Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

In The Hague, exchanges are taking place in a legal battle between Georgia and Russia which threatens to become something of a saga.  Two years ago Tbilisi charged Moscow with a derogation of its duty to eliminate ‘all forms of racial discrimination‘, under the UN’s 1965 International Convention . The allegation is that Russia’s armed forces engaged in violent discrimination, alongside ’separatist militia and foreign mercenaries’ in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, through at least three separate phases, between 1990 and 2008. When these proceedings  (PDF) were instigated, in August 2008, Tbilisi effectively asked the UN’s judicial organ to endorse its casus belli, at the same time as its invasion of South Ossetia was met with resistance and Russian tanks pushed its forces back into Georgia proper. A provisional ruling, delivered in the aftermath of the conflict, called on both sides to do all they could to eliminate racial discrimination and urged restraint.   These ...

President Medvedev talks to President Bagapsh in Sukhumi. Two years ago this weekend Georgian shells started to rain down on South Ossetia’s capital, Tskhinvali.  The robust military action which Russia took to defend the contested breakaway republic is still a matter of controversy. However, the European Union’s fact-finding report confirmed , unequivocally, that acts of aggression from Georgia marked the beginning of the conflict.  The document bolstered the case for governments in the US and EU to reconsider their reflexive backing for President Saakashvili. The regime in Tbilisi continues to show, periodically, an authoritarian bent, and its behaviour is still  e rratic.  Saakashvili’s military gamble, which briefly threatened to push the US into direct confrontation with Russia , now looks like a massive miscalculation. His government is, rightly, treated with more caution by foreign allies, particularly in Washington, where pressing the ’reset button...

Over at Forth Magazine (subs required and recommended) I argue that the government must remain true to the new approach to foreign affairs the Conservatives charged William Hague to develop. I point out that there will be tensions, including the more belligerent instincts of the defence secretary, Liam Fox. And I say that the Tories have failed, at least once, when they faced foreign policy challenges under David Cameron. One of the principal foreign policy tests since David Cameron became party leader was the war in Georgia. The Conservatives were as unequivocal in their backing for President Saakashvili as the old Labour government. The wisdom of this stance, and Cameron’s strident demand for Georgian Nato membership, has subsequently been called into question by an EU investigation, which found that Georgia started the war, as well as Saakashvili‘s increasingly erratic and authoritarian behaviour. Rather than re-evaluate this position, however, one year after the conflict Fox pu...

If Georgians were under any misapprehension about their President before the weekend's bizarre developments in Tbilisi, surely now they must concede that he's mad, bad and dangerous to know! Saakashvili's government controlled TV station, Imedi, broadcast the news that Russia had invaded, as part of its main 8pm news bulletin. For the eagle eyed, a disclaimer had preceded the story, and a commercial break, describing it as a consequence which could unfold, should the Georgian opposition replace Saakashvili. None of which prevented widespread panic in Georgia and journalists based in the region mobilising to cover a new war which had apparently flared in the Caucasus. The President had been killed, reports claimed, to be replaced by opposition leader, Nino Burdzhanadze. The elaborate hoax was clearly aimed at Burdzhanadze, who has recently visited Moscow, for talks with the Kremlin, in an attempt to normalise relations between the two countries. To put this episode in...

Former Georgian foreign minister and leader of Georgia’s Way, Salome Zourabishvili, has published a withering assessment of democracy in Georgia on Open Democracy’s Russia site. She is one of a number of prominent figures from the Tbilisi establishment who supported the Rose Revolution and Mikheil Saakasvhili but have since become disillusioned by his authoritarian and anti-democratic tendencies. In this latest broadside she wonders whether taxpayers in Europe and the United States will eventually lose patience with the diversion of large amounts of money to a regime which Freedom House confirms cannot be considered an electoral democracy. Saakashvili is due to step down from the presidency in 2013, but the Moscow Times reports that manoeuvres have already begun to ensure that a loyal adjunct is best placed to become his successor. The campaign to elect Tbilisi’s next mayor is underway and the pro-government candidate, Gigi Ugulava, has been omnipresent in the national media. Ug...

George W. Bush was the ‘cool head’ at the White House who ruled out military intervention in the conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia. Sean’s Russia Blog cites Ronald D. Asmus in his book ‘A Little War That Shook the World’ which alleges that senior figures in the American administration urged ’limited’ military action against Russia. The President showed enough sense to realise that ‘confrontation’ would be inevitable, if the US had directly attacked Russia. Sean believes the fact that the United States even considered bombing the Gori Tunnel, through which Russian troops and supplies reach South Ossetia, bolsters the thesis that the White House gave Saakashvili a ‘green light’ to confront Moscow. It certainly provides a prime example of the type of hysteria which characterised American and British responses to the war. Had the President not provided calmer counsel, best case scenario, the US would have had to explain its intervention in a conflict which an independent EU in...

