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Are the coloured revolutions fading out?

Vladimir Radyuhin

U.S.-sponsored regime change in the former Soviet States has run into problems. Many of the new regimes have proved unpopular. Besides, Russia has moved to regain its influence.

PRO-WESTERN "coloured revolutions" in former Soviet States have run aground. Hailed in the West as a breakthrough towards democracy and economic progress, they have brought neither democracy nor growth.

The "orange revolution" in Ukraine has plunged the country into its worst political crisis since the break-up of the Soviet Union. Georgia is quietly sinking into a political and economic morass 21 months after the U.S.-orchestrated "rose revolution" toppled veteran Soviet-era leader Eduard Shevardnadze. In Kyrgyzstan, the "tulip revolution" earlier this year has not, as Washington hoped, generated a shift away from Russia and towards the West.

The meltdown of Ukraine's "orange revolution" had dealt a major blow to the U.S.-led "liberty crusade" in the former Soviet Union. Soon after Western-oriented Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko was catapulted to power in January by massive protests against alleged presidential vote rigging, Ukraine's new leaders split into two hostile groups, one supporting the President, the other siding with former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The two groups clashed over redistribution of assets grabbed by relatives of former President Leonid Kuchma. When infighting for power and wealth broke into the open earlier this month, President Yushchenko was forced to fire the entire government and his own top aides. The two camps traded charges of corruption and abuse of power. Ms. Tymoshenko's loyalists accused Mr. Yushchenko's team of plotting to assassinate the axed Prime Minister, of faking Mr. Yushchenko's "poisoning" by "Russian agents" to fan the "orange revolution," and of taking money from exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky to finance his presidential campaign. Their opponents hit back accusing Ms. Tymoshenko of awarding confiscated industrial assets to friendly business groups and of ruining the country's economy.

It has indeed been the worst year for the Ukrainian economy in many years. Ukraine's gross domestic product in August 2005 declined compared with August 2004; the first annual fall since 1999. A robust trade surplus has been wiped out, prices have soared, wage and pension increases have eroded, and foreign investment has dwindled.

The situation in Georgia is even more pitiful. Less than two years after the "rose revolution" that brought pro-Western President Mikhail Saakashvili to power, the economic crisis has deepened. Massive smuggling and corruption continue to plague the country, factories are running idle, and the budget is filled by revenues from casinos, restaurants, and selling of scrap metal. Georgia's foreign debt has reached $1.7 billion, a staggering figure for a country of four million. Unemployment is believed to have soared to 30 per cent, and a majority of Georgians survive on what their men working in Russia send back home.

Mr. Saakashvili has been building an authoritarian regime, pressuring the media to avoid criticism of the government and stating publicly that parties that disagree with him on issues such as the presence of foreign troops in Georgia or membership in the European Union, which he supports, should be outlawed. He has pushed through Parliament legislation to staff central and district election commissions with presidential appointees, without any representation for Opposition parties. Mr. Saakashvili's rule has been heavily tainted by the mysterious death earlier this year of Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, who acted as a moderate counterweight to the radical President. The official version that Zhvania died of heating gas poisoning was challenged by his relatives and experts who said he had been killed. Mr. Saakashvili's popularity has tumbled from an incredible 94 per cent at the time of the "rose revolution" in November 1993 to 23 per cent today.

Public opinion surveys show that both in Ukraine and Georgia a majority of the population does not think life has improved since the "velvet revolutions." Many say it has actually worsened.

The March "tulip revolution" in Kyrgyzstan has, if anything, strengthened Russia's position in that country as its new leaders turn to Moscow for economic and military aid to stabilise the post-revolution situation. At the same time, the "tulip revolution" has set off crippling wars for re-carving of wealth and property, similar to those that have triggered the power crisis in Ukraine. On September 21 unidentified assailants gunned down top Kyrgyz lawmaker Bayaman Erkinbayev, one of the country's richest businessmen who financed protests that toppled former President Askar Akayev in March. Erkinbayev is the second big businessman to have been killed since the March revolution.

The crisis of the "coloured revolutions" has been precipitated by a hardening of Russia's policy towards pro-Western regimes in the former Soviet Union. Two months ago, a senior Kremlin source told Russian media that Moscow was overhauling its policy towards the former Soviet States.

