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Georgia Report

 

By: Jaan-Andres Sepp in March 2000

 

 

Introduction

 

Recently, a conference was held in Batumi, capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjaria, on the Georgian Black Sea coast. Under the title ”First International Conference for the Modern World and Human Rights in the Republic of Georgia”, the main issues of the congress were 1) international human rights NGOs and the human rights situation in Georgia; 2) intergovernmental organizations (UN, EU, OSCE, CoE) and human rights situation in Georgia; 3) political prisoners and refugees in Georgia; and 4) Georgia: human rights and education. Besides, round table discussions were held on the following topics: 1) rights of nations; and 2) the role of the human rights NGOs in the development of the civil society in the post-communist countries. The four organizers of the conference were Aslan Abashidze’s International Fund; the National Section of Georgia of the International Society for Human Rights; the International Association ”Caucasus: Ethnic Relations, Human Rights, Geopolitics”; and the Netherlands Helsinki Union.

 

Aslan Abashidze, who was also the main financier of the conference, is the chairman of the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Adjaria, in other words, the President of Adjaria. He was also a main challenger of Eduard Shevardnadze in the presidential election of Georgia next month. [However, in the actual presidential election in April, Abashidze unexpectedly decided to give up his candidacy just a day before election. Before this he had met Shevardnadze.] The third main candidate was Dzumber Patiashvili, who is getting opposition votes from East Georgia, while Abashidze’s domain is Adjaria, and partly maybe other areas of West Georgia. The main motives of the conference were apparently good and humanitarian, giving an alarming picture of the continuing bad human rights situation in Shevardnadze’s Georgia, but as the head of the organizing committee of the congress was Shevardnadze’s main rival, the congress revealed many features connected with Georgia’s internal power game. Some of these features suggest risky tendencies in present Georgian politics, which should be taken into account as a serious warning.

 

The main practical organizer of the conference was Dr. Levan Urushadze, a long-time human rights activist and opposition character in Georgia. He is also a devoted Zviadist, supporter of the first legal president of Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia. It was not hidden in any ways that the conference served as a great promotion of the Zviadist opposition against Shevardnadze’s usurper government. It must be remembered that Mr. Gamsakhurdia, often entitled ”the national hero of Georgia” in the conference, was hugely popular (well over 90 per cent support) when he became elected the first president of Georgia. This means that the Shevardnadze era persecutions against ”Zviadist” and ”ultra-nationalist” opposition, as often branded in Russian and even Western disinformation, were targeted against a vast majority of the Georgian people.

 

Gamsakhurdia was an old dissident and intellectual who was never corrupted by the Soviet nomenclature. He was thus ”clean”, and he was undoubtedly morally a very good man and a good idealist. But he had also some serious incompetence. First, Gamsakhurdia lacked the real political ability that would have been needed in the Caucasian and post-Soviet situation, when deprived from Western support. In the western parts of the post-communist Europe – in the Baltic countries, Poland, Czech Republic, even Romania – it was possible for intellectual presidents and former dissidents to rise into supreme political power. These leaders, like Lech Walesa, Václav Havel and Emil Constantinescu, enjoyed full and sincere support by the West. Also the Baltic countries were from the very beginning practically protected by a Western security umbrella that largely help entirely democratic and Western-modeled polities to be born right after the fall of the Soviet empire. It would maybe have been possible for Georgia’s Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Azerbaijan’s Abulfaz Elchibey (an almost parallel figure to Gamsakhurdia) to manage similarly in making Georgia and Azerbaijan stable Western-oriented democracies, if the Western policies would have granted to the Caucasus a similar security as was granted to East Central Europe and the Baltics. Instead, the Western decision makers preferred to brand the Caucasus as a backyard of Russia. This meant a much harder type of politician than intellectuals of Gamsakhurdia’s type would have been needed to resist Russian sabotage.

 

Thus, one of Gamsakhurdia’s biggest mistakes was that he was not able to gain strong Western support for his royal political ideas: intentions to rehabilitate the old legacy and cultural heritage of Christian Georgia. In the Caucasian context Azerbaijan has traditionally relied on Turkey, her closest relative nation, and Armenia has been dependent on Russia because of old enemy patterns. But Georgia has been alone, because it has traditionally appeared as the biggest Caucasic nation – the Azeris are Turks and the Armenians are more closely related to Persia. The whole cultural and historical setting for Georgia as an old empire and kingdom, and as a dominant country in the Caucasian Isthmus, was different from those of Azerbaijan and Armenia. Georgia’s linguistic relative nations are predominantly Muslims of the North Caucasus, like Chechens and Circassians with all their variants (Chechens and Ingushes are the same, and Cherkessians and Adygeis are both Circassians). The Caucasus has historically been surrounded by three external conquerors, Russia, Turkey and Iran, and this situation has also shaped the friend-and-foe patterns of the Caucasians.

 

 

Historical Background

 

Ever since the 19^th century, when Russia executed her century-long colonial conquest in the Caucasus, Russia and Iran – in an unholy alliance – have aimed at isolation of the Caucasus from the rest of the world, and their closest allies among the Caucasian peoples have been Armenians and Ossetians. When Europe was early closed away from the struggle for influence in the Caucasus, Turkey became the only bridge of the Caucasians to freedom, manifesting the location of the Caucasus as a bridge land between Europe and the Orient. Without Turkey, in the present situation, the Caucasus will stay as a lost region, and thereby the whole vast Inner Asia closed from Europe. This is the main geopolitical pattern of the present situation, whether people liked it or not, and in order to avoid the mistakes of well-meaning politicians like Gamsakhurdia and Elchibey, realist Caucasian policies today should be based on this fact. The Georgians might not love Turkey, as no nation loves its bigger neighbour, and the Caucasians are far too eager to quarrel among others, but if they want to be released from the Russian yoke that is the most strangling one at the moment, they had better cope with each other and with Turkey. The ignorant Western policy-makers’ catastrophic mistakes in the Caucasus have shown how badly distorted the general Western understanding of the region’s situation is.

 

Ever since the last Georgian king Irakli II, yet by treason, annexed his own country into the Russian Empire in the 1800s, the position of Georgia has been schizophrenic. This was well manifested by the rebellion of the Bagration royal family instantly after the Russian occupation. Prince Alexander Batonishvili, the traitor king’s legal successor, continued Caucasian resistance against the czar, making alliance with his Muslim fellow Caucasians in Dagestan, Chechnya and elsewhere. On the other hand, Russia could always use the Christian hostility against the Turks as a means to keep Georgians under Russian yoke. It became, however, very soon very clear for the Georgians that Russia was not helping Georgia, but instead, Georgia became a main site of devastation of the Russo-Turkish wars. The rebellious members of the Bagration family were imprisoned and deported to Siberia, while others were assimilated to the Russian élite. Forceful Russification of Georgia began.

 

Thus, among the Transcaucasian states, Georgia has historically been the core of Pan-Caucasian resistance against the Evil Empire, while Azerbaijan has been linked to the Pan-Turkic resistance, stretching throughout Turkestan (Central Asia) and the Turkic (Tatar) republics of the Idel-Ural region: Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and Chuvassistan. In this sense, Georgia also became a land of religious tolerance, peaceful coexistence of Christianity and Islam, in contrast to those empires, Russia and Iran, who have aimed at destruction of this coexistence by successfully using the ”divide et impera” method. Georgians, as the Caucasians in general, emphasize the long relatively peaceful coexistence of the two main religions in the region, that had taken part throughout the middle ages and the Oriental ”Golden Age” of Marco Polo and the Silk Road. Then, Christians and Muslims, Turks, Caucasians, Armenians and Persians, were all living together, not always in total harmony, but usually in greater harmony than the nations of the core of Europe lived in that time. The ”eternal” hostilities between ethnic and religious groups in large scale were only imported by the Russian colonial conquest in the 1800s.

