Ethnicity and State-Building in Georgia and the Caucasus

George Tarkhan-Mouravi is co-director of the Institute for Policy Studies in Tbilisi, Georgia.

On 23 November 2003, the young leader of Georgia’s “Rose Revolution” that toppled Eduard Shevardnadze’s government, Mikheil Saakashvili, announced the arrival of a new era in Georgian history (wittily labelled by someone as “post-post-Soviet”). Saakashvili pledged to establish the rule of law, restore Georgia’s sovereignty over the whole of the country, and boost Georgia’s democratic credentials. Followed, a year later, by the “orange” revolution in Ukraine, and then by the “tulip” one in Kyrgyzstan, the Rose Revolution has helped create the impression that a sea-change has begun in the periphery of the former Soviet Union, with “people power” threatening to move gradually to the very core of the former empire—Russia.

 

Coups and the ousting of governments are not new phenomena for the region, in which calm and orderly successions of power are uncommon. When Levon Ter-Petrossian of Armenia tried to make peace with Azerbaijan, he was ousted and replaced in 1998 by the former president of Nagorno-Karabakh, Robert Kocharian, who now remains president of Armenia. The late Heydar Aliev became president of Azerbaijan in 1993 in a process that could hardly be considered uneventful. Neither did Shevardnadze himself accede to power in Georgia without a certain political drama. So why is the Rose Revolution so unique, and why are so many hopes, local and international, still invested in it?

 

It seems that it is not the manner in which change was effected that is so important, but rather the symbolic meaning ascribed to it, the explicitly pro-Western leaning of the new generation of Georgian politicians, and the indication that the wave of revolutions which Georgia’s set in train is creating a new reality aimed at the “end of history”, even if nobody much believes in this doctrine any more. The Caucasus has played a role in shaping this new political reality, both as an arena for radical change and as an increasingly important geopolitical variable. The Caucasus has become the most dynamic and contentious area where many seeds of the future post-Soviet order have taken root, some of these becoming the flowers of evil but others the tulips and roses of hope. Ethnic relations, and ethnic conflicts, play a decisive role in this process.

A Crucial Region

The Caucasus, the ancient strategic crossroads between West and East, between Europe and Asia, and between the Christian and Islamic worlds, is a wonderland for the anthropologist, the historian or linguist, and equally so for the geologist and biologist. It is one of the most fractured and fractious regions in the world. Intersected by high mountain ranges that extend between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus comprises a mosaic of peoples. Throughout its turbulent history there has been a constant process of migration and mixing of populations, the blurring of ethnic boundaries, intermarriage, and bi- and tri-lingualism, that has created a unique multiethnic, multilingual, highly diverse but still distinctive pan-Caucasian identity, shared to a certain extent by all ethnic groups in the region.

 

There are several reasons why the Caucasus has attracted international interest and attention. First and foremost, such attention is a sad result of the unique concentration in the region of post-Soviet conflicts, all of them unresolved to date. With two conflicts in the northern Caucasus (one between North Ossetia and Ingushetia over the contested Prigorodnyi district, the other between Russia and secessionist Chechnya), and the three frozen conflicts in the south (those in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh), the Caucasus inevitably arouses great concern as a hotbed of potential or actual violence that could cause a spillover of instability and terrorism.

 

Other reasons for international interest are the wealth of Caspian oil and the potential trove, still vague but attractive, of more oil under the Black Sea shelf. Oil has been the most valuable product of the Caucasus, with fields at Baku, Grozny, and Maykop in south-west Russia, and was a major factor in the “Great Game” of the last two centuries. Those parts of the region that do not possess oil themselves are acquiring significance because of the transit routes that pass through them. An important pipeline brings Caspian oil to the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, and other smaller pipelines crisscross the region. Especially important are the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan oil pipeline which opened in May 2005 and which will carry Caspian oil to the Turkish Mediterranean coast, and the Shah Deniz–Erzurum pipeline, still under construction, which will take gas from Azerbaijan via Georgia to north-eastern Turkey.

 

Finally, the Caucasus is important because of its strategic location between the Black and Caspian seas, dividing Russia from Turkey and Iran—or bridging them, depending on one’s viewpoint. The Caucasus is becoming a transportation hub between Central Asia and the West, and may gradually become an equally important transit route between Russia and the Middle East. Russia’s persistence in retaining its military bases in Georgia and Armenia, and the United States’ interest in assessing the possibility of establishing a military presence in Azerbaijan near the Iranian border, indicate that the region is also of military–strategic importance. The Caucasus is a periphery of several strategic super-regions of growing international significance: the Greater Middle East, the Black Sea region, and the new “European Neighbourhood” (which includes the European Union’s neighbours to the east, such as Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova, and all the countries on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean). The Caucasus also borders a key NATO member state, Turkey, and the latter’s traditional rival, Iran.

