Georgia Faces Invasion PDF Print E-mail
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Written by Will Cathcart   
Wednesday, 13 August 2008
Habsburg Prediction Comes True Historical Background of Conflict
WHY THE CHARLESTON MERCURY WENT TO GEORGIA

On February 25, 1921, after the first three years of independence the
Democratic Republic of Georgia had seen in more than six centuries,
Soviet tanks rolled into Tbilisi in what was the Russian Red Amy’s
Invasion of Georgia. Though the country was inundated with Soviet
forces, it would be another three years before the Georgians stopped
fighting. The international community ignored the violent destruction
of this ancient Christian democracy. Today Georgians have their independence once again, but for how
long? As we prepared this article to go to press, Russian tanks and troops
rolled into Georgia headed for the capital. Russian planes are bombing
Georgian towns and airports, including the capital of Tbilisi; there
are accounts of attempts being made on President Saakashvili’s life.

The country of Georgia is now a war zone, facing outright Russian
occupation. On Friday Georgia called for a ceasefire and withdrew
its troops from South Ossetia. The Russians have ignored the path to
peace because this attack is about punishing Georgia. Otto von
Habsburg predicted this attack, as we reported in the last edition.
On the day after the Russians invaded Georgia, we found evidence
that hackers had entered the Web site for the Georgia Ministry of

Foreign Affairs where their homepage had photographs
of President Saakashvili morphing into Adolph Hitler.
This is no surprise, as it follows reports from our
intelligence correspondent, Gene Poteat, about the
Russians becoming very proficient in cyber warfare and
dubious post-invasion commentary from Russian military
officials about Georgians instituting ethnic cleansing. It
is extremely ironic that the Russians would compare
Saakashvili to Hitler, because, according to Gabriela von
Habsburg: “Russia’s claim that it is protecting its citizens
is the same claim Hitler made as he invaded Poland.”

The Russian use of misinformation is quite common;
note the recent case in Estonia. According to a
group of Georgians now living in Charleston, an independent
Russian television station polled young Russians
who had grown up in the Putin era. The station asked
what nation was the biggest threat to Russia. An overwhelming
majority of the young people answered,
Georgia. Then the pollsters asked them: How large is
Georgia? The youngsters answered: around 50 million.
This nation, which is actually comprised of a mere
five million people, will not go down without a fight.

Georgians have been fighting for their cultural autonomy
since the 4th century when they became one of the first
countries in the world to adopt Christianity officially
as their state religion. At the crossroads of Europe and
Asia, literally on the Silk Road, Georgia became a cultural
melting pot of East and West, a host of nationalities,
and though a large majority of its inhabitants have been
Christian (Georgian Orthodox) for the last 16
centuries, they have coexisted peacefully with the sizable
Muslim, Jewish, Armenian and Catholic populations.
From the 11th century until the 13th century Georgia had
its own early Renaissance or Golden Age in which scores
of its legendary cathedrals were built — many out of
stone resembling ornate fortifications as much as they
resemble a modern day church. During this period
philosophy, romantic ideals and literature, prolific trade,
poetry, social policies and a standard of ethnic and religious
tolerance flourished until the Mongols invaded in
the early 13th century. The country of Georgia as
we know it today officially gained its independence in
1991. The next 12 years saw civil war, corruption at nearly
every level of authority, Russian intervention or
manipulation and civil unrest. The country functioned
like a broken Soviet state in the shadow of the
KGB. In 2003 Mikheil Saakashvili, who according to
independent polls had won the Georgian presidency,
marched along with his supporters into the parliamentary
building and laid roses on the ground, interrupting a
speech by President Eduard Shevardnadze.
Shevardnadze had been accused of rigging the most
recent election and soon resigned. Hundreds of thousands
of people hit the streets of Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, in
a celebration of fireworks and music. They had ousted a
president who was not only accused of rigging the presidential
elections but also of endorsing corruption that
had nearly ruined Georgia’s delicate economy for the last
eight years. New elections were held and Mikheil
Saakashvili won in a landslide victory. He brought in government
reforms on every level, from the Parliament to
the police, and introduced nationalistic policies to
strengthen the military and the economy and reassert
Georgian control of breakaway regions of Adjara, South
Ossetia and Abkhazia. Saakashvili’s attempt to
regain the breakaway regions angered Russia, which has
begun to hand out Russian passports to citizens in South
Ossetia and Abkhazia, in what Georgia claims to be an
attempt to annex these regions to destabilize Georgia
and gain a strategic economical advantage for Russia’s oil
exportation.

