The Messenger, Georgia
March 11 2005

“Confront Russia”: U.S. Senate told

U.S. analysts advise Senate to stand up to Russia and actively pursue
resolution of frozen conflicts
By James Phillips

The U.S. Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations heard appeals on
March 8 to stand up to Russia and support countries of the Black Sea
region, including Georgia.

At a hearing on March 8 entitled ‘The Future Of Democracy In The
Black Sea Area,’ the committee heard testimony from the U.S. State
Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, European and
Eurasian Affairs, John F. Tefft, President of the Project on
Transitional Democracies Bruce P. Jackson, Jamestown Foundation
Fellow Vladimir Socor, and Zeyno Baran, Director of the International
Security and Energy Programs at the Nixon Center.

Outlining the US government’s policy towards Georgia, Tefft stressed
that “we support President Saakashvili’s goal of reuniting the
country, and encourage Georgia to resolve the conflicts in South
Ossetia and Abkhazia in a peaceful manner. We also continue to insist
that Russia fulfill its remaining Istanbul commitments” to withdraw
its military bases from the country.

“The Rose Revolution of 2003 demonstrated that Georgians desire fair
elections and good governance, and are capable of holding their
government accountable,” Tefft said, adding that, “Since the Rose
Revolution, Georgia has made significant internal reforms to fight
official corruption, consolidate bureaucracy and increase revenue
collection in order to provide better services to its own citizens.”

However, the deputy assistant secretary of state warned that
“Progress in Georgia is hampered by ongoing separatist conflicts in
South Ossetia and Abkhazia.”

In his testimony, Vladimir Socor focused on threats to
Western-oriented countries in the region, “mainly from Russia and its
local protégés.”

“The overarching goal,” he explained, “is to thwart these countries’
Euro-Atlantic integration and force them back into a Russian sphere
of dominance. The scope, intensity, and systematic application of
threats has markedly increased over the last year, as part of
President Putin’s contribution to the shaping of Russia’s conduct.”

“Old-type threats stem from troops and bases stationed unlawfully in
other countries, seizures of territories, border changes de facto,
ethnic cleansing, and creation of heavily armed proxy statelets.
Georgia, Moldova, and Azerbaijan are the targets of such blackmail,”
he declared.

“New-type threats,” he continued, “are those associated with illegal
arms and drugs trafficking, rampant contraband, and organized
transnational criminality, all of which use the Russian-protected
secessionist enclaves as safe havens and staging areas. In the Black
Sea region,” he added, “state actors within Russia are often behind
these activities, severely undermining the target countries’
economies and state institutions.”

The need to confront Russia

Bruce Jackson agreed with Socor on the need to stand up to Russian
aggression towards Georgia and other Black Sea region countries.

Referring to the Rose and Orange revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine,
which he said had “changed the structure of politics in Minsk,
Chisinau and as far away as Almaty, Bishkek and Beirut,” Jackson
stated that, “Without doubt, the largest and most dramatic democratic
changes are occurring in this part of the Euro-Atlantic.”

“Sadly, it is not only our hopes that draw our attention to this
region, but also our fears,” he added, explaining that a belt of
frozen conflicts from Transdnestria in eastern Moldova through
Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia to Nagorno-Karabakh continued
to pose threats to the security of the region as a whole.

“In Transdnestria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, transnational crime
has found a home and developed a base for trafficking in weapons,
drugs, women and children,” he warned. “These criminal enterprises
destabilize the governments of the region, threaten Europe with
illicit traffic, and ultimately pose a danger to the United States
with their capability and intent to sell weapons and technology to
our enemies.”

Reporting particularly on Georgia, Jackson stated that the country,
“under the leadership of President Misha Saakashvili, has finished an
extraordinary first year of reform, which saw the breakaway province
of Adjara reunited with the constitutional government in Tbilisi. By
all indicators, such as its qualification for participation within
the Millennium Challenge Account, Georgia is delivering on its
commitments to economic reform and the democratic transformation of
its society and government.”

“Like Ukraine, however,” Jackson added, “Georgia has encountered
serious and continuous obstruction from Russia. The Russian
Government has refused to comply with its international treaty
obligation to withdraw its troops from the Soviet-era bases on
Georgian soil and has consistently supported separatists in the
breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia.”

“Late last year, Russia blocked the OSCE from reinforcing a
peacekeeping mission in South Ossetia in order to protect its ability
to ship prohibited weapons and explosives through the Roki Tunnel to
paramilitary gangs in South Ossetia,” he stated, adding that Russia
had also “forced the OSCE to close the Border Monitoring Operation”
on the Georgian-Russian border.

“Russia’s actions could very well prove to be the death knell for the
OSCE; we must ensure that they are not for democratic Georgia,”
Jackson declared.

Jackson outlined a series of policy objectives for the United States
with regard to the Black Sea region. Among these, he stated, there
was a need to “prioritize the frozen conflicts.”

“President Misha Saakashvili’s enlightened peace plan for South
Ossetia has been greeted by a resounding silence in Brussels and
Washington, which is dumbfounding,” he stated.

Also of importance, he stated, was to “confront Russia.”

“Just because Russian officials become peevish when we point out that
the poison used on Yushchenko and the explosives used in the car
bombing in Gori, Georgia came from Russia, does not mean we should
ignore this conduct,” he said.

Georgia: Inspiration for change

In the final testimony, Zeyno Baran chose to title the first of the
four sections of his testimony as Georgia: Inspiration for Change.

Describing the Rose Revolution, which she witnessed first hand, Baran
categorically refutes the opinion that it “was not a movement led or
even inspired by the United States; it was a domestic uprising
against a corrupt and weak regime that was rotting internally and
could not deliver on any promises to restore stability and economic
growth and bring Georgia closer to the transatlantic community,” she
stated.

Noting that Saakashvili’s first foreign visit after the Rose
Revolution, in January 2004 before his inauguration, was to Kiev,
Baran stated that “over the next year Georgians and Ukrainians, in
government as well as in civil society, worked together to ensure
Ukraine’s democratic triumph.”

“The sustainability of the Georgian and Ukrainian revolutions is
essential for others in the
Black Sea region to follow a reformist trend,” Baran added, warning
that without US and western support, this may not be possible.

The US must do all it can to support Georgia and Ukraine’s
aspirations for NATO and EU membership, Baran said, as well as to
resolve Georgia’s internal conflicts. She also stated that the
continuing presence of Russian military bases in Georgia was a
“hindrance to peace.”

In the second part of her testimony, entitled Russian Energy
Monopoly, Baran argued that “if Russian monopoly power increases
across the Eurasian region, then countries will have difficulty
resisting Russian political and economic pressure.”

This, she said, was of great importance given Russian energy giant
Gazprom’s desire to acquire Georgia’s trunk gas pipeline.

“The difficult economic conditions prevailing in Georgia have given
Gazprom a great opening to try and acquire the title to the Georgian
gas pipelines, thus bolstering its monopoly power,” she said.

“If Tbilisi unintentionally helps Gazprom in this effort, then
Georgia will only be enhancing the company’s long-term leverage over
European gas consumers, and thus discouraging Europeans from taking a
firmer line with Russia on political issues, such as the frozen
conflicts mentioned earlier,” she added.

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