
</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Today’s Russia again considers itself  something akin to an empire. After a short period of hesitation  following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia, having failed to  invent a new identity for itself, reverted to the old ideal of empire.  But the modern Russian empire is strikingly more fragile than its  predecessors, because it tries to carry out a rather difficult, if not  impossible, task, namely, to make a long abandoned political model  viable in a totally new environment. As long as Russia sticks to this  line, it will be condemned to great fragility. And as long as Russia is  fragile, its relationship with the surrounding world – and especially  with its immediate neighbors – will tend to be uneasy and troubled. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Being a hegemonic and nationality-based  empire, the Soviet Union rehabilitated and in certain respects  reinforced the role of local actors. The Soviet experience was formative  for those who took on the ambivalent and dual role of acting  simultaneously as community leaders and imperial servants. In the 1990s,  during the era of Boris Yeltsin’s Russia, Georgia was led by Eduard  Shevardnadze, a former high-level Soviet official, who had presided over  Communist Georgia in the 1970s before being brought to Moscow by  Mikhail Gorbachev, who made him Soviet Foreign Minister. Shevardnadze  was a perfect example of a man who sought to reconcile in one life many  different roles. Georgian-Russian relations under his presidency and  that of Yeltsin in Russia vividly illustrate all the ambiguities and  difficulties of a post-imperial conflict.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /> <span style="color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><strong><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">A tumultuous start: Georgian Independence  without state and Russian Empire without policy</span></strong></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /> <span style="color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.1in; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% #ffffff; margin-bottom: 0.16in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">The roughly two years spanning the fall of  Zviad Gamsakhurdia and the end of the Abkhaz war, from January 1992 to  September 1993, illustrate several core aspects of Russian-Georgian  relations after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, indeed setting the  stage for the coming decade. The West dismissed with total indifference  the radically anti-hegemonic regime of Zviad Gamsakhurdia. The main  Western priority at the time was to guarantee stability on the territory  of the dissolving nuclear empire. But once the shock of disintegration  was over, both Russia and Georgia came back to their classical national  projects: for Russia, the restoration of an Empire or at the very least a  zone of influence; for Georgia, the construction of a nation-state.  Inevitably, their interests clashed again; the regime of Eduard  Shevardnadze, presumed by many to be loyal to Moscow, turned out to be  as attached to the idea of independence and sovereignty as its  predecessor, the Gamsakhurdia regime, had been. Russia, in order to  impose its hegemony, had somehow to punish this new regime. Yet during  this period it became clear that no serious political force in Georgia  would ever be so obedient to Moscow as to abandon its sovereignty and  territorial integrity. In spite of the tense relations, it would be  unfair to argue that Russia was unilaterally initiating all the  processes that developed in Georgia and its breakaway territories. At  least in the beginning of 1990s, Russia was subjected to internal  turmoil, which left it reacting to events in Georgia rather than  initiating them. Even then, Russia was never unresponsive, because it  had never, even in the worst times, abandoned the idea of maintaining a  special influence outside its borders. Georgian opposition to  Gamsakhurdia would certainly have existed even without Russia, yet  Russia’s role in his overthrow was by no means significant. Likewise,  some sort of ethnic conflict in Abkhazia was in all probability  unavoidable, but without Russian involvement the outcome of these events  would in all likelihood have been very different.</span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.1in; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% #ffffff; margin-bottom: 0.16in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">There are now many indications that Russia  backed the coup that ousted Zviad Gamsakhurdia from the presidency in  December 1991-January 1992. Moscow viewed Gamsakhurdia as a Russophobe  and as a danger to Russia’s dominance over the entire Caucasus.  Gamsakhurdia, whose term in office was characterized by serious  mismanagement of both domestic and foreign affairs, was strongly  attached to the idea of a “Common Caucasian Home.” This was a rather  utopian idea of a “United Caucasus” that would challenge Moscow’s  domination of the region. The first fruits of this idea were already  apparent with the sealing of an alliance between Gamsakhurdia and Jokhar  Dudayev’s independent republic of Chechnya. Gamsakhurdia attended  Dudayev's inauguration as President in 1991 and when Gamsakhurdia was  overthrown, he chose Chechnya as his place of asylum. While he resided  in Grozny, Gamsakhurdia also helped to organize the first “All-Caucasian  Conference” which was attended by independent-minded groups from across  the region. </span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.1in; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% #ffffff; margin-bottom: 0.16in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">The Georgian opposition to Gamsakhurdia was  a strange alliance between defeated communist apparatchiks,  anti-Gamsakhurdia nationalists, and organized crime chiefs known as the  “criminal authorities.” Moscow supported this heterogeneous opposition  both financially and technically, while the Russian military stationed  in Georgia supplied it with weapons. Exiled former Georgian communist  leaders, such as Akaki<strong> </strong>Mgeladze, had initiated the alliance  between former communists, the outlawed <em>Mkhedrioni</em> militia, and  some units of the National Guard under the command of Tengiz Kitovani.  In his memoirs, published in 1999, <em>Mkhedrioni </em>chief Jaba  Ioseliani described Kitovani’s close relations with Russian generals.<sup><a name="sdfootnote1anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote1sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">1</span></sup></a></sup> </span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.1in; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% #ffffff; margin-bottom: 0.16in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Once Gamsakhurdia was overthrown, power was  vested in the Military Council made up of former Prime Minister Tengiz  Sigua, Kitovani, and Ioseliani.<span style="font-size: 9pt;"> </span>The  putschists used the anti-Gamsakhurdia nationalists such as the National  Democratic Party, the Party of National Independence, and the Popular  Front to provide some moral legitimacy for their coup but never offered  them a share of power. They established a bizarre political assembly  called the State Council, <em>Sakhelmtzipo Sabcho</em>, with  representation of all existing political parties except Gamsakhurdia’s  followers. <span lang="en-GB">No elections were held until October 1992,  and the Assembly, which was a simple agglomeration of existing parties,  had neither a structure nor real power.</span> Actual power rested in  the hands of armed groups and militias under Ioseliani and Kitovani’s  authority. Even though the international community recognized Georgia’s  independence, Russia’s military continued to back the new government. </span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.1in; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% #ffffff; margin-bottom: 0.16in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">All rulers seek a minimum of legitimacy. It  is for this reason that the Military Council, which had become  extremely unpopular for its brutal repression of the Zviadists, invited  Eduard Shevardnadze to return to Georgia in March 1992.<sup><a name="sdfootnote2anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote2sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">2</span></sup></a></sup> Shortly thereafter,  Shevardnadze joined Ioseliani, Sigua, and Kitovani to form the  Presidium of the State Council. All four were given the power to veto  decisions of the State Council. Parliamentary elections were held in  October 1992, and Shevardnadze was elected Chairman of Parliament, which  remained the highest position in the state until the adoption of a  presidential constitution in 1995.</span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.1in; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% #ffffff; margin-bottom: 0.16in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From the very beginning, a large portion of  Georgian society was critical of Shevardnadze. Zviad Gamsakhurdia  continued to enjoy substantial support, especially in the western part  of the country, and Shevardnadze’s past led to the firm belief that he  was closely tied to Russia, some seeing him as nothing more than a  Russian figurehead. This opinion was reinforced in June 1992, when  Shevardnadze signed a cease-fire agreement on the South Ossetian  conflict with Boris Yeltsin in the resort of Dagomys, close to Sochi in  the Russian North Caucasus. Following the agreement, Georgian Forces  that were in a dominant position in the Tskhinvali region and were  blockading the secessionist stronghold there retreated, and joint  Russian–Georgian-Ossetian peacekeeping battalions were set up to patrol  the conflict zone. The agreement was clearly advantageous for Russia,  given that Ossetian and Russian battalions were acting in concert, and  it turned out to be very negative for Georgia. <span lang="en-GB">The  document, officially called the “Agreement on Principles for the  Settlement of the Georgian-Ossetian Conflict between Georgia and  Russia,” produced a quadrilateral Joint Control Commission (JCC),  consisting of Russian, North Ossetian, South Ossetian, and Georgian  sides tasked to supervise the implementation of the agreement. This  four-sided body was by no means acceptable to Georgia. Besides the  presence of Russia as a biased broker, it included </span><span lang="en-GB"><em>two</em></span><span lang="en-GB"> Ossetian delegations,  while Georgia was represented only by its central government. Hence both  the political representation and the peacekeeping structure ruled out  any possibility of parity from the very beginning. Not surprisingly, </span>Shevardnadze’s  critics considered this move as a betrayal of the national