 

Even the Armenian-Azeri conflict, which is often and falsely imagined to be ”age-old” and result of the late Ottoman atrocities against Armenians and other minorities in the end of the 1800s and early 1900s, is actually a very purposeful by-product of a Russo-Persian treaty. The treaty contained repulsion of ethnic Armenians from Iran. (Historically the Armenians, like Greeks and Jews, had constituted a widely ranged but strictly urban-based population, while the countryside was usually inhabited by Turkic and Caucasic speakers.) Instead of resettling the ex-Persian Armenians in the conquered Armenian territory, the Russian Empire settled them in the earlier predominantly Azeri-inhabited Karabagh, thus creating a nastily isolated Armenian enclave and making the Azeris bitter. To complete this divide et impera plot, Stalin later gave Karabagh back to Azerbaijan, as a Trojan horse that destroyed the growing anti-Bolshevik co-operation of Armenians and Azeris. Documents have been recently found in the Finnish archives, concerning an Armenian agent called Zatikyan, who was acting in Finland, in co-operation with the British and Finnish intelligence, in order to supply arms for a common Armenian-Azeri resistance against the Bolsheviks. (By the way, this is of course not the same Zatikyan who is mentioned in Antero Leitzinger’s article on provocations, but a much older case.)

 

Before returning to the sad saga of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a couple of words about the ethnic composition of Georgia, because this issue is far from clear for most Westerners. Armenians and Azeris are nations that can be relatively easily distinguished as entities, but this is not quite the case with Georgians. Georgia is a truly Caucasian nation, not close to Turkey (like Azerbaijan) or close to Iran (like Armenia), and thus also the ethnic situation resembles the situation in such multi-ethnic North Caucasian countries as Dagestan. The dominant ethnic group in Georgia is the Kartvelians, after whom the native name of Georgia is Sakartvelo (the name Georgia comes from Greek origin). The other main group is the Megrelians, or Mingrelians, whose language differs from Kartvelian language more than Dutch differs from German.

 

The Adjarians, however, are not a linguistic but religious minority – historically the Adjarians are Muslims, unlike most Georgians. However, nowadays many of them are also Christians, because both the religions lost part of their traditional meaning as the basis of the moral society during the atheist rule of the Soviet Union. After the fall of the Soviet empire, people have often picked up the religion that just seems suitable for their purposes. This is nothing new – the same phenomenon wiped across the Balkans, Anatolia, and the Caucasus many times during the Byzantine, Ottoman, and other imperial conquests. Thus, speaking about ”original” or ”inherent” religion in the context of this region is inconsiderate and dangerous. There is no insurmountable gap between Christianity and Islam, as we are falsely taught by different disinformers. The Caucasus, like Balkans, is a region where different forms of both Christianity and Islam have traditionally coexisted and even been mixed up.

 

Following the Ottoman legacy, distinction of different nations by language – which is the European nationalist tradition – has not always been as popular as distinction by religion, or simply by tradition, has been in the Caucasus. For example there is a small minority of Turkish-speaking Christians living in south-western Georgia; these people define themselves as Greeks! On the other hand there are many people of Caucasian diaspora origins living in Turkey, and despite they nowadays speak mainly Turkish and are Muslims, many of them, especially Chechens and Circassians but also some Georgians, commemorate their Caucasian roots. Because several ways to define ”nation” are mixed in the Caucasus, it is dangerous to attempt to employ any single or ”primordial” criteria in defining what some people are and to which nation they belong. The only criteria to be trusted should be people’s own identity – and it should not be feared that many people have overlapping identity, ethnic, religious, linguistic and political identities pointing at separate directions.

 

Also the Abkhazians used to be traditionally Muslims, but they also differ from the Georgians in linguistic terms (yet the Abkhaz language, like Georgian, is a Caucasic language). However, the situation in Abkhazia is not a justified secession, but predominantly a Russian occupation of Georgian territory. Majority of the population in Abkhazia were namely Georgians, while the Abkhazians formed only 15 to 17 per cent of the population. Their ”separatist” activists were not Muslims but atheist communists, who shared a KGB past and spoke Russian with each other. They were backed by Russia, but also by the Russian and Armenian minorities of Abkhazia. Georgians, along with Jews and Greeks, were pushed out of Abkhazia in the catastrophic ”civil war” (Russian invasion) that followed instantly the coup d’état by the Soviet nomenclature, led by Eduard Shevardnadze and Tengiz Sigua.

 

Abkhazia was not the only place in Georgian territory where Russia organized a ”civil war” in order to sabotage the independence of Transcaucasian countries (in Azerbaijan Russia used the old Trojan horse of Karabagh). The Ossetians of Samadzablo (South Ossetia) were mobilized by the old KGB, and Russia occupied also Samadzablo from Georgia. Russia has also attempted to create similar tensions in Adjaria and among the Lezghin and Armenian minorities along Georgian-Azeri border areas. All these projects of destabilization have very obvious geopolitical goals: to maintain and re-increase Russian military presence throughout the Caucasus. Originally the coup d’état against the legal Georgian regime served the very same purpose. But this brings us back to the mistakes of Gamsakhurdia.

 

 

The Coup d’État

 

Zviad Gamsakhurdia was undoubtedly a nationalist, but calling him ultra-nationalist or even fascist, or a dictator, like claimed by the Russian propaganda that was very successfully marketed to the dilettantish West, was rude lying. Gamsakhurdia’s main points were revival of morals and Christian values, the historical Georgia, and generally a free Caucasus. He even dreamed of the rehabilitation of the Georgian monarchy and return of the Bagration royal family from its long exile in Spain. He was a strongly religious man, which gave some of his opponents even reason to compare him with the religious state-builders of Iran. This was, of course, harsh exaggeration, especially because Gamsakhurdia, quite unlike the atheist Soviet nomenclature and their Western backers, had very warm and good relationship with moderate Muslim nations like Chechnya and Azerbaijan. It is a fact that most dilettantish Western analysts ignore, that in the post-communist Europe and Eurasia, anti-Muslim propaganda religious antagonism in general have not been constructed by truly Christian political thinkers, but by the most atheist machinery of disinformation in the Kremlin and its satellites. Unfortunately the anti-Islamic propaganda, with all its absurd conspiracy theories, has influenced strongly the Western, especially American, geopolitical thinking.

 

So, Gamsakhurdia’s moderate and tolerant policy at moderate Muslim regimes was clearly shown in his good relations with Elchibey’s Azerbaijan and with Dzoxar Dudayev’s Chechnya. In the storm of the nomenclature coup, aided by Russian troops and the Georgian criminal organization Mhedrioni, Gamsakhurdia himself, and the whole legal regime of Georgia (including both government and parliament), found refuge in the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. The legal government of Georgia was also the only government that did internationally recognize the Chechen sovereignty. When Gamsakhurdia finally committed suicide, terribly depressed by the destruction of his dream of free and prosperous Georgia, and devastation of his land and his people by ruthless Russian troops – that were even called ”peacekeepers” by the ignorant Western disinformation – the usurper government of Georgia refused to bury him in Georgian territory. The funeral was arranged in Chechnya, and this sad ceremony was the final manifestation of the Pan-Caucasian dream of peaceful religious coexistence: The funeral mess was a joint service by a Georgian Orthodox Bishop and the Chechen Mufti.

 

Different versions, however, exist on Gamsakhurdia’s death, for of course the Zviadists had all reasons to suppose that the agents of the FSB or Shevardnadze’s regime would have murdered Gamsakhurdia. However, the version on suicide during a hard escape towards the Chechen mountains with his closest allies, after a very gloomy and depressing session in the new year night, has been backed by a prominent witness Prime Minister Bessarion Gugushvili, a close friend of Gamsakhurdia, who was present himself, and who would have no logical reason to confirm suicide by shooting to be the cause of death, unless it was the truth. Still, of course, as the Russian and usurper secret police troops were chasing the fugitives of the legal regime, and as Gamsakhurdia was willing to save the lives of his beloved, the conspirators of Moscow and the usurper regime bear the main burden of the death of a great Caucasian idealist.

 

Gamsakhurdia, who in the disinformation was often blamed of causing the Abkhaz conflict, was actually trying hard to advocate peace and moderation in Abkhazia. The Abkhaz leader of the autonomous republic, Vladislav Ardzinba, was actually appointed by Gamsakhurdia’s recommendation, because he wanted to increase the confidence of the ”sovietized” Abkhazians in the Georgian independence. Unfortunately Ardzinba, having a KGB background, has ever since acted as a most destructive agent of the Russian destabilizing interests in the region. A similar agent in Sama­dzablo (South Ossetia) is Ludvig Chibirov. Of course the seeds of the Abkhazian conflict were carefully sowed already by the Soviet power, especially during the Khruschev period. In the newer time the first division of people in Abkhazia, that re-mobilized the conflict, was a referendum on belonging to the USSR that Mikhail Gorbachev had arranged in Abkhazia. The results of this referendum clearly show the situation in Abkhazia: ethnic Georgians, Greeks and Jews (a clear majority of the population of Abkhazia) were against the USSR, while the ethnic Abkhazes, Russians and Armenians were pro-USSR and against Georgia.

