SOUTH OSSETIA: RUSSIAN, GEORGIAN…INDEPENDENT?
Shaun Walker
Open Democracy, UK
Nov 15 2006
A decisive referendum result has done nothing to resolve the small
north Caucasian statelet’s future, reports Shaun Walker.
On Sunday 12 November 2006, South Ossetians went to the polls to vote
in a referendum confirming the region’s independence from Georgia. The
result was an overwhelming "yes" to independence, with a turnout
above 95% from those among the territory’s 70,000 people who were
eligible to vote. There was a similar vote in favour of a new term
for South Ossetia’s president, Eduard Kokoity. Neither outcome came
as a surprise, but the chances are that nobody in the international
community will take the slightest bit of notice of the results.
South Ossetia is a bite-sized chunk of land on the southern slopes of
the Caucasus mountains, one of four "breakaway states" that – along
with fifteen recognised nation-states – emerged from the collapse
of the Soviet Union (the other three are Abkhazia, Transdniestria,
and Nagorno-Karabakh). The Ossetians are a largely Christian people,
whose language is related to Farsi, and the majority of whom live on
the northern side of the Caucasus in North Ossetia, which is part
of Russia. South Ossetia was part of the Georgian republic within
the Soviet Union, but in the early 1990s tried to gain autonomy from
Tbilisi, which led to violent clashes in which many died and thousands
were made refugees, both Georgian and Ossetian.
Since then, South Ossetia, with the exception of a few villages
controlled by the Georgian government in Tbilisi, has been run as a de
facto independent state, although its proclamations of independence
have been ignored by the international community. The territory
is heavily reliant on Russian support. As in Abkhazia, Moscow has
infuriated the Georgians by granting passports to the majority of the
South Ossetian population, and providing significant economic backing.
Shaun Walker is a journalist based in Moscow, where he writes for
RussiaProfile.org
Also by Shaun Walker in openDemocracy:
"Anna Politkovskaya: death of a professional" (9 October 2006)
A state of limbo
The United States, the European Union, the Organisation of Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and Nato all issued statements before
the 12 November vote that branded the referendum meaningless and
unhelpful. Georgia repeatedly derided it as illegitimate, though it
had no problems with backing an "alternative" election and referendum
that took place in the villages that Tbilisi controls.
Even Russia’s quiet endorsement of the result has stopped short of
official recognition.
The authorities in South Ossetia’s capital, Tskhinvali, managed to
gather some "international monitors" to oversee the voting, largely
from members of other breakaway states but including Russians,
Venezuelans, and a few renegade European communists. Few foreign
correspondents turned up to cover the events, and the chances are that
the results will be forgotten as quickly as those of the referendum
held in Transdniestria, Moldova’s breakaway statelet, on 17 September.
When the dust has settled on the ballot-boxes, everyone will be back
to square one. Russia is highly unlikely to recognise South Ossetian
independence or initiate procedures to facilitate the accession of
the region to the Russian Federation. But equally, it is likely to
continue antagonising Georgia through informal support for South
Ossetia, an approach evidenced once more days before the referendum
when Moscow followed its announcement of sharp increases in gas prices
for Georgia proper by declaring that a gas pipeline would be built
directly across the Caucasus mountains to South Ossetia.
President Putin has hinted that he sees no reason why South Ossetians
and Abkhaz shouldn’t be granted independence if Kosovo and Montenegro
can be.
There is certainly an element of cynical politicking behind Russia’s
South Ossetia policy. Georgia is public-enemy-number-one in Moscow
right now, and meddling in the breakaway zones is a sure-fire
way to annoy Tbilisi. But aside from the Russians installed into
high positions in the South Ossetian leadership, and the giant
"our president" posters featuring a grinning Putin dotted around
Tskhinvali, any visitor to South Ossetia will notice significant
ground-level pro-Russian sentiment, or at least an appreciation of
the possibilities that being close to Russia offers them.
A Russian passport is akin to a lifeline for South Ossetians – a
way to get an education or a job in North Ossetia or Moscow. There
are very few jobs in the region, so most families have at least one
person working in Russia and sending money home. It becomes obvious
when talking to people that reintegration into the Georgian state will
not be an easy process – to start with, only the eldest generation
even speaks the language. People would not be able to get jobs or
study in Tbilisi – Russia provides them with their only chance to
make something of their lives.
Moreover, aggressive statements from Tbilisi setting deadlines for
the recovery of the territory, and military construction of a base in
Gori (just twenty-five kilometres from the South Ossetian capital),
do nothing to reassure the South Ossetians. With a highly militarised
population, and a lack of crisis-management mechanisms, there is always
the chance that localised incidents or skirmishes could escalate into
something that quickly gets out of control.
