mind

[gamavor]

Georgia on their mind

 

The west has once again thrown its weight behind a dictatorship to

guarantee oil supplies

 

The Guardian (UK)

April 1, 2004

 

By John Laughland in Batumi

 

In 1918, when Lord Balfour was foreign secretary, he said: "The only

thing which interests me in the Caucasus is the railway line which

delivers oil from Baku to Batumi. The natives can cut each other to

pieces for all I care." Little has changed in world geopolitics since

the end of the first world war, when the Black Sea port of Batumi in

Georgia was briefly under British rule. Although an oil pipeline from

Baku to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Turkey is planned, it will

take years to complete. When it is built, it will deliver oil

exclusively to the American market, but for the time being Caspian oil

still trundles across the Caucasus to Batumi in trains.

 

This is why, in Sunday's partial rerun of last November's

parliamentary elections, the world's media concentrated exclusively on

the prickly relations between the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, and the

autonomous region of Adjara, of which Batumi is the capital. This is

in spite of the fact that Adjara, unlike Abkhazia and South Ossetia,

has never declared independence from Georgia. The standard- issue

media fairy-tale pits a democratically elected Georgian president,

Mikheil Saakashvili - who overthrew his predecessor Edward

Shevardnadze in a US-backed coup last November - opposing an

authoritarian regional leader in Adjara, Aslan Abashidze.

 

This is not how the Georgians see things. In an interview with a Dutch

magazine, Sandra Roelofs, the Dutch wife of the new Georgian president

and hence the new first lady of Georgia, explained that her husband

aspires to follow in the long tradition of strong Georgian leaders

"like Stalin and Beria". Saakashvili started his march on Tbilisi last

November with a rally in front of the statue of Stalin in his

birthplace, Gori. Unfazed, the western media continue to chatter about

Saakashvili's democratic credentials, even though his seizure of power

was consolidated with more than 95% of the vote in a poll in January,

and even though he said last week that he did not see the point of

having any opposition deputies in the national parliament.

 

In Sunday's vote - for which final results are mysteriously still

unavailable - the government appears to have won nearly every

seat. Georgia is now effectively a one-party state, and Saakashvili

has even adopted his party flag as the national flag.

 

New world order enthusiasts have praised the nightly displays on

Georgian television of people being arrested and bundled off to prison

in handcuffs. The politics of envy and fear combine in an echo of

1930s Moscow, as Saakashvili's anti-corruption campaign, egged on by

the west, allows the biggest gangsters in this gangster state to

eliminate their rivals.

 

History is repeating itself: it was on the back of an anti- corruption

campaign that Shevardnadze became first secretary of the Communist

party in Georgia in 1972. Following his stint as foreign minister of

the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, he returned to his former fiefdom,

which he ran as a brutal dictator from 1992 to 2003. He was as

assiduously lauded by the west then as his protege and successor is

now.

 

And as for the operetta "revolution" staged against Shevardnadze's

regime last November, it has allowed a changing of the guard within an

unchanged power structure. Not only was Saakashvili minister of

justice under Shevardnadze, but the thuggish Zurab Zhvania, the prime

minister, had the same job under Shevardnadze, during which the worst

abuses of power (now denounced) occurred. The head of national

security is the same, and all the members of the former president's

party have converted to the new president's party. Shevardnadze's old

party has disappeared.

 

That November's "revolution of roses" was stage-managed by the

Americans has been admitted even by the new president himself, who has

said that his coup could not have succeeded without US help.

Abashidze also confirmed it on Saturday in Batumi, when he said that

his discussions with the American ambassador to Georgia, Richard

Miles, had convinced him that nothing can happen in the country

without a green light from Washington. Georgia, Russia's backyard, and

the country used as a base by the Chechens, is now as thoroughly

controlled by the US as Panama - and for much the same reasons. As in

Central America, economic devastation has been the handmaiden of

political control, reducing what was previously the richest Soviet

republic to a miserable, pre-industrial subsistence.