interests of  Georgia in favor of Russia. </span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.1in; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% #ffffff; margin-bottom: 0.16in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">In fact, reality was much more complex. No  doubt, Eduard Shevardnadze’s entire political career had been connected  with the Soviet Union. He was a classically ambivalent figure, who knew  how to take advantage of his local resources to gain a privileged place  in an imperial system, but who also could use his imperial credentials  to assert his power at the local level. As in many post-colonial  transitions, be became the imperial servant who transformed himself into  a post-imperial national leader. But in the beginning of the 1990s,  Shevardnadze’s Russian credentials were ambiguous. Earlier, he had been  closely associated with Gorbachev’s political team, but by 1992 this  grouping had already been marginalized. The Soviet Union had collapsed,  and Russia was ruled by factions, symbolized by Boris Yeltsin, that in  the past had opposed Gorbachev. Moreover, Russia’s orthodox communists  and the military and security communities hated Gorbachev and his circle  even more than Yeltsin and his allies did, holding them responsible for  “the loss of half of Europe,” the “surrender of Afghanistan,” and,  finally, the destruction of the Empire. Shevardnadze himself had a small  circle of allies in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, chiefly  persons he had promoted when he was minister, men like Andrei Kozyrev  and Igor Ivanov, who both ended up as ministers themselves. Yet most  members of the new Russian political elite were hostile to Shevardnadze.  Indeed, whatever political capital he may have accumulated as Minister  of Foreign Affairs during <em>Perestroika</em> was more exploitable in the  West, where he had enjoyed the image of a liberal minister who was  among those chiefly responsible for ending the Cold War. To encourage  Georgia’s fresh start<strong>, </strong>U.S. Secretary of State<strong> </strong>James Baker  and German Minister of Foreign Affairs Hans-Dietrich Genscher visited  the country just as clashes between pro- and anti-Gamsakhurdia forces  were breaking out. </span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.1in; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% #ffffff; margin-bottom: 0.16in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Georgia was breaking the wall of  international isolation that had surrounded the country under the  successive rule of Gamsakhurdia and the Military Council.<sup><a name="sdfootnote3anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote3sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">3</span></sup></a></sup> Yet Western  interests in the region were still very limited compared to those of a  weakened but still very visible Russia. Later claims by Russian  officials and some Russian and Western analysts that Russia suffered a  “severe humiliation” at the hands of the West in the beginning of the  1990s does not hold up to serious analysis. Indeed, events demonstrate  that the West accepted almost everything Russia undertook in the  Caucasus in the name of stability. The West strikingly lacked any  willingness to get involved in the region. America’s presence was very  limited, and the administration of George H.W. Bush validated and even  welcomed the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS),  which from the very beginning Russia defined as a zone of its own  particular interest. It is revealing that the term “near abroad” emerged  during the presidency of Yeltsin, not Putin’s. </span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.1in; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% #ffffff; margin-bottom: 0.16in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Moscow had total freedom of maneuver during  the wars in Abkhazia (August 1992-September 1993) and Mountainous  Karabakh (from 1991 to May 1994).<sup><a name="sdfootnote4anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote4sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">4</span></sup></a></sup> Russia’s conduct in  these wars received no serious criticism or condemnation from Western  countries. The West was happy that Russia was unable to intervene in the  Balkans, one of the West’s top priorities at that time, and was  therefore disinclined to criticize Russia for its role in the ethnic  cleansing and mass killings that occurred in Abkhazia in 1992-1993, and  which were committed either by Russian citizens involved as “volunteers”  or by Abkhaz secessionists whom the Russian military had armed and  trained.<sup><a name="sdfootnote5anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote5sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">5</span></sup></a></sup> </span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.1in; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% #ffffff; margin-bottom: 0.16in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">In April 1993, speaking to the Georgian  parliament, Shevardnadze had to recognize that in Abkhazia Georgia was  in fact facing Russia.<sup><a name="sdfootnote6anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote6sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">6</span></sup></a></sup> In fact, the  conflict in Abkhazia and Russia’s growing involvement on the side of the  Abkhaz had already nullified any hopes that may have existed of a  partnership between the two countries. Georgians’ distrust of Russia was  even greater now than it had been during the Gamsakhurdia period. </span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.1in; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% #ffffff; margin-bottom: 0.16in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Russia more and more actively involved  itself in the war. The first official reactions from the Kremlin and  President Yeltsin’s office were not anti-Georgian and emanated  benevolent neutrality. At the start of the Abkhaz war there was no  consensus in Russia as to how it should be treated. Nor, for that  matter, was there any consensus on the identity and orientation of the  new Russian state. Those most opposed to Georgia were the military,  conservative communists, and nationalists, whose influence was steadily  expanding.<sup><a name="sdfootnote7anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote7sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">7</span></sup></a></sup> In a manner that  would recur during the war in Chechnya, Yeltsin decided to leave the  issue of Abkhazia to those who with a “special interest” in it. Neither  willing to confront the military nor an assortment of North Caucasian  nationalists, pro-Soviet restorationists, and “red and brown” patriots,  the Kremlin allowed itself to be dragged into a policy of active support  for the Abkhaz secessionists. Abkhazia was Yeltsin’s first significant  concession to the conservatives; many similar steps were to follow,  including the war in Chechnya and the rampant evolution towards  authoritarianism. The Abkhazia war also signaled a return to imperial  notions of regional politics.</span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.1in; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% #ffffff; margin-bottom: 0.16in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Under the ideological and moral influence  of its nationalists, Georgia decided not to join the CIS, even after the  removal of Gamsakhurdia. But the significance of this move was more  symbolic than real, since Russia’s influence in Georgia was no less  powerful than in any other CIS member state. Despite its financial and  moral decay, the Russian army was still the most powerful military force  in Georgia. It was the main supplier, both by smuggling and by legal  transfers, of weapons to all belligerents and militias, including both  Abkhaz and Ossetian separatists, as well as to the Georgian regular  army. The headquarters of the Russian Transcaucasian Military District  (ZAKVO) were still in Tbilisi, and Georgia’s border with NATO member  Turkey was controlled by Russian border guards. In addition to Abkhazia  and South Ossetia, </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aslan_Abashidze"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Aslan Abashidze</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">, the leader of the autonomous Black Sea  province of </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adzharia"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Adjara</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">, closed the administrative border with the  rest of the country and with the help of Russian troops prevented the  central government’s forces from entering Adjaran territory. This  established Abashidze’s authoritarian, semi-separatist regime within the  region, and created long-term problems between the regional government  and the central authorities of Georgia. Near Batumi Russia stationed a  military contingent which for several years became a kind of private  army for Abashidze. Many Adjaran youths served in the Russian army’s  border forces as a way of avoiding conscription into the new national  army. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /> <span style="color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><strong><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">1993-1995 : Russian Hegemony and Pax  Russica </span></strong></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">By the end of </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Abkhazia_%281992%E2%80%931993%29"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">the war</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> in Abkhazia, Russian Foreign Minister  Andrei Kozyrev declared at the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_General_Assembly"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">UN General Assembly</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> that “Russia realizes that no </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_organization"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">international organization</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> or group of states can replace our </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacekeeping"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">peacekeeping</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> efforts in this specific </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-Soviet_states"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">post-Soviet space</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">.”