WORLD AFFAIRS

A Georgian revolt

JOHN CHERIAN

A "velvet revolution" in Georgia ends the corrupt and inefficient presidency of Eduard Shevardnadze, who apparently turned an electoral verdict into his favour by using fraudulent means.

THE celebration that followed the resignation of Eduard Shevardnadze from the presidency of the Republic of Georgia on November 23 was an indication of his political isolation. Internationally, too, not many shed tears at his unceremonious exit after more than a decade in power. Shevardnadze, along with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev have been held responsible by many for the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The West owed Shevardnadze, who was the Soviet Foreign Minister in the late 1980s, a great debt for the services rendered. His long tenure at the helm in Georgia was facilitated to a large extent by his influential friends in the West. However, his political opportunism, coupled with administrative ineptitude, made even the United States and the West European countries wary.

VIKTOR DRACHEV/AFP

At a protest rally by the Opposition in front of the Parliament building in Tbilisi.

The unusually harsh language Washington used to condemn, on November 20, the Georgian government's supervision of the parliamentary elections was an indication. Only a few days earlier, the U.S. State Department had come out with a statement saying that Georgians should sort out their problems by themselves without outside interference.

Shevardnadze's main political rival - and an aspirant for the presidency - is an avowedly pro-Western politician, Mikhail Saakashvili. The young Saakashvili was a senior Minister in the Georgian Cabinet until two years ago. Finding himself in dire straits, Shevardnadze tried to solicit Moscow's help, at the eleventh hour. Though Moscow is very concerned at the goings on in its backyard, the Russian public, as well as the governing elite, has not forgotten the dubious role the Georgian leader played during the final years of the Soviet Union.

After assuming power in his native Georgia, Shevardnadze went out of his way to cultivate the West. He provided American troops basing facilities on Georgian territory. The Russian government had also made serious allegations that Georgia was helping Chechen rebels by allowing them to use the Pankisi Gorge for training and staging attacks against Russian troops. In the last couple of years, the government Tbilisi has tried to tread a middle path in its relations with Moscow and Washington. Russian and Western oil interests were given a level playing field. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov rushed to Tbilisi after thousands of Opposition supporters occupied the Georgian Parliament and forced Shevardnadze to flee to his official residence. Ivanov helped negotiate a peaceful transfer of power by coaxing Shevardnadze to resign and let an interim government led by the Speaker of the outgoing Parliament, Nino Burdzhanadze, to take over. Shevardnadze's term in office was to expire only in 2005.

The so-called "velvet revolution" was precipitated by the blatant rigging of the parliamentary elections held in the first week of November. Even before the votes were cast, it was evident that Shevardnadze's popularity had plunged to an abysmal low. The country's economy was a shambles. Salaries had not been paid for months. The Georgian currency had become virtually worthless. Pensioners were getting the equivalent of $10 every month. Two-thirds of the population live below the poverty line. The per capita income is less than half of that of Russia. Georgians had initially reposed their faith in Shevardnadze, hoping that his contacts in the West would help attract investments and aid to their country.

THE elections to Parliament were marred by widespread fraud and rigging. In spite of this, the Opposition seems to have won a higher percentage of votes than the ruling party and its motley group of allies. It took a long time for the Election Commission to announce the final results. When it was announced finally in the fourth week of November, Shevardnadze's "New Georgia" party and another party aligned with the ruling group came first and second as per the Commission's calculations.

The published results contradicted unofficial results announced by independent polling agencies. The U.S. State Department spokesman said that the results released by the Election Commission "reveal an extensive manipulation of the vote count". Tedo Japardize, who was head of Georgia's Security Council, criticised the government for its mishandling of the elections. The head of the government's broadcasting service quit on the issue.

It was evident that the government was haemorrhaging fast. The Opposition parties, sensing blood, did not waste much time in bring in supporters from their strongholds to Tbilisi. From the events that transpired, it was evident that the beleaguered Shevardnadze had very little support even among the residents of the capital. In a last-ditch attempt to stop the inevitable, Shevardnadze tried to rope in the support of Aslan Abashidze, who has his power base in the autonomous region of Ajaria. The regional party headed by him came second according to the results published by the Election Commission. For a brief period there were fears that Georgia would once again lapse into civil war of the kind witnessed in the early 1990s. Zviad Gamsakurdia, who was elected Georgia's first President following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, was ousted forcibly by a coalition headed by warlords and gangsters in 1992.

VIKTOR DRACHEV/AFP

Eduard Shevardnadze.

Saakashvili, meanwhile, had already started predicting a "bloodless velvet revolution". When Shevardnadze threatened to hang on to the presidency by declaring a "state of national emergency", Saakashvili threatened to divert his supporters from the Parliament building to Shevardnadze's residence in the capital. In the meantime, the heads of the armed forces and the police had indicated that they would not use force against the unarmed civilians calling for the immediate resignation of the President.

However, from the very outset, the Opposition had given the assurance that Shevardnadze would not meet the same fate as the Romanian leader, Nicolae Ceausescu. Many of Shevardnadze's friends in the West had started offering him asylum even before the siege on Parliament started. Television stations controlled by the Opposition had started showing pictures of an opulent house in Germany, said to belong to Shevardnadze.

One of the key issues that enraged ordinary Georgians was the many instances of corruption involving Shevardnadze and his cronies. While the average Georgian was finding it difficult to make ends meet, the elite was wallowing in luxury, if images shown on the local TV are true.

Supporters of Shevardnadze claim that the entire "velvet revolution" was manipulated by the West. They are drawing parallels with the happenings in Yugoslavia leading to the ouster of Slobodan Milosevic from power. They have said that millions of dollars from the West was funnelled into Georgia to engineer the "coup" in Tbilisi. There are many similarities with what happened in Belgrade two years ago and what transpired in Tbilisi in the last week of November.

Georgia is, however, strategically more important for Washington than Yugoslavia. The new "Great Game" being witnessed in Central Asia and the Caucasus is all about the control of oil and natural gas from the Caspian Sea, which has the world's largest deposits of untapped hydrocarbons. Estimates wary from 110 to 243 billion barrels of crude, worth more than $4 trillion.

The Bush administration has identified the Caspian Sea region as a "high priority" one. Dick Cheney, U.S. Vice-President and the champion of U.S. oil interests, has singled out the region as being strategically significant. He described it as "a rapidly growing new area of supply". Construction has already begun of a $3.8-billion U.S.-financed pipeline from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to the port of Ceyhan in Turkey. Much of the pipeline will pass through Georgia. The decision of the Bush administration to place 500 elite U.S. troops in Georgia is said to be in connection with the protection of the gas pipeline project. Russia wants the bulk of Caspian oil to flow through its pipelines and exit through Russian ports for the international market. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov recently demanded the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region in two years time.

Moscow continues to have great leverage in the affairs of the region, as recent events in Georgia and other neighbouring countries have shown. In Georgia itself, the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have established close links with Moscow. In Abkhazia 1,500 Russian soldiers have been stationed to keep the peace. Fighting in the region could upset Georgia's ambitious plans for exporting Caspian oil through its Black Sea ports. Washington, on the other hand, has historically wanted Georgia to play the role of a buffer against Russia in the region.

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