 

As we know from Tony Blair's visit to Libya, the west is happy to make

alliances with dictatorships if strategic interests dictate. Georgia

certainly qualifies on that score. And events in the Caucasus are

connected to events in Iraq. Because of the intensity of Iraqi

resistance to US and British occupation, oil is not flowing from there

as freely as had been hoped. Hence the imperative quickly to secure

other sources of cheap fuel for America's gas-guzzlers. In Libya as in

Georgia, western support for dictators, in the name of strategy, may

be the oldest trick in the book. But it is also the most

short-sighted.

 

 

John Laughland is a trustee of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group

www.bhhrg.org

 

Copyright, Guardian Newspapers Limited, Apr 01, 2004

[Armen]

August 12, 2004 edition

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0812/p06s01-wosc.html

 

Georgia risks war over separatists

By Fred Weir | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

 

MOSCOW - War clouds are gathering over the former Soviet Caucasus, as Georgia's ambitious US-backed President Mikheil Saakashvili moves to reunite his fractured nation by confronting two separatist provinces with close ties to Russia.

 

Unlike a previous cycle of vicious civil wars in the early 1990s, when the pro-Moscow republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia won de facto independence from Georgia, the current tensions threaten to draw Russia directly into any fresh conflict. The US, nervous over the security of a crucial oil pipeline slated to open next year across Georgia, backs Mr. Saakashvili's bid to restore central authority - as long as it doesn't erupt into open warfare.

 

Many Russian experts argue that Saakashvili ought to concentrate on solving Georgia's massive economic and social problems, and cooperate with Russia to find a negotiated settlement for Abkhazia and South Ossetia that addresses the historic complexities of these regions.

 

But others warn the region is a powderkeg that could explode, despite the best intentions in Moscow and Washington. "Georgia is the No. 1 flash point between the US and Russia just now. There are competing interests there which could be managed if Russia and the US cooperate closely, but could easily fly out of control if they don't," says Vitaly Naumkin, director of the independent Center for Strategic and International Studies in Moscow.

 

Saakashvili, a US-educated lawyer, has set out to reverse Georgia's reputation as a failed state since coming to power in the peaceful "Rose Revolution" that overthrew former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze last November. He was elected in January, with over 90 percent of the vote, on pledges to end Georgia's official corruption, rebuild the economy, and reunify the country.

 

He scored a major success in May by peacefully driving out the strongman of another wayward Georgian region, Adjaria, and bringing it back under central government control.

 

Saakashvili insists his goal is to extend the democratic "Rose Revolution" and rule of law to all of Georgia. "These current tensions in South Ossetia began as a result of our successful and resolute efforts to put an end to the criminality and illegality that for too long was the norm in the South Caucasus," Saakash- vili said during a visit to the US last week.

 

Daily gun battles are reported from South Ossetia, a mountainous region of about 100,000, which straddles the most important pass through the Caucasus Mountains and enjoys very close relations with the neighboring Russian republic of North Ossetia. Saakashvili last week replaced the usual squads of border police in the area with US-trained Georgian troops. Violent incidents between them and Russian "peacekeeping" troops appear to be multiplying.

 

Russian news agencies reported that Georgian forces shelled the South Ossetian capital city of Tskhinvali with mortars on Tuesday. "The main purpose of these actions is to create an unbearable psychological climate and scare the population of South Ossetia," said Irina Gagloyeva, a spokesperson for the South Ossetian government.

 

Saakashvili accuses Moscow of meddling in South Ossetia, with the eventual aim of annexing it. On Tuesday he charged that Russian secret services have passed out 5,000 Russian passports to local people in the past week alone. "We are facing purposeful actions of very serious people which include elements of the misappropriation of the territory of another country," Saakashvili told journalists Tuesday.

 

Tensions are also rising in Abkhazia, a mainly Muslim republic of about 95,000, which, like South Ossetia, is ethnically and linguistically distinct from Georgia. Abkhazia also won its independence - with covert Russian aid - following a brutal civil war in the early '90s. The tiny republic is a subtropical Black Sea zone of beaches and snow-capped mountains, where about 700,000 Russians vacation each summer.