 

The armed conflict in Abkhazia was by no means caused by Gamsakhurdia and his regime, but it only began right after Gamsakhurdia’s fleeing to Chechnya. The usurper troika of Eduard Shevardnadze (former KGB general and inner circle member of the Kremlin), Kitovani (Georgian warlord and ultra-nationalist, Shevardnadze’s ”Arkan”) and Jaba Ioseliani (chief of the Mhedrioni, a criminal mafia organization armed by the KGB, which was employed to create chaos and terror in Georgia) wanted to prevent all moderate negotiations in the Abkhaz question as eagerly as the ostensible ”other side” of the conflict, the ”Caucasian Federation” of Russians and local communists. The ”Caucasian Federation” was a puppet organization founded by the FSB. Later, however, all those Georgians who wanted peaceful negotiations, were blamed ”Zviadists” by the coup regime!

 

The Russian military intelligence GRU even recruited some Chechen warlords, including the notorious Basayev brothers, to fight in Abkhazia, where groups of misled Chechen hotheads then found themselves fighting along with Russians against Georgia, Chechnya’s closest friend. This raises further questions about Shamil Basayev’s treason and true loyalty, as we observe his further actions to destabilize Chechnya, where Russia is fighting not really against him but against the legal moderate Chechen regime.

 

However, Gamsakhurdia himself made several mistakes that helped Russia and the usurpers to carry out their devastating operation and start the civil war. As claimed, the biggest mistake of Gamsakhurdia was the lack of ability to achieve Western support. The nomenclature’s victory in the propaganda and disinformation war was manifested by a total ignorance and false information prevailing in the West right before and during the coup d’état. Black was turned white and vice versa. Russian troops were called ”mediators” in Abkhazia, ”peacekeepers” in the rest of Georgia, and even generally a ”stabilizing force” in the ”restless” region of the Caucasus. Shevardnadze was backed by his old strong Soviet-time contacts among Western leaders, including Helmut Kohl and Mario Andreotti. Gamsakhurdia could not achieve support from Europe, although his political ideas were very Paneuropean in the very sense of the original Paneuropean idea of Count Coudenhove-Kalergi: strong moralism and Christian ethos, but connected with general ”Pan” idea of tolerance and coexistence of all the Caucasians. Or was his failure due to those ideas?

 

A mysterious feature of the Paneuropean thinking has traditionally been prejudice against the United States – even though the eminent Paneuropeans found their free exile exactly in the United States, while Europe was in the hands of destructive nationalists and socialists. Anti-American ideas are generally widely distributed among those intellectuals who emphasize Christian morals as the basis of Europe, although America is in reality hardly less Christian than Europe. Unfortunately Gamsakhurdia’s thinking, too, contained such features, along with other Zviadists. His enemies compared the strong Orthodoxism with Iran. Albeit it was wrong, there was some fire behind the smoke: Gamsakhurdia attacked against mainly American and generally Western sects, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and thus broke against his own principles of religious freedom. He also openly despised ”American influences” in Georgia, like the entry of many American companies, such as MacDonald’s and Coca Cola, into the Georgian market. These details of Gamsakhurdia’s traditionalist thinking may seem innocent and of lesser importance for European, especially former East European, viewers, but for American views they may have formed a great part of the rejection and abandonment of the legal Georgian regime by the West, most of all by the United States. Perhaps the Mormons, who have a strong position in the CIA, were also rejected by Gamsakhurdia as an ”alien sect”? It also seems highly suspicious that during the NATO operation against the Serbian tyranny in Kosova, the Zviadists joined the communists in the anti-American demonstration in Tbilisi. The sole reason of this was the ”Orthodox brotherhood”. This may signal a dangerous shift in the political thinking of the Zviadist opposition, that used to be pro-European and Pan-Caucasian.

 

It would be totally premature to claim that the whole Zviadist opposition would have become an instrument of the FSB – this would be absurd, because even though Shevardnadze now appears defiant at Moscow, he used to be the man of the nomenclature, while the Zviadists were mercilessly crushed by the Kremlin. It can neither be claimed that the Zviadists would not generally represent the righteous and pro-European legacy of Gamsakhurdia. It may be, however, necessary to warn that this legacy may soon be in a serious danger. This report explains why.

 

 

General Observations

 

I think that for most Western foreigners who visit Georgia today, the situation appears bad, depressive and almost desperate. However, for people who have travelled a bit more widely in the region and in other regions, the situation in Georgia reveals many significant signs of hope, too. Especially if we compare Georgia with some other countries of the former USSR – like Russia, Ukraine or many Central Asian republics.

 

The biggest shock for many is the material poverty and the total inefficiency of the basic infrastructure, such as electricity and water. Although Georgia has large energy resources on her own, and electricity and other infrastructure should basically be in order, the people are deprived of electricity, water, and normal housing conditions. This is not only the case for the refugees from the areas Russia has invaded (Abkhazia and Samadzablo) but for numerous common Tbilisi inhabitants as well. Electricity works a few hours twice a day, and people have to use kerosene heating machines to keep their houses warm in the winter. All this misery is not predominantly result of the so-called civil war, but mainly of the entirely corrupted and rotten administration.

 

But this is nothing unique for Georgia. Honestly speaking, all other former Soviet states except the Baltic states are subjects to mafia regimes. This is not due to the own incapability of these people. It is due to the rehabilitated power of the centre of this gangster regime, Moscow, in the form of the CIS, ”Commonwealth of Independent States”, whose name already speaks the Orwellian language of the Evil Empire, to use Ronald Reagan’s surprisingly well-fitting metaphor. Only the three Baltic states were able to release themselves from this grip, but it can be strongly doubted if even they would have managed without the strong European and Western support for their true sovereignty.

 

This is the core of one of the biggest and most disastrous failures of the Western policy towards the former USSR. The US analysts (and obediently following their tone, the European dilettantes) repeatedly explicated – in a more or less diplomatic form – an idea of discriminate distinction of the post-communist states. The basic idea was: In East Central Europe and in the Baltics democracy and market economy were possible, but the rest, especially the former Soviet states (except the Baltics) were ”not ready for democracy and Western values”. This was probably true about Russia, Ukraine, and many Central Asian states, whereas it was hardly the case with Moldova, Georgia and Azerbaijan, which were leading the liberation struggle right on the tails of the Baltics. Even in regard to Russia and the less developed post-USSR states a policy based on such cynical thinking was disastrous for the following reasons:

 

1)  The USA was actually supporting the revival of the very Evil Empire that it still in the Reagan period wanted to destroy – and largely thank to Reagan’s administration, managed to get to its knees. However, the collapse that Reagan’s policy brought about, came strategically a little bit too late, because right after 1992, the Western policy tragically changed into the favour of the new stability thinking that praised ”hegemons” as suppliers or maintainers of stability (which is an absurd idea), and attempted to keep the empires (the USSR and Yugoslavia) together. Luckily both the USSR and Yugoslavia fell into their own internal power play in spite of Western support for their forced maintaining. The fall of the Soviet Union was not due to Gorbachev’s goodwill, but to Yeltsin’s internal coup d’état –that time still in constructive collaboration with the regents of the Soviet Socialist Republics (now newly independent countries with former SSR status), to whom even Yeltsin himself belonged as the president of Russian SSR. Only after having achieved its positions, the Yeltsin regime started to rehabilitate the old empire, and the West was effectively cheated to support this disastrous project.

 

2)  The ”economic reform” that the USA supported in Russia and in the post-USSR countries was a total hoax. Almost every country that really got rid of the Moscow yoke reformed its economy towards real market economy, along with political democratization. But on the other hand every country, that somehow was kept in the yoke of the Kremlin, very soon stagnated in its reforms, and has ever since suffered from the notorious disease of Kremlin corruption. Similarly, every country that was kept in the Kremlin’s yoke did not succeed in democratization, either. One of the most disastrous choices for someone to be supported was Anatoly Chubais, whose ”capitalism” was just a new name for what was formerly called ”socialism” in Russia, and ”organized crime” in the West. Put in simple words, it meant that stealing people’s property and monopolizing it into the hands of the KGB and CPSU elite, which was called ”socialization” or ”collectivization” in the Soviet times, was in the brave new Russian empire called ”privatization”. True economic reformers (who were also political democrats), like Yegor Gaidar, Grigory Yavlinsky, Sergei Kiriyenko, Gennady Burbulis, and many others, were quickly isolated from the power, although they were every now and then used as decoys for the misled West. A reformist Russia lasted about from the end of 1991 to the end of 1992.

