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On Friday, July 18 2008, the recently inaugurated ambassador of Georgia to Japan H.E. Mr. Ivane Machavariani presented an SPF-hosted lecture entitled “Power Politics between Russia and the USA over Georgia”. The proceedings of the lecture are as follows. by His Excellency Mr. Ivane MACHAVARIANI Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, like the most of the former soviet republics, Georgia went through a period of radical nationalist rule, civil war, ineffective governments and economic collapse. In November 2003, the peaceful Rose Revolution swept current President Mikheil Saakashvili and his group of Western-oriented political reformers to power. In the short span of time since the Rose Revolution, Georgia has made remarkable progress in democratization and transition to a market economy. Our government has implemented wide-ranging economic reforms that have resulted in a rapidly growing economy and dramatically improved investment climate. Georgia is now a democracy with some of the most liberal economic policies in the world, not just the region. Our economy grew at a rate of 12.4 percent in 2007 and close to 10 percent in each of 2005 and 2006. Georgia’s progress in improving its business climate has been well documented in a number of international indices, and it was rated as the world’s number one reformer in the World Bank’s Doing Business in 2008 survey. Georgia has an educated and inexpensive labor force, liberal tax and labor codes, and a tradition of entrepreneurship. It has a dynamic and fully private banking sector; a reviving tourism industry, a booming real estate and construction sector; growing electric power generation and oil and gas energy transit capabilities; fertile land engaged in the production of wine, fruit, vegetables, livestock, cereals, nuts and mineral water; mining resources including manganese, copper and precious metals; and an industrial base producing machinery, aircraft, and chemicals. Based on foreign investment-led economic growth, the Georgian government has managed to generate revenue to fund infrastructure development, continue to revamp the education and health care systems and provide better support for the most vulnerable members of our population. We are also focused on implementing further needed reforms such as of the justice system. The Georgian government seeks to build on its domestic successes by strengthening the country’s geo-strategic situation and attempting to guarantee its national security and its international position as an independent country. Georgia today is a small country with an outsized geo-strategic importance. It links the Black Sea and Caspian Sea regions, serving as a natural bridge connecting Europe with the energy-rich countries of Central Asia, Russia and the Middle East. It is a key link in the shortest transit route between Western Europe and Central Asia for transportation of oil and gas as well as dry cargo, and its transport infrastructure is playing an increasingly important role in linking East and West. Georgia is one of the major routes for export of oil and natural gas from the Caspian Sea basin to the Mediterranean via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline and the South Caucasus gas pipeline.  In this geopolitical context, Georgia’s primary foreign policy goals are NATO membership and European integration, resolution of the frozen internal conflicts in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia with the assistance of the international community, gradual normalization of relations with Russia, promotion of wider regional economic cooperation, and securing the flow of energy and other resources from the Caspian region to Europe. There are two main organs for regional cooperation among Black and Caspian Sea countries: the GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development, a regional cooperation organization consisting of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova, and the Black Sea Economic Cooperation organization, which includes all the countries bordering the Black Sea plus Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and Greece. Georgia is a strong ally of the US and the EU, a member of NATO’s Partnership for Peace and a candidate for NATO membership, and we hope that soon Georgia will be a full member of the North Atlantic Alliance, NATO. NATO discussed the issue of Georgia’s membership at its April 2008 Bucharest Summit. At the summit, NATO considered whether to offer Georgia a Membership Action Plan, or MAP. MAP is the program through which NATO assists aspiring partner countries meet NATO standards and prepare for possible future membership. While Georgia did not get a Membership Action Plan (or MAP) offer at the Bucharest Summit, NATO publicly committed itself to eventual full membership for Georgia. NATO’s commitment to Georgia’s eventual membership represents, in President Saakashvili’s words, “a geopolitical revolution” that highlights the success of both Georgian diplomacy and the new power dynamic within NATO generated not only by the United States but also by new East European members such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and other Central and Eastern European states, who strongly supported MAP for Georgia based on their own bitter experience of Soviet military occupation after the Second World War. The Georgian government views NATO membership as absolutely necessary to preserve our national security, sovereignty and territorial integrity, peacefully resolve regional disputes and safeguard European democracy, economic prosperity, liberty and the rule of law. NATO membership will protect democratic Georgia from external aggression while promoting our development as a key link in the transport of Caspian energy resources to European markets. Why the US and EU strongly support Georgia's NATO aspirations: First, to provide security for young Georgian democratic independent state with the right to conduct their own independent foreign policy based on our national interests free from interference from Russia. 