 

In early August Saakashvili ordered the Georgian navy to blockade the region and open fire on any "smugglers" trying to dock. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov lashed back, saying any attack on a Russian vessel would be tantamount to "piracy" and might draw a military response from Moscow.

 

Experts say that Russian President Vladimir Putin, who cooperated with Saakashvili's drive to reincorporate Adjaria into Georgia last May, may find himself hobbled by a myriad of ties that have developed between Russia and the two secessionist Georgian republics over the past decade. Most Abkhazians and South Ossetians have taken out Russian citizenship and earn their living by trading with Russia. Abkhazia draws its main income from Russian tourism.

 

"Russian policy under Putin is much more responsible than it was under (former President Boris) Yeltsin," says Irina Zvigelskaya, a professor at the official Institute of Foreign Relations in Moscow. "But we cannot walk away from these people and the interdependences that have built up between them and Russia, and Saakashvili is not making Putin's position easier by launching all these provocations."

 

But Saakashvili is doing what he must, says Viktor Kremeniuk, deputy director of the official Institute of USA-Canada Studies in Moscow. "Any chance for Georgia's future prosperity depends on the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline," which is slated to begin pumping Caspian oil to Western markets next year. If instability reigns in Georgia potential sabotage will remain a key concern.

 

"Security of the pipeline is a major reason the US is backing Saakashvili's efforts to restore state sovereignty over all of Georgia," Mr. Kremeniuk says. "Saakashvili has the support, he has the energy and he needs to accomplish reunification before he can work out an economic strategy to get his country back on track."

[Armen]

Erdogan Meets Georgian P.M. Zhvania

Anadolu Agency: 8/11/2004

http://www.turkishpress.com/turkishpress/news.asp?ID=24247

 

 

TBILISI - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania today in Tbilisi.

 

Meetings between Turkish and Georgian delegations will be held after Erdogan-Zhvania tete-a-tete.

 

State Ministers Besir Atalay and Kursad Tuzmen, deputies and chief advisors of Prime Ministry will also attend the meetings between delegations.

 

Erdogan will later be received by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and they will hold a joint news conference.

 

(GC-ULG) 11.08.2004

 

 

Kars - Tbilisi Railway Project Revised

Anadolu Agency: 8/11/2004

http://www.turkishpress.com/turkishpress/news.asp?ID=24260

 

ANKARA - Kars-Tbilisi railway project will be revised and connected to a railway that will be constructed in Azerbaijan.

 

Technical delegations from Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan met last week in the Turkish Transportation Ministry building in Ankara and they decided to put into force a new double-track railway project that will connect Turkey's eastern Kars province to Azerbaijani capital Baku, via Georgia's Tbilisi city, in an effort to revive the historical Silk Road.

 

The parties already have a cooperation project called Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) to transport Caspian oil into European markets via Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. This time the three countries will make a significant investment in transportation sector by implementing a double-track railway project.

 

The parties are planning to raise a loan from international markets to finance the construction of the Kars-Tbilisi-Baku railway which is estimated to cost almost 500 million U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, interested parties agreed that Turkey will carry out feasibility studies on the project for a total cost of 1 million U.S. dollars.

 

The project is included in Turkish Railways, Seaports and Airports Construction Directorate General's investments portfolio for 2005.

 

The railway will be 180 kilometers in length and nearly 70 kilometers part of it will be on Turkish soil, 30 kilometers on Georgian territory and 80 kilometers in Azerbaijan.

 

(MS-ULG) 11.08.2004

[Armen]

Three Georgians Dead in Overnight Shelling in South Ossetia

 

Three Georgians were killed and several others injured as a result of an overnight shelling in breakaway South Ossetia. A majority of the overnight fire was heard from the village of Sarabuki, which is controlled by the Ossetian side.

 

The Georgian side accuses the South Ossetian militias of opening fire at the Georgian villages located in the conflict area. "We do not need an escalation of the situation or the resolution of the conflict through use of force," State Minister for Conflict Resolutions Goga Khaindrava said on August 12.