At some point, either today or tomorrow, this blog will speculate on the possible shape of Northern Irish politics in 2020. It's likely to be a catch-all of wishful thinking. Still, it's my pitch, it's my ball and I want to have fun! On the Sublime Oblivion blog Anatoly Karlin offers his geopolitical predictions for 2010. They should be taken a little more seriously than my intended post. Anatoly actually got quite a few of his 2009 speculations right! Here's one of the most eye-catching this time round. A new Russia-Georgia war remains a serious possibility, if Saakashvili uses his rapidly rebuilding military forces to make another megalomaniac lunge at reclaiming South Ossetia, or if Russia orchestrates a false flag to give itself the justification to roll in the tanks to Tbilisi and set up a puppet regime. In the latter case, the “new cold war” atmosphere of August 2008 will begin to appear to be distinctly jovial. Likelihood: 10%; Severity: 4. Let's hope t...

I’m sure this post will foreshadow a more erudite article, around a similar theme, at Burke’s Corner . I’d imagine that BC is adamantly buffing his polished philosophical prose as we speak. Nevertheless, I like Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s latest Comment is Free piece enough to offer my own, doubtless rather more superficial, interpretation. Hopefully it’ll do until the real thing becomes available. Wheatcroft is convinced that the Conservative party must cast off the excesses of hardline Euroscepticism and neoconservatism, as it formulates its foreign policy, in order to embrace an older tradition which is cautious, realistic and diplomatic. He detects that David Cameron has been at his least sure footed reacting to issues beyond the scope of domestic politics. In Europe he has isolated his party from the mainstream, by withdrawing from the EPP. The Conservatives are now estranged from natural European allies. Wheatcroft describes the furore over Lisbon and a referendum as a “self-des...

The Pankisi Gorge in Georgia, which borders Chechnya, has long provided a transit route for money, weapons and militants into and out of the Russian republic. It has been alleged that al Qaeda operates training camps in the region . Alexander Bortnikov, head of Russia’s FSB, has gone further and claimed that his security organs have gathered audio evidence that Georgia has been actively involved in training and lending safe passage to terrorists operating in Chechnya and Dagestan. Naturally the Georgian authorities have denied strenuously any cooperation with al Qaeda. Tbilisi can point to forces which it has contributed to struggles against Islamist terror, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Bortinkov’s allegations might simply represent another front in the propaganda war between Russia and Georgia. However President Saakashvili has demonstrated a penchant for rash and underhand tactics, as well as pathological dishonesty. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that Georgia has somet...

The IIFFMCG’s report on the conflict in Georgia runs to more than 1,000 pages (the Guardian provides a synopsis with excerpts it regards as critical). It is the most detailed examination, to date, of the war which erupted last summer. Although each side’s conduct, before, during and after the events of August 2008, is criticised in the document, it substantiates, unequivocally, the view that President Saakashvili’s adventurism was the immediate precipitant of conflict. . Perhaps the report might infuse with more caution those who continue to advocate the regime in Tbilisi, as if it were a bastion of freedom, democracy and good sense. Not only did Saakashvili provoke a war with Russia. He then lied to the world, in an attempt to persuade international opinion that Moscow had actually been the aggressor. The Georgian president offers partnership which is unreliable and untrustworthy. The Russian authorities, having been presented with their pretext by Saakashvili, responded disp...

Liam Fox should spare a thought for his fellow conservatives in Georgia. The shadow defence secretary wrote an article marking the anniversary of war in South Ossetia which sent a strong message of support to President Saakashvili. However if Fox belonged to the Conservative party in the Caucasian state, he might have a different perspective, because the regime in Tbilisi has a rather heavy handed approach to opposition politics. During a presidential visit to the town of Telavi police are alleged to have broken into the party offices and beaten up three activists. Thankfully, for Fox, similar incidents are rather rarer at Millbank. (H/T Carl Thomson)

The anniversary of last summer’s war between Georgia and Russia has formed a pretext for predictable anti-Russian posturing. Politicians in Britain and elsewhere have been quick to rationalise their initial reactions to the conflict, despite the improvement in tone which Barack Obama’s arrival at the White House has precipitated between western governments and the Kremlin during the last six months. However, despite the residual, reflexive Russophobia which informs much of this analysis, it has generally been expressed in terms which are distinctly more temperate than the (empty) sabre rattling we witnessed last August. Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, is a particularly blinkered critic of Moscow, and compulsively meddles in the affairs of sovereign states. But he met the anniversary of Saakashvili’s invasion with an uncharacteristically muted statement which welcomed President Medvedev’s call for a ‘new security architecture’ in Europe. The Conservative shadow defence minister,...

