Category: Caucasian Politics

Anatol Lieven, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington has a good piece about Chechnya in the IHT. He believes that the West needs a new strategy for Chechnya and that this strategy should have 3 vital components:

The first would be directed towards Moscow, and would echo our approach to Turkey, India and other countries which have fought similar conflicts against secessionist and terrorist forces. It would express unqualified support for Russia’s territorial integrity and for its struggle against the terrorists.

However, it would combine this with demands that the Russian state take much stronger action against abuses by the military, that international observers be allowed into Chechnya and that the Russian government launch a much more broadly based and democratic political initiative. This would include both the holding of democratic parliamentary elections in Chechnya and an offer of talks with Maskhadov and his followers.

The second Western approach should be to Maskhadov and his representatives in the West, like Ahmed Zakayev, who has been given political asylum in Britain. They should be reminded firmly that when they formed a Chechen government in 1996 to 99, they failed utterly to foster even minimal elements of a state in Chechnya, to protect foreign citizens there or to prevent Chechnya being used as a base by anti-Western extremists. Their credibility as would-be rulers of an independent Chechnya is zero.

Any thought of Chechen independence must therefore be deferred until a solid basis for Chechen statehood has been created. In return for Western support for Chechen democracy and their own amnesty and participation in the Chechen political process, Maskhadov and his followers must accept autonomy for Chechnya within the Russian Federation as a short-to-medium-term solution and promise to struggle for long-term independence by exclusively peaceful and political means.

They must also commit themselves not only to break absolutely with the terrorists, but to fight against them alongside Russian forces. If they fail to make this commitment, they should be treated by the West as terrorist supporters.

Finally, the West should back such a settlement with the promise of a really serious aid package for Chechnya’s reconstruction, calibrated so as to reward supporters of peace, and of Western special forces to help Russia in the fight against the terrorists.

It may be argued of course that such a commitment is utterly unrealistic, given the contemptible failure of Western countries even to meet their formal obligations to liberated Afghanistan. But then again, if Western governments and societies are not prepared to give real help to Chechnya, how much is their moralizing talk about the situation there really worth?

The BBC are streaming a copy of a video recorded inside the school at Beslan, probably early on in it siege. It seems to depict the number of explosives present, and how many hostage takers/murderers in the gym.

So amidst all the tragedy in North Ossetia, a Georgian film crew was captured by…the Russian Security Services? Surely not during the funerals of hundreds of Ossetian, slaughtered as they were by terrorist murderers? Yes, and the FSB are acting pretty strange about it too. Putin seems to be gunning for a showdown with Georgia and Chechnya.

This is pretty mad stuff. The Georgian President, Mikhail Saakashvili went on television to demand the return of the journalists. The two hacks work for the more independent station in Georgia, and the region, Rustavi-2, which is actually available in a live streamin on the Internet. The station has reporting on the situation here and here, and are blaming Russian political motives – which is all too likely given the recent skirmishes in South Ossetia. You can watch the latest news in Real Player if you click the Live link.

Rustavi’s reaction:

The Rustavi2 Broadcasting Company is highly concerned by the detention of its correspondent, Nana Lezhava and the cameraman, Levan Tetvadze by the Russian law-enforcers in Beslan.

The authorities of the company are strongly convinced that the detention of Nana Lezhava had nothing to do with the “active behavior” on her part as the Russian law-enforcers, and, unfortunately, some Russian media agencies call it.

The Rustavi2 authorities deem the detention of Nana Lezhava and Levan Tetvadze as an illegal act as both of the journalists had all the necessary legal documents which allowed them to cross the border to cover the events in Beslan.

Several members of the Rustavi2 staff have launched a protest demonstration in front of the Russian embassy in Tbilisi. They have already been joined by other media representatives who came to show sympathy for their colleagues unfairly detained in Beslan.

This appears to be yet more provocation by the Russians, even after the events in Beslan.

Neal Ascherson writing in the IHT discusses the other problem in the Caucasus: Abkazia. While the world’s media has been focused on the school siege in North Ossetia, and the related Chechen problem, is has paid almost no attention to the brewing problems in either South Ossetia or Abkazia.

Neal writes in depth about the upcoming elections in the province, and the likely problems facing Saakashvili. He concludes however:

But Saakashvili and the new Abkhaz president will face two obstacles. One is how to let the refugees return without overbalancing Abkhazia’s demography. The other is gaining Russian approval. That is even harder. As American influence in the region grows, with huge U.S. investments in Caspian oil and trans-Caucasus pipelines, Russia’s instinct is to hold on to any lever in its grasp – including the military presence in Abkhazia that gives Moscow a decisive grip on Georgian policies.

In the end, it is not Georgians or Abkhazians who will solve this dangerous standoff. Only a global agreement between Russia and the United States on the future of the Caucasus will end Abkhazia’s isolation and bring Georgia and Abkhazia to a lasting settlement.

It is a region worth watching closely.

Salih Brandt, a former European spokesman for the Chechen government, made some curious remarks on This Week today. Roisin Duffy was even a little shocked. You can listen to him being interviewed here.

But I have gone to the trouble of transcribing the most curious bit:

Salih Brandt: In the background of this you have to look at that Russia is in a situation where the government is becoming increasingly sort of KGB/FSB orientated. And it’s not without reason that Vladimir Putin is fighting a campaign in his country to regain control of the resources of that country. Now there are a list of eight/nine/ten, all of them Jewish, oligarchs, who have ripped the wealth out of the country over the last ten years. Now if Yukos, facing a back tax bill of $4.1 billion, that’s $4.1 billion dollars that Vladimir Putin did not have at his disposal for insuring the security of his population. And that money has come out of the country and is being used to play football in Europe. And this is something people need to look at very closely. I have to sympathise with Vladimir Putin in that sense, he has limited resources to deal with. And the result of that is for the price of 7 dollars, you bribe your way with a bomb past a security guard in Russia.

Roisin Duffy: That’s a horrific allegation Salih Brandt thanks for joining us.

I was just a little shocked by the allegation too. A quick look around the Internet revealed this study by Dr. Betsy Gidwitz at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. It notes:

That Jews control a disproportionately large share of the Russian economy and Russian media certainly has some basis in fact. Between 50 and 80 percent of the Russian economy is said to be in Jewish hands, with the influence of the five Jews among the eight individuals commonly referred to as “oligarchs” particularly conspicuous. (An oligarch is understood to be a member of a small group that exercises control in a government. The five oligarchs of Jewish descent are Boris Berezovsky, Mikhail Friedman, Vladimir Gusinsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and Alexander Smolensky. The other oligarchs are Vagit Alekperov, Vladimir Potanin, and Rem Vyakhirev.)

And the reason for the disproporationate share?

How did the oligarchs achieve their power? Here we must review Soviet history and Soviet antisemitism. All of these individuals were born in the postwar years. Berezovsky, in his mid-50s, is the oldest among them. Antisemitism had closed off positions in government and industry to most Jews during the Soviet period. Typically, energetic Jews found outlets in academic institutions (second-tier if they were bright, first-tier if they were brilliant and lucky); culture (Gusinsky had been a theater director); medicine; engineering; and as tradesmen, such as repairmen and dressmakers.

Because advertising was forbidden in the Soviet Union, skilled trades people turned to unofficial brokers (fartsovshchiky) who could obtain key items, such as tools or spare parts, that were “in deficit,” i.e., in short supply. Other brokers could find gifted surgeons for private patients or arrange stays at elite vacation resorts. Many of these brokers were Jews.

A similar field of work on a larger scale was that of a tolkach, an expediter or fixer in industry. These were the underground wheelers and dealers who performed vital roles in addressing the failures of the centrally planned Soviet economy. They found the raw materials that the behemoth central planning system had lost, they arranged transportation links, they cleared bottlenecks. Most had the protection offered by a conventional job, perhaps as an engineer, but their wheeling and dealing skills became known and every competent factory manager had at least one on the payroll.

When Mikhail Gorbachev permitted the development of cooperatives and private trade as components of his perestroika policy in 1987, the expediters were well-positioned to step forward. Many of them fashioned their contacts together into cooperatives. Within a short time, the cooperatives developed into conglomerates.

The non-Jewish oligarchs, on the other hand, acquired their assets through earlier positions in government agencies that provided insider contacts. The three named individuals all held key posts in the former Soviet economic apparatus – such as the Ministry of Energy and Fuel, the Ministry of Foreign Trade, or in the Soviet State Bank – positions that were closed to Jews. One is the son of a prominent Soviet diplomat. Simply stated, the non-Jews just took personal control of industrial sectors for which they had had prior public supervisory responsibilities.

And if it was Jews who made the money, more power to them. If it was Christians who became the Oligarchs would we hear the same kind of statement? Is Brandt saying that all Jews are tax-dodgers? Why not just say that Jews are the cause of all of Russia’s problems? Brandt is making an outlandish and perhaps racist statement. The fact that some, though not all, of the oligarchs are Jewish really has no bearing. The situation with Yukos is just a little more complex than what Putin or the State-owned media would have us believe to be plain old tax evasion. In fact to think that the Yukos situation is only a tax evasion issue is just plain silly.

And then to blame a lack of Russian resources on Jews not paying their taxes strikes me as, well, crap.

I have been following events in North Ossetia, as my readers know, I follow events in this region with a keen interest. South Ossetia was recently the scene of some skirmishes with Georgian troops, a situation that is likely to flare up again in the near future.

It now seems that these Chechens in North Ossetia have given Putin something of an excuse to do whatever the hell he likes in Chechnya. I think it would be fair to say that Putin has some racist tendencies, many of my Russian and Georgian friends believe him to be racist, and he most especially despises Chechens (and Jews purportedly), much like Stalin in previous years.

What now? Expect reprisals, but not very well publicised ones.

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.