 

Meanwhile, the South Ossetian authorities blame the Georgian side for provoking an armed conflict in the breakaway region. Irina Gagloyeva, spokesperson for the South Ossetian de facto authorities, told RIA Novosti on August 12 during a telephone conversation that Tskhinvali, the capital of breakaway South Ossetia, and the surrounding villages were heavily shelled by the Georgian side last night.

 

With the aggravated situation in the Tskhinvali region serving as a backdrop, the Georgian Power Ministers are holding talks with President Saakashvili and Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania over the recent developments in breakaway South Ossetia.

 

 

Tea Gularidze, Civil Georgia / 2004-08-12 15:10:26

[Armen]

Turkey Reiterates its Full Support to Georgia

 

/ civil georgia, tbilisi / 2004-08-12 10:45:56

 

Visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on August 11 that Turkey is ready to cooperate with Georgia on both political and economic issues.

 

“Turkey completely supports Georgia’s territorial integrity and expresses readiness for cooperating on political and economic issues,” Recep Erdogan said at a joint news briefing with President Saakashvili on August 11.

 

He said Turkey, as a NATO member state, is ready to give recommendations to Georgia and even to mediate in its accession into NATO.

 

Earlier on August 11, during his talks with Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania the Turkish Prime Minister initiated the opening of a third checkpoint on the Karsi-Kartsakhi section of the Georgian-Turkish border and even expressed a readiness to fund the project.

 

The two sides also agreed to resume construction of the Karsi-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi rail link, which has been suspended for 8 years.

 

Simultaneoulsy, a group of Turkish businessmen, who are accompanying the Turkish Prime Minister during his visit, are acquainting themselves with the investment environment in Georgia.

 

Later today the Turkish delegation will travel with President Saakashvili to the capital of Adjaral, Batumi.

 

Mikheil Saakashvili hailed the visit of the Turkish delegation as ‘vital’ and expressed a readiness for close cooperation.

[Armen]

Well, well...enter Turkey...

[Armen]

Looks like U.S. is pushing Saakashvili to start a war in Caucasus. Yesterday another 15 people were killed in shooting between Georgians and Osetians.

Taking into account the relocation of the U.S. bases and Russia's oil power maneuvring using the Yukos affair, U.S. and Russia are again locked in a regional cold confrontation.

[Armen]

RUSSIAN RADIO REPORTS 20 KILLED IN SOUTH OSSETIA FIGHTING

 

Ekho Moskvy radio, Moscow

16 Aug 04

 

 

(Presenter) The number of victims of the armed conflict in South

Ossetia increases every day. There was more gunfire here last night,

as a result of which about 20 people have been killed and over 30

wounded. Marina Maksimova reports on the events of the last few hours

in this trouble spot.

 

(Correspondent) Two villages came under fire - the South Ossetian

Sarabuk and the Georgian Tamarasheni - and according to the command of

the Joint Peacekeeping Force in the conflict zone, the shooting came

from both the Georgian and the South Ossetian sides, and not only from

light firearms.

 

Representatives of both sides accuse each other of starting the

hostilities. Our border posts were fired at for four hours in the

early hours of today, the Georgian Interior Ministry says. The South

Ossetian press and information committee says they hardly responded to

the fire even though Georgia was seeking a military provocation.

 

Thus, for the moment all efforts to agree a truce are stalling. The

night-time shootouts in the conflict zone are continuing and,

according to some experts, threaten to develop into a large-scale war.

 

(ITAR-TASS news agency (Moscow, in Russian 0704 gmt) quoted Russian

Defence Ministry spokesman Nikolay Baranov as telling journalists in

Tskhinvali that two Georgian peacekeepers had been killed and four

Ossetian peacekeepers had been wounded in this morning's clashes.

 

Baranov said the firing had come from a self-propelled howitzer in the

area of the village of Nikozi. "Neither the Russian, Georgian and

South Ossetian peacekeepers, nor the forces of the conflicting sides

have such weapons," he s aid.

 

RIA-Novosti news agency (Moscow, in Russian 0707 gmt) quoted a

representative of the South Ossetian press and information committee

as denying earlier reports that 15 South Ossetians had died in this

morning's clashes. "Fortunately, no-one was killed, there are three

wounded," she said.)