Exactly one year has elapsed since President Saakashvili ordered his troops to retake Georgia’s breakaway region, South Ossetia, by force of arms. Russia, whose citizens form a majority of the territory’s population, responded by driving Georgian forces back beyond the Ossetian boundary and deep into Georgia proper. Its president’s military adventurism has provided further impetus to increasingly strident political opposition within the former Soviet republic. Realist foreign policy observers within the EU and US have begun to scrutinise the Georgian leader’s democratic credentials with more care. South Ossetia and Abkhazia have sought, and gained, Russian recognition for unilateral declarations of independence. By any sensible criteria, Saakashvili has presided over a tactical and strategic disaster for his country, yet, in today’s Guardian he marks the anniversary of his invasion with a self-valedictory article , portraying his regime as a bastion of freedom which will drive for...

The Foreign Policy Centre has published a pamphlet entitled ‘Spotlight on Georgia’ , timed to coincide with Vice President Biden’s visit to Tbilisi, this week. It is a substantial document and I have yet to plough through all of it. What is clear from my reading so far is that the influential British think tank’s investigations have charted a decline in standards of democracy and human rights under President Saakashvili, despite Western support which is often ‘almost reflexive’. From the 2003 Rose Revolution, and promising beginnings, degeneration in standards has been discerned in recent years, particularly since 2007. Saakashvili’s autocratic style has precipitated a pool of disgruntled politicians prepared to challenge his regime. Opposition has been suppressed, often by violent methods and press freedoms have been curtailed. In its ‘Nations in Transition’ report Freedom House adjudged Georgia to be ‘less democratic’ today than it has been at any point in the last ten years. Th...

Yesterday the Georgian opposition held a 60,000 strong rally to demand that President Saakashvili resign. The culmination of six weeks of protests, the event was timed to coincide with a military parade marking Georgia’s Independence Day. The parade was called off to prevent possible violent clashes. Following calls for ‘direct action’ by some activists, a large crowd converged on Tbilisi’s main station and tried to block trains. The change in tactics is controversial as some opposition leaders suspect it might give the president the perfect excuse to step up his government’s occasionally brutal suppression of protests. The clamour for an election to replace Saakashvili has been growing since his military adventurism in South Ossetia last year. The recent ‘coup’ by an army battalion, due to participate in Nato exercises, heightened tension. The opposition claimed, with possible justification, that the so called mutiny had been staged in order to distract from its protests. Sa...

In a disconcerting echo of events last summer, allegations and counter allegations are accompanying increased tensions in Georgia. An incident at an army base outside Tbilisi, termed a ‘mutiny’ by the Georgian government, has, predictably, been interpreted quite differently by opposition parties. Meanwhile, Russian troops have begun, openly, to patrol the borders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as Nato prepares to conduct manoeuvres, in a country which only last year embarked on a bout of military adventurism and which lies directly at Russia’s southern border. It is, evidently, impossible to disentangle truth from allegation at this stage. We know that a battalion of troops, including its officers, has been accused of refusing orders. Saakashvili has claimed that the episode is part of a coup attempt, orchestrated by Russia, which intended his assassination. There is little evidence offered to back up his assertion. What we can say, with some certainty, is that opposition to th...

‘Three Thousand Versts’ has previously touched upon a new willingness within Georgia to question its government’s military adventurism in South Ossetia. The Caucasian state’s last ambassador to Moscow has been one high profile critic of President Saakashvili’s regime and its belligerent attitude towards Russia. In an article on Open Democracy, Ambassador Kitsmarishvili argues that Tbilisi should follow Barack Obama’s example and seek to ‘reset’ its relations with the Kremlin. The pertinent question for Georgians is whether their government will eventually replicate the new trend toward diplomacy emanating from the White House. If it does not, the popular clamour against Saakashvili will surely continue to grow. Otherwise Georgia risks becoming increasingly isolated, as the international community draws the conclusion that its authorities ‘prefer the language of force, pressure and confrontation between the superpowers’. With bilateralism and diplomacy becoming the preferred means ...

RIA Novosti, the Russian news agency, reports that Georgia's opposition Labour party has laid down a challenge to President Saakashvilli to call an early election. It's leader, Shalva Natelashvili, has been nominated to contest a poll should it be called. The Georgian president insists that there will not be a presidential election until 2013. But increasingly his people are demanding to have their say on his decision to lead them into needless war with Russia last summer. Previously he has reacted to opposition protests with repression. It will be interesting to see what his government's response is this time.