 

3)  When the Western analysts cynically calculated that the more eastern nations would not be ready for true democracy, but needed ”strong leaders”, they managed to neglect totally – following the tragedy of historical blindness and amnesia that is so common feature of Western foreign-political naiveté – the fact that there would have been much better and much more constructive ”strongmen” to support than the same old Moscow-backed KGB élite everywhere. Before I go on to the especially tragic failure of the 90s policy towards Georgia, Azerbaijan and Moldova, let me tell you some examples of the leaders that have been backed by the West, either directly or through Moscow. Just because maybe some readers do not yet fully understand the nature of post-communist power game.

 

 

Backbone of the Evil Empire

 

So, to understand a bit better the true situation of the post-communist world, it is useful to have a little view upon the kind of people we are dealing with.

 

Let us take Mr. Eduard Shevardnadze, for example. He was diplomatically heavily supported by the West – both the US and several European countries – during his bloody coup d’état against the legal regime of Georgia, and he still enjoys especially American support. He is claimed to be ”West-oriented”, ”stabilizer”, and we are constantly being reminded of his past in the Gorbachevite camp, the perestroika. This is of course not totally correct impression. First of all, the Gorbachevite camp, as noticed before, was not at all as innocent as we have been led to understand. Mikhail Gorbachev was a  product of the KGB, and this product was a direct reply to the unyielding Reaganian pressure. Perestroika was not a plan to abolish the Evil Empire – it was a plan to rescue the collapsing Evil Empire. Gorbachev was most of all a product – a talented actor with sympathetic charisma. True, he was an indirect cause of many positive things in late 80s, but they were side-effects; the liberation came because of Gorbachev’s weakness, not because of his good will. Even less than Gorbachev’s desire, it was a desire of any of the real architects of the ”Great Turn-Coat” called perestroika to abolish the Evil Empire. Still, the perestroika finally led to one of the greatest and most interesting coups d’état of the world history.

 

Naturally it is not a coincidence that so many of the great coups d’état that are however called ”revolutions” have occurred in the very same place, in the Kremlin. There is a great force, the backbone of the Evil Empire, that has stayed almost untouched throughout the history, throughout all these ”isms” and claimed revolutions. It is the true equilibrium and the continuance of the Evil Empire, the incarnation of the purest soul of the Evil Empire – if we can speak about a soul at all. It is the Security Committee. In the czarist times it was called the Ohrana, then the Cheka, then – through some shorter-lived variants – it became the KGB, and in this form it was in a way perfected. After the so-called fall of the so-called socialist empire, the Security Committee was again renamed, this time it became the FSB. And now read this carefully: Throughout all these changes the personnel, the leaders, officers, agents and informants of the Security Committee were hardly ever touched. They floated in their sinister roles from an era of tyranny into another, surviving all the revolutionary interregnums that have traditionally been very short in Moscow. The former Ohrana agents became very devoted Bolsheviks as soon as they found bolshevism as the key to more power. In the same way former Bolsheviks have today become the leading political, economic, and military elite of Russia and her vassal regimes. Vladimir Putin himself expresses the character of these people well: ”I have never tended to disagree with the power – neither in good nor in bad.” (Kommersant, 10^th March 2000.)

 

Throughout its so far relatively short history, Russia has always been a police state – more than any state in Europe in long run. Throughout czarist, communist, Yeltsin and Putin eras there has always been one power that can manipulate any – any – sector of the society, use arbitrary terror and tyranny, change leaders, destroy nations and write official truths: the Security Committee. It is the nursery of the nomenclature of the Evil Empire, the nursery that has produced such men as Pyotr Rachkovsky, Iosif Dzugashvili (Stalin), Lavrenty Beria, Yuri Andropov, and Vladimir Putin – to mention just some. For those who love conspiracies, the cohesion of the nomenclature of the Security Committee of the Kremlin has been, and is, globally much more mighty and influential than any imaginable secret network of Jews, Muslims or Freemasons.

 

In the circles of the KGB nomenclature, the world is really small: Yevgeny Primakov, Sergei Stepashin, Vladimir Putin, Anatoly Chubais, Anatoly Kulikov... But not only Russian leaders belong to the KGB general staff. All the ”strongmen” that Russia has backed into dictatorship in Caucasian and Central Asian republics seem to share the same background: Eduard Shevardnadze, Haidar Aliyev, Islam Karimov, Saparmurat Niyazov, Nursultan Nazarbayev, Imomali Rakhmanov... Naturally a strong KGB tie has also been crucial for any financial success of the so-called oligarchs, like Boris Berezovsky and Viktor Chernomyrdin. And if you are an ambitious terrorist, rebel or separatist, it is very good to be closely related with the KGB, like Vladislav Ardzinba, Ludvig Chibirov, Igor Smirnov, Abdullah Öcalan, the terrorist regime of Sudan, the Taliban leaders, among whom former KGB agents and former communists are highly represented, all the greatest ”bandits” in Chechnya, including Shamil Basayev and his brother Shirvani Basayev, Bislan Gantamirov, Doku Zavgayev, and so on.

 

However, to not give a too romanticized picture of this backbone of the Evil Empire and all its octopus’s tentacles (remember the old caricature of Czar Nicholas I, a main constructor of the secret police, where he was presented as an octopus), it is necessary to note that the same amoral greed for power that produced this monster, this core of the Evil Empire, has also traditionally guaranteed that the cohesion of the nomenclature is only cohesion in fear, a balance of horror. A merciless internal struggle for power has prevailed as long as the Beast has existed upon earth. It is a highly schizophrenic beast. And so, a monster has always appeared to eliminate another monster – like Stalin cleansed Lenin’s Party, like Beria liquidated Stalin (according to himself), and like the politburo’s conspiracy liquidated Beria on his turn.

 

This is also how the Soviet Union fell: The lethal strike was not given by ”rising nationalism” as we are being told, but by an internal break of the nomenclature, where Yeltsin, together with other communist leaders of SSRs, captured the state by driving the Soviet Empire down. Only a fool would believe that Yeltsin would otherwise have allowed a relatively peaceful split-up of the USSR – the same Yeltsin who, as a president, has time after time been ready to use extreme violence in order to keep the empire in Moscow’s power. This is also how the Kremlin ”Family” was – yet only nominally – finally removed from power by Putin. And some time ago I still believed that an alliance of Luzhkov’s Otechestvo and the regional presidents could have overthrown the Putin junta with the support of some of the old KGB nomenclature, like Primakov and Stepashin. But this did not take place.

 

So, by this featuring of the nature of the nomenclature, we come back to Mr. Shevardnadze. He was one of the so-called architects of the rescue plan of the KGB (the ”backbone” to be preserved untouched into a new empire), the plan that was marketed to the West with the brands Gorbachev, glasnost and perestroika. Gorbachev was a brilliant choice for brand, as I explained – and in brilliant time, because the righteous times of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were to come to a final end in the West and the new Western leaders swallowed Gorbachev and the hook without questions.

 

Glasnost (”transpar­ency”) was another brilliant hook. The method was simple: Gorbachev revealed the true desperate faces of the Soviet Empire and just like that, the Kremlin was no longer responsible of it. Instead, the West was! It was the evil West that had forced Great Russia into the present humiliation (this is what was told to the Russians, and this is what they still think), and of course if the West wanted to do anything about it, it was the duty of the US and Europe to support Russia and the Kremlin in anything that they might do. Russia expected the West to support it not only in ”recovering” from the humiliation that the West had caused, according to Russians, but even in Russian desires to rehabilitate its imperialist dreams of hegemony. The West accepted Russia as a partner, an ally – but against whom? Against the very same little innocent nations that had been persecuted by the Evil Empire.

 

And so it was done. Instead of any Red Nuremberg, let alone condemnation of real socialism, the winners of the Cold War adopted ”politically correct” policy that resembled fashionable sociological views on school mobbing: The bully must be understood, because he is actually a victim (and the society is to be blamed), and the victims are somehow themselves guilty to their being mobbed. In the world scale Russia had to be understood, any of its actions had to be accepted, but all the victims of the Russian and Serbian terror had to be discouraged and blamed. The Pavlov Institute would have been proud of such a glorious victory of dishonesty. But for the dishonor of the West, it was hardly the Pavlov Institute or any romantic conspiracy that stole the champion medal of the Cold War from the hands of the righteous, giving it to the bad guys. It was the West itself.