<sup><a name="sdfootnote8anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote8sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">8</span></sup></a></sup> This was a clear  announcement, paradoxically expressed by the minister considered the  most Western-oriented in Russia’s recent history, that Russia’s main  priority was to restore its hegemony over the post-Soviet space. Lacking  resources and facing internal chaos, Russia could fulfill its new  doctrine only by sustaining its military bases and by supporting various  separatist movements, especially in less loyal neighboring countries  like Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, and to some extent also, Ukraine. The  objective of this support was not the independence of the rebellious  provinces. Instead, by making itself the sole “peacekeeper” in the  conflicts which Moscow has itself fuelled,<strong> </strong>Russia could dominate  the newly independent states and prevent their rapprochement with the  West. Thus, the strategy of “peacekeeping” in the post-Soviet space  became “a neo-Byzantine version of piece keeping,” in Paul Goble’s  words. Unfortunately for the independence of post-Soviet states, no  international actor has tried to impede this process. On the contrary,  international organizations like the UN (in the case of Abkhazia) and  the OSCE (in the case of South Ossetia and Karabakh) <em>de facto</em> endorsed the role Russia had arrogated to itself. Yet a relatively minor  effort by the international community could have deterred Russia, which  at this time depended on foreign funds for its survival.<sup><a name="sdfootnote9anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote9sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">9</span></sup></a></sup> </span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Georgia became the most striking  manifestation of Russia’s new interventionist policy in the post-Soviet  space. In effect, Russia showcased its regional ambitions in Georgia,  which in the 1990s was easier to do because of the Georgians’ radical  and often unrealistic approach to regional issues. Georgia’s military  defeat in Abkhazia resulted in the near total collapse of Georgian  statehood. Civil war erupted in Western Georgia, where a returning  Gamsakhurdia and his followers achieved several victories in the fall of  1993, after which they started their advance towards the capital.  Humiliated and defeated, or “on his knees” as Russian analysts and  politicians liked to say, Shevardnadze was forced to accept the “aid” of  Russian troops and of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Only thanks to this was  Georgia able to stop the Zviadists’ progression and thereby retake  control of the major communication arteries of their country.<sup><a name="sdfootnote10anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote10sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">10</span></sup></a></sup> </span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">At the end of 1993, thus, Georgia had to  swallow the bitter pill of Russia’s peace terms. Despite fierce debates  in the Georgian parliament, Georgia entered the CIS on October 21, 1993,  and in February 1994, even joined the Collective Security Treaty, the  security organization that Moscow was building as a kind of post-Soviet  version of the Warsaw Pact. Shevardnadze had also to sign a military  agreement on “the status of the Russian troops in Georgia,” according to  which Russia was to maintain four military bases in the country. These  were in Vaziani, just outside Tbilisi; in Akhalkalaki in southern  Georgia; in Batumi; and in Gudauta, Abkhazia – in addition to the  headquarters of the ZAKVO in Tbilisi and the Border Guards along the  Turkish frontier. Boris Yeltsin visited Georgia in the beginning of  February 1994, to this day the only visit of a Russian president to the  sovereign Republic of Georgia. The visit resembled a review by a Roman  Emperor of one of his newly subjected <em>limes</em>. Russia obtained not  only the right to maintain its military bases in Georgia, but also  acquired unprecedented influence over the appointment of the three  “power ministers” in the Georgian government, that of Defense, Interior,  and Security (the former KGB). On February 4, Yeltsin and Shevardnadze  solemnized a treaty on Friendship and Cooperation which sealed Russia’s <em>de  facto</em> protectorate over Georgia. Regarding Abkhazia, Georgia had to  endorse a humiliating “joint appeal” with Russia to the Council of the  Heads of States of the CIS to send a peacekeeping force to Abkhazia.<sup><a name="sdfootnote11anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote11sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">11</span></sup></a></sup> Two months later,  in April 1994, the Georgian and Abkhaz leaderships signed the Moscow  Peace Agreement, entrusting<strong> </strong>to the Russian Federation the mandate  for Peacekeeping. The agreement also implied the return of more than  250,000 Georgian Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) to their homes, but  this point of the document was never implemented. </span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Georgia’s subjection to Russia had a very  negative impact on Georgia’s already timid cooperation with the West.  The only form of cooperation with the West that Russia initially  permitted Georgia to pursue was humanitarian and financial aid.<sup><a name="sdfootnote12anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote12sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">12</span></sup></a></sup> Russia jealously  supervised every move of the Georgian law enforcement and security  forces and was careful to prevent links between them and their Western  counterparts. Indeed, when an <span lang="en-GB">American Embassy  employee, CIA officer Fred Woodruff, managed to establish close links  with the Georgian president’s security service in 1993, he was killed  under circumstances that have yet to be clarified.</span> Vardiko  Nadibaidze, a Russian army general of Georgian origin and deputy  commander of ZAKVO, was appointed Minister of Defense in February 1994.<sup><a name="sdfootnote13anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote13sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">13</span></sup></a></sup> Meanwhile, Igor  Giorgadze, an experienced KGB officer and veteran of the Afghan war,  became Minister of State Security and grew in influence thereafter. The  third Russian protégé whose career leaped forward was Shota Kviraia, who  was named Minister of Interior. Although a Russian nominee, he was a  rival of Giorgadze’s, thus extending into post-Soviet Georgia the  traditional Soviet/Russian rivalry between the Ministry of Interior and  the KGB. </span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">With both its security and defense in the  hands of Russian appointees, the Georgian government took no steps to  move closer to NATO for several years. But despite this “good conduct,”  Georgia failed to receive any benefits from Russia in terms of steps  toward the restoration of its territorial integrity. There were two  direct meetings under Moscow’s aegis between Shevardnadze and the leader  of the Abkhaz secessionists, Vladislav Ardzinba: one meeting in Tbilisi  mediated by Russian Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev, and one in  Abkhazia arranged by Yevgeny Primakov, Russia’s Minister for Foreign  Affairs following Kozyrev’s demise. Yet both ended in failure,  officially because of Abkhaz intransigence.</span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">As far as the rebuilding of Georgia’s  military was concerned, Russia offered some time-worn military equipment  and promised to train Georgian officers in Russian military academies,  but actually admitted only a small number. Russia even failed to deliver  the twenty million rubles in aid (approximately $3 million at that  time) promised in the 1994 treaty. In spite of all this, Georgia tried  even harder to gain Russia’s benevolence as a necessary step towards  resolving its most significant problem, to reestablish its territorial  integrity. But for various reasons having mainly to do with its domestic  politics, Russia had no intention of abandoning Abkhazia. A bluntly  anti-Western nationalism was gaining momentum in Moscow, and political  leaders were disinclined to defy the military, who were emotionally and  economically committed to keeping Abkhazia under their firm control. </span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Hoping that Russia, confronted with ethnic  separatism on its own territory, would became more understanding of  Georgia’s separatist problems, Shevardnadze publicly endorsed Russia’s  invasion of Chechnya in December 1994 and authorized Russian military  jets to use Georgian airspace. The Georgian leadership naively believed  that the active involvement of the Chechens in favor of the Abkhaz  secession from Georgia would influence Russia’s position on Abkhazia now  that the Chechens had become Russia’s bitter enemies. </span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">Georgia’s  deferential behavior towards Moscow in these years sometimes verged on  the absurd. One incident that comes to mind was the improvised baptism  in Tbilisi of Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev, conducted in  person by the Catholicos (Patriarch) of the Georgian Orthodox Church,  with Vardiko Nadibaidze taking the role of a happy godfather.<sup><a name="sdfootnote14anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote14sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">14</span></sup></a></sup> Yet Grachev was  the person most frequently accused of being the main culprit behind  Georgia’s defeat in Abkhazia. Indeed, Shevardnadze himself had stated on  Georgian TV shortly after the defeat that “w<span lang="en">e lost the  war to a Russian general, we lost the war to Pavel Grachev.” Years later  after losing power, Shevardnadze declared the following to the Russian  newspaper </span><span lang="en"><em>Argumenty i Fakty:</em></span><span lang="en"> “Do you remember General Grachev? He called me and said,  ‘I’ll help you. But I have to bring two more divisions into Abkhazia.’ I  believed him and agreed. My defense minister and security minister were  right next to me. They resigned to protest my decision. And Grachev  changed his mind later on: ‘We can’t leave Abkhazia, </span><span lang="en-GB">because then we’d lose the Black Sea.’”</span><sup><a name="sdfootnote15anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote15sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">15</span></sup></a></sup> <span lang="en-GB">Grachev  also distinguished himself during the war in Abkhazia by accusing  Georgians of painting their aircraft with Russian insignia and bombing  their own cities.