Georgia, a former republic of the Soviet Union situated in the strategic region between the oil rich region of the Black and Caspian Seas while being in the backyard of Russia and also being in proximity to NATO members of Europe, has been feeling the stresses and strains of its location. Its immediate problems appear to be that of ethnicity but there is no doubt that the interests of the big powers are impacting on the ethnic differences.

Last week Russia sent its troops and armour into Georgia alleging that Georgia had provoked such a reaction by sending Georgian troops into South Ossetia violating a ceasefire agreement reached between Russia and Georgia and causing the deaths of members of a Russian peace keeping force as well as Russian citizens living in South Ossetia.

Impotence of the international community

While the UN Security Council was hotly debating the issue, Russian troops kept moving into Georgia and no immediate resolution to the dispute could be found. The situation demonstrated the impotence of the so called international community in safeguarding the interests of a small country even though various punitive actions and even the right of intervention are promoted against poor Third World countries that do not have the patronage of a big power.

Located in the Caucasus mountain range, home to about 50 ethnic groups speaking a myriad of languages, Georgia has its problems of ethnic separatism. Two regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, want to breakaway from Georgia while Georgia refuses to consider such demands saying that these regions have been a part of Georgia. South Ossetia was the cause of the Russian intrusion last week.

Kosovo meltdown

Ossetia was an undivided region till 1922 when Josef Stalin, the Soviet dictator whose father was from Ossetia, divided it into South and North Ossetia attaching North Ossetia to the Russian Republic and the South to the Georgian republic. This action had been resented by the Georgians and when the Soviet Union broke up, both Abkhazia and South Ossetia wanted to breakaway from Georgia.

South Ossetians who were pro-Russians wanted to be a part of Russia which was rejected by Georgia. Violent conflicts in 1991 between Ossetians and Georgians who have been living together in peace for a long time broke out resulting in the deaths of over 1000 people and 100,000 Ossetians fleeing into North Ossetia while the Georgians fled to Georgia. Meanwhile South Ossetia had declared itself a de facto independent state but no member of the United Nations has yet recognised it.

Georgia continued to govern some parts of it while peace held under an agreement reached between Russia and Georgia. It was called a ‘frozen peace’ because peace held despite the simmering differences between the two sides. But this peace soon thawed with the acceptance of Kosovo as an independent state with the backing of NATO powers and strongly opposed by Russia.

Russia, the Ossetians and Abkazians argued that if Kosovo which was historically an independent part of Serbia could be made an independent state why not South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Thus NATO powers comprising the United States and European nations caused grave problems to their friend and ally President Mikhail Saakashvili who is strongly pushing for Georgia to be a part of NATO.

Political analysts have said that a basic objective of the Russian intervention last week was to replace the pro western Saakashvili with a more pliant leader. Saakashvili won the election on a pledge to assert control over the breakaway regions and also to take his country into NATO.

Putin’s arrival

While the United States and its Western allies had a free run of the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union the re-emergence of a strong and assertive Russia under the leadership of Vladimir Putin has ended that short era of Pax Americana.

The break up of the Balkan states, invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan were all done by the US and its allies without any resistance of any world power. Attempts to install a missile defence system, parts of which are to be located in Poland and the Czech republic on the grounds of countering a missile threat from Iran would have been plain sailing if not for the strong objections that are being made by Russia.

Russia has threatened to reinstall the Intermediate Nuclear Force Missiles system that was targeting western European capitals in the Cold War days, if this missile defence system is put in place. Recently it announced the development of a new missile that could avoid any missile defence system.

Clear Russian message

Russian troops now in Georgia is a clear reminder to its neighbours such as Georgia and Ukraine which also have inclinations to join NATO that they are still in the Russian sphere of influence and that there are limits to rapprochement with Western nations. Vladimir Putin has said it loud and clear: Keep off our backyard.