For reasons of energy security: the US and EU are increasingly interested in the transportation of Caspian Sea energy resources through Georgia, which in the past was controlled by Russia. Europe in particular is interested in diversifying its supply of natural gas due to overdependence on Russian supplies. Also, NATO already has three members on the Black Sea: Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania. Expanding NATO to include Georgia and Ukraine would provide a security umbrella over the energy transit routes across these countries. The Black Sea and Caspian Sea regions also closely border the Middle East; the Caspian Sea borders Central Asia. The successful democratic transitions in Georgia and Ukraine encourage the Europeans and Americans to think about the further expansion of European political (EU) and security (NATO) arrangements to these young democracies as an example of peaceful democratic transition, economic prosperity and sovereignty. NATO presence in Georgia and other Black Sea NATO countries would also provide an effective European and American bulwark against a resurgent and potentially nuclear-armed Iran actively pursuing expansionist policies in the region. Why does Russia refuse to accept that Georgia could become a NATO member? First, because Georgia would be able to conduct its independent domestic and foreign policy based on its own national interests and would be admitted to NATO within its internationally-recognized borders, which include Georgia’s separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia that we believe Russia wants to annex. Second, and more importantly, Georgian NATO membership would make NATO―and especially the United States―part of the political and security arrangement for the wider Black Sea and energy-rich Caspian Sea regions, thus ending the century-old Russian monopoly on transportation of Caspian energy resources. NATO’s presence in Georgia would keep Russia from re-establishing exclusive geopolitical control of this important region connecting Europe with Central Asia. Russia understands that Georgia’s membership in NATO and eventual membership in the European Union would change the geopolitics of the region. For above mentioned reasons, following NATO’s declaration at the Bucharest Summit that Georgia would eventually be a NATO member, the campaign of threats from Russia against Georgia has escalated toward de facto annexation and military aggression. The Georgian government is deeply concerned that Russia has interpreted the denial of MAP for Georgia in Bucharest―combined with the promise of eventual membership―as a last window of opportunity to re-gain its control over the South Caucasus region by blocking Georgia’s NATO membership through annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia has a special incentive to take full control of Abkhazia quickly and irrevocably: the 2014 Winter Olympics will be held in the Russian summer resort of Sochi (which immediately borders the Georgian region of Abkhazia). This would avoid security problems or damaging international publicity closer to the date of the Olympics. In recent months, Russia has dramatically increased its military presence on the Georgian region of Abkhazia and has rejected any Georgian proposals on reactivating the conflict resolution process and return of refugees and internally displaced persons. In April, Russia began unilaterally increasing the number of its “peacekeepers” stationed in Abkhazia, and reinforcing them with special paratrooper units (mostly composed of fighters from Chechnya), artillery units, tanks, fighter jets and offensive weaponry (such as Fagot anti-tank missiles and unguided anti-aircraft rockets). In May, Russia sent in Railway and Engineering Forces to repair a damaged railway link between Abkhazia and Russia, making it possible to transport military equipment and troops from Russia to a former soviet military base in Ochamchire, very close to Abkhazia’s administrative border with Georgia―paving the way for Russian military occupation of part of Georgia. On May 20, a Russian military jet shot down an unmanned and unarmed Georgian drone in Georgian airspace over Abkhazia (the drone was monitoring the illegal Russian military buildup in Abkhazia). Russia denies responsibility in spite of confirmation by the UN Military Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) that a Russian jet was responsible. By deploying offensive troops and ammunition, Russia has made clear that it is no longer even pretending to be performing peacekeeping duties; instead it is engaged in an operation to make possible a military occupation of the Georgian region of Abkhazia. On July 10, as US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was on her way to Tbilisi on a state visit, two Russian military jets entered Georgian airspace and circled the separatist region just 50 kilometers from the capital city Tbilisi for forty minutes, which Russians publicly admitted the following day after the Georgian Foreign Ministry’s protest at this illegal and dangerous incursion. Georgia condemned this act as “an unprecedented acknowledgment of aggression” and in response has recalled its ambassador to Russia for consultations. President Saakashvili has appealed for higher-level Western support following this incident, which he points out was a direct challenge not just to the Georgian government but to the US and the EU. President Saakashvili urges that the issue of Russia’s aggression towards Georgia be “raised to the highest level in Europe and Washington. For the Russians it is clearly an issue at the highest level.” During her visit, Secretary of State Rice reiterated that “Georgia is an independent country. It has to be treated like one…The United States is absolutely committed to the territorial integrity of Georgia.” Over the last several months, Georgia has responded with restraint to Russia’s bullying tactics and has consistently sought to act in concert with the international community. The US, the EU, NATO, the Council of Europe and the OSCE have expressed grave concern and have unanimously condemned Russia’s recent actions. 
