By Shaun Walker
It was the revolution that started it all. When Mikheil Saakashvili led protesters into the Georgian parliament on Nov. 23, 2003, it was the precursor to Orange tents on the Maidan in Kiev and crowds sweeping through Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. It also prompted endless speculation and paranoia in other post-Soviet states about the specter of “color revolutions.”
But two years after Georgia’s “Rose Revolution,” opinions are sharply divided about its achievements. Saakashvili recently gave a particularly rosy account of his achievements to Ekho Moskvy radio station. “The Georgian budget has grown fivefold, which is an indication of a reduction in corruption. We were not a real state, and we have now become one,” said the Georgian president. He also recounted that, on taking office, the presidential salary was a mere $40 per month; his travel per diem for attending the World Economic Forum in Davos was $20, whereas now “not a single policeman receives less than $300 per month.”
“We have, indeed, seen serious improvement in the issues of corruption, economic transparency, pensions and salaries,” agreed Oksana Antonenko of London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies. “But Georgia has not become more democratic. What we’ve seen is the emergence of a very strong, centralized one-party structure, in which the president decides everything and there’s no real opposition.”
This opinion does not quite fit with the rhetoric from Saakashvili’s government. On Wednesday, Tbilisi saw Saakashvili, flanked by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, open a forum entitled “The New Wave of Liberation in Europe – Democracy and Transformation.” U.S. Senator John McCain addressed the conference by video link, while Russia declined to send an official delegation to the celebrations.
As attitudes towards the West have become more cordial, relations with Georgia’s northern neighbor have turned distinctly sour. The presence of Russian troops as peacekeepers in the breakaway Georgian republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia continues to be the main sticking point in Russian-Georgian relations. Earlier this year, Russian military forces began a highly symbolic pullout from bases in Abkhazia, starting the process of complete withdrawal that Georgia wants finished by 2008. The two sides, however, have yet to agree on a timetable.
The past year has seen some major events in Georgia’s attempt to reposition itself away from Russia’s sphere of influence and towards the West. The odd hand grenade notwithstanding, Georgians welcomed U.S. President George W. Bush with open arms, and even went to the extent of naming a street after him in Tbilisi. The opening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline signaled another significant shift away from Russia’s orbit. “The streets of Tbilisi are filled with EU flags as well as Georgian flags,” said Antonenko. “Polls show that a certain proportion of the population actually believes that Georgia is already a member of the EU.” While EU membership seems highly unlikely within the next few decades, 2008 has been mooted as a date for full NATO membership.
In contrast to attempts to woo Europe, the sniping and bad blood in relations with Russia has been worsening since the relative high point during Saakashvili’s visit to Moscow in February. In August, Georgians were outraged when controversial Russian Liberal Democrat Party State Duma Deputy Alexei Mitrofanov shot a pornographic film entitled “Yulia,” the main romantic protagonists of which were a doppelganger of then-Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and a hirsute Caucasian remarkably similar in appearance to Saakashvili.
More recently, one of the members of the Georgian delegation that had planned to travel to St. Petersburg for the meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the CIS on Nov. 17 and 18, Chairman of the Parliamentary Defense and Security Committee Givi Targamadze, was denied a Russian visa. Targamadze had previously accused Russian peacekeepers of being responsible for drug trafficking, but the Russian Foreign Ministry insisted that the visa rejection was a clerical error and not politically motivated. By the time the error was rectified, however, the Georgians had already taken offence and refused to attend.
On Tuesday, opposition politician David Berdzenishvili stepped up the rhetoric, calling for discussions to start on the withdrawal of Georgia from the CIS. The initiative was supported by parliamentary speaker Nino Burdzhanadze. While Saakashvili has yet to state his view on the issue and many leading Georgian politicians rushed to state that this was not a decision, but merely a question thrown out for consideration, there were some tough words spoken. “The CIS has not brought Georgia anything good in all the years we have been part of it,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported Burdzhanadze as saying.
Not surprisingly, reaction in Moscow to the celebration of the revolutionary anniversary has been cold. The reaction to the announcement that Georgia was contemplating quitting the CIS was even colder. Konstantin Kosachev, Chairman of the Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, described the two years since the revolution as “wasted,” while Sergey Antufyev, a United Russia Duma deputy, put forward a motion for the reconsideration of all bilateral treaties with Georgia in light of the statements coming out of Tbilisi.
Others pointed out the huge economic losses that Georgia could face if it pulled out of the union. “Every country has the right to leave the CIS at any moment,” Akhmed Belalov, Deputy Chairman of the Duma CIS Committee, told RIA Novosti. However, “Georgia faces clear risks in leaving the CIS, such as an increase in the price of gas,” he warned. Some analysts felt that the threats themselves were actually part of a political bluff aimed at winning economic concessions on gas prices.
While the belligerent threats coming out of some quarters in Tbilisi about leaving the CIS might be understandable, they are likely to be counterproductive. “Russia is obviously a key player,” said Antonenko. “While there has been increased interest from the international community, it doesn’t mean that the United States is going to enforce a settlement and push the Russians out. Somehow there is still an illusion that the West will sort everything out, but this is complete fantasy.”
