Bush visit to Georgia increases tensions with Putin government
By Simon Whelan
World Socialist Web Site, MI
May 18 2005
Speaking in Tbilisi on May 10, President George W. Bush quipped that
he was in the neighbourhood and “thought we’d swing by.” However,
his visit to the capital of Georgia was anything but casual. Amidst
the self-satisfied bonhomie, Bush and Georgian President Mikhail
Saakashvili discussed issues with potentially explosive ramifications
for the struggle between Russia and America for dominance over the
Caucasus and all the territories that once made up the Soviet Union.
Saakashvili publicly protested that Bush’s visit was not about “an
oil pipeline or any kind of military cooperation.” But that is what
was undoubtedly discussed, along with the question of reducing Russian
influence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the continuing deployment
of Georgian troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline is set to open on May 25. The
$3.6 billion conduit will take five months just to fill with oil. It
runs close to the disputed border between Georgia and South Ossetia
and is vulnerable to attack. Saakashvili will also have been keen
to discuss the Millennium Challenge money that Washington is paying
Georgia to beef up its military.
The meeting came after Bush’s attendance at the Victory in Europe
commemorations in Moscow, which Saakashvili refused to attend.
Discussions have recently broken down between Moscow and Tbilisi
concerning the withdrawal of Russian troops from two bases on
Georgian soil.
Through considerable financial and military assistance, Georgia has
practically become a client state by which Washington pursues its
economic, political and military ambitions in Eurasia.
State and private media extolled the public to come out and welcome
the US president. Tbilisi was festooned with posters of Bush for weeks
prior to his arrival, so that his arrival together with a 700-strong
entourage took on the appearance of a visit to a colonial possession.
Saakashvili told Bush: “We welcome you as a freedom fighter.” Just 500
miles south of Tbilisi is the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, where Bush
would not receive quite the same reception but where 800 Georgian
troops are currently stationed. A further 200 Georgian troops are
currently serving in Afghanistan. The Georgian president named Bush
as the first recipient of the Order of Saint George, named after the
country’s patron saint, for his supposed “promotion of freedom in
the world.”
Saakashvili came to power in October 2003 in a US-backed ousting of
Eduard Shevardnadze. Georgia occupies a crucial strategic position
in the south Caucasus between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. It
was the first example of a now well-rehearsed strategy of replacing
governments amenable to Moscow with aggressively anti-Russian and
Western-orientated governments. Saakashvili is pushing hard for Georgia
to join both the European Union and NATO and misses no opportunity
to rile Moscow.
Bush’s speech to the Georgian people was the usual hokum about peace
and freedom. He called Georgia a “beacon of liberty” and congratulated
Saakashvili on his “Rose Revolution.” But his speech was littered
with barely veiled threats towards Russia. “We are living in historic
times when freedom is advancing, from the Black Sea to the Caspian,
and to the Persian Gulf and beyond,” declared Bush.
Speaking to reporters, Bush denied that his government would militarily
assist Tbilisi in its conflict with breakaway regions Abkhazia and
South Ossetia. In April the American ambassador to Georgia, Richard
Miles, together with Caspian energy trouble-shooter Steven Mann,
visited the Abkhazian capital of Sukhumi in a fruitless attempt to
reach a compromise with Tbilisi.
Bush did say that he would be happy to make a few phone calls to
Sukhumi and the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali on behalf of
Georgia. After Saakashvili took power it was reported that Bush spoke
by telephone to threaten Aslan Abashidze shortly before he fled to
Moscow and Georgian troops took back control of the autonomous and
pro-Russian republic of Ajaria.
During his visit Bush indicated that resolving the issue of the
breakaway republics was essential for Georgia’s entry into NATO. He
directly warned the Kremlin to drop their support for the breakaway
republics, insisting, “The territorial integrity and sovereignty of
Georgia must be respected by all nations.”