Ethnic Tinderbox

Inter-ethnic tensions and ethno-territorial conflicts have become the most noticeable aspect of post–Cold War political reality in the former Soviet south. Ethnic strife has been a strong force of disintegration, ruining stability, prospects of development, and elementary economic self-sufficiency. Governments have appeared unable or unwilling to maintain the forms of co-existence customary in the Soviet past and to formulate strategies facilitating peaceful co-operation. Indeed, some political elites have fully exploited the appeal of nationalist, irredentist or secessionist slogans in order to build their political careers and seize power.

 

Different levels may be distinguished in the ethnic self-identification of the Caucasian peoples. The North Caucasian Ingush and Chechens regard themselves as distinct peoples, but simultaneously pay great attention to their ethnic affinity (their languages belong to the Weinakh or Nakh group) and call each other ethnic brothers. At the same time, they consider themselves Caucasians, ready in some cases to prove this latter identity by political or even military action. Likewise, the Abkhaz and the Cherkess (Circassians) strongly respect their ethnic proximity, as well as their common Caucasian super-identity. The barbarous phrase currently popular in Russia, litso kavkazskoy natsional’nosti (a person of Caucasian nationality), which reflects a general anti-Caucasian mood, is in effect strengthening this common broader identity.

 

These complex identities explicitly reveal themselves in ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus. Characteristically, all of these conflicts take place between groups belonging to different linguistic families. Among the linguistic groups in the region are Slavic Russians, Kartvelian Georgians, Iranian Ossetians, Turkophone Azeris, Weinach Ingush and Chechens, Abkhazians of the Adygho-Abkhaz group, and Indo-European Armenians. Linguistically related ethnic groups, by contrast, tend to support each other. Ethno-genetic theories and myths play a great role in the Caucasus, serving as a basis for group identities, whereas the religious factor is still of secondary significance, contrary to places like Bosnia where ethnic conflicts take place between groups that are linguistically closely related but confessionally distinct. However, anti-Russian forces in the North Caucasus increasingly act under the guise of religious (Islamic) affiliation.

 

The North Caucasus is one of the poorest regions of Russia. Unemployment is very high, as is the birth rate (against the background of Russia’s catastrophically declining Slavic population). As Henrik Urdal has observed, “if young people are left with no alternative but unemployment and poverty, they are likely to join a rebellion as an alternative way of generating an income.”¹ The nationalist enthusiasm of the early 1990s was a breeding ground for future turmoil, while Russia’s failure to achieve economic growth in the region, and even worse, to pacify Chechnya, created favourable conditions for overall frustration and protest. The contemporary separatist aspirations of the North Caucasian peoples are among the most dangerous threats to Russia’s national security and territorial integrity.

 

The Soviet authorities deliberately created ethnically mixed administrative units, putting together, for example, Kabardinians and Balkars (in the Kabardino-Balkaria republic), and Karachais and Cherkess (in the Karachai-Cherkessia republic), while in fact Balkars and Karachais are the same Turkic people, and the Cherkess and Kabardinians are closely interrelated. No surprise, then, that there are tensions between these ethnic groups in each of the autonomous republics, and a dangerous rivalry for political power. However, in the case of the Chechen-Ingush republic (1936–92) that united closely related peoples, the two managed to achieve a peaceful post-Soviet administrative separation and continue to maintain friendly relations (it is in tiny Ingushetia that the majority of Chechen refugees find asylum today).

 

The design and redesign of administrative borders have played a tragic role in the histories of Ingushetia and North Ossetia. Following the mass deportation of the “disloyal” Ingush at the end of the Second World War, a significant part of Ingush territory, the Prigorodnyi district, including the Ingush capital (the eastern part of Vladikavkaz), passed over to the Ossetians, and although the Ingush were repatriated after 1956, they never got their land back. Taking into consideration the sacral meaning of land and its ownership in the Caucasus, it was no surprise that the demise of the Soviet Union and the subsequent political vacuum created hopes that justice could be achieved by force, leading to a bloody conflict in 1992. The uneasy peace that currently prevails between the Ossetians and Ingush came under enormous strain in the aftermath of the Beslan school atrocity of 2004, several Ingush allegedly being among the hostage-takers in the North Ossetian town.

 

In the South Caucasus, all three independent post-Soviet states (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) have their own grave problems rooted in the legacy of Soviet nationality policies, latent inter-ethnic grievances, and the political tradition of zero-sum gaming. Unsurprisingly, the explosion of radical nationalisms and ethnic conflicts began immediately with the weakening of the Soviet empire, and in turn strongly contributed to that weakening. Militant nationalism brought new political elites to power, and though there have been further leadership changes in all three South Caucasian states in the years since independence, nationalist rhetoric remains a key factor in political mobilisation and state-building.