The international community now largely agrees with what Georgia has been saying for the last sixteen years: that the Russian presence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia is not that of a mediator or peacekeeper but a protagonist in the conflicts―that is slowly annexing internationally-recognized territories of Georgia by military, economic, demographic, cultural and political means. Georgia is seeking a full reversal of recent Russian actions and the replacement of Russian troops in Abkhazia and South Ossetia with a truly neutral international civil force overseen by the international community. With assistance from the international community, mainly the United States and European Union, Georgia will actively seek to pursue a direct dialogue with the separatist regions in order to reach a consensus on how best to settle the conflicts. We believe that the time has come to end the stalemates that have kept the separatist conflicts frozen for sixteen years. Georgian President Saakashvili has outlined peace initiatives proposing federative arrangements with Abkhazia and South Ossetia that include broad autonomy, security guarantees, and substantial economic development programs that are supported by the United States and European Union. The European Union wants to take a greater role in settling the conflicts. Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy chief, has recently visited Georgia and also met with Abkhaz separatist leaders and civil society representatives. Georgia will welcome EU and other international participation in the resolution of these conflicts. Of critical importance for Georgia is Russia’s constructive participation in international efforts to resolve the frozen conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This would eventually lead to normalization of the relationship between Russia and Georgia. We hope that Russia’s new President, Dmitry Medvedev, will take a more constructive approach toward Georgia than former President, now Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin. President Saakashvili has held initial meetings with President Medvedev at an informal summit of CIS leaders in St. Petersburg on June 6th and recently in Astana, Kazakstan on July 6th. President Medvedev refrained from the aggressive rhetoric used by former President Putin―but he rejected the need for active international mediation in the conflicts. Unfortunately, the talks between Presidents Saakashvili and Medvedev have not produced substantive results such as withdrawal of Russia’s illegal troop deployments. It is now clear that, even under President Medvedev, the Russian government continues to escalate the conflict with military aggression towards Georgia to the point that many observers are concerned about an imminent Russian strike against Georgian military or civilian infrastructure. The Russians are justifying their approach as “preemption” of alleged Georgian plans to re-establish control over separatist regions by military means. Russia is rejecting larger US and EU involvement in the United Nations led peace process that would re-start the conflict resolution process and return of refugees and defuse the Russian military aggression toward Georgia. We believe that Russia’s policy towards Georgia should be directed to de-escalating tensions with neighboring countries such as Georgia and working more cooperatively with Europe and the United States. Russia needs to understand that the belligerent approach it uses towards Georgia, Ukraine and other former Soviet-bloc countries is backfiring. As The Economist magazine pointed out in a recent article, “if the Russians wanted to help Georgia justify its putative NATO membership, strengthen its economy and capture international attention, they have achieved their goal admirably [with their] saber-rattling.” Russia should also understand that greater US, EU and NATO involvement in the Black Sea region will be a stabilizing factor, promoting peace and closer political and economic cooperation between the Black Sea countries, including Russia herself, and Europe. We believe that the efforts of Georgian diplomacy and the support of the United States and European Union have thus far been successful in averting a Russian-instigated military conflict with Georgia. Continued support from the international community will also be vital to the success of the conflict resolution process in the region and assist in constructively engaging Russia, bringing stability and economic prosperity to the wider Black Sea region. President Saakashvili seeks to have good and constructive relations with Russia, based on mutual trust and cooperation. The new Russian President Dimitri Medvedev himself expressed a wish for "constructive co-operation between our countries." Why not make this vision shared by two young presidents come true with the participation of countries from the European Union and United States that are already members of the UN framework to resolve the conflicts in Georgia? In closing, I would like to point out that the Government of Japan has always expressed its full support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia and the peaceful resolution of the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. We hope that Japan will continue to support Georgia and express its concern as we respond to Russia’s efforts undermine the territorial integrity of our country and the stability of the entire South Caucasus region. |
