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Monday, October 22, 2007, #201 (1468)
A prevailing rhetorical tactic is to levy accusations of Russian sympathies, or even of doing Moscow’s bidding, against political opponents. The government points to ill-advised statements, in which some opposition figures blame Tbilisi for the results of Russian aggression, as evidence of traitorous intentions, or at least of the opposition wanting to turn back to Moscow’s orbit. But the opposition made a point last week of emphasizing that they, too, are Western-oriented. Their coalition presented a manifesto outlining their domestic and foreign policy platform—as did business tycoon and ostensible political bystander Badri Patarkatsishvili. Both reiterated support for NATO accession and EU cooperation. The opposition coalition also called for immediate withdrawal from the CIS, something Tbilisi maintains needs to be done at the right time. They wrote of the need to boot out the Russian peacekeepers from breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia before the country can restore territorial integrity. Meanwhile, the man the Saakashvili administration denounces as an “oligarch” warns of an aggressive Russia which is nonetheless Georgia’s unavoidable neighbor, urging a ‘balanced’ foreign policy. Patarkatsishvili’s measured words ring a different tone than the opposition’s strident anti-Kremlin stance, but both unequivocally back NATO and EU integration as good for the country. The notion of balancing foreign powers, for Georgians, hearkens back to former president Eduard Shevardnadze. But Shevardnadze, a former Soviet foreign minister, didn’t so much play off the powers of Russia and the US as weakly slide back in forth in his allegiances. Those contradictions and inadequacies were blown away as the Rose Revolution swept the Saakashvili administration to power. A Western-funded, trained and oriented band of young revolutionaries, the new government threw in its lot with NATO and the US. Russia was left with little political leverage in Georgia, especially as more overtly pro-Moscow groups like the allies of former state security minister Igor Giorgadze land in prison for plotting against the state. Whatever is the Kremlin to do? The Russian newspaper Moskovski Kamsamolets suggests betting on a nationalist Georgian leader, who at least, “unlike Saakashvili,” can be counted on to “love Georgia more than America.” That, the article implies, is the best Moscow can hope for. The fact is, neither the Saakashvili administration nor opposition leaders are eager to kowtow to Moscow. The country would benefit by political dialogue which leaves out the name calling and accusations of Russophilia. |
Little disagreement on foreign policy among Georgia’s battling politicians