 

The three open conflicts that took place in the South Caucasus are very different from one another, but have one common denominator: they sprang up when ethnic elites believed that the power vacuum created by Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika necessitated the rapid mobilisation of nationalist sentiment and the exploitation of accumulated grievances as the best way of achieving long-held aspirations to independent statehood. Ethno-centred doubletalk aimed at demonising the enemy and justifying one’s own national projects became the dominant process of the early 1990s, leading to bloody conflicts over Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, and over Georgia’s breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, with massive forced migrations and civilian suffering. Even when open conflict did not erupt, there are legacies of mistrust and tension wherever there is a sizable ethnic minority, such as the Lezghins and Talyshs in Azerbaijan, or the Azeris and Armenians in Georgia.

 

Conflicts with explicit winners and losers followed by massive ethnic cleansing, as in Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia, appear especially difficult to cope with as the victors absolutely refuse to give up their gains. Political elites have become hostages of their own victories and myth-making, for they live under the illusion that time is working for them. It is astonishing to see how sophisticated linguistic theories or interpretations of art history (often based on radically divergent interpretations of the same facts) shift to the domain of public discussion and become causes of mutual hostility and violence. Equally, parties to a conflict take a pragmatic—even cynical—approach to universal democratic norms and international law, appealing to and applying those norms and provisions which they find useful, while ignoring others. Human rights rhetoric often serves as a disguise for extreme nationalism. While secessionists refer to international law and their right to self-determination, their adversaries cite the same international legal principles as underwriting the territorial integrity of states. The Abkhaz or the South Ossetians who regularly proclaim their right to self-determination would never accept the same logic regarding enclaves of Georgians in their own territories, as in the Gali district of Abkhazia. Once again, territorial boundaries acquire a sacral significance and double standards become the norm.

Russia and the North Caucasus

More than half a century ago, in 1946, George Kennan in his famous “Long Telegram” acutely attributed the Kremlin’s “neurotic view of world affairs” to the “traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity”. It would be no exaggeration to say that much of this sense of insecurity is linked to the Caucasus.

 

Russia’s policy objectives in the North Caucasus are well known: eradicating Islamist opposition, terrorism and secessionism; maintaining a vertical hierarchy of power wherever possible; and balancing local forces against each other when Moscow cannot directly impose its own control. In implementing these policies, the Kremlin relies on Russia’s security services and a heavy-handed approach, actively utilising Russian nationalism and Cossack paramilitaries in Slav-dominated areas, and supporting obedient if unpopular local leaders or stoking intercommunal grievances elsewhere.

 

For the last decade, Chechnya has dominated Russian political thinking, as Russia’s demoralised armed forces remain embroiled in combat there. Since 1999, Russia has been fighting the second Chechen war, and is today no closer to victory than it was at the outset. And because policy towards Chechnya is approved, if not designed, far away at the very top of Russia’s political hierarchy, it is lacking in flexibility and responsiveness to emerging developments and needs.

 

The Beslan tragedy proved to be the first harbinger of the decline in President Vladimir Putin’s previously soaring popularity, generating distrust and pessimism among the Russian population. It demonstrated the failure of his promises to secure and control the North Caucasus—promises that had brought him to power. Putin’s entourage may claim the killing in March 2005 of Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov as a victory, but in the long term it well may turn out to be a huge loss. The death of Maskhadov—elected president of Chechnya in 1997 in an internationally monitored and acclaimed vote—appears to dash any chance of escaping a vicious cycle of violence that has raged for more than a decade, as there is no other authoritative moderate in the Chechen resistance with whom Moscow can negotiate peace.

 

Another of Putin’s action after Beslan was to strengthen Russia’s presidential power through direct appointment of regional governors. The implications for the North Caucasus are of major concern. Writing in Novye Izvestia on 15 October 2004, the anthropologist Sergei Arutiunov stated unequivocally: “In the Caucasus the practice of appointments might be taken as an ethnic insult. Consider, for example, Dagestan. In that republic attempts to build a [Putin-style] power vertical from the top down might well lead to simply catastrophic consequences.”

 

An equally controversial policy has been to eliminate any possibility of an independent and charismatic leader emerging in the North Caucasus. In Ingushetia, following the removal of the popular and respected president Ruslan Aushev, the Kremlin ensured the election in 2002 of its handpicked and loyal favourite, Federal Security Services officer Murat Ziazikov, as the new president. Following that, repression in the republic grew, increasing numbers of civilians were abducted or disappeared, and media censorship intensified. However, the Kremlin refuses to acknowledge that its very success in installing this political marionette led to a failure to stabilise the situation. In March–April 2005, frustrated people took to the streets demanding Ziazikov’s removal. As the abolition of direct elections for regional leaders was justified by the need to sack incompetent local rulers, the Kremlin as supreme arbiter is now stuck between a rock and a hard place. It fears firing Ziazikov because this may set off a wave of copycat demonstrations across the region, but by preserving such leaders it discredits the Russian presidency even further.