Bush devoted just 45 minutes to speak to representatives from the
two breakaway republics and representatives from Georgia’s ethnic
minorities. The sizeable ethnic Armenian minority in Georgia are
particularly concerned about the withdrawal of Russian troops from
Georgia because they see them as protection against the threat from
neighbouring Turkey.
Tbilisi was treated to a sustained period of maintenance prior to the
Bush visit. The run-down Georgian capital has witnessed a frantic last
few weeks while hundreds of workers sought to patch up its decrepit
infrastructure. The historic centre received its first coat of paint
since then Russian President Leonid Brezhnev visited in the early
1980s, and the potholed roads were resurfaced.
Preparations for the visit spawned numerous puns, with locals
joking that Bush should come more often and the state would have
no alternative but to rebuild the entire country. But no amount of
whitewash and tarmac can hide Georgian society’s deeper malaise.
Despite Bush’s hailing of Saakashvili as a democrat, the Georgian
leader is a political bully, an avowed free marketeer and entirely
ruthless in his political aims.
On April 12, Human Rights Watch issued a report, “Georgia-Uncertain
Torture Reform,” which asserted that Saakashvili’s administration
had failed to fulfil its pledge to improve the nation’s atrocious
civil rights record. HRW have catalogued the regular use of torture
by police and security forces, as well as condemning a plea-bargaining
system that allows wealthy defendants to pay the state to avoid trial.
On the very same day that HRW released their findings, the European
Court of Human Rights ruled that Georgia together with Russia
had violated the rights of 13 Chechens. Two of the Chechens were
effectively disappeared and landed up back in Russia as prisoners.
Since the ousting of Shevardnadze, “Absolutely nothing has changed
at all,” says Ucha Nanuashvili, the executive director of the Human
Rights Information and Documentation Centre.
The Council of Europe has previously warned that too much political
power has become centralised around Saakashvili and that the country
risks drifting into one-party rule or even a one-man dictatorship.
Since the mysterious death of then Prime Minister Zhurab Zhavia last
February, Saakashvili has sidelined the third member of the Rose
Revolution triumvirate, Nino Burjanadze. She was not even initially
invited to the first anniversary celebrations of the deposing of
Aslan Abashidze from Ajaria until the last minute.
Approval ratings for Saakashvili amongst the Georgian people have
slipped 25 percent since his elevation to power. He retains approval
ratings of just 38 percent. Street protests over continuing
shortages of essential services like electricity and water,
arbitrary anti-corruption measures and a general dissatisfaction
with Saakashvili’s arrogance have recently prompted talk that the
American trained lawyer might go the same way as his one time mentor,
Shevardnadze.
Writing for Transistions On-line, Jaba Devdarani warned, “This is the
very same wave of social discontent that propelled the Rose Revolution
and brought down Shevardnadze…. The government should worry lest
the unrest turn into an explosion.”
Some media commentators warned against any cheap triumphalism in
Washington or Tbilisi surrounding Bush’s visit. A New York Times
editorial lamented the antagonising of Russia by Bush’s provocative
visits to Latvia and Georgia sandwiching the one to Moscow and
urged efforts to win the support of Moscow to rein in Iran’s nuclear
ambitions.
The Times of London was equally unimpressed with Bush’s clumsy
approach. Their editorial sought to remind Washington of Georgia’s
fragility as a functioning nation state. “Georgia is almost wholly
dependent on Russia for energy supplies…. Its economy would collapse
if more than a million Georgians now living in Russia did not send
back remittances,” it stated.
The Times reminded its readers that the populations of both Abkhazia
and South Ossetia have repeatedly expressed a clear preference for
alliance with Moscow, not Tbilisi.
Inside Washington cautionary voices have been raised against the Bush
administration putting all its eggs into one basket with its support
for Saakashvili. Charles King, an expert on US-Georgian relations
at Georgetown University, cautioned the Republican administration
that continually blaming the Russians for Georgia’s woes was
counterproductive.
Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, he lamented, “In time even
Georgia’s friends may come to wonder whether a country with fictitious
borders and no plan for making them real is a country worth helping.”