[Armen]

Hey, this sounds like a war already.

[ED]

Georgia claims a step against South Ossetia

From news reports AP, Reuters

Friday, August 20, 2004

 

Separatists deny loss of strategic area

 

TBILISI, Georgia President Mikhail Saakashvili said his forces seized strategic heights after fighting in the rebel South Ossetia region Thursday and promised more such victories to fulfill a pledge to reunite his country.

 

Hours later, Saakashvili said his troops would hand over the heights above South Ossetia's regional capital of Tskhinvali to peacekeepers and pull back in what he described as a last chance to avoid all-out war there.

 

"There will be many more such gifts in the future," Saakashvili said after announcing at a ceremony that Georgian forces had "wiped out" South Ossetian separatists responsible for killing Georgian soldiers in overnight fighting.

 

The battles were some of the worst fighting in the breakaway region since a war more than a decade ago. Georgian officials said three Georgian soldiers were killed overnight, while South Ossetia's military chief said three civilians had died in Georgian shelling of Tskhinvali, the regional capital. South Ossetian officials denied Georgian forces had captured the hills, saying fighting in the area was continuing.

 

"Georgian killers have begun a large-scale military action and are trying to capture Tskhinvali," said Irina Gagloyeva, a spokeswoman for the South Ossetian government. Fighting has raged nightly in the tiny region despite a cease-fire agreement negotiated last week, and government and separatist officials have blamed each other for breaking the truce. Tensions in South Ossetia, which broke away in 1992 after an 18-month war that killed hundreds, have flared since Saakashvili was elected in January. Natia Chikovani, a spokeswoman for the Georgian Defense Ministry, said three Georgian servicemen were killed and eight wounded overnight as separatists fired at Georgian troops outside ethnic Georgian villages in the province.

 

The latest casualties brought the number of Georgian soldiers killed since Friday's truce to nine, according to official statements.

 

Georgia's interior minister, Irakly Okruashvili, said that in a counterattack, government forces captured hills above a road linking ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia with the rest of Georgia, and killed eight Cossack mercenaries. (Reuters, AP)

 

2 killed near Chechnya

 

Hundreds of Russian police searched Thursday for a group of gunmen who killed two police officers in a southern province near Chechnya, according to officials, The Associated Press reported from Rostov-on-Don, Russia.

 

The incident began late Wednesday when police in Kabardino-Balkaria in the Caucasus Mountains clashed with more than 50 militants on the edge of a forest about 10 kilometers, or 6 miles, from the provincial center, Nalchik.

 

The unidentified gunmen fired at the police, killing two officers and wounding four, said Alexei Polyansky, a spokesman for the Russian Interior Ministry's branch in southern Russia.

 

In a separate clash in the area, gunmen riding in a vehicle refused to stop for a police check and fired at the officers late Wednesday. The police fired back, killing two men in the car, while two others fled, Polyansky said.

 

http://www.iht.com/articles/534859.htm

[Armen]

Armenia should be so careful now. Kocharian is in Sochi meeting with Putin.

[gamavor]

Georgians and Azeris should swallow their ego and learn to live in peace with the rest of Caucasus. It was Stalin who created these small Empires and now is the time for pay back. I wonder how can one force me to live on my own land with somebody else under foreign jurisdiction if I don't want to. NO WAY. Either they will learn to live as equals, or Long live Republic of Tbilisi, because this is all that will left out of Georgia.

[skhara]

Georgians and Azeris should swallow their ego and learn to live in peace with the rest of Caucasus.

Doesn't just leave Armenia? I wouldn't say Russian Caucasus is very peaceful right now .

 

 

Anyway, what the feck is Georgia's problem anyway? Armenians have been nice to them, but they in return act like a bunch of hostile a******* to Armenia often siding with Turks in the past.

 

And not only in the past, but they take a pro-Turkish stance now. I guess pro-Nato = pro-Turkish.

 

Is this some kind of cultural animosity or something? They are contemptuous of the fact the Armenians made contributions to their country?