 

Shevardnadze, together with Primakov and some other KGB general staff, has been often named as one of the masterminds behind the perestroika strategy. And what was Shevardnadze’s part in this figure? He was not only a KGB general, but the foreign minister of the Soviet Union. He was in a key position in selling the plan to the West – and that was what he did. He had very strong international contacts with Western leaders both in America and in Europe. That was why it was so easy for him to get the West to the wrong side in the Georgian coup d’état – to support a KGB general to overthrow the democratic and legally elected leadership of Georgia. Mr. Shevardnadze was also strongly involved in the drug business of the Caucasus – according to rumours since the 70s – and so it was not hard for the KGB to arm the Georgian criminal gang Mhedrioni, under the leadership of the convicted murderer Iosi Ioseliani, to execute Shevardnadze’s coup.

 

But there was more, much more. In the Kremlin there was an ongoing power struggle and Shevardnadze needed to be sent away. Luckily for him, both the Kremlin and the West decided that Mr. Shevardnadze is such a nice man that he needs a state on his own. And so Gamsakhurdia had to die. Without any doubt, another too influential Caucasian in the Kremlin, the Chechen Ruslan Hasbulatov, would also have got a state on his own, but President Dudayev of Chechnya, a former Red Army general, appeared to be much harder to overthrow than Gamsakhurdia, a poet. Not that Russia wouldn’t have tried all the possible methods – but for example the Urus-Martan-based rebellion, led by Bislan Gantamirov, had such a shortage of genuine ”striking workers” that they had to use Russian soldiers for the failed coup attempt against Dudayev. Things did not work out in Chechnya for Russian favour, despite various hard attempts to generate civil war or at least a reliable anti-Dudayev rebellion. And so Mr. Hasbulatov, together with Aleksandr Rutskoi, made a coup attempt on their own in Moscow, resulting that Yeltsin bombed his own parliament with tanks. Basayev was there, too!

 

But as far as Chechens are considered, Basayev and even Hasbulatov still appear somewhat misled figures. What about Mr. Doku Zavgayev, former leader of the Supreme Soviet of Checheno-Ingushetia, a KGB man, mafioso, and later in the first war the head of the Moscow-nominated Quisling regime of Chechnya? When the Chechens liberated Grozny, Zavgayev fled, together with the Russian troops, from Grozny airport which was the last base in Russian hands. But of course this was not the end of Zavgayev’s career.

 

Another Quisling, Bislan Gantamirov, was jailed for stealing the so-called Russian reconstruction aid that was promised to Chechnya in the Hasavyurt Treaty. Of course this money still never reached Chechnya, but as Gantamirov was after all a Chechen, the Russians claimed that ”Chechen bandits stole the money”. Correct otherwise, but Mr. Gantamirov, undoubtedly a bandit, was working for the Russians. And he still is: He is again the new Quisling of Russian-occupied Chechnya, for which purpose he was released from prison by Putin, after the first Quisling candidate, a Moscow-based ”businessman” called Saidullayev had refused from the questionable honour. But while Gantamirov was in prison, Zavgayev was generously awarded by the Kremlin: He was sent to Tanzania as the Russian ambassador. And there he led the Russian Embassy also when Osama bin Laden blew up his bombs in American embassies. Zavgayev seems to be the only suitable candidate for Osama bin Laden’s claimed ”Chechen contact”.

 

Or let us take yet another Caucasian regent, Mr. Haidar Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s usurper and now president. Also he was a KGB general, and he used to be the leader of the KGB in Azerbaijan. Mr. Aliyev nowadays appears as a great friend of Turkey, and his closest adviser speaks of Azerbaijan joining Turkey in the NATO. Of course it is easy to speak things like these, as Azerbaijan is the richest country of the Caucasus, and has vast oil resources. After all, quite an unexpected event appeared to promote our knowledge of Azerbaijan – namely the newest James Bond movie, ”When The World Is Not Enough”, which tells about the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline. But it is too easy to forget that the same Mr. Aliyev, who now speaks about the NATO, Pan-Turkism, and a New Silk Road, used to be in charge of infiltrating Turkey and organizing terrorism in the Middle East. Together with Primakov, Aliyev was one of the KGB’s most eminent Mid-East spy-masters. The clients of his support were such notorious figures as Abdullah Öcalan, Saddam Hussein, Hafez al-Assad and Muammar al-Qaddafi.

 

But if we want to say something good about Shevardnadze and Aliyev, we must admit that at least they are now attempting to take distance to the Kremlin. This is a common phenomenon among the power-greedy satellite regents. Naturally they want to improve their status from vassals or usurpers to independent leaders – even though it would be themselves who originally destroyed the true independence of Georgia and Azerbaijan. It can be easily expected that if there would be a strong intra- or extra-nomen­clature bloc gaining power in Russia in opposition against Putin, and allying with such regional leaders as Luzhkov and the republican presidents (like Shaimiyev of Tatarstan, Merkushkin of Mordovia, Ilyumchinov of Kalmykia, and most importantly, the brilliant Ingush President Ruslan Aushev), men like Shevardnadze and Aliyev, characteristically opportunists, would prove very useful aid for an anti-imperialist opposition within the Russian Federation.

 

Even if in Armenia the internal power struggle has not led into a civil war – just into a huge and massively Russian-backed invasion to Karabagh and occupation of 20 per cent of Azerbaijan’s territory – the Armenian leaders are by no ways cleaner than their colleagues in Georgia and Azerbaijan. And it must be said for Shevardnadze and Aliyev’s favour, that the Armenian leaders – apart from some opposition figures – have not even spoken about distancing from the Kremlin. After the suspected electoral fraud that rose the first strongman, Levon Ter-Petrosian (of course a KGB officer), into power instead of the moderate and more West-oriented Vazgen Manukian, the Armenian regents have given away to Moscow practically all the sovereignty of the country.

 

As long as the situation of the Karabagh continues and there is nothing constructive from the Armenian side towards the neighbour countries Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia, Armenia is totally dependent of the Russian military aid, and on the only neighbour country, with which Armenia has good relations, namely Iran. Even though Azerbaijan is a Shi’ite country like Iran, Iran is supporting Armenia – obedient to its unholy alliance with Russia since General Yermolov’s times. Mr. Ter-Petro­sian’s successor, Mr. Robert Kocharian, was the president of the Republic of Artasakh (Karabagh separatist state) before he became also the president of Armenia. Also he has a KGB background.

 

Or let us take Viktor Chernomyrdin, the sympathetic old politruk. When he suddenly decided that he is no longer a communist but a capitalist, he ”privatized” the biggest company of the Soviet Union to his own control, the company called Gazprom, with downright imperial character. Gazprom was the oil giant that has the advantage of using the KGB or the FSB to carry out its dirty work, like wiping away troublesome people, or villages, or nations. When Chernomyrdin was the very stability-loving prime minister of Russia, he pushed through the machine a law that allowed him to freely trade drugs from Afghanistan and Tajikistan throughout Central Asia and Russia into Moscow and European market.

 

Or let us take Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov, who has made political murder an every-day method in dealing with the democratic and liberal opposition. He, claiming to be a Muslim himself, appears to be resisting a terrible ”Islamist conspiracy that stretches throughout Central Asia and Afghanistan up to Chechnya and Kosova”, using Russian army, dreaming of Greater Uzbekistan and making plans for an invasion to Tajikistan and North Afghanistan. At the same time Russia, through Turkmenistan, supplies weaponry to the very same Islamists, and to the Taliban.

 

Or let us take Turkmenistan’s Saparmurat Niyazov, who has appointed himself a life-time president of Turkmenistan, and besides, taken the title of Türkmenbashi, ”father of the Turkmens”. In this desert country people (except the former communist nomenclature, pockets full of oil money) are lacking many basic commodities of normal life, but in the centre of Ashgabat there is a huge statue of the Türkmenbashi, Mr. Niyazov, rising his blessing hand upon his people. And it is not just a statue: First of all, it is covered with gold. Secondly, the statue is motorized so that the machine turns the statue by the day so that the sunshine always falls upon the Türkmenbashi’s face. Every day in the totally state-controlled television, besides the few official programmes and American soup operas (dubbed into Russian, of course), there is an Oath for the President, during which the citizens are expected to stand in their little rooms, in front of television, and repeat the oath saying that they love their president, the Türkmenbashi, and they would any time be happy to sacrifice their lives, or cut out their arms, on behalf of the president. There is a joke in the former Soviet Union that Shevardnadze only wants to be a king of his own kingdom, and Putin only wants to be an emperor of all the former Soviet states – but not Niyazov; he only wants to be a God.