</span></span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">This period of indenture<strong> </strong>to Russia  was also marked by the absence of real stabilization, in spite of the  often-heard claim that, thanks to the Russian protectorate, Georgia had  at least gained peace and stability. If the main Zviadist armed groups  were eliminated shortly after Gamsakhurdia’s death, many smaller groups  continued to threaten security in Mingrelia, which until 1995 was far  from pacified. Only after Shevardnadze launched a campaign of national  reconciliation did the situation improve in Western Georgia, but the  process of reconciliation was not completed until after Saakashvili came  to power. In the rest of Georgia, political assassinations were  frequent and many prominent politicians became victims of violent crime.<sup><a name="sdfootnote16anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote16sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">16</span></sup></a></sup> The newly<strong> </strong>reinforced  ministries of State Security and Interior had marginalized the various  militias, especially the <em>Mkhedrioni,</em> who lost ground in  1994-1995. But these two ministries now became the major threat to the  rule of law and respect for human rights. Police and KGB officials,  working in close partnership with criminal groups, became deeply  involved in international drug trafficking, racketeering, embezzlement,  and other destabilizing forms of corruption..</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /> <span style="color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><strong><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">1995-1999 :Drifting Apart</span></strong></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /> <span style="color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">As early as 1995, Shevardnadze had realized  that the evolution of Russian internal and external policies would  exclude the possibility of a profitable partnership between Moscow and  Georgia. Shevardnadze himself was increasingly under attack in Russia  perceived as one of the main gravediggers of the Soviet Union, an  unpardonable sin for a Russian political elite increasingly dominated by  revanchism. Hence the quasi-vassal relationship failed to bring any  real benefit to Georgia. On the contrary, Russia kept trying to weaken  Tbilisi through its continuous support for the secessionists and its  numerous attempts to undermine Georgian sovereignty. Underscoring the  fragility of the Georgian state, new centrifugal tendencies fuelled by  Russia appeared in Adjara and Javakheti, with its large population of  Armenians. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">In this context, Georgia could only welcome  the slow awakening of the West, chiefly of the United States, to their  country and region. The <em>Pax Russica</em> of 1993-1994 in the Caucasus  had been a cold shower for decision-makers in Washington. The latter  were becoming increasingly aware of the strategic importance of the  Caucasus, as well as the importance of the energy resources of the  Caspian Sea and Central Asia. Even if these resources were  underexploited at the end of the Soviet era, or had fallen into disuse,  the idea of a new east-west energy corridor that did not cross Russian  territory was being formed. Moreover, such a corridor could itself  provide timely support for the new sovereignties in the region. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Thus, the independence and stability of the  countries situated between Turkey and China’s western frontier was in  the interest of the United States. But before 1995, American involvement  in the region remained weak, as were forces in America advocating a  more active U.S. engagement there. It will be recalled that President  Clinton’s first term was marked by a “Russia-first” strategy, while the  peripheral countries of the post-Soviet area received much less  attention.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">Shevardnadze  clearly understood this emerging opportunity. Although he had his hands  tied by militias and Russian-controlled security services, he prudently  started moving towards emancipating himself from Russian tutorship.  Thus, he began promoting a group of young and promising Western-educated  politicians inside the ruling Citizens Union of Georgia (CUG). Within a  few years, these became the most active and visible faction of the  party. He also surrounded himself with overtly pro-Western advisors, and  initiated the formation of parallel, and thereby competing, security  services. A key example was his Presidential Guard, trained by American  specialists.<sup><a name="sdfootnote17anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote17sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">17</span></sup></a></sup></span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">The failed assassination attempt against  Shevardnadze on August 29, 1995 marked a turning point. Shevardnadze had  already adopted a new constitution, which provided more substantial  powers to the presidency as opposed to the nationalist-dominated  parliament. The parliament, even though it symbolized Georgian  democracy, nevertheless blocked the passage of many crucial laws and was  constantly embroiled in making what amounted to rather childish  accusations against the president. Shevardnadze gained considerable  moral authority from having survived an attack on his life, which all  agreed had been initiated from Moscow. For the first time he alluded in  an interview directly to “some obscure forces in Russia”<sup><a name="sdfootnote18anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote18sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">18</span></sup></a></sup> that were trying  to destabilize Georgia and derail the great energy project, that is, the  Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline (BTC) – in which Georgia was so actively  participating. <span lang="en-GB">In a subsequent interview,  Shevardnadze claimed that President Yeltsin himself had warned him of  the “serious trouble” that could arise if he continued to support  alternative ways of bringing Caspian oil to European markets</span>. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">The prime suspect in the attempt on  Shevardnadze’s life, Igor Giorgadze, precipitously left the country on a  Russian jet chartered for the purpose, whereas Ioseliani was arrested  and sentenced to ten years in prison. Only a few months earlier,  Kitovani had been arrested on his way to Abkhazia, accompanied by a few  hundred armed followers and a Russian colonel. The objectives of  Kitovani’s march remain unclear, but the maneuver was probably intended  to use the hope of recovering Georgian control over Abkhazia as a means  of plunging the country into a new round of instability. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">American involvement became more active  with the realization of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline project. Russia  vehemently criticized BTC, but so did certain Western experts, who  denounced it as being a solely political project designed to damage  Russia and, at the same time, reinforce America’s position in the  region. As late as the late 1990s, many of these experts continued to  write about the “absurdity” of the BTC project, referring to its  purported lack of economic feasibility and the alleged absence of  sufficient quantities of oil in the Caspian. Subsequent events have made  it clear that this criticism was itself politically motivated, and far  from disinterested. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that the idea  of a pipeline stretching from the Caspian via Turkey to Western markets  was very much supported by Ankara as well. Indeed, Süleyman Demirel  brought up the idea as early as in spring 1992, and the first memorandum  on what became the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline was signed in Ankara on March  9, 1993, in the midst of the fighting in Abkhazia and Karabakh. The  final agreements were also signed in Turkey in October (Ankara) and  November (Istanbul) of 1998. Thus, the independence of Georgia and  Azerbaijan vis-à-vis Russia had become as crucial for Turkey as for the  U.S. and the other BTC partners, including Azerbaijan, Norway, and Great  Britain. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Another factor that fostered Shevardnadze’s  drift to the West was the weakening of Russia caused by the Chechen  conflict. Despite the terrible cost in lives it inflicted and also paid  itself to keep Chechnya under its control, Russia practically lost the  first Chechen war of 1994-1996. The disastrous war in Chechnya resulted  in <em>de facto</em> Chechen independence, creating a quasi-state in  Chechnya that was interested in a neighborly relationship with Georgia,  its only link to the outside world. The pragmatic and moderate Chechen  leader Aslan Maskhadov took steps to improve Georgian-Chechen relations,  which had been significantly strained when Chechens had fought for the  Abkhaz during the war in Abkhazia. The Chechen vice-president Vakha  Arsanov, then Maskhadov himself, paid visits to Georgia. The latter  publicly presented Chechen apologies for the events in Abkhazia, and  made a commitment to severely punish any Chechen who would henceforth  participate in any action against Georgia; the Chechen leadership was  particularly deeply interested in building a road from Chechnya to  Georgia in order to end its isolation from the outside world. Georgians  welcomed the initiative publicly, but did little, being worried that  Chechen instability would spread south across the border. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Shevardnadze’s pro-Western shift was far  from a linear process. When Shevardnadze again narrowly survived an  assassination attempt in February 1998, the process appeared threatened.<sup><a name="sdfootnote19anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote19sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">19</span></sup></a></sup> Then in October  1998 a military mutiny sprang up, during which rioters from the National  Guard were clearly awaiting instructions from Moscow. Constant  provocations were also taking place in Javakheti and Adjara. For  example, in August 1998, several dozen armed local Armenians in  Javakheti <span lang="en-GB">forced Georgian armed units to turn back  from scheduled joint military drills with the Russian base at  Akhalkalaki</span>. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">With the appointment of Boris Berezovsky as  Executive Secretary of the CIS, Russia became more proactive in the  region. Berezovsky promoted the idea of an alternative pipeline from the  Caspian shores to Russia via Georgia and breakaway Abkhazia. To go  forward this would require a resolution of the Abkhaz problem between  Russia and Georgia. He also introduced some Russian companies into  Georgia, in order to extend Russian influence there by means other than  the military.<sup><a name="sdfootnote20anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote20sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">20</span></sup></a></sup> At the same time,  there were further attempts to pull Georgia into a fresh Abkhaz trap.  