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WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : Russia & the former USSR

Russia-Georgia tensions worsen following Beslan siege

By Simon Wheelan
11 October 2004

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The school siege at Beslan in the Russian republic of North Ossetia has exacerbated tensions between Russia and Georgia, its neighbour in the South Caucasus.

The Russian administration headed by President Vladimir Putin has utilised the tragedy in a manner similar to that adopted by the Republican administration in the US after the destruction of the World Trade Centre on 9/11. The Kremlin has also threatened to make pre-emptive military strikes outside its own borders against its enemies. Yuri Baluyevsky, Russia’s top general, declared that military forces “will carry out all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world.”

The shift towards pre-emptive strikes outside of Russia is not an idle threat. It already carries out an assassination policy like that employed by the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon and endorsed by Washington. In February Russian agents assassinated the prominent Chechen Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev whilst he was residing on the Arabian Peninsula in Doha, Qatar. The murder was in response to a previous bomb attack on the Moscow metro, which the Kremlin blames on Chechen separatists.

Sentencing two Russian agents to 25 years in jail this week, a Qatari judge stated, “The Russian leadership issued an order to assassinate the former Chechen leader Yandarbiyev.”

The Russian government has denied any knowledge of the attack.

Putin and other leading government figures have identified Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge as a possible target for pre-emptive attacks. Thousands of Chechen refugees live in wretched conditions after having fled Russian atrocities and are currently seek shelter in the difficult to penetrate region.

Russian sources claim the refugee community provides the ideal cover for Chechen rebels to enter Georgia from the Russian republic and to re-enter other Russian provinces like North Ossetia through Georgia’s porous and frequently lawless northern borders. Georgia shares its borders with the impoverished and troubled republics of Ingushetia, Dagestan, Chechnya and North Ossetia. Russia has since closed all its borders with Georgia.

Attempting to deflect criticism and avoid a confrontation with superior Russian military forces, the Georgian authorities have repeatedly claimed that the Pankisi no longer harbours Chechen rebels. The current government led by Mikhail Saakashvili blames the deposed administration of Eduard Shevardnadze for previous incursions by rebels into and out of Georgia.

The Bush administration in Washington has sent out conflicting signals. The US State Department backed the claims of the Tbilisi administration, stating that the Pankisi Gorge was free from rebel activity. Spokesman Richard Boucher said the Pankisi Gorge “is no longer a haven for terrorists.” But the US ambassador to Georgia, Richard Miles, says some international terrorists are still present in the Gorge.

Seeking to link Georgia to the Beslan tragedy, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested that events in South Ossetia, where the two countries have recently come to blows in a series of military skirmishes, might well be connected to the school siege. The Russian media has also sought to draw in the other breakaway Georgian republic of Abkhazia by suggesting that one of the Beslan hostage takers is hiding in an area on the border between the two warring parties controlled by Georgian forces. The Kodori Gorge is held by the Georgian military and Abkhazian ethnic Georgian forces loyal to Tbilisi.

Presently Russia is on the offensive, but the situation prior to the Beslan siege was somewhat different. Saakashvili, fresh from wresting back control of the coastal region of Adjaria from the regional warlord Aslan Abashidze, decided to chance his luck on the weaker of the two remaining breakaway republics—South Ossetia.

But just days after entering South Ossetian territory and mounting repeated exchanges with Russian and South Ossetian troops, Georgian forces withdrew. Saakashvili tried to rally nationalist sentiment by warning of a possible war with Russia. But the rout of his South Ossetian campaign is now derided in parliament as a “fiasco’’ by the opposition. Newsweek magazine, which had previously sang Saakashvili’s praises, predicted that the new president’s star may have already waned and the opportunity to unify Georgia vanished.

Putin has framed the conflict over South Ossetia as a threat to Russian sovereignty. But since Beslan, he has gone further and questioned the very geographical viability of Georgia. Putin declared that Georgia was “put together very artificially in a similar manner as other creations in the former Soviet Union”, before blaming Tbilisi for “unfreezing” the South Ossetian conflict. He added, “No one asked Ossetians and the Abkhaz whether they want to stay in Georgia.”

In addition to the recent skirmishes over South Ossetia, Moscow has further enraged the Saakashvili government by reopening train links between the Russian capital and the Abkhazian capital Sukhumi for the first time in 11 years. Russia has also stopped Georgian airlines from using its airspace until some $3.6 million in debts is paid. The essentially bankrupt state of Georgia was underlined by its recent loss of voting rights at the United Nations because of unpaid bills.

Meanwhile, Tbilisi continues to strengthen ties with the western powers and to push for eventual membership of NATO and the European Union. Robert Simmons, the newly appointed Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, recently announced that a NATO liaison officer will be stationed in Tbilisi and will work closely with the Defence Ministry “to assist with their defence reform.” European Commission President Romano Prodi recently encouraged Georgia and the other Trans-Caucasus nations Armenia and Azerbaijan to continue their pursuit of EU membership.

Since the ignominious retreat from South Ossetia, Saakashvili has sought to internationalise the conflict by drawing upon support from his Western sponsors. In the immediate aftermath of the Beslan siege, few wished to be seen openly supporting Russia’s enemies. Britain’s Home Secretary Jack Straw, for example, described the Russian desire for pre-emptive strikes as “understandable’’ in the circumstances. But in contrast, the Bush administration has developed a bellicose response both to Russia’s policy in Chechnya and in Georgia.

Washington has reiterated its calls for Russia to withdraw its troops from Georgia, continues to train and equip Georgian forces and is set to increase its financial assistance to Georgia threefold. In return Georgian Defence Minister Giorgi Baramidze announced that more Georgian troops would possibly be sent to bolster American forces occupying Iraq.

Russia has a vital strategic interest in maintaining control over the northern Caucasus region and extending its influence into the southern Caucasus to break a possible US encirclement through its support for Saakashvili’s Georgian administration and the ruling Aliyev dynasty in Azerbaijan. Russia aims to thwart US attempts at monopolising the vital Caspian Sea oil reserves and it should not be forgotten that Chechnya also possesses significant oil reserves.

America has long sought control over oil supplies from the Caspian Sea by installing or cultivating compliant regimes in the southern Caucasus, including Azerbaijan, where the oil is extracted, and Georgia, across which the $1.5 billion Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline passes. Consequently the US government is committed to thwarting any attempt by Russia to expand its influence in the Caucasus. Therefore while the Bush administration has in the past made a show of supporting Russian efforts to “curb terrorism”, its essential policy is hostility to all attempts by Russia to dominate the region.

The State Department criticised the August 29 Chechen elections as being “neither free nor fair’’ and it has granted asylum to Ilyas Akhmadov, the foreign minister of Ivan Maskhadov’s opposition government. Such support has allowed Akhmadov to pursue diplomatic relations aimed at winning international support for a Republic of Ichkeria.

Both the US and the EU have called for Russia to negotiate with what they often describe as the “moderate” Chechen separatists. But France and Germany are seeking to distance themselves from the US by endorsing the validity of the August 29 election whilst simultaneously urging negotiation. Their ambivalence is based on their desire for stronger relations with Russia to counter American influence in Eastern Europe and to build lucrative economic relations, particularly in the oil sector. But they too must seek to free Caspian Sea oil from Russian hegemony.

See Also:
The Caucasus powder keg: Russia threatens military interventions
[28 September 2004]
Russia: school hostage atrocity ends in bloodbath
[4 September 2004]