 

The deterioration of the situation in Chechnya has very serious implications for the entire North Caucasus. There are clear signs that the pattern of violence afflicting Chechnya is intensifying and spreading across the region, while changing its profile from inter-ethnic conflict towards an anti-Russian Islamist radicalism—a mounting problem in areas as far apart as Dagestan and Karachai-Cherkessia. The unrest in the Caucasus has also caused an unprecedented surge of xenophobia in Russia proper. As Stephen Sestanovich puts it, many Russians see the peoples of the Caucasus “as incorrigibly violent and unappeasably hostile to Russia; they are everywhere in Russian society, able to subvert its disorganized military and security forces, and the only thing that will succeed against them is the boot”.²

 

The revulsion felt towards the Russian security services and military, pervasive in Chechnya, is gradually spreading to other parts of the North Caucasus. This animosity recalls Tolstoy’s description in his late novella Hadji Murat of the attitude of the inhabitants of a Chechen village destroyed by the Russian army in the nineteenth century:

 

Nobody spoke a word of hatred for the Russians. The emotion felt by every Chechen, old and young alike, was stronger than hatred. It was not hatred, it was a refusal to recognize these Russian dogs as men at all, and a feeling of such disgust, revulsion and bewilderment at the senseless cruelty of these creatures that the urge to destroy them—like the urge to destroy rats, venomous spiders or wolves—was an instinct as natural as that of self-preservation.³

 

Killing Maskhadov and its persistent brutality against the civilian population may ultimately cause Russia to suffer even greater frustration in the Caucasus.

Clinging to the South Caucasus

Addressing the Russian parliament in May 2004, President Putin declared Moscow’s prime objective to be “the deepening of the integration” of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the successor entity to the Soviet Union. Economic, military and political integration within the CIS framework will, in his words, “revive Russia’s international standing”. However, as there is no well-defined long-term general strategy other than the revival of Russia’s grandeur, actual policies are highly volatile. Instead of a coherent overall strategy in the Caucasus, Russia tends to pursue short- and medium-term tactical goals that focus on regime succession, security, and domination.

 

Today, the South Caucasian countries, to varying degrees, are trying to move away from Russia, and her influence with them is waning. On 25 April 2005, in his annual policy speech, Putin lamented the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the last century”, not least for the Russian people. Moscow used to benefit from the previous system of Russia-centric bilateral alliances, gaining unique sanction for its military and political presence in far-flung countries and having the ability to prevent the emergence of hostile coalitions. Notwithstanding increased tensions in Russia’s vision of the South Caucasus, the thrust of policy is clear: to preserve at all costs Russia’s domination of the region, in the vague hope of reviving the empire at some point in the future. Through all the post-Soviet years, Moscow has been deeply concerned over emerging threats in the South Caucasus and has continuously sought to counter them through subtle manipulation or direct intervention, afraid of being crowded out by the presence of new actors in the region.

 

Bordering the Caucasus, Russia is itself an active participant in ongoing conflicts in the area, and is widely considered a major destabilising factor, too powerful still to be easily counterbalanced. Stoking inter-ethnic tensions and keeping conflicts deadlocked are two of the main political levers Russia uses to maintain its influence in the region. Such policies have naturally caused, in the words of an American analyst, the “leaders and peoples of Central Asia and the Caucasus [to] see in Russia the main threat to their independence”.⁴ Thus, Russia’s support for and manipulation of the secessionist regions in Georgia, and its delay in withdrawing from its military bases in that country, are the two most sensitive issues alienating Georgia from Russia. Even Armenia, Russia’s sole remaining “strategic partner” in the Caucasus, has started reconsidering its foreign orientation and is mulling a Euro-Atlantic integration.

 

Armenia’s dependence on Russia remains strongly linked to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Notwithstanding continuous international efforts to resolve the dispute, both the Armenian and Azeri governments lack the legitimacy to go far enough to make the compromises necessary for a settlement. The Minsk Group of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, charged with brokering a deal, appears unable to achieve anything more than the maintenance of a frail peace, presumably because Russia—a co-chair of the group (with the United States and France)—is unwilling to countenance a solution that would make its geopolitical presence in the region redundant. While Azerbaijan’s economic strength is growing, thanks mainly to its oil and gas reserves, landlocked Armenia continues to suffer from an economic blockade imposed by Azerbaijan and Turkey. However, Armenia’s military strength and combat-readiness are steadily increasing, mainly because of huge military supplies from Russia.