A landlocked predicament
There is some irony in the fact that the South Ossetian and Georgian
outlooks share similarites. Both see a much larger and aggressive
neighbour (Russia for Georgia, Georgia for South Ossetia), and thus
feel forced to seek comfort in third countries in ways that might
not serve their interests best in the long run (the United States for
Georgia, Russia for South Ossetia). Just looking at the map makes it
obvious that it would be in Georgia’s best interests to find a way
to coexist peacefully with Russia, and in South Ossetia’s to do the
same with Georgia.
The South Ossetian leadership, despite having legitimate grievances
against the Georgians, is mired in suspicion and introspection,
making endless statements about "provocations" and "conspiracies"
from the Georgian side, but reluctant to let in people (such as
foreign journalists, regional analysts and constitutional experts)
to whom they could put their side of the story.
The Georgians have their public relations a little better organised.
When Mikheil Saakashvili’s young, western-educated government came
to power in Tbilisi in the "rose revolution" of 2003-o4, it quickly
understood that the best way to get the west onside would be to
speak to it in a language it understands; there followed copious
worthy pronouncements about freedom, human rights, and the path of
the courageous Georgian people to be free from the jealous paws of
the post-imperial Russian bear. Amid the rhetoric, Tbilisi made it
abundantly clear that one of the key markers of its success would be
the restoration of Georgia’s territorial integrity.
But "territorial integrity", when examined closely, is as
nebulous a concept as "fighting terror": open to many convenient
interpretations. The breakaway states are ready to claim Kosovo as
a precedent if that territory is recognised as an independent state.
Montenegro’s independence from Serbia, sanctioned by the referendum
on 21 May 2006, was agreed by the Serbian government in Belgrade, and
Kosovo’s claim to independence – over strenuous Serbia objections, and
whether or not it is legally watertight – still seems likely to follow.
At the same time, the arbitrary borderlines of some of the constituent
republics within the Soviet Union (which its successor states
inherited) often do not translate easily into a basis for modern
statehood. Indeed, in many cases the communist elite explicitly
drew frontiers for "divide and rule" reasons. In sum, the idea
of territorial integrity is so contested and imprecise that it is
capable of working either in favour or against South Ossetia’s and
Georgia’s claims.
In the case of Abkhazia, many experts and even some western diplomats
privately admit that it may never be part of Georgia again. But South
Ossetia is a different story. Abkhazia has a strategic coastline
providing an outlet to the world beyond Russia and Georgia, as well
as vast tourism potential. Even sliver-thin Transdniestria has a
Soviet-era industrial complex that provides jobs and revenues. South
Ossetia has nothing. It combines a small population with no industrial
infrastructure, no sea access and only one road that leads anywhere
except Georgia. It also has a number of ethnic Georgian villages
scattered across its territory that are under the control of the
Georgian government in Tbilisi.
In short, South Ossetia is unviable as a fully independent state.
This makes South Ossetia a zero-sum game between Georgia and Russia.
in turn, it means that South Ossetian separation from Georgia is a
much more worrying prospect for western policymakers than Abkhazian.
Between north and south
The removal on 10 November of bellicose Georgian defence minister
Irakli Okruashvili (who was born in South Ossetia and has frequently
implied that South Ossetia could be won back by force) may be a
sign that Georgia intends to adopt a more tactful approach to the
conflict. The timing is symbolic on more than one count; perhaps
the Georgians had one eye on Washington, where a far more powerful
defence secretary had left office two days earlier.
The recent crisis between Georgia and Russia has proved what should
have been obvious to them all along – that while Tbilisi can rely
on kind words and lobbying from the United States when it comes up
against Russia, they can’t rely on anything more. And with the US
election on 7 November delivering a crushing blow to the George W Bush
administration, perhaps Saakashvili has also started to wonder if the
next occupant of the White House will buy his freedom-and-democracy
lines as much as Bush has.
Indeed, this might signal the start of a more sensible South Ossetia
policy from the Georgian side. It is clear that mutual suspicion runs
high, and the reintegration into Georgia of a people who have lost
linguistic and cultural ties with that country will not be an easy
process. Without war, wholesale destruction and ethnic cleansing,
Tbilisi won’t win control of South Ossetia any time soon.
At present, no attempts are being made to engage the people of
South Ossetia or suggest that Georgia has anything to offer. The
Georgians should focus on rebuilding Georgia proper and ensuring
continued economic growth, and to reach past the obstructive South
Ossetian leadership to prove to the Ossetian people that a newly
prosperous and tolerant Georgia is a better option than Russia’s
troubled north Caucasus. It won’t happen quickly. But even though 99%
of South Ossetians have just voted for independence, a Tbilisi that
plays down the aggressive precondition that South Ossetia must be
part of Georgia might just – in a very Caucasian paradox – become
the catalyst for its eventual reintegration into that country.
aucasus/south_ossetia_4100.jsp
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