A week ago, US Secretary of State Colin Powell warned Russia not to meddle in Georgia by supporting local secessionist movements. The warning followed invitations for talks in Moscow to the leaders of Georgia’s two breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the autonomous republic of Adjaria, the Georgian Muslim enclave on the border with Turkey.
The American warning has fallen on deaf ears. Moscow is evidently enjoying stirring up the waters of the eastern Black Sea. Its response has been to relax visa requirements for visitors from Adjaria; no similar relaxation will apply to the rest of the country. This is interference on a major scale — and a far cry from the assertions at the time of Eduard Schevadnadze’s fall that Georgia’s integrity must be maintained. Imagine the reaction here if London said that residents of the Eastern Province could go to the UK without a visa, but not other Saudis.
Moscow has been playing with secessionists in Georgia ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union — and in neighboring Azerbaijan too. It is the old game of divide-and-rule, and it has worked. Support for the Abkhazians and South Ossetians behind a pretence of playing the honest mediator has prevented Georgia from developing as a fully independent nation. Support for the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh has similarly destabilized Azerbaijan while ensuring Armenia’s quiescence.
The Georgian revolution has given Moscow the chance to ratchet up the pressure on Tbilisi — for behind all this are Russian hopes of restoring its former Soviet borders. Just days before Sunday’s landslide election victory, the United Russia party’s co-leader Sergei Shoigu said he hopes to see it happen soon. There is added urgency to the Georgian situation as far as Moscow is concerned. Mikhail Saakashvili, the man who led last month’s revolution and is certain to be elected president in three week’s time wants to take Georgia into both NATO and EU. If it gets in, Moscow’s historic hegemony over it will end forever. Were Saakashvili to come to political grief like his predecessor, Moscow would be only too happy.
Interim President Nino Burjanadze has tried to calm the situation by visiting Adjaria on Wednesday for talks, but the omens are not good. There is a deep personal animosity between Adjarian President Aslan Abashidze and Saakashvili. Meanwhile, Saakashvili has vowed to bring Abkhazia back under Georgia control.
If there was one good thing that ousted President Shevardnadze achieved for his country it was peace. He maintained an uneasy truce with the various secessionists which meant de facto freedom for them. But the revolution has changed everything. Russia is playing games; Tbilisi wants to reassert control; the separatists think that this is their chance to make the final break. The distant drumbeats of renewed secessionist wars can almost already be heard.