 

And we could continue this forever. This is what kind of ”strongmen” the KGB, the backbone of the Evil Empire, has produced. This is what ”Homo sovieticus” becomes if you make him, for a moment, believe that he is something greater than the grey mass of serfs he has the privilege to rule. These people are not fighting for any values – Christian or Muslim, or not even for ”stability” – except for their own power. But for some strange reason the Western leaders still seem to think that it is better to support this kind of regents than to allow the Evil Empire to collapse.

 

The past can be forgiven – but only if something has really changed, if there is some relent for the past. How could we forgive someone, or some government, if he still praises Stalin, or massacres people, or spews out full loads of old Soviet propaganda? And not only Soviet, as also the old czar era’s racist and imperialist propaganda has been effectively re-enforced. What could be a more destructive combination? Last time this combination was seen in the form of bolshevism and Stalinism. Only such an old communist who really condemns Stalin and his politics can be forgiven the crimes of Stalinism.

 

For instance, Patriarch Ilia of Georgia, who did not at all like the recent visit of the anticommunist Pope John Paul II in Georgia, has a palace in the centre of the Tbilisi Old Town. Somebody had sprayed ”suck” to the heavy iron gate that indicates entrance in the fortified walls of his residence. Why, I don’t know, but maybe because Patriarch Ilia was a KGB agent under the codename Iverieli. He was involved in the Tbilisi massacre of the KGB troops in 1991. He is said to have actually gathered the people to the front of the Sioni Cathedral, probably knowing well what the KGB was going to do. How could this be forgiven for a priest? Of course being a priest in the Soviet Union, an ambitious enough priest to become the Patriarch, demanded a lot of co-operation with the atheist Evil Empire that was explicitly against religion, even the Orthodox religion. But is it necessary that this man is still the head of the Georgian Church?

 

And even if we can forgive, we must never forget. Ignorance, when it comes to the past, is the greatest mistake that one can do in regard to the future. And of course there are some things that can never be forgiven, let alone forgotten.

 

 

More of General Observations

 

But the analysis on the leaders, through the short mentioning of ”Homo sovieticus”, brings us back to the actual topic. There is a huge difference between Russians and many of their neighbours, and this should give us a lot of hope, especially when it comes to Georgia. I express it simply and very concretely: In Georgia (and similarly in Azerbaijan, in Moldova and in many other societies, including many minorities within the present Russian Federation) the people – while they are complaining the misery and tragedy, like they always do – have a very good image of the reality of the situation, the causes of it, and whom they should blame of it.

 

The Georgians, including common people in any street or school, city or countryside, know that their misery is not caused by any conspiracy of Jews, Burgers, Islamists or Freemasons – like the Russians think – or by the NATO – like the Serbs think. The Georgians are more than eager to blame their own corrupted regime, and to address their own leaders the guilt they deserve. And of course they know what Russia has done. They know it because it is very hard to find anyone in any Caucasian country, who would not have lost close relatives and beloved people in one of the recent Russian aggressions against Georgia, Azerbaijan and Chechnya.

 

If a typical Homo sovieticus can be described as a person who has lost all sense – or relevance – of the reality, then it can be said that the share of Homo sovieticus among the Georgians is fortunately very low. This is a great reason for joy and hope, because the people – the individuals with their human dignity and values – are the most important resource of a nation. And of Europe. And of Humankind.

 

Almost every single person in Georgia was eager and open to speak about politics – whether they were Zviadists or supporters of the present government, university students or professors, artists or shop assistants or taxi drivers. And what they told me, it all made sense. This is not the case in Russia nowadays, yet of course my greatest hope is to see Russia to return to the great enthusiasm and hope of 1989-1992. Russians are of course not inherently worse people than Georgians or any others. The sad attitude phenomenon is not due to any genetic, racial, linguistic, religious or other such matter. It is due to the identity and identification with the myths and aggressive nationalism and imperialism that the present Russian regime foments.

 

The Russians and Serbians – the privileged master nations of communism – still seem to identify themselves with the obligation of the past, because the Evil Empire was not condemned, let alone killed. And the tradition and culture of oppressive collectivism in Russia is so terribly long and total. Georgians and many others can at least always have the escape of blaming the Russian occupation (and suitably ignoring the eminent Georgian Bolsheviks who were among the most evil leaders of the world history, like Stalin, Beria and Ordzhonikidze).

 

In Georgia, the situation is generally better than in Russia. Although nationalism is a general phenomenon in newly independent countries, the Georgians are not similarly hostile and aggressive against all their neighbours as the Russians. The normal values, including those of Christianity, are truly reviving, and not in an apocalyptic form like in Russia. People are also in Georgia living an eve of a revolution, or something else very drastic. If the leadership of Georgia would be a normal European one, and if Georgian security (and the general security and freedom of the Caucasus) would be guaranteed by the West, Georgia could be a very European state with a quickly recovering economy, respected minority rights, and good relations with Europe, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and even Armenia.

 

This is one of the most tragic failures of the Western policy, when also Georgia, Azerbaijan and Moldova were branded together with the rest of the former Soviet Union. Right after the Baltic countries, Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan were in the front of anti-communism and anti-Soviet resistance. They were also the most likely countries, along with the Baltics, to become free, democratic, and European states. All the three refused to accept the CIS yoke. Russia needed violent coups and civil wars in all the three countries in order to force them to the CIS.

 

Gamsakhurdia’s Georgia, Elchibey’s Azerbaijan, and Mircea Snegur’s Moldova would have become democratic European market economies, if only their security was guaranteed, and if Russian invasions to these countries were prevented, or at least condemned, by the West. It never happened. Still in the recent OSCE Istanbul Summit, the Western countries obediently gave Russia practically free hands to continue illegal occupation on Georgian, Azeri, and Moldavian territories.

 

In this comparison, the only country, whose prospects now seem clearly brighter than average in the region, is Azerbaijan. First, they have oil. That means the West will be interested in Azerbaijan. If the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline will be built through Georgia – like it would be best for European interests – then Georgia, too, will benefit of this guarantee for Western strategic interests. But if the pipeline will be built through Russian or Iranian territory, or if there will be no pipeline, then Georgia’s fate seems very unfortunate.

 

Another advantage that Azerbaijan has at the moment, is that there is serious, seemingly promising alternative to Aliyev’s dictatorship. Elchibey, unlike Gamsakhurdia, is still alive, and he has returned to the politics. But what is even more important, Elchibey has a ”second man”, Ali Kerimov, who does not have the burden of incredibility that Elchibey now suffers of. Mr. Kerimov is widely considered as a wise, sensible, rational, West-oriented, democratic and in many senses a promising candidate, who even has a real chance to defeat Aliyev sometimes in the near future, if the election is even a little bit fair.

 

At the moment Georgia, unfortunately, lacks such an alternative. Unfortunately for the Georgians, politicians like Abashidze and Patiashvili are not really offering a constructive alternative.

 

 

Abashidze’s Game

 

In the conference mentioned in the beginning of this report, appropriate reminding of the terrible human rights situation in Shevardnadze’s Georgia was not the only message that was directed to the foreign participants. The message of Mr. Abashidze, the main financier of the conference, became very obvious during the conference, even too obvious for many of the participants to be credible. The image that we were meant to see, was this: The situation in Georgia is terrible, and Shevardnadze and his usurper regime is to be blamed of that. The only real alternative is Aslan Abashidze, who will be Shevardnadze’s main challenger in the presidential election next month. Abashidze is a great humanist, a friend of human rights, who cares about everybody and has suddenly turned into a very good Zviadist.