For example, during the May 1998 conflict in Gali, the southernmost part  of Abkhazia, Georgian authorities were given guarantees concerning  their probable recovery of the Gali region, but were again misled.<sup><a name="sdfootnote21anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote21sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">21</span></sup></a></sup> </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /> <span style="color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><strong><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">1999-2003 : A new vicious circle in the  Georgia-Russia relationship</span></strong></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /> <span style="color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">At the end of 1990s and the beginning of  the 2000s, Georgia’s foreign relations presented a picture of extreme  contrasts. On the one hand, the country had become among the leading  beneficiaries of U.S. foreign aid per capita globally. On the other, its  biggest neighbor and former overlord was vigorously trying to undermine  Georgia’s sovereignty through acts of destabilization and to extend its  own influence there. One side was financing the formation of the  country’s military forces by an impressive influx of money and  specialists – <span lang="en-GB">in 2001-2002, American aid to the  Georgian army represented two-thirds of the country’s military budget.</span> Meanwhile, the other side sought to prevent Georgian nationals and  citizens living in Russia from sending their savings home to their  families. In fact, there is a certain irony to this picture in that the  former is a culturally and historically alien “Anglo-Saxon” superpower,  while the latter supposedly a “spiritually and sentimentally” close  Orthodox brother. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /> <span style="color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">The second Chechen war began short after  Yeltsin and his informal circle, known as “the Family,” appointed a new  prime minister, Vladimir Putin. Russia fought this war with no less  cruelty than the first, but it presented a noticeable contrast to the  first war in terms of the Russian government’s motivation and  determination. This time Moscow demanded that Georgia offer its airspace  to the Russian air force and that it allow Russian border guards to  control the Georgians’ side of the Chechen-Georgian border. After asking  for a day’s delay for reflection, Shevardnadze refused Russia’s  request. He saw a serious risk that the Chechen conflict might be  expanded onto Georgian territory. Besides, bitter experience had taught  the Georgian leadership that additional Russian troops on Georgian  territory could be used as a Trojan Horse. Georgia’s refusal infuriated  the Russian leadership, and Georgia became the target of Russian verbal  and, later, physical attacks as Russian jets bombed the Georgian side of  the border. Moscow accused Georgia, moreover, of serving as a transit  country for global Islamist networks that were sending forces into  Chechnya, and also of supplying weapons to the Chechen rebels. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Russia never presented any credible  evidence on Georgia’s alleged involvement on the side of the Chechens.  But the accusations served to exonerate the Russian army for its  failures during the first year-and-a-half of the operation. It was also  useful to Moscow to have tarnished Georgia’s international reputation by  endlessly representing it as at best a failed state that could not  secure its borders, and at worst as a rogue state in league with  terrorists. Russian accusations sometimes went to ludicrous extremes,  as, for example, when Moscow claimed that Osama Bin Laden was hiding in  the Pankisi gorge.<sup><a name="sdfootnote22anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote22sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">22</span></sup></a></sup> Russian military  spokesmen regularly announced the presence in Pankisi gorge of hundreds,  if not thousands, of jihadi fighters, especially Taliban. Russian  aircraft bombed several Georgian mountain villages, on one occasion  causing casualties, and Russian civil authorities unilaterally redrew  the Chechen portion of the Russian-Georgian border, advancing the line  deeper into Georgian territory.<sup><a name="sdfootnote23anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote23sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">23</span></sup></a></sup> </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span lang="en-GB">Russian</span><span lang="en-GB"> comparisons between the  situation in Pankisi and Peshawar in the 1980s or Qandahar in the 1990s  were hyperbole, but the situation in Pankisi was far from ideal. Among  the 12,000 Chechen refugees in the valley, there were several hundred  fighters and even some foreign Islamist combatants. However, their  attitude was rather low-key. Criminal groups, some of them with combat  experience in Chechnya, were a bigger problem. They were responsible for  most of the abductions and drug trafficking that flourished in the  valley. These groups were involved in a sort of criminal joint venture  with corrupt Georgian interior ministry officials, and served as  “subcontractors” for drug deals and the extraction of ransom money. The  Ministry of Internal Affairs and its police pretended not to control the  valley, blaming the “Chechen fighters” for the lawlessness there. In  reality, the police were themselves involved in kidnappings and drug  trafficking, with local bands acting as implementers. The senior police  official in charge of the Ministry’s anti-terrorist department was  dismissed for such activities, revealing that complicity permeated to  the very top levels of government. </span></span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">September 11, 2001 changed the game, as it<sup> </sup>enabled Russia to redefine the war in Chechnya as a struggle  against international terrorism, and to ape America’s military  intervention in Afghanistan and then Iraq. In the process, Georgia  became a vivid illustration of what Russia’s revived ambitions as a  great power meant in practice.<sup><a name="sdfootnote24anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote24sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">24</span></sup></a></sup> Not surprisingly,  Moscow opposed Georgia’s request to the OSCE to create a border  monitoring mission on the Chechen portion of its border with Russia.  This would have not only put a stop to Russian allegations but might  also have proven that the goal of all such accusations was to justify  some future military intervention on Georgian territory.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">In the end, Moscow’s exaggerated claims  that the Pankisi valley had become one of the world’s most dangerous  centers of terrorism led to disastrous consequences not for Georgia but  for Russia itself. By constantly alluding to the presence of Al-Qaeda or  Taliban elements in Pankisi, Russian leaders aroused America’s interest  in this region. Foreseeing a Russian military intervention in Georgia  “to bring order” and “fight terrorists,” the U.S. in April 2002  pre-empted Russia by announcing a significant bilateral military  cooperation program with Georgia, called the Georgia Train and Equip  Program (GTEP). The State Department announced this $64 million project  as a response “to the Government of Georgia’s request for assistance to  enhance its counter-terrorism capabilities and address the situation in  the Pankisi Gorge.” In the GTEP framework, between 150 and 200 American  military trainers were supposed to arrive in Georgia. Russia could  scarcely oppose a counter-terrorist operation directed against targets  that were impeding its own war in Chechnya and for which it had itself  been asking for some time, however much it resented the fact that a  contingent of American military trainers would soon arrive in Georgia.  In the end, Russia got what it least wanted: an American military  presence close to its borders. These developments strongly reinforced  the Russians’ conclusion that Shevardnadze had become hopelessly  pro-American, and consequently an arch-enemy of Russia.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Apart from the Chechen war, many other  issues during Shevardnadze’s last term in office contributed to the  mounting tension in Russian-Georgian relations. Georgia’s efforts to  build an independent and sovereign state deeply irritated Moscow, as did  the unresolved state of affairs in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where  Russia was unwilling to concede anything. Seeing no evolution in  Russia’s position, the Georgian leadership grew ever more dissatisfied  with the conditions that Moscow had imposed on these areas in the early  1990s. In particular, Georgian leaders increasingly viewed Russia’s  military presence on Georgian soil as a destabilizing element. The long  process of ridding the country of Russia’s military presence began with  the adoption, in April 1997, of a new law that called for Georgia to  take full control of its national borders by the end of 1999. Russian  maritime border guards were the first to leave, in the summer of 1998,  and a year later Georgia took control of its border with Turkey.  Critically important assistance from Turkey, Ukraine, and the United  States enabled Georgia’s Department of Border Control Forces to assume  these responsibilities effectively.<sup><a name="sdfootnote25anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote25sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">25</span></sup></a></sup> </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">In 1999, Tbilisi for the first time  mustered the courage to announce its intention to close the Russian  military bases on its territory. To this end, Georgia first left the  Russian-dominated Collective Security Treaty in April 1999. Then in  September 1999, Zurab Zhvania, the Chairman of Parliament and  Shevardnadze’s then heir apparent, declared that the day was close when  Georgia would be free of the “foreign military presence.” At the OSCE  summit in Istanbul two months later Russia was told to dismantle two of  its military bases in Georgia and to find a solution for the remaining  two before July 2001.<sup><a name="sdfootnote26anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote26sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">26</span></sup></a></sup> Long and difficult  negotiations took place on the fate of the two remaining bases. Ten  rounds and two years of negotiations later, Russia was still insisting  on a period of fifteen years and on hundreds of millions of dollars in  compensation to enable it to build accommodation for the evacuated  military and their families. In parallel, Russia was pushing Javakheti  Armenians and some local political groups close to Russia to support the  continuance of the base in Akhalkalaki and to blackmail the Georgian  government with possible revolts.