Subsequently, Georgia’s recent attempt to join
NATO, which it hoped would eventually lead to EU
membership, has outright infuriated Russia. First
Vladimir Putin, now Russia’s prime minister, and then
President Medvedev, former chairman of Gazprom,
Russia’s state-owned oil monopoly, have deployed an
increasing number of Russian peacekeeping troops to these
areas on the Georgian border where they have been performing
military “exercises.” Recently, while U.S.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with
Georgia’s President Saakashvili, a pair of Russian
jets flew over Georgia in an aggressive display of Russian
might; they were obviously not making idle threats.
Suffice it to say that the stakes could not have been
higher when this correspondent sat down with President
Mikheil Saakashvili in the Black Sea town of Batumi.
Many people consider Saakashvili a controversial figure.
The president’s opponents accused him of bullying
the opposition and media in the most recent
Parliamentary elections, attempting to shutdown
Georgia’s last independent television station, not following
through with all the reforms he promised and not
getting rid of some members of government who some
assume to be ex-KGB dinosaurs. To some, especially
those with Russian sympathies, Saakashvili is too close
to the U.S. and Europe, and he is allowing Georgia to be
used to further NATO’s missile defense system. To his
supporters, which right now are a large majority of
Georgians, he is exactly the type of strong leader that
Georgia and the surrounding areas so desperately need.
His relationship with the West, his progress toward
NATO (though recently set back), his expansion and
improvement of the Georgian military and his
successful economic expansions and his aggressive government
reforms set Georgia on a path toward achieving
its optimal economic and security potential. Whether
they like him or not, since Saakashvili came to power
the streets of Georgia were safe at night (at least until
Russia began bombing them), police officers no
longer demand bribes and Georgia’s economy is growing
in spite of the Russian boycott of Georgian exports and
their hike in oil prices. Another positive is that government
reform, whether fast enough or not, is at least happening
and on the table for discussion.