 

Everyone got as a present a very fine-looking publication of the European Acts for Human Rights in English, Georgian and Russian languages. Mr. Abashidze had published this book, as we were reminded, because he is very fond of human rights. Several times speakers remarked how much better the situation is in Adjaria than in the other parts of Georgia. Abashidze’s realm showed the best sides to the participants during excursions – and true; of course Adjaria is freer (from Shevardnadze’s tyranny, but who knows about Abashidze’s own highly monopolized rule) due to the autonomous status, and it is also more wealthy than the rest of Georgia, partly due to the autonomy, but partly due to the vicinity of Turkey. I personally checked the Turkish border for two reasons: The first was to ensure a quick escape route if there would have been any problems right after the conference, but the second reason was to see how the famous black market trade between Adjaria and Turkey was working. I must also admit that all the Adjarians I met were satisfied with Mr. Abashidze, and it really seems he was very popular on his own soil.

 

However, the latter part of the conference’s message was more difficult to swallow as one piece, even though Mr. Abashidze had made this great conference possible – thanks to him for that. But, unfortunately I am a cynical mind who does not right so believe in such sudden changes in politicians, especially in the eve of elections. And after all, Abashidze himself never showed up in the conference, although he was expected to speak there.

 

The conference participants were entertained in evenings with concert and theatre, and so in a night we were taken to see an excellent play performed by a children’s theatre. It was highly political, and presented the history of Georgia from the ancient times up to these days, and even to the future. The KGB was – of course – expressed as a Beast, a dragon. And later also Shevardnadze was shown as a dragon, while Gamsakhurdia was the national hero of Georgia, willing to awake his people. A very spectacular and touching play – I must say my applauds came directly from the heart, because my heart is beating for Gamsakhurdia, although as an analyst I recognize his obvious failures.

 

I am not, however, convinced that Abashidze is even close to a new Gamsakhurdia. The purpose of the play and countless other things in the conference was obviously to tell us that Abashidze is a real anticommunist, a Zviadist, a carrier of Gamsakhurdia’s legacy. But I would be more convinced if he would not have tried so hard. Why? Because Abashidze is not an anticommunist – he is a former communist, a twin of Shevardnadze (”Chip and Dale”, like many people in Tbilisi said). He is well known as a pro-Russian and authoritarian figure. Of course politicians turn their coats – and good so, I am happy of even this. The real danger lies elsewhere.

 

I wanted to know how much the Zviadists are actually ready to back Abashidze – as far as to allow Abashidze’s virtual takeover of the whole Zviadist opposition? Quite a few of the Georgian speakers in the conference had praised Abashidze rather uncritically, and finally stated to me the magic words, the actual sense in their thinking: ”We have nobody else – he’s the only one who can beat Shevardnadze.” Maybe the desperation of the Zviadists is true at this very moment, and of course I fully understand any intelligent dissident’s willingness to revenge, to be able to see ”Bloody Eduard” to fall. But can any price be paid for that revenge?

 

I think the legacy of Gamsakhurdia is far too high a price to be paid to someone like Abashidze just for a slight comfort – which will naturally never bring back all those people who have been murdered by the usurper regime. And even less Abashidze is willing to bring back the homes and home towns of all those refugees who have been driven out of Abkhazia and Samadzablo by the Russian troops. In many senses Abashidze had represented values totally opposite to those of the original ones of Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Why did the Zviadists suddenly want to represent Abashidze as a good Zviadist? Did they really believe Shevardnadze would not have won the April election? The very same Zviadists had, however, declared the election to be unfair already in advance – by experience. Is the process in question simply late integration and unification of all opposition against Shevardnadze? Or do they hope to be able to infiltrate the regime, that has so rudely been cleansed of Gamsakhurdia’s supporters during the Shevardnadze regime, through parliament and local elections? Whatever are the motives of the Zviadists to back Abashidze, their legacy, and the unity of Pan-Caucasian resistance, may be in danger.

 

When I was invited to the conference in the first place, the subject of the conference covered all the Caucasus, including Chechnya and Azerbaijan, but these were later dropped out from the programme. At the same time the Chechen representatives and part of the Azeri representatives in the conference disappeared from the list of participants. A rumour told me that it was Mr. Abashidze’s will that there would not be anything about Chechnya in the conference. If this is true, there are two possible reasons: First, Abashidze is well known to be a very pro-Russian, in contrast to Shevardnadze, who is nowadays considered to be defiant at Russia. Secondly, if the purpose of the conference was to gain Western support for Abashidze, speaking about anything else than Georgia would not serve such real-political interests.

 

To this issue I wished some more light from the Chechen Ambassador in Tbilisi. Of course he is a diplomat, and he is even in a more uneasy situation than most diplomats, because his country has not been internationally recognized by any other governments but Gamsakhurdia’s exile government and the Afghan government, with the latter of which Chechnya does not want to have too warm relations for obvious reasons, Maskhadov’s moderate government being in trouble with their own hotheads whom Russia has repeatedly used to destabilize Chechnya.

 

So, the Ambassador was partly bound to support Shevardnadze’s government, whom he is willing to influence. However, Chechens have earlier had warm relations with the Zviadists, and they have the common ideological roots: Liberation of the Caucasus, anti-communism, and spiritual revival. The Ambassador was however very clear and very strict in his conviction: Abashidze is a friend of Russia, and he can never do anything good for Chechnya. Abashidze has never spoken warmly of Chechnya, which Shevardnadze has actually done. Shevardnadze’s government is supporting Chechnya, helping Chechen refugees in Georgia, although Georgia has well enough of own refugees, and Shevardnadze at least now tries to stay defiant at Russia.

 

In the next evening I had the chance to ask the same question from an eminent Zviadist. He claimed the opposite: That Shevardnadze is a Russian agent, and Abashidze is a friend of Chechnya. But this is unfortunately not true, judging the past rhetorics of these two gentlemen. Of course I would hope that something has radically changed in Abashidze’s mind, but as I said, I do not quite believe in such sudden changes, especially when they happen in the eve of elections. The Zviadists, who are understandably frustrated and embittered can probably be influenced by talented manipulators, like any political movement. And what honey is Abashidze now pouring to the Zviadists’ mouths: An expensive conference has been paid. Finally – after all these years of looking at lies prevailing at home as well as abroad – a chance has been offered to tell the truth to the world; truth about the coup d’état, about the cruelties of Shevardnadze’s regime, and the deeds of Kitovani and Ioseliani. The names of the political prisoners, still held in Shevardnadze’s prisons, have been uttered aloud. Books have been published. And a promise of revenge against the very man whom the Zviadists hate most has been made.

 

In such a situation it may be hard to stay critical at Mr. Abashidze. It is hard to believe that any of his money, after all, could buy the souls of the Zviadists, but the moment can. Looking back to the past, there are more than seven years of oppressed silence, lies prevailing in the world, misery still continuing in the country, and no improvement at all. The Caucasus is driven into deeper and deeper misery, isolated from any concrete Western support and terrorized by Russia. The pipeline still remains on the level of speaks. The moment to offer a chance for the Zviadists is even too good, because this is the time when Putin is really in trouble, because Shevardnadze’s and Aliyev’s regimes stay defiant. When finally even the most fruitful conflict for Russian interests, the Karabagh checkmate, shows symptoms of getting closer to a solution, the nomenclature has no time to lose in order to ensure instability to continue in the Caucasus.

 

As an Adjarian, Abashidze is supposed to be a Muslim, and also his first name, Aslan, of course indicates the Muslim tradition. But I was told that actually Abashidze is nowadays an Orthodox! All right, that is very common for former communists, who, of course, used to be atheists (and say whatever, for me they still are even though they would show up in a church for cleaning their image). Converts are usually the worst, like it is said. And finally, I also got to hear rumours that Mr. Abashidze might be willing to hurt the presently good relations between Georgia and Turkey. As Adjaria (‘Adjaristan’) has sometimes been a part of Turkey, while the ‘Meskheti’ region in Turkey, south of Adjaria, has sometimes been a part of Georgia, there is a chance for talented disinformers and agitators to produce such a trouble. And here we come to the other side of the great danger.

 

Anyway, recently appeared hostile attitudes of some eminent Zviadists against Turkey showed some of the symptoms that I do not like inside the Zviadist movement, and they show influence that does not originate in Gamsakhurdia’s legacy. I fear it may tell about an ongoing capture inside the Zviadist movement – supported by the recently appeared anti-Turkish propaganda that funnily ignores for example Iran, Iraq and Syria, Russia’s traditional allies that are much more ”fundamentalist” Muslims than even the Islamist opposition in Turkey (concentrated in Central Anatolia, from where also Necmettin Erbakan was from).