<sup><a name="sdfootnote27anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote27sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">27</span></sup></a></sup> </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /> <span style="color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">In spite of these difficulties, the  November 1999 OSCE summit in Istanbul marked a high point in the  diplomacy of the Shevardnadze era. The process that followed revealed  clearly that Russia was less concerned with the preservation of its  decaying and militarily ineffective bases in Georgia than with impeding  Georgia’s steady rapprochement with NATO. It was therefore no surprise  that U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen’s offer to cover part of  the cost of removing the Russian bases was met in Moscow with silence.<sup><a name="sdfootnote28anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote28sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">28</span></sup></a></sup> </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Most observers interpreted Georgia’s  decision to close Russian bases on its territory as a major blow to  Moscow’s interests in the Caucasus. Georgia’s action would have ended  nearly two centuries of Russian military presence there, broken only by  the brief period of independence in 1918-21. Russia responded by  requiring all Georgian citizens working in Russia or visiting there to  get visas. Even though most Jihadi fighters in Chechnya arrived via  Central Asia and not Georgia, Moscow rationalized the visa regime as a  step to keep out foreign terrorists. Had Russia really wanted to stop  the inflow of foreign fighters, it would have had first to stamp out  corruption in its own law enforcement bodies, which turned a blind eye  to such movements – for a price. The decision on visas was part of a  long-standing Russian plan to use the Georgian Diaspora in Russia as a  tool for pressuring Tbilisi. It had been hatched by Sergey Ivanov, at  the time head of Russia’s National Security Council and a notorious hawk  in regard to Georgia.<sup><a name="sdfootnote29anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote29sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">29</span></sup></a></sup> Ivanov in turn had  picked up the idea from one Felix Stanevski, a former Russian  ambassador in Georgia, who argued from the very beginning that Georgia  was inevitably Russia’s enemy, and that Georgian elites were, so far as  almost genetically, Russophobes .<sup><a name="sdfootnote30anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote30sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">30</span></sup></a></sup> </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">The idea behind Russia’s new visa law was  that without the money sent by Georgian expatriates in Russia, Georgia  would be driven to bankruptcy and Shevardnadze’s government would  collapse.<sup><a name="sdfootnote31anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote31sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">31</span></sup></a></sup> But it turned out  that the entire project was based on erroneous data. The Russian  political elite wrongly assumed that “millions of Georgians”<sup><a name="sdfootnote32anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote32sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">32</span></sup></a></sup> lived in Russia  and that their remittances were supporting<strong> </strong>the rest of the  Georgian population. In reality, only half a million Georgians lived in  Russia; this represented barely one-third of the numbers of Armenians or  Azerbaijanis. Also, the authors of the measure underestimated the  readiness of their own corrupt lower officials to make deals to enable  Georgians to stay in Russia. In the end, the visa law had only a modest  impact on Georgia. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">But Russia’s visa legislation had one very  damaging consequence for Georgia. For “humanitarian reasons,” the visas  were not required of residents of Georgia’s secessionist provinces of  Abkhazia and South Ossetia. By this move, the Kremlin was clearly  challenging Georgia’s territorial integrity.<sup><a name="sdfootnote33anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote33sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">33</span></sup></a></sup> Today, with  hindsight, it is easy to identify this as the first step in Russia’s  effort to annex Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The next step was to be the  broadside distribution of Russian passports in these regions. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /> <span style="color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /> <span style="color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><strong><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Saving “Private Shevardnadze“: Moscow’s  paradoxical attempt to help the Kremlin’s foe to keep power during the  Rose Revolution</span></strong></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /> <span style="color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">It may appear illogical that in November  2003, when the Rose Revolution was on the lip of succeeding in unseating  Shevardnadze, it was Russia that attempted to prop up the rule of  Edward Shevardnadze, even though Russians despised him for his role in  the collapse of the USSR and his later apostasy to Georgia. But suddenly  the preservation of Shevardnadze’s presidency became Moscow’s immediate  priority in Georgia. Putin hurriedly sent to Tbilisi his Minister of  Foreign Affairs, Igor Ivanov. His stated task was to resolve the crisis  and preserve Shevardnadze’s presidency. This erratic move suggests the  great disarray in Russia’s Caucasus policy at the time. With no larger  strategy, Russia blindly supported the one person who might have been  desperate enough to accept Russian backing. The Kremlin doubtless  recalled the events of 1993, when the defeated Georgian army was fleeing  Sukhumi. Shevardnadze, who was at the mercy of raiding secessionist and  Zviadist bands, was rescued by the Russian military. Now, a decade  later, a powerless Shevardnadze would have again been forced to accept  Russian hegemony, abandon his pro-Western political orientation, forget  about NATO and the EU, and appoint Russian nominees to key security  positions. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">It  is worth noting parenthetically that Moscow has frequently chosen to  back desperate losers. In 2004 and 2009 the Kremlin backed the besieged  leader of the Moldovan Communists, Yuri Voronin, even though Voronin  subsequently failed at times to play his assigned role of obedient  vassal. Moscow also extended help to Uzbek President Islam Karimov after  the brutal repression of a revolt in Andijan in 2005. Karimov had  become an international pariah, so the tactic to offer support appeared  expedient in binding Tashkent closer to Moscow. But Karimov, too, was  quick to throw out the script that Moscow had assigned him, and seized  the first opportunity that arose to once again diversify his foreign  policy.<sup><a name="sdfootnote34anc" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote34sym"><sup><span style="text-decoration: underline;">34</span></sup></a></sup></span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Whatever Moscow’s doubts about  Shevardnadze, they paled to insignificance compared with its loathing of  what have come to be known as “color revolutions.” One of the main  theses of Putin’s “sovereign democracy” and “vertical of power” is the  ideological assertion that Western-style liberal democracy cannot work  outside of the geographical zone where it arose. Such Kremlin  ideologists as Vladislav Surkov and Gleb Pavlovski invoke this argument  to denigrate the chances of success for liberal democracy outside the  Western world. According to their logic, any attempt to establish a  democratic system beyond the borders of the Euro-Atlantic world cannot  be “natural” and must therefore be the result of a Western conspiracy,  and an intrusion into the natural order of things symbolized by Russia. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Obviously, then, the <em>successful</em> grafting of democracy onto a post-Soviet country would pose a  fundamental challenge to Moscow’s world view. No wonder that Russian  leaders depicted the Rose Revolution not as an expression of popular  will but as the playing out of an American plan for regime change.  Russia’s insistence on the American sponsorship of the Rose Revolution  found some echo in the Western media, which greatly overestimated  American support for Mikheil Saakashvili in November 2003. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Some circles in the U.S. supported the Rose  Revolution from the very beginning, among them the Open Society  Institute and the Project on Transitional Democracies. But the State  Department clearly wanted Shevardnadze to continue in office until the  end of his term. During the summer of 2003, former Secretary of State  James Baker, a personal friend of Shevardnadze, traveled to Georgia to  persuade Shevardnadze to distance himself from a new political group,  the “Alliance for a New Georgia (ANG),” which had been formed by some  highly controversial figures from the worlds of government and business.  The purpose of Baker’s mission was to avoid the instability that could  result from a rigged victory by the ANG. Only later did the Americans  come to support the Rose Revolution, when they effectively backed its  efforts to fight corruption, restore the state’s authority, and so  forth. It was doubtless attractive for Washington to be able to speak of  an “American-sponsored success story” but such support that occurred  later was by no means forthcoming during the revolution itself. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">The support Shevardnadze garnered from  Russia and its regional allies, including his own former rival Aslan  Abashidze, was not enough to maintain him in power. Neither the state  power structures nor the president himself were prepared to use force to  suppress the movement demanding Shevardnadze’s resignation. The  president resigned on November 23. Igor Ivanov subsequently tried to  present himself as one of the architects of the peaceful solution to the  crisis. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 150%;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /> <span style="color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 150%;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /> <span style="color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in; line-height: 150%;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><em><strong>Conclusion</strong></em> </span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 150%;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /> <span style="color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">During the ten years of Shevardandze’s  leadership, Georgia moved from a condition of quasi-domination by Russia  to become one of the largest beneficiaries <span style="text-decoration: underline;">per capita</span> of aid  from the United States. The country paid a high price for its attachment  to independence, however. Under Shevardnadze, Georgia lost control of  Abkhazia and a significant part of South Ossetia. Two major  assassination attempts threatened the president, while society was  wrecked by two mutinies and countless plots to destabilize the  government. Without underestimating the local dimensions of each of  these crises, it is not difficult to discern the hand of Russia in all  of them. Successively, Shevardnadze sought to reckon with this threat by  engaging successfully in a policy of deference, then a policy of  balance, and overall by taking a very cautious approach to Russia’s  interests. Yet all of these failed to avoid the effects of a Russian  policy that can best be described as “all stick and no carrot.” </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">All the problems relating to Russia that  Georgia has had to bear under Saakashvili’s leadership were already  present during the presidency of Shevardnadze. Clearly, the personality  of any given Georgian leader is not the main determinant of bilateral  relations between the two countries. Shevardnadze was lucky enough to  face a relatively weak and chaotic Russia, but he also failed to build a  strong and modern state. A more solid Georgia, free of a corrupt state  administration, could have resisted Russian pressure more efficiently.  The years that followed the Rose Revolution showed that a solid economy  and a solid state structure can resist even stronger pressures than  those of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s. Russia’s energy  blackmail of 2001, probably the most effective weapon that Moscow could  deploy against Georgia, might have been less devastating had the  Georgian bureaucracy been less corrupt and if Georgian officials were  not themselves benefiting from the situation. Georgia needed not only a  wise and experienced leader who perfectly understood its adversary, but  also very deep societal and cultural transformation. </span></p>
<div id="sdfootnote1">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote1sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote1anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">1</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span lang="en-GB"> Jaba Ioseliani, </span><span lang="en-GB"><em>Sami  Ganzomileba</em></span><span lang="en-GB">, Tbilisi: Azri, 1999. Later  Kitovani initiated war in Abkhazia, when despite an order coming from  President Shevardnadze to deploy troops only along the roads, his battle  units entered the town of Sukhumi. In 1995 Kitovani, together with a  colonel of the Russian army, attempted another march on Abkhazia. He was  arrested on his way to Abkhazia by the Georgian police. After his  release in 1998, Kitovani moved in Russia and lived under the protection  of the FSB. He periodically appeared in pro-Kremlin Russian media as an  “expert” on Georgian affairs. </span></span></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote2">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote2sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote2anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">2</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> In the quest for a  providential leader who would have been acceptable for the majority of  Georgian society, non-Zviadist nationalists first tried to convince the  representative of the Georgian royal family living in Spain – Jorje  Bagration Y Mukhrani – to come back to the country. After the refusal of  the latter, they had to support Shevardnadze’s candidacy. </span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote3">
<p><a name="sdfootnote3sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote3anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">3</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span lang="en-GB"> </span><span lang="en">It should be recalled that George  H.W. Bush’s adminstration tacitly endorsed</span><span lang="en"><strong> </strong></span><span lang="en">the Russian sponsored coup against Gamsakhurdia.</span></span></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote4">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote4sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote4anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">4</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> For example, the only serious  factor that played in the process of elaboration of the American  position in the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, were the efforts  deployed by the Armenian Diaspora, which through its lobby in Congress  obtained the adoption of amendment 907, which banned American public  economic and military aid to Azerbaijan.</span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote5">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote5sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote5anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">5</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> There is much evidence of the  direct involvement of the regular Russian armed forces in fighting  against the Georgian army, such as the Russian military plane downed in  Sukhumi in winter 1993, or the capture of several acting officers of the  Russian Army by the Georgians as prisoners of war. </span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote6">
<p><a name="sdfootnote6sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote6anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">6</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> A few days after the fall of  Sukhumi, Shevardnadze, sharply criticised in the Georgian parliament,  declared that the capture of Sukhumi by rebels was planned and  elaborated by the Russian officers stationed in Gudauta military base. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote7">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote7sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote7anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">7</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> Through the 1990s,  Shevardnadze and other Georgian officials were used to opposing  “democratic and reactionary Russias”. Georgia was officially at war with  the “reactionary Russia,” whereas the “democratic Russia” was supposed  to be supportive of Georgia. This dual nature of the Russian elite was  partly a fiction of Georgian politicians who wanted to see a part of  Russian establishment in their camp. Unfortunately for Georgia, Russian  liberals had no word in Moscow’s policies towards the “near abroad,”  with the topic being more or less consciously abandoned to the hawkish  conservatives. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote8">
<p><a name="sdfootnote8sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote8anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">8</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span lang="en-GB"> “In Russia’s shadow,” </span><span lang="en-GB"><em>Time</em></span><span lang="en-GB">, October 11, 1993</span></span></span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote9">
<p><a name="sdfootnote9sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote9anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">9</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> In 1994 Russia had received  $12 billion in direct financial aid from the IMF and the World Bank. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote10">
<p><a name="sdfootnote10sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote10anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">10</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> In his desperate address,  Shevardnadze also called on his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts to  secure Georgia’s main transit roads. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote11">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote11sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote11anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">11</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span lang="en-GB"> The </span>Council of the Heads of States of the CIS <span lang="en-GB">responded positively to the joint appeal, demanding that  CIS member states send their troops to Abkhazia. In the meantime Russian  troops stationed in Abkhazia (troops that actually participated in  fighting against the Georgian army) received the status of CIS  Peace-Keeping Force in Abkhazia.</span></span></span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote12">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote12sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote12anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">12</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> Russia’s Ministry of Foreign  Affairs even suggested to the UN in the summer of 1994 that it allocate  funds for financing its mission in Abkhazia.</span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote13">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote13sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote13anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">13</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> Nadibaidze didn’t even speak  Georgian properly and was clearly not the person who could build-up a  modern- style Georgian national army from scratch. While serving at  ZAKVO, he was in charge of supplies. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote14">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote14sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote14anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">14</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> The same awkwardness  characterized Georgian attempts to capitalize on the emotional level  recalling that Primakov had spent his childhood in Tbilisi; that  Kirienko (Russian prime minister after Chernomyrdin) was born in  Sukhumi; and that Igor Ivanov had a Georgian mother. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote15">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote15sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote15anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">15</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span lang="en-GB"> </span><span lang="en-GB"><em>Argumenty I Fakty</em></span><span lang="en-GB">, July 2, 2005. </span></span></span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote16">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote16sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote16anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">16</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> Thus Giorgi Tjanturia, the  leader of the National Democratic Party, and Soliko Khabeishvili –  Shevardnadze’s close friend and the president of his foundation – were  the two most famous examples of assassinated politicians. Giorgi  Qarqarashvili, former defence minister, was also targeted, but he  miraculously survived his injuries. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote17">
