TBILISI, 16 August 2004 — In his drive to reassert control over the breakaway region of South Ossetia, Georgia’s youthful new President Mikhail Saakashvili badly miscalculated and now faces his first serious political crisis, analysts say.
Clashes between Georgian troops and separatist forces have flared in recent weeks in the territory that has enjoyed relative peace and de facto independence since fighting a bruising battle against Tbilisi following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
“The president had no strategy for South Ossetia,” according to Paata Zakareishvili, a Georgian political analyst with the Center for Development and Cooperation here.
“He plunged into this adventure without reflecting on the consequences of some of his actions,” he said. Those consequences have included in the past week alone the deaths of four Georgian peacekeepers, the wounding of dozens of civilians and a sharp escalation in tensions between Georgia and its giant northern neighbor, Russia.
Saakashvili, a US-educated lawyer who toppled President Eduard Shevardnadze in a bloodless revolution last year, has won strong diplomatic backing — and substantial financial aid — from the West since winning the presidency in January.
The 36-year-old Saakashvili quickly set to reuniting his fractured country, and triumphantly brought another wayward Georgian region, Adjara, back under Tbilisi’s control three months ago.
But his goal of reining South Ossetia back in now appears as distant as at any time in the past decade, experts said.
Chief among Saakashvili’s errors, they said, was his misguided belief that Russia would quietly exit the stage as he pursued his plan, backed by the United States and the West, to reunite the country.
“Before, the situation on the ground was slowly returning to normal,” stated Arshil Gegeshidze of the Georgian Foundation for International and Strategic Studies.
“Today, Saakashvili is in a difficult position because he naively believed in the cooperation of Russia, whose interest is not to lose its influence in Georgia.”
Gegeshidze said Saakashvili had acted too hastily on South Ossetia, thereby fueling resentment among Russian nationalists “who still feel humiliated by the loss of Adjara” and damaging ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Though officially part of Georgia, South Ossetia is populated mainly by ethnic Ossetians whose brethren living in adjacent North Ossetia are part of the Russian Federation. Many South Ossetians have taken Russian citizenship, which was offered to all citizens of the former Soviet Union, and amid the clashes Moscow has warned it will protect its nationals. South Ossetia’s separatist leaders want the territory to be taken over by Moscow if it can’t remain independent.
Russian peacekeepers patrol the region alongside Georgian and South Ossetian forces, but clashes between Georgian and South Ossetian troops have broken out in recent weeks. A cease-fire went into effect Saturday, but there were however several reports Sunday of violations.
While Saakashvili remains popular among Georgians despite his introduction of painful reforms, the crisis over South Ossetia has highlighted weaknesses in his spontaneous political style, the analysts said.
In June, Saakashvili began using a “carrot-and-stick” approach in South Ossetia, pouring money into new social projects to undermine the popularity of local leaders while simultaneously deploying more troops to begin enforcing rule from Tbilisi.
He ordered the closure of a major marketplace in Tskhinvali run by South Ossetia’s self-styled president, Eduard Kokoity, with Tbilisi describing it as a bastion of organized crime and a drain on Georgia’s legitimate tax revenue.