For such a controversial figure, Mikheil Saakashvili is
an extremely likeable guy. He studied law at Columbia
University and George Washington University and
practiced law in the United States as a human rights
lawyer before he returned to Georgia at the request of
President Eduard Shevardnadze. Saakashvili is
built in massive proportions — his laugh is almost goofy
and inescapably contagious. He is laid back and charismatic
at the same time, a hard man not to like. At the
last minute, he asks us to move the interview out side
on patio because, “It’s turning out to be a very nice day.”
While he changes out of his suit into a bright purple
shirt and a pair of corduroys — I have no idea why, we set
up our equipment on the patio and his snipers set up
their rifles on the rooftop behind us. I conduct the
interview against a backdrop of the Black Sea in the city of
Batumi. Now this is extremely pleasant, but to get here we
have driven all night without sleep from the capital city of
Tbilisi, where we were originally
told the interview would take place. At least this
was the plan as of our midnight flight to Georgia from
Istanbul the day before. The change of plans is a
result of Germany’s desire to restore good relations with
the country it recently vetoed from joining NATO — after
previously urging it for months not to retaliate to
Russia’s provocations as Georgia would soon be a part
of the collective defense system with allies that would
“have its back.” Unfortunately at the last
minute, after Putin’s threats to increase gas prices, France
and Germany turned their backs on Georgia (who
would have thought?), leaving the U.S. as the lone and
ignored voice of support for Georgian and Ukrainian
NATO membership. Had they been allowed NATO
membership Russia would not be attacking. Between
now and December when NATO is to review its decision
will prove to be a very violent fall.
On the same day as our interview, Germany sent its
Foreign Minister Frank- Walter Steinmeier to meet
with President Saakashvili. One of the main topics of
discussion was the repatriation of the some 250,000
ethnic Georgian refugees who were driven from Abkhazia
following the Georgian- Abkaz conflicts, in which
Russia supported Abkhazia in the region’s ethnic cleansing
of Georgians, seeking to shift the population out of its
Georgian ethnicity to one more easily controlled by
Russia. Leaving the city of Tbilisi,
we pass by what appears to be a second city on the
outskirts of the capital comprised of indistinguishable
heartbreaking skyscraper slums housing hundreds of
thousands of impoverished ethnic Georgian refuges who
were driven from Abkhazia during this conflict. President
Saakashvili doesn’t comment on his meeting with
Steinmeier, nor does he need to as little progress was
expected. Needless to say he seems relieved even delighted
to sit down and speak to this correspondent and the camera
that has the potential to see his message (in many
ways a cry for help and democracy) into American
homes. You see, Americans are still cool in Georgia.
Perhaps “cry for help” is the wrong phrase. Georgia is
not looking for a free hand out nor are they cowering
behind an American flag. They are standing up and
looking to the United States for an ally. Reciprocation is
probably a more appropriate word choice. Up until last
Friday, when Georgia had to withdraw its troops for it’s
own defense, there were 2,000 Georgian troops fighting
side by side with American forces in Iraq.
There were only two countries with more troops in Iraq
than Georgia: the United States of America and the
United Kingdom. The U.K., our greatest
ally, has a population of 60.6 million people, and right
now they have 4,000 troops in Iraq. Georgia has a population
of 4.6 million, and they had 2,000 troops fighting
our battles. The United States has 154,000 troops in
Iraq, which is five percent of our population. Georgia had
sent 4.4 percent of its population to fight beside us for
the same cause. On August 10 U.S. planes began to fly
them home, as their own planes would have been shot
down. Georgia was never asked to contribute what it
did; they did so on their own accord. President Bush practically
had to beg Gordon Brown not to reduce the
U.K. contribution to 2,500 as they had planned.
When asked why President Mikheil Saakashvili
has done this, he cites “our shared values” and that, “We
believe in all the same principles that the United States
believes in. I think there is a lot at stake in Afghanistan
and Iraq. We feel it here in our region. Every time
American troops have some set back in Iraq or indeed
before they ever went into Iraq, every time Saddam
Hussein caught a boost felt important … we felt hit in
our region. We felt problems back home. You know this is
all interconnected. It’s easy to think, if you live in a comfortable
house in the West, that this doesn’t concern you.
It does concern all of us. And, I believe, the more successful
the United States is, the more successful all of us
will be. “Where does America come into all this? We are not a ‘pro-American’ government.
We are just a government that wants to build a free
society like there is in America. We believe in all the
same values. I believe in the creative energy of the people.
I believe in democracy. I believe in freedom of speech.
I believe in the freedom to express yourself … and to
unleash the energy that is in every human being, and that
is everything that I learned from America. You mentioned
that I went to Columbia and then George Washington University in
D.C. a few blocks away from the White House. The things
that I picked up there were [things] that I believed in my
childhood, I was raised that way. Because the previous
generations who raised me were longing always for freedom,
but they weren’t lucky enough to live most of their
