FROM THE CAUCASUS TO THE BALKANS – AN UNSTABLE WORLD ORDER
Catherine Samary

International Viewpoint
hp?article1527
September 2008
UK

Georgia

Moscow’s decision to bombard Georgia and the way it recognised
the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have "borrowed"
from Washington both in the methods employed and in the discourse –
something that the defenders of double standards do not want to accept,
repeating endlessly that Kosovo is not Ossetia. But there is nothing
to celebrate: even if Putin is helping a multipolar world to assert
itself, no progressive alternative is emerging.

The offensive launched against South Ossetia on August 7 by
Georgian president Mikhail Saakachchvili is generally described,
at the very least, as a blunder – because of the crushing Russian
military victory. However, according to the Canadian researcher Michel
Chossudovsky, "it is obvious that the Georgian attack of last August 7
in South Ossetia had been carefully planned". He reminds us, indeed,
that "the attacks against South Ossetia occurred one week after the
United States and Georgia finished their imposing military exercises
(held from 15 to 31 July, 2008). The attacks were also preceded
by important summit meetings organized under the aegis of the GUAM
[Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldavia], a regional military alliance
sponsored by the United States and NATO", which met at the beginning
of July. Its strategic objective is the "protection" of the energy
routes that circumvent Russia in order to weaken it.

The links established between the Georgian leader and the United
States, in particular since the "Rose Revolution" of 2003 which
brought him to power, and the proven presence of United States (and
Israeli) military forces in Georgia do indeed rule out the idea that
the offensive of Tbilisi was not known about in Washington… The
prospect of Georgia and the Ukraine joining NATO, although the question
was postponed at the recent summit meeting of the Alliance in April,
and is due to be discussed again in December, would further accentuate
the loss of power of Russia in a moribund Community of Independent
States (CIS) where the United States no longer hesitates to intervene
directly. Except that, in this instance, Washington obviously did not
choose to become involved on the terrain of military confrontation. The
defeat inflicted on the Georgian Army obviously damages the credibility
of its military-political support to it. The only immediate military
effect of the Russian offensive was the recall of Georgian troops
mobilized in Iraq so that they could defend their country (with 2000
soldiers, Georgia is the third military occupying force in Iraq,
after the United States and the Britain)… The Georgian attempt to
retake control of South Ossetia by force on August 7, 2008, upset
an unstable equilibrium. The riposte by Moscow, whose troops have
been present, in particular within the "forces of interposition",
recognized by the United Nations, since the conflicts of the 1990s,
went well beyond the control of these areas. It marks a turning-point
in its ability to defend its great power ambitions vis-a-vis its "near
neighbours", concerning in particular the control of the energy routes.

Kosovo is not Ossetia, they repeat interminably, in a logic of
double standards The contortions that are made in order to say that
the bombardments by Moscow and the recognition of the independence
of Ossetia and Abkhazia don’t have anything in common with the
(humanitarian?) "strikes" by NATO and the recognition of the
independence of Kosovo are painful to behold, whatever the obvious
differences, generally exaggerated by what were the dominant media
stereotypes. In reality, we should on the contrary take time to
reconsider, with a game of mirrors, the comparison between the Balkan
and Caucasian conflicts. We would see at work there, essentially,
obvious double standards, concerning many common points.

The USSR was not Yugoslavia. But here and there the decomposition of
the social system and the federation produced bloody conflicts, in
places where minority communities were trapped within new "unitary"
nation-states which used the dominant role of the ethnic-national
majority to control a territory and its wealth. And in the absence
of such a majority, Bosnia-Herzegovina was subjected to a terrifying
dismemberment by its neighbours…

In the recent conflict, Moscow has "borrowed" from Washington its
discourse and its methods – without having, obviously, the strength
of a world imperialism -, with similarities that go further than
many people would care to admit or remember… One and the other
power claimed to protect (and in fact manipulated for their own ends)
the peoples who were threatened by the emergence of new independent
states, making short shrift of "international law". But it is as
false for the one as for the other to affirm that the independence
of their respective "protégés", was the basic, obvious and initial
choice. This choice – no matter what one thinks of the methods used
– comes from the populations concerned, in Kosovo as in Ossetia or
Abkhazia. It was not inevitable, but due to the policies of domination
inflicted on the peoples concerned. But the proclamation and then the
recognition of independence, for the Albanians of Kosovo as for the
South Ossetians, is not yet sovereignty and even less wellbeing. In
both cases, they will be confronted with their powerful protectors…