 

And to remind you: such a fear, when it comes to Caucasian nationalist parties, is not based on empty fears. A classical case is the capture of the Armenian nationalist party, the Dashnaktsutiun, that used to be an anti-Bolshevik and anti-Russian Menshevik party. But after the disappearance of the Dashnakist party, it reappeared in a totally different form, thoroughly infiltrated by KGB agents and agitators, and suddenly fomenting anti-Azeri hatred. Or think about the capture of the Georgian environmentalist movement, which used to be the first anti-communist nursery to appear by the perestroika. The FSB is not an amateur on this branch, and Putin himself served the KGB in Germany, organizing – what else than infiltration to defector and other anti-communist circles. Also in Soviet Estonia, the KGB used the method of infiltrating the very same groupings – including clubs of schoolboys – that were the most unexpected.

 

 

A Damocles’ Sword

 

There might be an odd metamorphosis await, and this is the grand danger for which the Zviadists and their friends should be warned about. If people like Abashidze can capture all the opposition – even the spiritual and ideological legacy of Gamsakhurdia – then it can be said that Zviad’s legacy is dead. And it seems that at least a part of Zviadists may be falling into this trap – thus sealing the fate of what they really represent. Abashidze is hardly truly and profoundly a Zviadist, and it is also very questionable if he is – or if he even can be – any herald of any ideological or spiritual revival of Georgia. He might be, at his best, a powerful and useful ally for the opposition in the struggle against authoritarian rule of Shevardnadze, but the problem with such an ally, who cannot be expected to be considerably different from Shevardnadze, is that he will swallow the Zviadists like Russia swallowed Georgia after the surrender of King Irakli II.

 

The problem is of course obvious: Zviad Gamsakhurdia is dead, yet he of course lives forever in the memories of the Georgian people, and this partly guarantees that his legacy cannot be changed into whatever. But it can be quite easily changed just enough to permanently hurt the freedom of Georgia. It needs to be explained how this might happen.

 

First we must return to the settings of the grand game of Eurasia – and of course to the very issue; that is, the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

 

Georgia has no oil on its own. Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and partly Dagestan – they have the Caspian oil, together with Iran. It has been the traditional policy of Russia and Iran to make sure that the Caucasians cannot benefit from their own oil. Because of this macabre nature of the Russian colonialism in the Caucasus, Dagestan, for instance, has more than 70 per cent unemployment in spite of its oil resources. The independence of Azerbaijan and Georgia has made it possible to liberate the huge oil resources of the Caspian Basin – estimated to be even larger than the Persian Gulf oil resources. Any time, if there would be freedom and peace, Azerbaijan and several Turkestan states, and also some North Caucasian republics, would very quickly become rich and prosperous countries. This would also vastly benefit Georgia and Turkey, the countries that would serve as the necessary and crucial gateway to the West. This is why it is so important for Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia to prevent the construction of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, symbol of all this hope, that is nowadays ever more often referred to as the ”New Silk Road”.

 

Azerbaijan has the most important oil resources – at least as long as Turkmenistan stays closed off from constructive markets, being locked in the middle of Asia, and the North Caucasian and Idel-Ural oil republics are being deprived from their resources by the Russian occupation. Otherwise Azerbaijan’s prospects would already seem quite bright, but for its misfortune, Azerbaijan has a very nasty geopolitical location between three hostile states: Russia, Iran and Armenia. Russia and Iran seek to destabilize Azerbaijan, and Armenia blocks it from the most friendly neighbour, Turkey. So, for the fortune of Georgians, Azerbaijan needs Georgia. And Turkey needs Georgia, too.

 

Even more obvious it should be for everyone that Georgia needs both Azerbaijan and Turkey – she needs Azerbaijan for the oil, and Turkey for an access to the West. Georgia can provide the best gateway for the pipeline, and by the pipeline, all the rest of the trade that will follow the pipeline and the Western security guarantee that will be due to the pipeline. But the problem of Georgia is that it is far from stable: Russia has occupied already Abkhazia and Samadzablo. The FSB has prepared to destabilize also the Lezghins and Armenians of the Georgian-Azeri border area, and perhaps the Republic of Adjaria. However, the first attempts to destabilize Adjaria, by using the old Turkey card, failed. It seems Adjaria is like Georgia’s Montenegro in many senses: It has more liberty and more wealth than the rest of the country, and it is happy with autonomy, but it is definitely not ready for armed resistance against the host state.

 

The resistance against Russian power continues in Chechnya, and other North Caucasian republics are blackmailing Russia for more autonomy. Former vassals like Shevardnadze and Aliyev have turned defiant at Russia – already signing the deal with Turkey to construct the pipeline that would so badly harm Russian interests in the Caucasus (i.e. drastically increase the independence of the Caucasian nations on Russia). In this situation Putin and the FSB must be desperately thinking of how the stability in Transcaucasia could be damaged, and the construction of the pipeline prevented. At the present situation, Russia has not enough military strength available for direct invasion into Azerbaijan, and even the traditional vassals, the Armenians and the Ossetians, are for little use. Their cards have been plaid already. The long time so useful agency of the KGB, the Kurdish PKK terrorist organization, has suddenly become just a bunch of bandits quarreling against each other, their notorious leader, the Turkish communist Abdullah Öcalan, imprisoned.

 

So, what is Russia’s best prospect? To destabilize Georgia so that Georgia has to accept Russian troops – at least maintained presence of the already existing troops, and if possible, even more, so that Russia could certainly shoot short the plans for the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, or at least damage the stability of Georgia so seriously that the investors of the pipeline would become skeptical. When Shevardnadze and Aliyev have become defiantly pro-Western and anti-Russian, the agent to be used is better to be somebody else...

 

Let us just think how useful it would be for Russia that there would be a serious trouble in Adjaria. There need not to be anything real – it is enough that there are rumours and disinformation. Turkey, or at least the nationalists in Turkey, can be easily cheated to support an imagined ”Adjarian” resistance against, let us say, a serious conflict against Shevardnadze’s troops. This may be for example result of a great scandal with the elections – and everybody knew that the April election would again be unfair.

 

Abashidze would somehow confront Shevardnadze resulting – whatever happened – that Russia will move more troops to Adjaria and put an end to the co-operation between Georgia and Turkey. This will be accepted by the West, and Russian troops will even once again act under the banner of the OSCE. Large amounts of Georgians will flee from Adjaria to the rest of Georgia as refugees, and the country will be permanently paralyzed. But the Georgians – at this stage – will be cheated to accept their fate. How could this be possible? By using the very same method as with the first annexation of Georgia to the Russian Empire – appealing on religion.

 

The meaning of mobilization of the Zviadist legacy would no longer be the message of freedom, or the message of democracy. Now it would be solely the message of Orthodox unity. Such a distorted remobilization of the Zviadist legacy would suit Russia’s purposes very well, and of course the FSB has read their Huntington in order to see what the US expects to see. And this has been prepared well already, because the Zviadists were mobilized to anti-NATO demonstrations along with communists, and recently anti-Turkish propaganda has been spread in Georgia, blaming Turkey of ”Muslim fundamentalism”, which, in the vicinity of Iran, Syria and Iraq is so absurd that it can only originate in Moscow.

 

If Russia gets its military presence established in Georgia so permanently, and so disastrously, that there will be no more speeches about a pipeline, and there will be no more Pan-Caucasian co-operation of Georgia, Azerbaijan and the Chechens, then Georgia is lost – for how long a period, depends on their ability to maintain the resistance. Also Azerbaijan will be deprived of its best and most friendly gateway to the West, and will probably turn ever more authoritarian, concentrating in the Karabagh conflict, and building the pipelines to Russia and Iran. This is what Russia wants. This is what Iran wants. This is what Saudi Arabia wants. And if we only look at the current blind policies of the West in the area, it could be easily imagined that this is also what the West wants. That would be absurd, however, because that kind of solution would guarantee, that 1) the Caucasus will be a stage of constant war for the next at least hundred years more, 2) the Russian imperialism will grow ever more aggressive, and 3) the Islamist fundamentalism will radically increase, replacing the moderate secular influence of Turkey.

 

Thus, the West would do best by giving Georgia and Azerbaijan maximal support in their aspirations of co-operation with Turkey and independence on Russia. At the moment the Chechens are still keeping full-scale Russian military efforts away from Georgia and Azerbaijan, but a tiny nation may not keep the superpower busy for ever. Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and the West had better hurry up concrete construction of Caucasian liberty, bridgeland stability, and the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline.

 

JAS

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