 

Russia is once again confronted by a difficult dilemma, as its economic and strategic interest in Azerbaijan is growing, while Armenia remains its last strategic foothold in the South Caucasus. It is becoming increasingly obvious that Russia (and possibly Iran) is the only leading player that is totally uninterested in promoting a Nagorno-Karabakh resolution. Any improvement in Armenian–Turkish or Armenian–Azeri relations, likely upon Turkey’s accession to the European Union, would inflict a heavy blow on Russia’s influence in the region.

 

As regards Georgia, Russia’s policies seem even less rational, with geopolitical considerations apparently taking second place to emotion and unrealistic ambitions. Hopelessly clinging to its remaining military bases in Georgia, keeping secessionist Abkhazia and South Ossetia in a permanently suspended condition of no-peace, no-war, sporadically threatening to cut energy supplies to Georgia or to carry out “preventive strikes” against Islamist terrorists allegedly hiding in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge—these measures form the core of Russian policy towards Georgia. An alternative and supplementary approach aims at Russian economic expansion in Georgia and the Caucasus as a whole, driven by largely political aspirations to create a “liberal empire”, in the words of Russia’s energy tsar Anatoly Chubais.

 

Currently, the main preoccupation of Russia’s leadership is in fact with domestic revitalisation, and with staying in power beyond the 2008 presidential election. To do so means taking into account the concerns of Russian voters, and high among these is “post-imperial syndrome”, or the painful reaction to Russia’s loss of influence in its “near abroad”, and dislike of what they perceive to be the crawling penetration of American imperialism. Another outstanding concern relates to extremely worrisome demographic trends, particularly among the Slavic segment of Russia’s population. This makes enhancing immigration from neighbouring states necessary for Russia’s economic development, but such immigration is a prospect many Russians abhor. However, in the aftermath of the “botanical” revolutions in Russia’s immediate neighbourhood, the dominant fear currently is of more such upheavals. By a vicious logic, this fear leads to an even greater concentration of power in the presidency, which in turn increases the risk of turmoil and instability in the Russian Federation when the presidency changes.

The Georgian Jigsaw

With the demise of the Soviet Union, Georgia achieved independence but appeared unprepared to deal with its burdens, easily falling into the trap of juvenile nationalism and political chaos. A general mistrust of minorities, readily reciprocated, was the most obvious outcome and simultaneously self-perpetuating problem resulting from political immaturity. Minorities living in compact communities developed autonomist or secessionist agendas, aspiring to raise their political status and acquire more control over territory. Ethnic Georgians regarded these aspirations with suspicion, and considered the minorities a fifth column. The Abkhaz and the Ossetians took the lead, actively cajoled by Russian politicians nostalgic for the lost Soviet unity.

 

South Ossetia was declared an “autonomous region” within Georgia after the latter’s conquest by the Bolsheviks in the early 1920s, but this autonomy was always viewed with suspicion by Georgians. As the Soviet Union began to crumble, separatist sentiment grew in South Ossetia. Violence erupted when South Ossetia unilaterally declared in December 1990 its intention to secede from Georgia. Fighting between Georgian and South Ossetian forces continued until June 1992, when presidents Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia and Boris Yeltsin of Russia reached agreement on ending the conflict, and introduced a trilateral Georgian–Ossetian–Russian peacekeeping contingent. A ceasefire has largely been observed ever since, while the smuggling of goods to and from neighbouring Russia has become the basis of South Ossetia’s economy.

 

In 2004, Georgia’s new leadership sought to re-establish control of the breakaway regions. The situation deteriorated following decisive steps to halt smuggling, not least the closure of the major venue for marketing contraband goods—Ergneti market near the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali. Increased flows of weapons and armed groups from Russia exacerbated tensions, while Tbilisi amassed its own troops and set up roadblocks. Clashes and bombardments in July and August led to dozens of casualties. Finally, a fragile peace was re-established (as was the smuggling), but militant rhetoric on the part of Georgian officials makes another show of force a possibility. At the same time, South Ossetia has shown no interest in finding a compromise and Russia, which dominates affairs in the territory; has declared its readiness to protect Ossetians as its own citizens after having issued them with Russian passports. As a result, a peace proposal presented on 26 January 2025 by Saakashvili at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe was immediately rejected by the South Ossetian leadership.