 

Ok, now that I'm done with the rant.

 

Georgia says that Russia has been bringing weapons to Ossetia and that they are amassig troops on their borders and are planning to invade them.

[Armen]

ITAR-TASS News Agency

TASS

October 23, 2004 Saturday

 

Guns found in music hall shortly before president's arrival

 

By Tengiz Pachkoria

 

TBILISI

 

Special services found a submachine gun and a sniper rifle in one of

the music halls that the presidents of Georgia and Armenia are

supposed to visit on Saturday evening.

 

The State Security Ministry said the submachine gun and the sniper

rifle were found in one of the storage rooms several hours before the

arrival of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and Armenian

President Robert Kocharyan.

 

It is not known yet who is the owner of the weapons or how they got

into the building. Special services searched both the performers and

spectators.

[dianjan]

ITAR-TASS News Agency 

TASS

October 23, 2004 Saturday

 

Guns found in music hall shortly before president's arrival

 

By Tengiz Pachkoria

 

TBILISI

 

Special services found a submachine gun and a sniper rifle in one of

the music halls that the presidents of Georgia and Armenia are

supposed to visit on Saturday evening.

 

The State Security Ministry said the submachine gun and the sniper

rifle were found in one of the storage rooms several hours before the

arrival of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and Armenian

President Robert Kocharyan.

 

It is not known yet who is the owner of the weapons or how they got

into the building. Special services searched both the performers and

spectators.

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

I am praying that the situation in Georgia doesn't get any worse. It sucks that US is pressuring Saakshvili to go to war. After US gets what they wants, they will forget about Georgia and it will be left more devestated than it is now. Also, we all know that the war in Georgia will affect the rest of Caucusus.

[Armen]

President Saakashvili visits ethnic Armenians in southern Georgia

 

Imedi TV, Tbilisi

28 Dec 04

 

 

[Presenter] During his visit to Akhalkalaki [town in southern Georgia

with a large ethnic Armenian population] today, which lasted just

about 30 minutes, the president managed to find time to visit two

local families. Mikheil Saakashvili unexpectedly called on an ethnic

Georgian and an ethnic Armenian family and personally gave them New

Year presents. [Passage omitted]

 

[saakashvili, interviewed] Unfortunately, as you know, my predecessor

[Eduard Shevardnadze] would only meet local activists in the function

room. He seemed to think that there was no need to visit people. As

for me, I am more interested in ordinary people than in activists. I

take interest in specific people and their problems.

 

Next year we are starting the implementation of a big project, the

construction of the Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki road. This, naturally, cannot

be completed within a year. We are thinking of starting it some time

in the autumn. We have already secured funding for that. It will be

one of the main projects of my presidency.

 

This region needs to be integrated and linked to the main transit

routes, to the capital of Georgia. People should be able to move about

more. They should be able to sell their produce somewhere else and be

integrated into Georgia both economically and politically. [Passage

omitted]

[Sasun]

I kind of like Sahakashvili? Anyone else liking him? True, he has yet to fulfill his promise to Armenia to lower the transit rates, but he seems so much better than Shevardnadze to Armenians.

[Armen]

... but he seems so much better than Shevardnadze to Armenians.

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

This is ture. And he also seems not to be in love with Azerbaijan as Shevarnadze used to be. His first visit to Yerevan was much better than his contraversial trip to Baku.

[Sasun]

This is ture. And he also seems not to be in love with Azerbaijan as Shevarnadze used to be. His first visit to Yerevan was much better than his contraversial trip to Baku.

style_images/master/snapback.png

Maybe he really has Armenian blood?

[Armen]

Maybe he really has Armenian blood?

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

Weather he does or not, he's gonna act based on the interests of Georgia as a strong state. He wants to revive the Georgia of the Bagrationi dinasty (he even adopted their flag/the current Georgian flag). It's essence is strong, European oriented Georgian-Armenian alliance.

[Sasun]

It's essence is strong, European oriented Georgian-Armenian alliance.

style_images/master/snapback.png

It's a very good vision indeed.