Georgia (Continuación)

MundoCáucaso, , ,

Era un acontecimiento anunciado. Georgia y más concretamente sus dos repúblicas separatistas de Osetia del Sur y Abjasia son una caldera hirviendo en la que EE UU y Rusia están echando un pulso de incierto resultado. Incertidumbre que desaparece al considerar los sufrimientos que el enfrentamiento bélico traerá y que son una obviedad como en cualquier conflicto cuando las armas son las que mandan. Las escaramuzas constantes de los aviones espías, las declaraciones más o menos incendiarias y el espíritu de enfrentamiento han dado lugar al bombardeo días atrás de la capital de Osetia del Sur, Tsjinvali, por aviones georgianos, a modo de preludio de la inmediata invasión terrestre de la república separatista que incluye las zonas montañosas de las regiones históricas georgianas de Imereti, Racha y Shida Kartli en las que se instalaron osetas procedentes del Cáucaso norte.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoCáucasoEuropa, , ,

For the best possible illustration of why Islamic terrorism may one day be considered the least of our problems, look no farther than the BBC's split-screen coverage of yesterday's Olympic opening ceremonies. On one side, fireworks sparkled, and thousands of exotically dressed Chinese dancers bent their bodies into the shape of doves, the cosmos and more. On the other side, gray Russian tanks were shown rolling into South Ossetia, a rebel province of Georgia. The effect was striking: Two of the world's rising powers were strutting their stuff.

The difference, of course, is that one event has been rehearsed for years, while the other, if not a total surprise, was not actually scheduled to take place this week.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoCáucasoEuropa, , ,

For many people the sight of Russian tanks streaming across a border in August has uncanny echoes of Prague 1968. That cold war reflex is natural enough, but after two decades of Russian retreat from those bastions it is misleading. Not every development in the former Soviet Union is a replay of Soviet history.

The clash between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia, which escalated dramatically yesterday, in truth has more in common with the Falklands war of 1982 than it does with a cold war crisis. When the Argentine junta was basking in public approval for its bloodless recovery of Las Malvinas, Henry Kissinger anticipated Britain's widely unexpected military response with the comment: "No great power retreats for ever."…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoCáucasoEuropaInternacionalOTAN, ,

Cuando en 1982, con el voto favorable de la mayoría absoluta del Congreso de los Diputados, España entró en la OTAN, el PSOE, entonces anclado en el no a la Alianza, resumió las razones de su rechazo en un folletito -que hoy debe tener la categoría de incunable- titulado, si no recuerdo mal «50 razones en contra de la entrada de España en la OTAN». Una de las cincuenta razones argumentaba, y cito de memoria, que la entrada de España en la Organización atlántica rompería el equilibrio geoestratégico europeo al aumentar el número de miembros de la alianza occidental mientras permanecía invariable el del Pacto de Varsovia.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoCáucasoEuropa, , ,

There is war in the air between Georgia and Russia. Such a war could destabilize a region critical for Western energy supplies and ruin relations between Russia and the West. A conflict over Georgia could become an issue in the U.S. presidential campaign. How they respond could become a test of the potential commander-in-chief qualities of Barack Obama and John McCain.

The issue appears to be the future of Abkhazia, a breakaway province of Georgia and the focus of a so-called frozen conflict. The real issue, however, is Moscow's desire to subjugate Tbilisi and thwart its aspirations to go west. For several years, Russian policy toward countries on its borders has been hardening.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoCáucasoEuropa, , ,

Before it happened, nobody imagined that the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo would set off World War I. Before the "shot heard round the world" was fired, I doubt that 18th-century Concord expected to go down in history as the place where the American Revolution began. Before last weekend, when the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS declared that the government of Georgia was about to invade Abkhazia, nobody had really thought about Abkhazia at all. As a public service to readers who need a break from the American presidential campaign, this column is therefore devoted to considering the possibility that Abkhazia could become the starting point of a larger war.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoCáucaso, , ,

When Ganimat Zahidov, editor of the independent Azadlyq newspaper, arrived for work one day this month in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, he was accosted on the pavement by a young woman he had never seen before who started cursing and shouting at him. Moments later "an athletically built young man popped out of nowhere and began beating me", he said. "I defended myself as best I could."

Within hours, Zahidov had been arrested by police, charged with "hooliganism" and sentenced to two months' pre-trial detention. If found guilty, he faces five years in jail. He joined eight other Azerbaijani journalists, including editor Einulla Fatullaye, who are currently being held after criticising or otherwise annoying the government of President Ilham Aliyev.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoCáucaso,

The French Revolution had its Jacobins; the Russian Revolution erupted in Red Terror. The peaceful revolutions of more recent years weren't supposed to produce violent counterrevolutions. But now one of them has.