The scenarios were not the same, but the substance is close. Abkhazia
and South Ossetia, autonomous regions of Georgia, saw their statute
called into question by Tbilisi at the time of the independence of
Georgia at the beginning of the 1990s – as Kosovo saw its status
called into question by Belgrade (as also did the Serbs in Croatia
by their regression to the status of a threatened minority). But
the West backed the "democrat" Yeltsin, keeping silent about his
dirty war in Chechnya. (The Chechens and Kosovo only benefited from a
statute of autonomy, and did not belong to the cases where the right
of self-determination was recognized. But Belgrade never conducted
in Kosovo the kind of dirty war that there was in Chechnya…) Boris
Yeltsin did not recognize the independence proclaimed by Abkhazia
and South Ossetia after the abolition of their statutes by the
Georgian government in 1992. But in the framework of the freezing of
the conflict, the UN and the OSCE gave him full powers to include his
armed forces within the "forces of interposition" in these secessionist
regions, after extremely violent confrontations in1991-1993 left
several thousand dead and hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Moscow exploited these conflicts in order to establish its own bases,
at the demand of the Abkhazians (Muslims representing less than 20%
of the population the territory of their self-proclaimed republic,
which experienced a vast ethnic cleansing of non-Abkhazians) and
of the Ossetians (Orthodox Christians speaking a language close to
Persian). But although it made the choice of legitimising and giving
practical support to the separatist forces, it never supported the
project of unification of the (North and South) Ossetians. And like
Washington in Kosovo until recently, Moscow was quite satisfied with
the freezing of the conflict, without recognizing the independence of
the secessionist republics, but with its troops present on the ground
with the approval of the UN: such a posture enabled it to present
itself as a defender of frontiers and of international law alongside
Belgrade, against the independence of Kosovo in February 2008…

Did Moscow set a trap Tbilisi by "letting it believe" that it was
choosing the cause of Belgrade against that of Ossetia? This is
at least a zone of uncertainty concerning Russia’s choice. In the
same way, the US military staffs were far from being unanimous on
the appropriateness of the Georgian offensive, which they were not
ready to support militarily. That leaves a possible ambiguity in the
"signals" received in Tbilisi, leaving a quite considerable degree of
autonomous decision to the Georgian leader: it is because he himself
was confronted with an increasing contestation of his regime, and was
undoubtedly convinced of Western and in particular US support (after
the military exercises in July) faced with a fait accompli, that
Mikhail Saakachvili sought by this crusade against the secessionist
regions, to regain a little popularity.

The societies behind the geo-strategy We have to go back to what is
generally passed over in silence in the commentaries centred on the
geo-strategic stakes: what is happening on the social and societal
level… It was already the combination of a "unitary" and racist
policy against the autonomous regions with the galloping corruption
of the regime of Shevarnadze (an ex-Communist who was in power in
the newly independent state) which was the internal background to
the "Rose Revolution" of 2003. That the opposition (as in the other
"coloured revolutions" – and the one, without colour, in Belgrade in
2000) was massively financed by the CIA with the help of a pro-Western
discourse, does not at all detract from the role played by real popular
mobilizations in these pseudo-revolutions. However the aspect they
had of being superficial and manipulated from outside, explains
the fact that the corruption of the new "parvenus" was in every
case on a massive scale, reinforced by the clientelist policies of
privatization. So the "democrats", a term used to designate those whom
the western powers support, were nowhere really solidly established…

Eduard Shevarnadze had been obliged to accept the Russian presence in
the separatist regions – because, it was said, it had been legitimated
by the UN and the OSCE… But the rise of a strong regime in Moscow
with Putin in the new millennium and Russia’s re-found economic
growth since 1998 inflected the choices of Washington: the separatist
regions were the Trojan horse of Moscow in this strategic zone where
the oil and gas pipelines circumventing Russia were to pass… Mikhail
Saakachvili obtained openings in exchange for sending Georgian troops
to Iraq. But that did not give him internal legitimacy. The elections
of November 2007, where probable fraud was backed up by repression,
remain disputed by the opposition.

The complications of the tensions with the secessionist regions
and Moscow were accompanied by the reinforcement of the links with
the United States in the context of recurring politico-financial
scandals and – since 2004 – an accentuation of the neo-liberal course:
privatization of more than 1800 enterprises between 2004 and 2008,
with projects of extending this logic towards the universities and
the health sector… As everywhere (and as in Russia, in particular
where the same type of social policies are being implemented) the
great mass of the population finds itself losing out. To attenuate
dissatisfaction, the Georgian regime (there again, as in Moscow,
with other means…) sought to regain popularity by rushing into a
warmongering and nationalist course … A careful examination of the
Georgian political scene after this fiasco will undoubtedly be the
source of a reversal of alliances – as after the coloured revolutions
of Ukraine and elsewhere…

The uncertainties of a warlike and socially regressive world order
Moscow declares its indifference to the retaliatory measures that
are being threatened – the current crisis of the WTO and the IMF, the
United States bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, visible divisions
among the member states of the EU over the independence of Kosovo and
the integration of the Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, give it room for
manoeuvre to push forward its strategic aims: to neutralize Georgia,
to block the projects of oil and gas routes circumventing Russia, to
advance the pawns of the Russian multinationals in the Caucasus (as
is being done in the Balkans), to use the energy weapon to influence
the policy options of the countries that are dependent on Russian
resources and supply routes.

But the offensive of Moscow can also stiffen against it a certain
number of governments (concerning among other things the enlargement
of NATO or the recognition of Kosovo).

And Russia has also lost out where Washington has been able to make
progress on the points blocking its strategy of "security": the United
States did in fact exploit the Russian offensive to exert pressure
on the Polish government which – like that of the Czech Republic -,
was confronted with strong popular opposition to the presence of US
anti-missile shields directed clearly against Russia. The pact which
has just been signed in Warsaw (often compared to the episode of the
Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962…) could have disastrous consequences
"for Europe and for the entire planet", says William Engdahl.

