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Conflict in the Caucasus
RUSSIA HAS suffered two serious blows in the Caucasus in the
past month. On 9 May, during the parade in the centre of the capital, Grozny, to
celebrate Russia’s victory in the second world war, the president of Chechnya,
Akhmad Kadyrov (a former warlord who became an ally of Russian president,
Vladimir Putin), was killed in a bomb blast.
Now Russia is left frantically searching for a successor.
The job description is hardly attractive: three of the four post-Soviet Chechen
leaders have died violent deaths. The fourth, Aslan Maskhadov, is leading armed
opposition to the Russian troops. This blast also blew a huge hole in the cruel
illusion that stability has been restored in Chechnya. Indeed, the BBC reports
that the situation there today is comparable to Kosova and Bosnia at the height
of their conflicts.
Just a couple of weeks earlier, the head of Russia’s
Security Council, Igor Ivanov, was forced to fly to Adzharia (an autonomous
republic within the republic of Georgia) to persuade its president, Aslan
Abashidze, to give up power and flee to Moscow. Abashidze claims that he agreed
to avoid civil war in the republic and that, as Ivanov was talking to him,
artillery fire from the Georgian army could be heard approaching his palace.
There could be no doubt that the central Georgian
authorities were determined to use any means to take control of Adzharia. After
Mikhail Saakashvili ousted Eduard Shevardnadze as Georgian president in last
November’s ‘rose revolution’ he has made it clear he intends to bring the three
autonomous regions (Adzharia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia) back under central
control. Saakashvili was educated in US business schools and is determined to
force through neo-liberal reforms in the republic, but he has also gained a
reputation for his nationalistic rhetoric. He wasted little time in trying to
bring Adzharia back under control.
Adzharia is barely 40 by 30 miles in area, with a population
of about a third of a million. But, tucked between the main part of Georgia,
Turkey and the Black Sea, it is a key transit point for trade. Its capital,
Batumi, first came to prominence in 1883 when the Rothschild family financed its
construction as one of the first terminals in the world for the export of oil
from the Caspian and Azeri fields, through the Black Sea to Europe. Today,
western oil companies still rely heavily on the high-volume Batumi oil terminal,
as alternative export routes involve piping oil through Iran or Russia. In
addition, much of Armenia’s trade goes through the region as its export routes
are still blocked by Azerbaijan. Naturally, there is a high level of Russian
interest in the region.
Abashidze ran the republic as little more than a feudal
fiefdom. He was appointed to rule in 1991 by the Georgian Supreme Soviet and was
seen as a key ally of Shevardnadze. Although regarded as pro-American,
Shevardnadze was not an advocate of neo-liberalism but preferred, instead, to
build his own form of crony capitalism. Georgia gained a reputation for extreme
corruption. Abashidze used his position to build his own network of corrupt
capitalists. The oil port was privatised, with a large proportion of the shares
going to a shady Danish businessman-friend of Abashizde, who used the customs
revenue to build his own private army. Whilst the vast majority of the
population was scraping by on no more than €20 a month, it was discovered –
after Abashidze had fled to Moscow – that the president had a collection of cars
and over 200 pedigree dogs, some costing thousands of euros.
Following Saakashvili’s confirmation as president, the
struggle for control of the small republic quickly escalated. During Georgia’s
parliamentary election campaign in early spring, Saakashvili tried to visit
Batumi to campaign but was blocked by armoured personnel carriers on the border.
By mid-April, a general military mobilisation was announced by Abashidze.
Protests by Saakashvili’s supporters in Batumi were attacked by security forces
and, in response, Saakashvili announced an economic blockade of the republic.
Shipping in the Black Sea was prevented from docking in Batumi, and trade across
land borders was stopped. By the beginning of May, Adzharia and Georgia were
almost in a state of war. The bridges linking the republic to Georgia were blown
up by Abashidze. Saakashvili gave the latter ten days to step down. Abashidze
faced, he said, a choice: either go like Shevardnadze or Nicolae Ceausescu
(Stalinist president of Romania executed in 1989). Anti-Abashidze protests
continued to grow in Batumi until tens of thousands participated. By 3 May,
sections of the army and police and even some ministers were declaring their
support for Tbilisi. It had become crystal clear even to Abashidze that he had
no support and had to go.
These events illustrate a change in Russian foreign policy
in the region. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has used the
presence of Russian and Russian-speaking minorities in the newly independent
countries as a means of pressurising the leaders of the former Soviet republics.
In the early to mid-1990s, considerable, if unofficial, support was given to the
other two Georgian republics, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, support which
significantly prolonged the bloody ethnic conflicts. Although the population of
Adzharia is not Russia but Georgian, they are Muslims in a Christian Georgia,
and Russia attempted to use Adzharia as a third lever to pressurise Tbilisi.
But time has moved on and Russia cannot afford to see
further ethnic and regional conflicts develop. And now it has seen growing US
influence in the region, particularly with the victory of Saakashvili. Not only
will plans to build oil pipelines through Georgia allow the export of Caspian
oil to bypass Batumi, but the US has provided military training for Georgian
troops and is supporting the country as a candidate to join Nato. Russia has
therefore decided that rather than moving into open conflict with Tbilisi, other
methods may be more effective. It is offering more open support to Saakashvili
while stepping up economic intervention in the republic. Russia’s UES has taken
over Tbilisi’s privatised electricity network and Gasprom is moving to do the
same with the republic’s gas supplies. The Georgian press is interpreting this
as an attempt by Russia to have significant influence over domestic and foreign
policy, for a relatively small investment, in much the same way as Russian
capital has taken control of privatised industry in other republics.
But now Saakashvili appears to be setting his sights on
Abkhazia. The patron saint of Georgia, not surprisingly, is Saint George, who is
celebrated on two days a year. On last November’s, Shevardnadze resigned; on
this May’s, Abashidze resigned. Tbilisi newspapers are now predicting that next
November will see Abkhazia coming back into the fold. Tension is rising
dramatically.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia will be more difficult nuts to
crack, however. They have ignored Tbilisi’s rule since the horrific ethnic
conflict of the early 1990s and their populations are Russian. It will not be so
easy for Russia to ignore pressure to intervene if the conflict develops as
currently predicted, raising the prospect of renewed, violent ethnic clashes.
The four countries of the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Georgia and Russia) are rich in history and natural resources. There are over
100 ethnic and national groups represented, but the legacy of Stalinism and the
restoration of capitalism has led to huge tensions. Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia,
Ossetia and, of course, Chechnya have been racked by ethnic wars in the last 15
years. Notwithstanding the wealth (oil, gas, caviar) to be found in the Caspian,
the benefits have gone to the multinationals, including Russian oil companies
and corrupt bureaucrats, while the peoples remain the poorest in Europe.
Meanwhile, the imperialist states (Russia, US, Turkey) have resurrected the
‘great game’ that was once waged in the region by 19th century imperialists.
Unfortunately, the region’s working class is poorly
organised and has no political organisations capable of fighting for its rights.
Only when such organisations are formed can there be any solution to the
poverty, authoritarian rule, ethnic conflict and war, through the formation of
workers’ and poor peasants’ governments. To consolidate power and achieve
progress they would have to introduce public ownership under democratic workers’
control and management of the natural resources and industry (including
pipelines), and the establishment of a confederation of democratic socialist
states of the Caucasus, with autonomy and the right of self-determination for
those national groups that wish them.
Rob Jones
Moscow
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