CRUNCH TIME FOR SAAKASHVILI’S GOVERNMENT
By Zaal Anjaparidze

Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
The Jamestown Foundation
Sept 29 2005

So far, the Georgian government has weathered the latest cycle
of disturbances in the country’s restive regions. Tskhinvali, the
South Ossetian capital, came under mortar fire on the heels of its
celebration of the 15th anniversary of its declaration of secession
from Georgia. The coincidence of these two events has caused political
complications for Tbilisi (see EDM, September 22).

On September 22 the U.S. Department of State urged Russia to refrain
from supporting the South Ossetian separatists and simultaneously
demanded that Tbilisi reaffirm its adherence to finding a peaceful
solution to the Ossetian problem. The OSCE also condemned the
shelling. Demonstrating just how concerned the U.S. administration
has become with Tbilisi’s actions, U.S. Ambassador to Georgia John
Taft had a face-to-face meeting with Georgian President Mikheil
Saakashvili on September 21. The admonishment from Washington
prompted some pessimistic editorials. One of them, “Has Saakashvili’s
High American Hope Failed?” in the Akhali Taoba daily argues that
Washington’s rebuke of Tbilisi indicates that Tbilisi should not have
any illusions about using the United States in any military solution
to either the Ossetian or Abkhazian problems. Such a lecture from
Washington, according to the article, only encourages the separatists.

Soon after the Taft-Saakashvili conference, the Georgian Interior
Ministry dismantled most of the Georgian police checkpoints in the
conflict zone and withdrew Special Forces, having accused them of
abetting smugglers.

Now Tbilisi must either produce convincing evidence that the shelling
was the work of Russian troops deployed in the conflict zone, as
Georgian officials claim, or apologize publicly if an investigation
finds that Georgian forces initiated the shelling.

Needless to say, the latter finding would harm Saakashvili’s government
politically. Suspicions that the Georgian side might have been behind
the shelling are high, because the attack coincided with a surprise
visit by the hawkish Georgian minister of defense, Irakli Okruashvili,
to the ethnic Georgian enclave in South Ossetia. Giorgi Khaindrava,
Georgian state minister for conflict resolutions and the chief
Georgian negotiator for the South Ossetian peace talks, has hinted at
his upcoming resignation and labeled the initiators of the shelling
“degenerates.”

Saakashvili reported on September 24 that “very interesting details”
have emerged during the OSCE-monitored investigation of the incident.

The command of the Russian peacekeepers argues that Tskhinvali has been
shelled from the Georgian villages. Meanwhile, the Georgian parliament
is actively debating the withdrawal of the Russian peacekeepers from
the conflict zone, which inevitably would exacerbate the already
volatile Georgian-Russian relations.

Shortly after the violence in South Ossetia, secessionist
groups in Samtskhe-Javakheti, an ethnic-Armenian region on the
Armenia-Georgia border, stepped up their activities. A council of
local non-governmental organizations, meeting September 23-24, adopted
a resolution calling on the Georgian government to grant autonomy to
the region, including the creation of a “Samtskhe-Javakheti parliament
through free and direct elections.” According to the resolution,
by offering the highest degree of autonomy to South Ossetia and
Abkhazia, which had violated Georgia’s territorial integrity, Tbilisi
is discriminating against other ethnicities that reside in Georgia
and have demonstrated their loyalty to the central government.

The relative stability in this tumultuous region, which regards any
decision by Tbilisi with suspicion, is delicate. On September 19,
police from the town of Akhalkalaki went on strike, protesting the
recent decision by the Georgian Interior Ministry to replace the
local police chief, Mkhitar Abadjian, with Aram Pogosov, an adviser to
Saakashvili’s personal envoy to Samtskhe-Javakheti, without consulting
the local authorities. Armenian sources say that Abadjian was fired
for excessive advocacy of the interests of the local Armenians.

During the July 17 Georgian-Armenian clash in the village of Samsar
(see EDM, August 3) the Abadjian-led local police sided with the
local Armenians. David Rstakian, leader of the local non-registered
political party Virk, complains that Tbilisi purposefully removes
from key posts in Samtskhe-Javakheti any Armenians who were educated
in Yerevan. Meanwhile, on September 24, Van Baiburt, a member of the
Georgian parliament and deputy chair of the public movement “Union of
Georgia’s Armenians,” dismissed the Samtskhe-Javakheti NGOs demand for
regional autonomy. Ethnic Armenians compose 5.7% of the 4.4 million
population of Georgia, according to the latest census.

Alarming trends are also emerging in Kvemo Kartli, a southeastern
region predominantly populated by about 300,000 ethnic Azeris. On
September 23, a Tbilisi court sentenced Telman Gasanov, the
former executive of Gardabani district, to three months in jail
on charges of organizing an unsanctioned rally. On September 16,
Gasanov and his 40 supporters blocked the central highway demanding
dual citizenship and equal rights for Azeris living in Georgia. The
provocative proclamations demanding autonomy for the Azeri-populated
region appeared in early September. The local radical Azeri groups,
as well as some Azeri media, increasingly refer to Kvemo Kartli using
the Azeri toponym, “Borchalo,” which implicitly questions the Georgian
origin of this area.

Georgian analysts and politicians unanimously agree that external
forces are responsible for the recent disturbances in these regions,
and the assistance from the international community, which Georgia
acutely needs to resolve the frozen and potential regional conflicts,
appears to have differed from what Tbilisi expected. This may explain
why Saakashvili’s recent public remarks contained some criticism of
the West and international bodies.

(Regnum, September 23; Resonance, September 26-27; Akhali Taoba,
September 24; Civil Georgia, September 25-26; PanArmenian.net,
Itar-Tass, TV-Rustavi-2, September 24)