At the same time, the attempt by Washington to counterpose to
the Russia-Armenia-Iran axis a Georgia-Azerbaijan-Turkey axis is
far from being consolidated: Azerbaijan, in particular, seeking to
placate Moscow (and to keep, after the bloody conflict of 1988-1994,
High-Karabagh with its Armenian majority) is not a candidate for
NATO membership. It is the only country able to transport its oil to
European markets by circumventing Russia via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyan
pipeline – BTC- which crosses Georgia and Turkey. The BTC was
not affected by the Russian bombardments, but a railway bridge
was destroyed in Georgia, forcing British Petroleum (BP), the main
operator of the oilfields of Azerbaijan, to stop transporting oil by
rail tanker wagons towards the Black Sea. As a result there has been
an increase in the use of the busy Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline which
passes through Russia…

The Nabucco project (also supposed to transport Caspian gas towards
Europe by avoiding Russia) is at a standstill in Baku. while Moscow
is building a competitor pipeline…

Many alliances are as uncertain as the result of the elections in
the United States…

A new multipolar order is emerging. But it continues to propagate
war and social regression, as well as national oppression; and the
Putin regime (like China) does not represent any kind of progressive
alternative, neither on the social level nor from the point of view
of democracy.

Small states and great powers in evolving relations of property…

The search for cultural and political recognition in the face of the
conflicting dominations by the great empires (Persia, Byzantium, then
the Ottoman Empire – against Russia) was expressed for the Orthodox
Christians of Georgia by a "voluntary union" with Russia at the
beginning of the 19th century; then it turned against the Russification
imposed by Moscow and against a certain Great-Russian racism …

But when it sought in its turn to affirm its sovereignty over a
territory where other communities lived, Georgian nationalism itself
became "unitary" and dominating. And this is why, in conflict with
the Georgians, the Ossetians (who are also Orthodox Christians, but
speak a form of Persian) were the first historical points of support
for Moscow in its conquest of the Caucasus in the 18th century, with
the foundation on their territory of the imperial city of Vladikavkaz
("gateway to the Caucasus") – a conquest which was completed a century
later by the submission of the neighbouring Chechen people.

But marriages between Ossetians and Georgians were possible, even
frequent – a certain Stalin was the son of such a mixed couple…It
is the dictatorial political choices involved in building national
states on the backs of other peoples, it is the inequalities and
injustices that are the cause of the conflicts… When he exercised
power in the Kremlin, Stalin manipulated the national questions
for which he had responsibility in the USSR, with the aim both of
establishing Great-Russian domination (denounced by Lenin shortly
before his death) and of selecting peoples reputed to be "loyal", or
on the contrary suspected of contesting or subverting the regime in
power. The distribution of territories and the deportation of entire
peoples (like the Crimean Tatars), the organisation of the autonomous
republics and of national rights made it possible to divide, granting
some subordinates rights while governing in a dictatorial way. The
Ossetians were all the more favourable to Moscow in that they had
been mainly Bolsheviks, faced with a Georgia that was at the same
time Menshevik and unitary. Nevertheless, while granting a statute of
autonomy to the Ossetians, the Kremlin also exploited the mountainous
barrier of the Caucasus in order to integrate North Ossetia into the
Russian federation, and South Ossetia into Georgia.

But the internal borders within the USSR (sometimes having a certain
basis in history, or aiming at weakening such or such a suspect
nationality) would be transformed into real state frontiers after the
break-up of the USSR, proclaimed by Boris Yeltsin. Minorities would be
trapped within states which all the more denied their rights in that
they appeared to be Trojan horses of Moscow. The dissolution of the
USSR was in actual fact the affirmation of the Federation of Russia
by Yeltsin at the time when he launched the liberal shock therapy,
in 1991… The control of the new states implied also the control of
a territory, of its wealth, and of currency reserves resulting from
foreign trade – when there were resources, in particular energy, to
export. The Russian Federation held the bulk of the energy resources,
which it would be able to "cash in on" at a high price to its former
partners…

In what architecture of relations of property and international
relations would the new oligarchs who profited from the opaque
financial operations of capitalist restoration situate themselves? The
new "elected leaders" would manipulate nationalism both against Moscow
and as a substitute for a protective social programme – while adopting
a threatening attitude against all the minorities which might look
towards Moscow for protection… Clientelism and corruption became
general, not in fact excepting any of the new regimes. But under
the Yeltsin era, the oligarchs tended to set up strongholds against
the central government – which even lost its power to make them pay
taxes… The reign of Putin meant the re-establishment of a hierarchy
and of a strong central power (demonstrated both by the pulling
into line of the oligarchs and by the second dirty war of Chechnya),
which were sources of a certain popularity. But at the same time that
enables him to impose internal market relations, i.e. a new labour
code and prices of basic goods that the Medef (the French employers’
organisation) would applaud with both hands…

–Boundary_(ID_qhDTSdmDQJCcHG9wvb2o9A)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress