A New Cold War?

HUNDREDS OF people died when fighting broke out in Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia in August, prompting a Russian invasion of Georgia and several weeks of conflict involving Georgian, Russian and South Ossetian forces.



The European Union stepped in with a plan brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to end the fighting, but Nato’s chief warned Russia’s intentions to keep forces in Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was “not acceptable”.



The European Union announced 500 million euros in aid to help Georgia’s recovery, and was set to send around 200 ceasefire monitors to buffer zones around the borders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where Moscow said it was to base some 7,500 troops despite Nato objections.



The ongoing tensions in the region meant the plight of more than 100,000 refugees who fled August’s fighting was set to continue for some time to come.



Fr. Witold Szulczynski, head of Caritas Georgia, said that although humanitarian aid was reaching the people of Tbilisi and that life seemed to be returning to normal in the war-ravaged city of Gori, he said a partial Russian blockade had worsened the plight of refugees. In a late-August interview with the US-based Catholic News Service, Fr. Szulcynski said 60 percent of Georgian-occupied homes between Gori and the South Ossetia border had been burned, and that marauding gangs of unidentified armed men were “robbing and plundering” villages.





Cultural crossroads





Wedged between the Black Sea, Turkey and Russia, Georgia lies at the crossroads where Europe meets Asia, a strategic geopolitical hot-spot because it is the integral transit route of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline that pumps Caspian Sea oil from Azebaijan to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, while bypassing Russia. Georgia has been fought over throughout the centuries as bigger ethnic and religious forces tried to stamp their mark on its mountainous terrain.



Influenced by the Roman Empire shortly after the time of Christ, Christianity became Georgia’s state religion in the early 4th century. But after the Roman Empire collapsed, Georgia found itself a final outpost of Christianity in a predominantly Muslim region.



Weakened by a Mongol invasion in the 13th century, Georgia found itself in a tug-of-war between the Ottoman and Persian empires before being eventually annexed by Russia in the 19th century.



The country briefly gained independence after the Bolshevik Revolution, before being forcibly annexed by the USSR in 1921. When the union collapsed in 1991, Georgia regained independence.



Throughout all its traumatic transitions, Georgia still managed to retain its Christian heritage, and Tbilisi became a city renowned for its religious tolerance. This is evinced by the imposing structure of the city’s Orthodox Holy Trinity Cathedral peacefully sharing the city with Georgian Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic and Catholic churches, as well as a mosque and a synagogue. In the country’s mountains, many of Georgia’s fortified monasteries survived the Soviet Union’s anti-religious purges. Although there have been difficult times between the various creeds, and ecumenism is still a work-in-progress, new evangelical communities are growing around the country, which retains the true promise of a multi-denominational, multifaith society.





President Saakashvili





The fledgling state’s unique identity looked set to develop further when the 2004 elections swept the US-educated Mikhail Saakashvili’s National Movement Party to power, with its focus on progressive market reforms and democratization.



Tensions, however, had long been simmering in the separatist administrations of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which had been trying to gain formal independence since Georgia’s rebirth in 1991. Skirmishes in each region had prompted Russia, which shares a border-line with both, to send in peacekeepers in an attempt to maintain order. With ethnic Georgians making up less than a third of South Ossetia’s population, most Ossetians would rather join up with their ethnic brethren in North Ossetia – an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation – than be part of Georgia.



The tensions only increased after Mr Saakashvili made re-uniting the country one of his focal priorities. Mr Saakashvili had made winning Nato membership a core plank of his presidency, which would have given his leadership added security in the face of rising anti-government feeling. Had Georgia been a full-blown member of the alliance, it would have come under the umbrella of Nato’s protection – an attack on one member state is an attack on the body itself, and must be vigorously rebutted by all alliance members. Nato agreed in April 2008 that Georgia should become a member of the alliance. It was just a question of when.





The August 7 attack





A spate of clashes between Georgian forces and South Ossetian fighters earlier this Summer led Mr Saakashvili to launch a ground and aerial attack on separatist positions on August 7. Georgia claimed Russia was preparing to take over the area at the time, an allegation Moscow steadfastly denied, while stating that Russian peacekeeping troops stationed in the area had been killed in the Georgian offensive.



Despite being a small country, Georgia has an advanced military capacity. Thanks largely to its support for the US-led effort in Iraq, Tbilisi has received military aid and training for its forces from Washington.



Georgian troops succeeded in taking control of the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, the next day. But their control did not last long. More than half of the area’s 70,000-strong population are thought to have taken up an earlier offer of Russian citizenship. Stating that it had a duty to protect Russian citizens who had been indiscriminately targeted by the Georgian attack, Moscow sent thousands of its own ground forces through the Roki tunnel into South Ossetia. At the same time, it launched air-raids over military targets in other parts of Georgia.



The fighting devastated Tskhinvali and prompted droves of South Ossetian civilians to flee their homes, many choosing to seek sanctuary in the neighbouring Russian republic of North Ossetia. Many residents of Georgian towns and villages near South Ossetia also fled, with large numbers taking refuge in the capital Tbilisi.



As Russia’s navy swiftly neutralised any possible threat from Georgia’s small fleet, Russian troops took over strategic areas of Georgia, including the town of Gori which straddles the main road between east and west Georgia.



Backed up by Russian forces, Abkhaz militants re-captured a strategic region of Abkhazia known as the Kodori Gorge – which had been occupied by Georgian troops since 2006.





Moves for independence





Russia’s hardline prime minister and former president, Vladimir Putin, said that as a result of Georgia’s actions, Russia would not allow South Ossetia or Abkhazia to reintegrate with the rest of Georgia. Both regions declared their independence from Tbilisi and, on August 26, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev officially recognised both as independent states.



He then went further, promising to defend Russian citizens, wherever they may be, and adding that Moscow would strive to maintain privileged interests in its spheres of influence – including those bordering the country. This was a warning knell for the nearby fledgling democracies of Ukraine and other former Soviet satellite states which have Russian passport holders inside their borders.



Allies on both sides of the Atlantic were swift to condemn Russia’s strong-arm tactics. The European Union condemned Russia’s actions, which Washington called “an illegitimate, unilateral attempt to change [Georgia]’s borders by force”, while France called the move “regrettable”. Nato said the development violated UN Security Council resolutions previously endorsed by Moscow.





A political corpse?



The rhetoric ramped up as fears of a new Cold War were heightened, with the outspoken US Vice-President Dick Cheney declaring on a trip to Georgia that Moscow’s actions put its reliability as an international partner “in grave doubt”.



While the European Union suspended talks with Russia on forming a new strategic alliance, the US and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pledged nearly $2 billion to support reconstruction efforts in Georgia. But as this piece was written, several weeks after a French-brokered cease-fire was approved by both sides, Russian troops remained entrenched deep inside Georgian territory.



Under the terms of the ceasefire, Russia had promised to withdraw its troops to the positions they held before hostilities broke out. But Russia stalled on pulling back its forces, saying they were peacekeepers rather than invaders, and that their presence was allowed under the agreement.



Russian troops formed a ring of checkpoints around South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which it said was for security reasons, but which the West argued was in breach of the ceasefire terms. Russia also refused to do business with Mr Saakashvili, whom Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov branded a “political corpse”.





Saakashvili’s call for help





While Mr Medvedev was unrepentant in the war’s aftermath, stating, “Russia is a nation to be reckoned with”, Mr Putin was more conciliatory. While Moscow had been justified in its intervention in South Ossetia, he said ties with the West would remain strong due to foreign countries’ dependence on Russian oil, gas and mineral wealth.



For his part, Mr Saakashvili called on his allies in the US and Europe to help Georgia regain control of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.



“Our goal is the return of our territory and the peaceful unification of Georgia,” he said in a televised speech in early September.



“Our territorial integrity will be restored, I am more convinced of this than ever… This will not be an easy process, but now this is a process between an irate Russia and the rest of the world.”



But as a high-level Nato delegation, led by secretary general Jap de Hoop Scheffer, arrived in Tibilisi in September to establish a new Georgia Commission to help rebuild the country, Russia showed little sign of rowing back from its hard-line position. The Caucasus looks likely to teeter on the brink of conflict for years to come.