GEORGIAN-RUSSIAN CRISIS AND THE WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
By David Batashvili

Abkhazia Institute for social & economic research, CA
Nov 2 2007

On October 30, 2007 a Georgian-Russian armed confrontation was narrowly
avoided in the village of Ganmukhuri in Western Georgia.

Dozens of heavily armed men were kicking and pushing each other,
occasionally firing in the air. While bloody encounter luckily did
not occur, political tensions have reached their peak as a result of
the incident.

Ganmukhuri is a village situated on the very frontier of the territory
controlled by the Abkhazian rebels who enjoy support of Kremlin and
the Russian troops stationed in the area. Despite its geographical
location, Ganmukhuri was a site of a Georgian youth camp in the summer
of 2007. On October 30 Russian soldiers approached the empty camp,
encountered the five Georgian policemen that were guarding it, bullied
them, and took as prisoners, severely beating them in the process. In
less than an hour Georgian Special Forces and police arrived at the
spot and the stand off began. It appeared to be so serious that the
president of Georgia Michael Saakashvili decided to go to Ganmukhuri
and establish control over the situation personally. Subsequently
the Russians freed Georgian policemen and left the scene.

This was not an isolated incident, but rather a logical development
of the political situation that currently exists in the region of
Caucasus. One of the key components of this situation is an amounting
Russian pressure on Georgia. On March 11 2007 Russian helicopters
bombed the Georgia-controlled Kodori gorge in Abkhazia.

On August 6 Russian plane dropped a rocket in the Georgian-controlled
part of another rebellious region of the country – South Ossetia. A
more than one year-old Russian embargo against Georgia, which includes
cutting all sorts of economic ties, trade, and transportation
either by land or air, has already become a mere fact of life for
Georgia. Russian pressure is not new for this country.

The incident of October 30, however, has come too close to a direct
military confrontation. It has proved that Russia is unpredictable
and its direct aggression against Georgia is not totally unlikely,
to say the least.

What is position of the West in these circumstances? Existing
experience demonstrates that usually the Western countries do their
best not to emphasize Russia’s aggressive actions towards Georgia. As
a result, Russian activity of this sort is steadily increasing. This
Western policy of appeasement towards Russia is counter-productive from
various points of view. It only increases the risk of destabilization
in the Eastern Europe, which would create very serious problems for
the Western Europe. The Western Europeans had a good opportunity to
understand this when they experienced interruptions of the natural gas
supply during the Russian-Ukrainian crisis in January of 2006. That
was a mere symptom of the troubles that may occur if Russian bullying
towards its neighbors is further tolerated.

Georgia is a strategically vital country if the stable transport
route between Europe and Central and Eastern Asia is ever to be
established. This route cannot go through the Russian region of North
Caucasus, ravaged by the guerilla war. Iran also cannot be considered
to be a stable territory for such a route to go through. With the
Armenia-Turkey and the Armenia-Azerbaijan borders closed, Georgian
territory seems to be the only possible route for the European-Asian
transportation, including the potential direct European access to
the vast natural gas reserves of the Central Asian countries. It
is not reasonable to let Russia – largely a monopolist gas supplier
to Europe – destabilize Georgia, which is essential for the direct
natural gas supply from Central Asia that would seriously lessen
European dependence on Russian gas.

There are still other reasons for the Western countries to pay more
attention to the Russian aggression towards Georgia. Europe has an
extremely bitter experience of leaving small democracies alone to face
aggression of the tyrannies. Turning the blind eye and appeasement
of Russia can bring only an increased danger of destabilization and
violence in the Eastern Europe, since such a policy gives Kremlin
an impression that even their most violent actions will not result
in strong reactions from the Western countries. If so, Kremlin
may not see any reason to abstain from aggression. Western silence
provokes Kremlin to become further less democratic inside Russia, to
strengthen its Cold War style rhetoric, and to continue its aggressive
actions towards Georgia and other neighbors (like Ukraine) which can
potentially result in an armed conflict, as the Ganmukhuri incident
has demonstrated in a very obvious way.

Most of the Western countries do not seem likely to change their
policy of not opposing Russia in its political, diplomatic and
economic attacks on its neighbors. This may create an impression that
Russian military attack will be tolerated in just the same way. This
impression, in turn, would dramatically increase the chances of
such an attack to occur. There is a hope that Russian policy towards
its neighbors will not result in the catastrophic consequences, but
considering the current Western attitude, such a hope does not have
a sound logical base.

4/