lives in an independent country. Now we not only have a
country that is formally free. We can make a country
where every individual is free. From that point of view of
course we derive energy from the Founding Fathers … and
the framers of the [U.S.] constitution.” The president explains
that he has the Federalist Papers in his office and that
he goes back and reads them “because that is something
that really matters … those principles are relevant for a
small country and for the rest of the world.”
When asked about recent tensions with Russia,
Saakashvili explains that the Russians are going after
American interests in this reason, “By saying that America
is encroaching on them, what they mean is that democracy
is encroaching on them. And the D- word is something
that is quite an irritant for some people there … and the
other reason why they went after this is that Georgia may
be the standard bearer of democracy in this part of
Europe in this part of post- Soviet space.” He explains
that Russians fear that Georgia is spreading the “the
main germ of democracy in the neighborhood of Russia.
“The stakes are high and the situation pretty precarious.
Everyday I wake up and say the situation can’t get any
worse … I think they are testing the patience of
Georgia and some countries in the West … This is not
about standing up for Georgia, it’s about standing
up for the values.” Of course there is the matter
of location. Georgia’s position on the Black Sea
between Russia and (Armenia and then) Iran is both a blessing
and curse. He explains, “The point is that Georgia is
the main route for alternative supplies for the Western
world. Now if Georgia falls, there is a bottleneck here …
they will have to go through Russia, and Russia will
become a monopoly … it’s a brutal and pragmatic reality
and everyone should wake up to it.” If President Saakashvili
could pass back one message to people in the U.S., it
would be this: “At this stage when we ask what Americans
should know about this situation, I think something that
is really crucial here is that American prestige is at stake.
American interests and the interest of democratic worlds
are at stake here … Essential values for the West are
endangered here. And this is exactly the moment when
those values and principles need to be protected. People
should stand up for this … you also made us believe in it
[freedom] because we are also children of democracy.”
In the Georgian language there are three words for “yes”
and one word for “no.” They would be pleased with just
one English “yes” to NATO membership or further
American support. It’s not even more American troops
that they want; it is public awareness. They want their
story to be told. They know sometimes it’s hard to listen
to a country on the other side of the world surround by
“blank-istans.” But these people have more in common
with the United States, than it does with some of its closest
allies.
This is because they have founded their country on a dream and on a system,
which we have successfully for the last half-century spread around the world
because we believe in that democracy. The question is:
Are we responsible for those who take a stand in pursuit
of that dream? Do we have an obligation to prove it
more than just that — that it
can be a reality, even a state of security and stability? Yet
they expect nothing and resent even less. They would
be happy with just a simple “yes.” Of course it’s never
that easy, nor is it quick. But these are very positive people;
they have a faith that is many centuries old. They are not
going to give up, which makes the potential tragedy
all the more heart wrenching. They are willing to fight to
death for what they have, without U.S. or European
support a Russian invasionwould result in such a scenario.
The theme of the interview is “How high are the
stakes right now?” Saakashvili does not discuss the possibility
of Russian troops in Tbilisi, because acknowledging
the possibility would be a show of weakness. The truth
is, the stakes could not be higher. Russia has secured the
Winter Olympics for 2014. It is watching China very closely.
It is well aware that the sooner it settles its conflicts,
the less likely the situation in Georgia might resemble
Tibet. Russia knows that people in the United States are
preoccupied with an election, with Brittney Spears and
Paris Hilton and now John Edwards’s zipper. Russia
knows that the U.S. military is over-extended. Russia
knows that at the end of the summer all the Germans and
many other Europeans go on mholiday for weeks at a time.
Russia knows that while on holiday they are less likely to
pay attention or even care about what happens in what
seems far away. Gabriela von Habsburg explains all this to
me as we drive back to Tbilisi.
“So you are telling me that ‘A Crush on Obama’ and the
German summer holiday could result in the Russian
invasion of Georgia?” “That is exactly what I’m
telling you.” She was right, as proven with Russia’s attack.
If the impression is that the world’s back is turned,
then this unique little pocket of faith, democracy and hope
may very well be swallowed by a Russian neocolonial
machine. But this is also about the power of the press,
of a simple story, of individuals who can make a difference.
Because if that story gets told and retold enough,
if Moscow believes that Americans and Europeans
will not stand for such a loss, then that simple notion says
more than all the troops in Iraq. It is time that story is
told. May it spread faster than McCain’s latest campaign
video — at the speed of YouTube, American gossip
and freakish celebrity fascination.

Will Cathcart may be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 13 August 2008 )
 
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