 

In Georgia’s other breakaway region, Abkhazia, ethnic Abkhaz constituted, before the outbreak of conflict in 1989, no more than 19 per cent of the total population, whereas ethnic Georgians made up approximately 46 per cent. Demographic disadvantages led to a sense of insecurity and a fear of the loss of cultural identity among the Abkhaz. The conflict intensified in August 1992 when Georgian troops, ostensibly for the purpose of freeing hostages and protecting rail communications, brutally entered Abkhazia and captured the capital, Sukhumi. One month later Abkhazian forces, assisted paradoxically both by “volunteers” from Russia and by Chechen fighters, the Abkhazians’ traditional Caucasus allies (and including the now notorious Chechen warlord Shamil Basaev), launched a counter-offensive and recaptured northern Abkhazia. In July 1993, Russia and the United Nations brokered a trilateral agreement providing for a ceasefire and demilitarisation. However, in September 1993, Abkhazian forces launched a sudden offensive, taking back Sukhumi and defeating Georgian forces after eleven days of fighting. Georgian troops were driven from most parts of Abkhazia, excluding the Kodori Gorge, while more than two hundred thousand ethnic Georgians fled. On 14 May 1994, a new Russian-brokered ceasefire was agreed, providing for some thirteen hundred Russian peacekeepers to be deployed in the Abkhaz–Georgian border zone. Meanwhile, the Abkhazian legislature adopted a constitution and declared independence.

 

In February 2002, a document on the “Distribution of Competences between Tbilisi and Sukhumi” (the so-called Boden document) was approved by the UN Secretary-General’s “Group of Friends on Georgia” (comprising France, Germany, Russia, Britain and the United States) as a basis for settlement negotiations. However, the Abkhaz side refused to accept the document because it mentioned re-establishing Georgia’s sovereignty. Meanwhile, Moscow strengthened its ties with Abkhazia, issuing Russian passports to Abkhazians and reopening the railway connection to Sukhumi. An uneasy status quo has since been maintained, but there is sabre-rattling by both sides.

 

A recent change of leadership in Sukhumi has prompted a new political dynamic there. The first-ever contested presidential election in Abkhazia, in October 2004, was marred by the Kremlin’s open support for one of the candidates, Raul Khadzhimba, a security service man fully loyal to Moscow. When Abkhaz voters rejected Khadzhimba in favour of the more popular opposition leader Sergei Bagapsh, Abkhazia was hit by two months of political crisis, which verged on the brink of mass violence. As Bagapsh announced his forthcoming inauguration, Moscow exerted enormous direct pressure, sending officials to Sukhumi and even blackmailing the population by closing the border. This unprecedented bullying led to a bizarre compromise: new elections in January 2005 were won by an alliance of recent rivals—“President” Bagapsh and “Vice-President” Khadzhimba.

 

Moscow is continuing its controversial policy of explicit support for secessionist leaders. Putin went so far as to meet both Bagapsh and South Ossetia’s Eduard Kokoev during his stay in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in April 2005. Naturally enough, the secessionist leaders, secure in the backing of a powerful patron, show no interest in discussing anything apart from economic co-operation with Tbilisi. Nor do they evince any inclination to renounce their claims to independence or to conduct constructive negotiations (contrary to all their rhetoric about being willing to engage in talks).

 

The challenges to the Georgian government arising from inter-ethnic relations are much broader than dealing with the two secessionist para-states, although coping with less restive regions and minorities is naturally easier. For a country in transition, minorities pose problems and sometimes threaten to shatter stability. Lack of participation on a national level hinders dialogue with the centre and channels the political attention of minority communities either to their ethnic brethren beyond state borders, or into isolationism. Many minority representatives suffer from their poor command of the Georgian language. In Soviet times, knowledge of the state language was widely considered an unnecessary luxury, but now poor language skills restrict the access of ethnic minorities to career opportunities, social services, quality education and healthcare. The Georgian government stresses the need to accelerate the study of Georgian by minorities, but little is done in practice. Equally, Tbilisi must to do more to tackle economic discrimination and underinvestment in areas populated by ethnic minorities.

 

Ethnic nationalism still plays a significant role in civil society and political life. However, as recent Georgian history demonstrates, nationalism does not necessarily produce an internal consensus or sustainable unity, or, in the current proto-democratic setting, the end of divisive policies. Nationalism in Georgia has had a certain mobilising effect, but now seems to have exhausted its state-building potential. Ethno-nationalism of an exclusivist type became a dangerous, self-destructive force. It is only too slowly giving way to democratisation, participation, and economic growth.

Saakashvili: The Task Ahead

In November 2003, Georgia entered a new era, and the Georgian political landscape has changed radically in a remarkably short time. The Rose Revolution marked the emergence to power of a new generation of politicians less burdened by the Soviet legacy. This was the pivotal change symbolised by the downfall of the monumental figure of Shevardnadze, but the roots of the drama lay deeper. Shevardnadze had put together an adaptable political system of control, balance, and partial openness. However, because the system failed to create a robust political society, and at the same time was too weak to take society fully under control, its very survival gradually exacted greater and greater costs. The new Saakashvili administration brought with it the hope that Georgia would move away from a charismatic style of leadership based on the popularity of past deeds and irresponsible promises. But the capacity of the state to absorb new policies and institutions should not be overestimated. There may be an insufficient number of well-trained, honest and motivated public servants who understand and are able to implement new laws given the enduring context of a harmful institutional culture and customary practices of cronyism, clientelism and corruption. Especially harmful are efforts to substitute for the rule of law populism and shortsighted pragmatism flavoured by revolutionary zeal, which may lead Georgian society into a grey zone of quasi-democracy.

 

An open-ended process of political centralisation and the concentration of resources is hardly the best method of state-building. Yet the new leadership has so far proved unwilling to dismantle the over-centralised governance system, and in some respects has even reinforced it by strengthening the presidency at the expense of the legislature and by weakening the independence of the courts. The present constitutional architecture is dysfunctional, as are the present territorial arrangements in Georgia, mainly because of the absence of a coherent structure of regional government. There is a tendency to see a federal system, as suggested by various international experts and negotiators, as something to avoid or evade, rather than as a promising model which allows ethnic communities to flourish side by side and facilitates healthy policy competition.

 

During the past year, Saakashvili’s government has caused significant disappointment and antagonised many groups by its unbalanced or haphazard actions. Recent public opinion polls have shown a significant fall in the government’s popularity. The new government misplayed its hand during the first year of its rule by promising swift prosperity, undermining confidence in its ability when these pledges were not kept. Of course, there was no way to satisfy all of the over-inflated expectations of the early post-revolution period, whether it was quick improvements in the quality of life or the immediate re-establishment of Georgia’s territorial integrity. Some of the disappointments are related to Saakashvili’s personality: the president is increasingly seen by his multiplying critics as an effective and daring mobiliser of revolutionary masses, but an incompetent statesman. Even the government’s enthusiastic affinity for the West seems driven sometimes less by shared values than by pragmatic calculations and a childish desire to poke a finger in Moscow’s eye in order to distract attention from domestic failings.

 

Until recently, the objective of completely eliminating Georgia’s inter-ethnic tensions and problems would have been unrealistic. The government was either unconcerned, benefiting from the unsettled situation, or simply too busy coping with emergencies to be able to focus on restructuring social arrangements according to clear objectives of long-term inter-ethnic harmony. Now, however, accelerated political processes have brought to the surface all the problems of inter-ethnic relations and regional development that were simply hushed up before. The concept of inclusion should be central for a society based on principles of equity, trust and plurality. Georgia should spare no effort to preserve and develop its cultural plurality and complex social fabric, so that all ethnic groups feel integrated into society yet do not fear losing their identities.

 

Urgent action is needed to overcome the lack of tolerance towards religious minorities, and to end the economic, political and cultural isolation of ethnic-minority regions of Georgia. However, dealing delicately, patiently and farsightedly with the conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia is still the most important task. While it is clear that Georgia will at no price renounce its sovereignty over these territories, it is much more important to maintain peace, and the lives of Georgia’s citizens on both sides of the dividing lines, than to try and speed up the settlement of legal issues that in any case are unsusceptible of a quick resolution. Georgia should pursue a forward-looking foreign policy that does not simply manage crises, but shapes the context for future policy choices through the creation of institutions. The Georgian government still has a unique opportunity to implement radical reform and create a visionary institutional framework for the country.

Further ‘Floral’ Revolutions?

The Caucasus is in flux. Until the autumn of 2003, the absence of headline-grabbing violence in the South Caucasus persuaded many in the international community that the status quo was working just fine. Then a new wave of revolutionary developments, beginning in Georgia and brought about by so-called people power, altered the pace of change in the former Soviet space.

 

It is possible to discern two alternative paths for the region’s political development, which may be termed the southern and northern Caucasus models. The first involves the notion of sovereign states operating under conditions of relatively free if flawed decision-making, with open access to international mechanisms and institutions, and a gradual, if slow and often vacillating, movement towards European, or broadly Western, procedures and norms of democratic state-building. The other development pattern—the “northern Caucasus model”—is based on the domination of a single power, Russia, which controls access to the region, with any success or failure in the democratic process being related to decisions made in Moscow, while locally the only channel open for political participation is destructive in essence.

 

In the North Caucasus, Chechnya remains indeed the key issue and testing ground for Russia’s ability to turn the deeply rooted pattern of violence into something more constructive. Chechnya also poses a test for the West as regards Russia’s human rights abuses in the Caucasus. By keeping silent about Russia’s actions in Chechnya, Western governments are guilty of a double moral standard, and are in effect sanctioning horrific violence by a great nuclear power against the population of a tiny territory. Russia’s heavy-handed conduct and total neglect of moves towards reconciliation and development are only causing the further spread of Islamic fundamentalism, xenophobic nationalism and terrorism throughout the North Caucasus. No velvet revolutions are expected to take place here. At the same time, developments in the North Caucasus may be among the leading factors that could cause dramatic revolutionary upheavals in 2008, putting the stability of the Russian state itself into question: all the “colour” or “floral” revolutions in the post-Soviet space have taken place in relation to parliamentary or presidential elections, and Moscow fears that the Russian presidential elections of 2008 may also serve as a catalyst for a revolution of sorts.

 

In the South Caucasus, despite some achievements in nation-building, the stability of the region still rests on weak foundations. Reform here is hindered by immense structural challenges, economic misery, and political instability. Unprecedented amounts of reconstruction and development aid poured into the region have not produced the expected progress. Owing to inter-ethnic conflicts, weak institutions and geographical location, the South Caucasus risks seeing its social, political and economic development thwarted. The states here also remain vulnerable to external pressures.

 

Russia is a major factor in the preservation of the status quo in the South Caucasus, doing everything possible to maintain its military presence there and to increase its economic control of the region. Moscow strives to keep conflicts unresolved, while posting “peacekeepers” who are actually peace-blockers. Russia continues to arm all secessionist regimes in the South Caucasus, and issues Russian passports in Abkhazia and South Ossetia in order to create a pretext for the future “protection” of its new citizens. Still, Russia’s huge relative influence in the region is diminishing, while other players have come to the fore.

 

The South Caucasus has undergone fundamental and positive changes since the mid-1990s, and has now embarked on a transition towards Euro-Atlantic integration. The inclusion in June 2004 of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in the new European Neighbourhood Policy is a sign of increased European interest in the region, even if the European Union still needs “to be thoroughly convinced that it is in the collective and individual interest of its members to engage with the South Caucasus”.⁵ However, while European soft power and the attractiveness of the European model are regionally important, it is the United States that today determines the pace and direction of the political process in the South Caucasus.

 

The experience of eastern Europe illustrates best how institutionalising the European perspective is the most efficient way to foster reforms in EU-aspirant countries. The South Caucasus states seem to be moving at different speeds towards the West, because of varying individual motivations and Russian influence in the three countries. Georgia seems to have gone furthest forward, and is also seeking coalitions and venues for faster Euro-Atlantic integration, such as the GUUAM group of countries (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova), founded in the late 1990s. The increasingly pro-Western leaning of Azerbaijan but also of Armenia may enable them to join the Euro-Atlantic club early, but this depends on what happens in these two countries in the near future.

 

Armenia seems likely to be the first candidate to undergo radical political change, as the political opposition, which openly advocates a Euro-Atlantic orientation for the country, is gradually gaining the upper hand in public popularity. On Nagorno-Karabakh, the incumbent government is caught in a no-win situation: it came to power by opposing a solution, yet if it fails to move towards a deal it will lose public support. The current stalemate has resulted in Armenia’s political and economic isolation, and its over-dependence on Russia, both causing public dissatisfaction.

 

The political opposition in Azerbaijan is also likely to gain momentum in the near future. A “pomegranate” revolution there cannot be ruled out if President Ilham Aliev fails to show more flexibility, leadership qualities and farsightedness than he has hitherto been able to demonstrate.

 

If the West succeeds in preventing the Armenian and Azerbaijani governments from resorting to brutal repression, which neither of them is fully capable of implementing in any case, the present unstable situation of neither autocracy nor democracy could easily spark “apricot” and “pomegranate” revolutions. These may bring to power elites more ready to seek compromise and reconciliation.

Endnotes

1. Henrik Urdal, “The Devil in the Demographics: The Effect of Youth Bulges on Domestic Armed Conflict, 1950–2000”, World Bank, Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction Unit, Working Paper Series, no. 14, July 2004.

 

2. “Sestanovich: Putin Lacks Coherent Formula to Deal with Chechnya”, interview with Bernard Gwertzman, Council on Foreign Relations, 9 September 2024 [http://www.cfr.org/publication.php?id=7324].

 

3. Leo Tolstoy, Hadji Murat, in Master and Man and Other Stories, trans. Paul Foote (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1977), p. 226.

 

4. Laurent Ruseckas, “US Policy and Caspian Pipeline Politics: The Two Faces of Baku–Ceyhan”, in Caspian Conference Report: Succession and Long-Term Stability in the Caspian Region (Cambridge, Mass.: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, 2000), p. 109.

 

5. Svante Cornell, “Europe and the South Caucasus: In Search for a Purpose”, Central Asia–Caucasus Analyst, 2 June 2024 [http://www.cacianalyst.org/view_article.php?articleid=2419].