<p><a name="sdfootnote17sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote17anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">17</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> In 1995, according to a close  collaborator of Shevardnadze, Igor Giorgadze had already alerted Russia  that Georgian secret services were on the brink of being totally  controlled by the Americans. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote18">
<p><a name="sdfootnote18sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote18anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">18</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> Shevardnadze TV interview,  August 29, 1995. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote19">
<p><a name="sdfootnote19sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote19anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">19</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> The president survived again,  and while all fingers again pointed at Russia, Primakov publicly made  ironical remarks about the assassination attempt. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote20">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote20sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote20anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">20</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span lang="en-GB"> For example, he backed the Russian company </span><span lang="en-GB"><em>Industriya</em></span><span lang="en-GB"> to buy Georgian  Manganese mines in Tjiatura. The memorandum was signed but the company  failed to pay the determined amount.</span></span></span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote21">
<p><a name="sdfootnote21sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote21anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">21</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> As a result, 40,000 Georgian  returnees to Gali became refugees for the second time and more than 100  people were killed. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote22">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote22sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote22anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">22</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> At the end of 2001, Igor  Ivanov, based on dubious information from a supposed driver of the  leader of Al-Qaeda, declared that Osama Bin Laden was possibly hiding in  the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia. Half-joking and half-mockingly,  Shevardnadze launched a checking operation in the valley, starting from  the house of Ivanov’s family (the latter’s mother is originally from  Pankisi). </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote23">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote23sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote23anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">23</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> Russia sent a paratrooper  division to the Itum-Kale district of Chechnya in the winter of 2000,  which took control of the border with Georgia. The paratroopers occupied  a Georgian hamlet of Pitchvni where they established their post. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote24">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote24sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote24anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">24</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> See Thornike Gordadze :  « Géorgie : l’Irak du pauvre » (Georgia : Irak for the poor), Le Figaro,  21 October 2002. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote25">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote25sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote25anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">25</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> The American contribution was  the most important. In 1999, Georgia received several combat  helicopters from the U.S. The amount of American aid to this department  attained $50 million. This was the first case of successful cooperation  between the two countries in the military domain. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote26">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote26sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote26anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">26</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> Russia decided to choose the  Vaziani and Gudauta bases for tactical reasons. Vaziani was a military  air-base close to Tbilisi and under the Soviet regime it was designed  for control of the southern airspace (in the direction of Turkey and the  Middle East). It had no strategic importance for the control of  Georgia. Gudauta was in Abkhazia and the Georgians had no possibility to  verify if the base was really closed and, in fact, despite Russian  commitment, Gudauta base has never been dismantled. It continues to be  used in 2009. Batumi and Akhalkalaki bases are of no big military  importance either, but they were situated in more “sensitive” regions of  Georgia (Adjara and Javakheti), where in case of need they could have  been used to destabilizes Georgia. Moreover, these two bases were closed  in 2007 with no resistance from Russia, because seeing Abashidze ousted  from power in Adjara and state control reinforced in Javakheti, keeping  them was becoming an unaffordable luxury. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote27">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote27sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote27anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">27</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> Some groundless rumors about  the probable opening of Turkish military bases in Armenian populated  regions of Georgia were spread by some “trustworthy sources,” provoking  local Armenians’ indignation and protest. By the same manner, Abkhaz  children and women were suggested to lie down on the railway close to  Gudauta, in order to prevent the evacuation of the Russian base.</span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote28">
<p><a name="sdfootnote28sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote28anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">28</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> This possibility was raised  by William Cohen during his visit to the South Caucasus in July 1999. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote29">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote29sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote29anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">29</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span lang="en-GB"> Segey Ivanov is famous for his sharp phrases on Georgia.  As a symptomatic illustration of this tendency one could quote his (at  that time already Russian Minister of Defense) comment on Georgia’s  desire to join NATO : “Georgia can join any international organisation  it wants, even the league of Sexual minorities,” see </span><span lang="en-GB"><em>Vremya Novostej</em></span><span lang="en-GB">, September  20, 2002.</span></span></span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote30">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote30sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote30anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">30</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span lang="en-GB"> The former ambassador reiterated his vision in a recent  interview to the radio station </span><span lang="en-GB"><em>Ekho Moskvy</em></span><span lang="en-GB"> on April 25, 2009. </span></span></span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote31">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote31sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote31anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">31</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> Stanevski stated many times  that Russia was the greatest supplier of financial aid to Georgia,  introducing a rather strange approach and definition of “economic aid”:  he proposed categorizing as aid the money that Georgians working in  Russia sent annually back to Georgia. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote32">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote32sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote32anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">32</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span lang="en-GB"> See interview of Sergei Ivanov to </span><span lang="en-GB"><em>Vlast’</em></span><span lang="en-GB"> January 2002</span></span></span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote33">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote33sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote33anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">33</span></span></a><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> Initially, some Georgian  analysts and politicians talked about the possible positive consequences  of the Russian decision. They naively believed that the residents of  Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region would have been obliged to come to  Tbilisi to obtain Russian visas and that move would have had an  unexpectedly positive effect on the reintegration of the separatist  provinces. </span></span></p>
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<div id="sdfootnote34">
<p align="justify"><a name="sdfootnote34sym" href="../website/mambots/editors/jce/jscripts/tiny_mce/blank.htm#sdfootnote34anc"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">34</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span lang="en-GB"> Even the tiny and almost totally controlled Abkhazia  defied in 2004 a unilateral and blunt attempt of Moscow to impose a KGB  officer as a </span><span lang="en-GB"><em>de facto</em></span><span lang="en-GB"> president of the breakaway region against the more  popular, and supposedly more independent minded Sergei Bagapsh. </span></span></span></span></p>
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