Indeed, in a single week, the president of Georgia -- Mikheil Saakashvili, or "Misha" to his friends -- probably did more damage to American "democracy promotion" than a dozen Pervez Musharrafs ever could have done. After all, no one expected much in the way of democracy from Pakistan. But a surprising amount was expected of Georgia -- a small, clannish, mountainous country wedged between Russia and Turkey -- expectations that have now vanished in the crowds of riot police and clouds of tear gas that Saakashvili sent pouring out over the streets of Tbilisi, breaking up street demonstrations there last Wednesday.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoCáucaso

It would be easy to buy into Mikhail Saakashvili's claims that Russian agents are responsible for the latest crisis in Georgia. The president's strong pro-US and pro-Nato stance intensely irritates Moscow and relations between the two countries are dire. Russia routinely exploits separatist and border tensions, and a key oil pipeline running from Azerbaijan to Turkey via Georgia undermines Kremlin efforts to monopolise energy supplies to the west from the Caspian basin.

But leaders of Georgia's recently formed 10-party opposition coalition, and this week's street demonstrators, do not dispute the country's pro-western orientation, which most Georgians, ever wary of Russia, support.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoCáucasoEuropa,

While the United States is otherwise preoccupied, this small former Soviet republic has become the stage for a blatant effort at regime change, Russian-style. Vladimir Putin is going all out to undermine and get rid of Georgia's young, pro-American, pro-democracy president, Mikheil Saakashvili. Putin is assuming that the United States, overwhelmed by Iraq and needing Moscow's support on North Korea and Iran, will not make Georgia a "red-line" issue and that the European Union, fearful of endangering energy supplies from Russia, will similarly play it down.

Much is at stake: Putin's long-term strategic goal is to create a sphere of Russian dominance and hegemony in the vast area the Soviet Union and the czars once ruled.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoCáucasoEuropa, , ,

A Georgian migrant worker died at a Moscow airport this week while awaiting deportation. Tengiz Togonidze, 48, had asthma and was gasping for breath, but he was reportedly denied permission to get some fresh air either during the five days he was held in a detention center or afterward, during the trip to the airport, which took many hours. He was one of some 700 ethnic Georgians deported over the past three weeks as the government's anti-Georgia policies turned into a campaign of harassment of Georgians in Russia. The political conflict between Russia and Georgia has led to an ugly outburst of political xenophobia here.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoCáucasoEuropa,

“A faraway country of which we know nothing.” Neville Chamberlain may have been unfair to Czechoslovakia when he dismissed it so casually in 1938. But it is all too true of the countries on the fringe of Europe that now find themselves the front lines in the new cold war: Georgia and Moldova.

Not for them the stag parties that now infest the old centres of Prague and Riga; not for them the eager amateur property speculators who are buying up derelict cottages in Bulgaria and Bohemia. These countries really are off the beaten track; they are not waving but drowning — and if they go down, the security of the rest of Europe will be affected hugely.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoCáucasoEuropa,

Tension between Russia and Georgia has been building for months and will not be defused even if the latest clash over alleged Russian spying is resolved. Territorial, ethnic and religious disputes, local politics, ideology and history are all contributing factors. But the broader context is a continuing post-cold war struggle for influence between Moscow and Washington in the strategic trans-Caucasus region.Since winning power after the western-backed 2003 "rose revolution", President Mikhail Saakashvili has moved to integrate Georgia into Nato and the European Union. The US has been especially supportive, with President George Bush visiting Tbilisi last year. Mr Saakashvili accuses Russia of seeking regime change and encouraging separatist movements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoCáucasoEuropa, , ,

By Ana Palacio and Daniel Twining, the former foreign minister of Spain and an Oxford-based consultant to the German Marshall Fund of the United States, respectively. (THE WASHINGTON POST, 11/03/06):

Since 2003, democratic revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia have dealt strategic blows to the ambition of Russia's leaders to reconstitute the former Soviet empire by retaining political and military suzerainty over their weaker neighbors. But Russia's imperial pretensions along its periphery linger.

Calls from the elected presidents of Georgia and Ukraine for a united Europe stretching "from the Atlantic to the Caspian" should embolden Europe and the United States to help people aspiring to freedom in other post-Soviet states end Russia's continuing dominion over them by rolling back the corrupting influence of Russian power in regions beyond its borders.…  Seguir leyendo »