"Russia is not planning to restore the Soviet empire, but it cannot put up with a situation when it effectively subsidises the economies of some of those countries by supplying them with energy resources at loss-making prices," the Kremlin official said.

By curious coincidence the government crisis in Ukraine broke out a week after Russia announced that it was tripling the price of natural gas it supplies to Ukraine from $65 per 1,000 cubic metres to $180 to bring it in line with European prices. For Georgia the price of Russian gas may go up by a third next year.

The Kremlin acknowledges that its policy review has been prompted by "velvet revolutions" in Georgia and Ukraine. "It is such a situation (lingering poverty in ex-Soviet States despite discounted oil and gas supplies) that creates fertile ground for orange revolutions, after which little changes for the people, while the new rulers, at least some of them, receive salaries from the Americans either directly or covertly," the senior Kremlin official said, hinting at Georgia, whose new government has received Western donations to cover officials' salaries.

Russia has also moved to weaken its dependence on Ukraine and Poland for the transit of its natural gas to Europe. Last month President Vladimir Putin clinched a mega-deal with Germany to build a seabed gas pipeline from Russia to Germany across the Baltic Sea. The new pipeline with a projected capacity of 55 billion cubic metres a year will strengthen Russia's bargaining positions vis-à-vis Ukraine, which currently accounts for 75 per cent of Russian gas supplies to Europe (140 billion cubic meters a year) and thwart Ukraine's and Georgia's plan to form an energy alliance with Azerbaijan to transport Caspian oil and gas to Europe bypassing Russia as an alternative to the Russian-European alliance.

Sobering effect

Russia's new policy towards its neighbours has had a sobering effect on Ukraine. President Yushchenko replaced fiery "orange revolution" leader Yulia Tymoshenko as Prime Minister with middle-of-the-line technocrat Yury Yekhanurov, whose first visit abroad next week will be to Russia to patch the post-revolution rift between the two countries. During his visit to Moscow last week, Ukraine's Acting Foreign Minister Boris Tarasyuk indicated a shift in Kiev's singularly Western-oriented policy describing relations with the West and Russia as equally important foreign policy priorities.

Having suffered a setback in Ukraine, the United States rushed to rescue the "rose revolution" in Georgia. A week after the fall of the "orange" government in Ukraine, Washington granted Georgia $295 million in aid to reward it for "success in building democracy and free market economy." This is the biggest aid package any ex-Soviet State has received from the U.S., and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice promised American aid to Georgia will be further increased.

Despite the unravelling of the "coloured revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia, the U.S. appears determined to continue promoting regime change in the former Soviet States. The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee has approved $565 million in aid programmes to ex-Soviet States in 2006, claiming that "authoritarian Russia poses a growing threat" to those countries.

For its part, Moscow has called on Washington to abandon zero-sum rivalries in the former Soviet Union. Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin laid down three basic principles for what he called "civilised competition" in the region in a keynote article carried in the government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta last month.

First, the U.S. must renounce spinning "coloured revolutions" in the former Soviet States. Russia "cannot agree with the methods of forced `democratisation' of the entire post-Soviet space, either through `coloured revolutions' or by means of exerting information-political pressure on the existing governments," Mr. Karasin said.

Secondly, Moscow accepts the fact that the U.S. and other extra-regional states may have legitimate interests in the former Soviet States. "In principle this is a normal thing," the Russian Minister said. "There is nothing exotic about the involvement of the U.S., the European Union and other players in various processes in the Commonwealth [of Independent States]."

Thirdly, Russia and the U.S. must work out a balance of competition and cooperation to promote "a mutually respectful and predictable partnership" in the CIS countries.

Given the George W. Bush administration's obsession with countering Russian influence in the former Soviet Union, Moscow plans to put its proposals for discussion in the Group of Eight when the chairmanship goes to Russia next year. Mr. Putin intends to include in the agenda of the G8 summit in Russia next year the question of providing international assistance to former Soviet States. The plan would cast Russia in the role of coordinator of such aid programmes and thereby enhance its influence in the region.

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