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October 20, 2002
A Test Ground of Putin’s
International Conduct
Georgian authorities have just
completed successfully a nonviolent security operation
in the Pankisi Gorge, the suspected haven of a handful
of Chechen fighters. Lawless and crime-ridden no more,
the gorge is now controlled by Georgian forces, and open
to Russian and international inspection. Moscow had
threatened to extend the war from Chechnya into Georgia
under anti-terrorism pretenses, the real goal being
however to change Georgia's Western orientation.
President Vladimir Putin and his closest associates were
publicly hinting that a free hand in Georgia was part of
Russia's price for standing aside if the United States
moves against Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
The threats to Georgia had become a
significant irritant to American-Russian relations, also
jeopardizing Western interests regarding the transit of
Caspian oil and gas. Therefore, the peaceful restoration
of order in Pankisi-and, indeed, any move to consolidate
the Georgian state-is good news also in terms of Western
direct access to Caspian energy, as well as for U.S.-led
efforts against international terrorism and related
mass-destruction-weapons threats.
Moscow's fixation on the Pankisi
problem has for some time distracted international
attention from its more far-reaching moves to thwart
Georgia's Western course. Now is the time to refocus
political attention on those larger, festering problems,
which affect not only Georgia, but the post-Soviet
international order, the credibility of international
organizations, and Russia's own prospects to develop
democratically.
Those unresolved issues include:
Russian troops and bases, peacekeeping and
"ethnic" conflict resolution, adherence to
international obligations, and decolonization of the
South Caucasus-Caspian region. Russia maintains three
Soviet-era military bases in Georgia, totaling some
8,000 troops and large arsenals, without a legal basis
and against Georgia's oft-expressed will. The
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe at
its 1999 summit required Russia to close down the
Gudauta base by July 2001, and to negotiate with Georgia
regarding the Batumi and Akhalkalaki bases. All of the
OSCE member countries including Russia subscribed to
those summit decisions.
Nevertheless, Russia retains the
Gudauta base to this day, and is blocking OSCE
inspections there, although such inspections are
mandatory under the Treaty on Conventional Forces in
Europe. Meanwhile, Moscow demands an eleven-year
extension for the Batumi and Akhalkalaki bases, and has
unilaterally suspended the OSCE-mandated negotiations
with Georgia. On the other hand, Moscow has said that it
wants Western money to defray at least some of the costs
of relocating the troops from Georgia to Russia. Western
countries should give this idea urgent favorable
consideration.
Subsidizing the Russian troop
withdrawal worked well for Germany and the Baltic states
during the 1990s. In Georgia it would cost far less,
compared to those earlier cases which involved much
larger Russian forces. Georgia's independence and role
as energy transit corridor is worth infinitely more than
the cost of relocating those troops to Russia. For now,
those troops' presence fosters disorder and armed ethnic
separatism. In the secessionist Abkhazia, a political
and humanitarian problem of massive ethnic cleansing of
Georgians stands, unresolved and practically
unaddressed, before the international community. Russian
military intervention created this problem in the first
place.
This year, Russia conferred its
citizenship on the residents of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia, areas universally considered (by Russia as
well, officially) to form integral parts of Georgia. The
Russian Duma has passed legislation that, on paper at
least, authorizes the "admission" of other
states or parts of other states into the Russian
Federation as its constituent units. Most recently,
Russian ministerial delegations to Abkhazia have
discussed the acquisition of what is legally Georgian
state property by Russian entities. Is it not high time
to ask Mr. Putin whether, in his view, international law
still applies to Russia-Georgia relations?
In Abkhazia and South Ossetia (as in
Moldova's Transnistria region), Moscow seeks acceptance
of an exclusive role as the military
"peacekeeper" in post-Soviet areas. In
parallel, it insists on a leading role as diplomatic
mediator in the local conflicts that it had itself
sparked and continues to exploit. Fortunately, Russia
has not obtained any international recognition of that
special role, though it enjoys a degree of acceptance de
facto. Any formalized acceptance, or prolonged tacit
tolerance, would create regional spheres of Russian
influence rooted in the Soviet past. It was in Abkhazia
in the early 1990s that Shamil Basaev, Ruslan Gelaev,
and many hundreds of Chechen fighters first gained
combat experience. They were armed, trained and deployed
by the Russian military in the war against Georgia. They
were not being labeled "terrorists" by Moscow
then.
Even today, Moscow harbors Igor
Giorgadze, the suspected organizer of the 1995
assassination attempt on President Eduard Shevardnadze.
Mr. Giorgadze is wanted ever since in Georgia for legal
proceedings. Russian media-including Kremlin-controlled
state television-regularly interview Mr. Giorgadze, even
as Russia's intelligence agencies- Mr. Putin's home
base- pretend to be unaware of Igor Giorgadze's
whereabouts. The post-September 11 international
political consensus on the issue of terrorism has
evidently not impinged on Mr. Giorgadze's safe haven.
Russia's media have, under Mr. Putin, lost a good deal
of the freedom they had enjoyed previously. The
authorities now control or influence much of the media
output.
Officially-inspired coverage of
Georgia and of Russia-Georgia relations is designed to
excuse the Russian military's setbacks in the Chechnya
war, back up the threats of force against Georgia,
generate anti-Georgian sentiment among the Russian
public and prepare the political atmosphere for military
actions on Georgian territory. Such misuse of the media
illustrates the truism that neo-imperial ambitions are
destructive of democracy at home. The crisis over
Pankisi lasted for almost two years. American political
support shielded Georgia from possible Russian military
intervention, while the U.S. Train-and-Equip Program is
enabling Georgia's internal security forces to stabilize
the country. When the United States first announced that
program in February of this year, Mr. Putin decided-as
he had last year in Central Asia-not to stand in the
way. Since then, however, he and his close associates
have sought to create pretexts for military intervention
in Georgia, without that country's or international
consent.
With major Western economic interests
at stake here, Georgia should be regarded as a
touchstone of Mr. Putin's willingness to accept the
post-Soviet countries' independence and their choice of
a Western orientation. Georgia is also the place where
the Kremlin can show whether it supports U.S.-led
anti-terrorism efforts as a matter of principle, or
would only exploit this issue and seek
country-for-country tradeoffs. In sum, Georgia is a
testing ground of Mr. Putin's international conduct.
The above article appeared in The
Wall Street Journal Europe, October 18-20, 2002.
Mr. Socor is a senior fellow of the Washington-based
Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies.
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