HOW GEORGIA MADE SOUTH OSSETIANS ‘SEPARATISTS IN SPITE OF THEMSELVES’
Paul Goble
WINDOW ON EURASIA
September 22, 2008
Unlike the Abkhazians who have a long tradition of opposing Georgian
rule, South Ossetians do not, according to a leading Russian analysts,
and they might have been content to remain in Georgia had Tbilisi,
first under Zviad Gamsakhurdia and now under Mikhail Saakashvili,
not made them "separatists in spite of themselves."
And unless the Georgian government learns the lesson from its loss
of South Ossetia – and Sergei Markedonov insists that there is no
way Tbilisi will ever get that "partially recognized state formation"
back – and changes its approach, it risks pushing the ethnic Armenian
community and perhaps others in the same direction.
Many observers in both Moscow and the West currently view South Ossetia
and Abkhazia as equivalent phenomenon, but that is an enormous mistake,
the Moscow analyst says. "Even in Stalin’s times," he points out,
Abkhazians protested – most famously in 1931 when their republic was
reduced SSR Socialist Republic.
(Between 1921 and 1931, Abkhazia had the status of a union republic
– albeit of a very special kind. Unlike all other union republics
which were constitutionally subordinate to Moscow, the Abkhaz SSR
was subordinate to Georgia. Many Abkhazians recalled that when the
Soviet Union broke up along union republic lines.)
After the death of Stalin as conditions in the Soviet Union became
less oppressive, Abkhazians more or less regularly protested against
Georgian rule with demonstrations and petition drives in 1967,
1977-78, and 1989. And a genuine national movement which spread from
the intelligentsia to the population can be said to have emerged.
But the situation in South Ossetia was very different. It was,
Markedonov, "much better integrated as a unit within Georgia, and
Ossetians were much better integrated within Georgian society." On
the one hand, in Soviet times, there were more Ossetian schools in
South Ossetia than in the RSFSR’s North Ossetia.
On the other, the two communities continued to live amongst each
other. Until the 1990s, 100,000 Ossetians lived in Georgia proper, a
figure that has fallen to less than 30,000 now. And until the August
2008 conflict, many ethnic Georgians lived in Ossetia, although most
of them have now fled.
This split, one that has now cost Tbilisi its control over South
Ossetia, Markedonov argues, is the direct result of the proclamation by
Georgian leaders like Gamsakhurdia and Saakashvili of "a slogan that
is absolutely unacceptable under the conditions of the poly-ethnic
Caucasus: ‘Georgia for the Georgians.’"
That becomes obvious if one considers the events of 18 years ago
that the South Ossetians now say was the beginning of their drive for
independence. In November 1989, the legislature of the South Ossetian
Autonomous Oblast called for its transformation into an autonomous
republic "within Georgia."
Then on September 20, 1990, the Ossetian government as part of what
became known as "the parade of sovereignties" declared the formation of
the South-Ossetian Soviet Democratic Republic, but in that document as
well, there was no suggestion that it would be independent of Georgia.
Georgians responded to this trend with extreme hostility. Immediately
after the first, thousands of Georgians marched in Tskhinvali against
Ossetian pretensions. Then in June 1990, the Georgian Supreme Soviet
declared all laws and treaties concluded after 1921 null and void, thus
undermining the foundation of the South Ossetian Autonomous District.
And finally, on December 11, 1990, the Georgian Supreme Soviet
explicitly abolished South Ossetia’s autonomous status, an action
that led to the first blockade of what Georgians began to speak of as
"the mutinous territory" and to four military advances into Tskhinvali
(February 1991, March 1991, June 1992, and August 2008).
But even after the events of the early 1990s, the Georgian
population was never expelled from South Ossetia, and the South
Ossetian authorities declared Georgian an official language. Both
communities continued to trade, often in the shadow economy, but even
that continued to tie South Ossetia to Georgia, Markedonov says.
And even efforts to resolve the tensions between Tskhinvali and Tbilisi
had some positive effects, he argues. Georgian and Russian Federation
battalions of peacekeepers generally were able to work together, and
the sides signed documents which allowed for the rehabilitation of the
territory and even the return of IDPs after the conflicts of the 1990s.
Indeed, after the coming to power of Eduard Shevardnadze in place of
the openly nationalist Gamsakhurdia, there was an expectation among
most South Ossetians that a formula would be found to restore their
autonomy within Georgia rather than that they would be forced out.
But " the coming to power of Mikhail Saakashvili and his demonstrative
desire to resolve this problem now, ‘instead of waiting a hundred
years,’ finally buried hopes" for such an outcome, especially after
he declared on July 20, 2004, that he was ready to denounce the
Dragomys accords if the Georgian flag did not fly over the South
Ossetian capital.
"Thus began the narrow road which led both Georgia and South Ossetia
to the Tskhinvali tragedy" of August 2008, Markedonov says, an event
that showed that Georgia, given its policies, was not going to be
able to say farewell to the Soviet past but preserve the territory
of the Georgian SSR.
Seventeen years ago, Gamsakhurdia said that "in Georgia, there are
Ossetians but no Ossetia." He "has turned out to be a prophet,"
the Moscow specialist says, because "in today’s Georgia, there is no
longer a South Ossetia." Tbilisi will not get it back, and if it does
not change its current policies, Georgia will lose even more.
Indeed, the August 2008 events mean that there is now a 50-50 chance
that ethnic Armenians in Javakhetia might decide to pursue independence
if Tbilisi rejects their call on August 19 for "the formation of a
federative state," something the Javakhetia Armenians say is "the
only possible variant for the development of Georgia.