Dan Drezner ads his two cents, and believes that Saakashvili is a good leader.
Screw Bush or Kerry -- why can't someone like Mikheil Saakashvili run for president in the United States? As someone who witnessed first-hand the Soviet-style traffic police in action when living in Ukraine, I could only weep with joy after reading C.J. Chivers' account in the New York Times of Saakashvili's police reforms.
Nice to see this region mentioned on one of the bigger blogs.
Georgia has begun withdrawing troops from the conflict zone in South Ossetia a day after it claimed to have captured key strategic positions in the area. It is handing over control to a joint peacekeeping force composed of Russian, Ossetian and Georgian soldiers.
Events move fast.
Looks like Georgia may be getting cold feet, as the prospect of more conflict looms. But it appears that this might not be the end of things:
Mr Saakashvili called his offer "the last chance for peace" in South Ossetia. A ceasefire deal reached last Friday has now been violated for five nights in a row, as pro-Russian South Ossetian separatists battle Georgian troops.
The report continues with a quote from Saakashvili:
"We are ready to hand over control of these positions to the tripartite peacekeeping contingent, which also includes Georgians, and leave 500 of our select fighters under our peacekeeping force quota to protect Georgian villages against attacks and possible acts of provocation," he said."We are also ready to withdraw from all other positions and redeploy our forces outside the conflict zone in Gori."
Mr Saakashvili said Georgia had sent extra troops to South Ossetia to combat smuggling, and this had "prompted vicious attacks on this contingent".
The Georgian authorities say their troops killed eight South Ossetian fighters in the latest overnight fighting. The claim has not been confirmed.
Mr Saakashvili has said the international community should play an active role in peace talks. He called on world leaders to hold a conference on the future of South Ossetia and send Western peacekeepers to the region.
As readers may know the town of Gori is the home of a man that went by the name of Stalin. Saakashvili is playing a dangerous game here, the situation is becoming more and more fragile. Georgian troops on Ossetian land, even under the tripartite agreement could further enrage Ossetians. All of this comes on the back of reported heaving shelling in and around Tskhinvali last night.
Yet another piece in the IHT on the Georgian situation. Eugene's advice to Saakashvili:
For reunification to happen, Abkhazia and South Ossetia will have to be guaranteed utmost autonomy within the new Georgia, without it actually crossing the line to sovereignty. And Saakashvili will have to give up some of his ambitions temporarily in order to please Russia. For example, he has openly and repeatedly said he wants to join NATO. This deeply offends the Russians - and it sounds hypocritical to them when, in the same breath, Saakashvili insists that no foreign military power should have the right to station its bases, or its troops, on Georgian soil. Russia still maintains two bases in Georgia, and it is unlikely to remove them if it knows that NATO might put a base of its own in their place.For now, the best solution for Saakashvili is to pursue the path of democracy. If the young president can ensure continued free and fair elections, curb corruption and improve his people's standard of living, Western institutions will invite his country to join them - not the other way around - and foreign aid will find its way to his doorstep.
When that moment comes, Abkhazia and South Ossetia may still refuse to reunite with Georgia - only this time, the loss will be theirs.
CJ Chivers with his take on current events in Georgia. Like most people, he believes in Russian interference, but is also wary of how the Georgian President has heightened tensions by insisting on the return of the two renegede provinces to Tblisi control.
The stakes are unmistakably high. Russia and the United States have competing interests in the region, a strategic intersection of Asia and Europe, and Russia has been openly supporting the separatists. One Russian newspaper has compared Saakashvili to Fidel Castro, a leader of a tiny nation who has been giving larger powers sleepless nights.Why Saakashvili risked inflaming tensions with references to violence remains an open question. But now that he has everyone paying attention again, a simple question surrounds him: What will he do next? Saakashvili, for his part, speaks with the air of destiny. In a meeting with journalists and analysts on Aug. 10, he said it was inevitable that the republics would return to Georgia.
He noted that because both are within Georgia's internationally recognized borders, no other outcome can be acceptable.
"It's not only about Georgia," he said. "It's about world order."
And in relation to recent events reported by the BBC, it seems that they may be not reporting some things that the local TV channel, Rustavi-2 are. Georgians have informed me that 4 soldiers and 8 civilans were killed on the Georgian side, whether that's true or not has yet to be verified.
Things seem to be descending into chaos in and around South Ossetia.
Heavy fighting has broken out in Georgia's South Ossetia region, shattering a two-day ceasefire. Two Georgian soldiers died as their base in the village of Eredvi came under attack from South Ossetian separatist forces early on Monday. The ceasefire was agreed on Friday between Tbilisi and South Ossetia, which wants to join Russia. Georgian Interior Minister Irakli Okruashvili said there would be no more talks following the recent attacks.
This sounds like a powderkeg just waiting to go off. The Ossetians are brave only because they have the backing of Russia. Warning to the international community: this could have huge consquences, perhaps even more so given the oil pipline being built through Georgia.
Yet more news from Georgia:
Georgia's parliament has called for the withdrawal of Russian peacekeeping troops from the breakaway region of South Ossetia. The number of clashes has increased in recent days, including an attack on Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania.
The Prime Minister's convoy came under fire while he was doing a tour of villages neighbouring South Ossetia. This could be the work of Ossestian seperatists or even Russian soldiers, I wouldn't be surprised.
I think Georgia is right to ask for the removal of Russian 'peacekeepers'. They are hardly neutral in the affairs of Georgia and its provinces.
More strange goings-on in Georgia and South Ossetia. The question is who do we believe. I tend to believe the Georgians when they say things like
"external forces [planning] to drag Georgia into a large-scale armed conflict on its own territory".
Or Russia to you and me.
The Ossetians are blaming Georgia for:
28 people had been injured, and a hospital and a kindergarten in Tskhinvali had been damaged by shelling along with 50 Ossetian homes."All night they were firing from all types of weapons - mortars, artillery, everything was engaged," one South Ossetian fighter told Russia's Channel One Television.
You have to believe two things here. One, An Ossetian fighters claims, and two, a heavily Russian State-controlled TV station. And for State-controlled read Putin-controlled. And you also have to believe that the Georgians would start shelling and then just happen to hit a kindergarten and a hospital. Somewhat emotive targets don't you think?
So do I believe Georgia when it says:
At least three Georgian villages were hit: Tamarasheni, Kurta and Achabeti. Speaking at a meeting of the Georgian Security Council, President Saakashvili confirmed that three Georgian peacekeepers had been killed.
That sounds much more believable to me. This could get ugly. Followers of Caucasian politics may also be interested to know that ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky visited the other breakaway region, Abkhazia. The BBC reported:
Accompanied by about 40 fellow MPs, Mr Zhirinovsky, a deputy speaker in the Russian parliament, arrived in the region's capital, Sukhumi, for what he described as a holiday.
You have to like the Russians, they certainly have balls. A holiday my arse. As Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said, it was intended to provoke. Not only did Zhirinovsky and his pals visit Sukhumi, but they also decided to do so by ship, just a week after Georgian patrol boats fired on an Abkazian ship, while claiming jurisdiction over the waters off Abkazia.
Georgian coastguards initially impounded the boat in which he was travelling as it neared Abkhazia. It was later released, in what the Georgian authorities described as a gesture of goodwill.
Well what else could the Georgians do?
This all gets more and more intriguing
Is this man the godsend of Libertarians and free-market lovers everywhere? Could Georgia be the model for future economies? Or will it end up plunging into war with Russia?
None of my readers know it, but one of my pet subjects is Caucasian politics. I read about it regularly, and discuss it with some very nice Georgian people. I have picked up the odd bit of Russian and Georgian. Ravakha Bijou. [loose phonetics].
Here are some choice quotes for people that I know will like this guy, namely Frank.
He says that Georgia should be ready to sell “everything that can be sold, except its conscience”.Next year—if not sooner—he will cut the rate of income tax from 20% to 12%, payroll taxes from 33% to 20%, value-added tax from 20% to 18%, and abolish 12 kinds of tax altogether. He wants to let leading foreign banks and insurers open branches freely. He wants to abolish laws on legal tender, so that investors can use whatever currency they want. He hates foreign aid—it “destroys your ability to do things for yourself,” he says—though he concedes that political realities will oblige him to accept it for at least the next three years or so.
As to where investors should put their money, “I don't know and I don't care,” he says, and continues: “I have shut down the department of industrial policy. I am shutting down the national investment agency. I don't want the national innovation agency.” Oh yes, and he plans to shut down the country's anti-monopoly agency too. “If somebody thinks his rights are being infringed he can go to the courts, not to the ministry.” He plans, as his crowning achievement, to abolish his own ministry in 2007. “In a normal country, you don't need a ministry of the economy,” he says. “And in three years we can make the backbone of a normal country.”
The lesson he drew from the Russian experience, he says, is to change the method of privatisation, not the principle of it. He promises public sales to the highest bidder, and cash only: “no conditions, no promises, no beauty contests”.
Big improvements in business conditions are needed in order to offset big political risks and to keep investors coming. “Other governments make budgets,” he says. “We are making a nation.”