Saturday Extra

It's been quite a week for relations between Russia and Georgia. Last Thursday, Georgia arrested four Russian military officers, accusing them of spying. They were subsequently released a few days later, but this prompted an extraordinary response from Vladimir Putin, the president of the Russian Federation, who has imposed a range of hard-hitting sanctions, bans and restrictions on Georgia. Why has the Russian response been so severe?

Transcript

Alan Saunders: We're beginning in Eastern Europe, with a look at events this week in the former Soviet Union, where a neighbourly squabble between Russia and Georgia has turned nasty.

Russia has so far severed transport and postal links, placed restrictions on Georgian guest workers entering the country, thrown some out, as we've heard in the news, and it's estimated that there are about one million Georgians in Russia, and if they're not thrown out, they're going to be placed under considerable restrictions.

Russian authorities have also cracked down on Georgian businesses, restricted border crossings, and threatened Georgia's gas supply; the list goes on. So what's behind this dispute?

Well to help us get a clearer picture of why relations between Russia and Georgia have gone down so far, so rapidly, we'll hear now from Bob Miller. He's a Visiting Fellow at the Transformation of Communist Systems Project at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University, and I spoke to him yesterday.

Well Dr Miller, thank you very much for joining us.

Bob Miller: Right, Alan, yes.

Alan Saunders: It's been quite a week for relations between Russia and Georgia. Last Thursday, Georgia arrested four Russian military officers, accusing them of spying. They were released a few days later, but this prompted an extraordinary response from Vladimir Putin, the president of the Russian Federation, who has imposed a range of hard-hitting sanctions, bans and restrictions on Georgia. Bob Miller, why has the Russian response been so severe?

Bob Miller: Well I think what's happened is that they were caught with their pants down on this business; I think it's no secret that what Putin is after is 'regime change', to use that phrase, in Georgia. The Saakasvili regime is a bone in his throat, and it's obvious that these people were dealing with forces in Georgia of whom there are a certain number who are part of the opposition to Saakasvili.

Alan Saunders: But surely the Georgians would have known that the arrest and detention of these officers couldn't pass without some reaction.

Bob Miller: They do, but they wanted to tell the Russians and those Georgians who supported them that they're not going to get away with it. There were attacks by a group of Georgian dissidents in the Kodori Gorge, up on the border with Ossetia, and the Georgians by the use of some robust police, sort of a military police operation, managed to send them scurrying, and the leader of the group went back to Russia. So it's obvious what kind of a game that the Russians are playing there, and this was a signal, and an effort to try and stimulate I think Western, mainly West European and American, support, against what is obviously a power play by the Russians.

Alan Saunders: Well I think from what you've said, two questions arise. One is why would any Georgians be supporting Russia? What's in it for them?

Bob Miller: Well for one thing, there are large numbers of Georgians living and working in Russia, both legally and illegally, and the Georgian economy gets some estimate, as high as $US1 billion a year in remittances from these people. So this is one factor. The other is that ever since 1783 in the Treaty of Georgiev, Georgia and Russia have had a very close relationship, including religious relationship. So the Orthodox church in the two countries is closely linked.

Alan Saunders: And the second thing that arises from what you said, is you said that Putin thought that Georgia was 'a bone in his throat'; why does he think that?

Bob Miller: Well for one thing, it's a prominent part of what the Russians call 'the near abroad', that's former countries that were once republics of the USSR. And Putin has made it a prime object of his reign to try and bring these countries back under the umbrella of the Russian Federation, in this Commonwealth of Independent States and associated organisations, like the Collective Security Treaty Organisation. There is another thing too that you have to bring up, and that is Georgia's express intent to join NATO. And this is a real no-no as far as Putin is concerned.

Alan Saunders: And to what extent is this heated rhetoric due to the domestic politics of both countries, or aimed at a domestic audience in both countries?

Bob Miller: Well to a great extent. There's a series of national and local elections coming up in Georgia, and Saakasvili has not been able to make much of a headway on the economic reforms that he promised, and improving the overall economic climate. So there has been a growing opposition, but now with this exacerbation of relations with Russia, there's a clarion call to line up on the side of Georgia, and Georgian national interests. By the same token the Russian Duma has really outdone itself in its condemnation. It's calling what the Georgians have done by arresting these four military officers, 'state terrorism', and it's calling for all kinds of rabid action and I use the word advisedly. It's really a very immoderate and irrational response to what they see as a slap in the face by a poodle.

Alan Saunders: You alluded briefly to the historical relationship between Russia and Georgia, and of course at various times they have been relatively cordial because Georgia, which really is quite an eastern country, preferred Russian rule perhaps to an Iranian threat or Ottoman Turks; so where does the current tension have its origins?

Bob Miller: Well I think the Rose Revolution in November of 2003 was the beginning of it, because the Russians, both Yeltsin and Putin, had had fairly good relations with Edvard Shevardnadze, who was the President of Georgia, and had once been the foreign minister under Gorbachev in the Soviet Union. So he understood, he was a former Secret Police official himself, a high-ranking member of the old Soviet politburo, so things were fairly cosy. And once Shevardnadze was forced out by Saakasvili, who by the way was one of his protégées, and was brought back from the United States and from Europe as part of an injection of new blood into the Georgian political establishment. But once this Rose Revolution took place and Saakasvili was elected president in January 2004 I think it was, he began to push his own independent line, and to resist some of the things that the Russians had been used to doing, vis-à-vis the smaller countries of the near abroad.

Alan Saunders: The Georgians themselves are facing, and have faced the difficulties of regions within their borders seeking independence and autonomy, an experience that Russia of course itself knows only too well. Is Putin taking advantage of this?

Bob Miller: Yes, he certainly is, particularly Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Now Ajaria, which is a bit to the south, was sold by the Georgians by forcing out an independentist leader who needless to say took refuge in Russia. But the problem with Abkhazia and South Ossetia is that there are Russian 'peacekeeping forces', I use the word in quotation marks to keep the peace there, but really it's to keep the Georgians out. Particularly Abkhazia. Abkhazia had a population about I'd say 20%, I want to say 17% but I think it's about 20% Abkhaz who are a Muslim people, and probably about 50% of the rest were Georgians and others who were Armenians, and other minority peoples. So this was a case where the Russians were, in a sense, exerting leverage over Georgia by holding out the prospect of eventual reunification with Georgia. And then to put additional pressure on them giving Russian citizenship to the Abkhazians and to the Ossetians, so that they can ask for Russian assistance, and eventually if necessary, if Georgia gets too stroppy, to ask for inclusion into the Russian Federation, and that's the next step.

Alan Saunders: You mentioned the Georgians who are working and living in Russia. Before this breakdown in relations, how were they treated?

Bob Miller: Like all slightly darker-skinned people, they're subject to a certain amount of discrimination there, and ill-treatment, but Georgians have had a much longer history. They've been well established in both academic and commercial circles there for a long, long time, and so they're probably better off than many others. The other group that are similarly situated are the Armenians. And one of the things that this burst of Russian activity, punitive activity, has occasioned which apparently wasn't thought through, is that if they blockade all communications with Georgia, that means that Armenia, which is the strategic partner of Russia in the Trans Caucasus, will suffer from, and already shipments of goods to and from Armenia have been held up because of the Russian blockade. So I think it was the Deputy Speaker of the Armenian Parliament said, 'Hey, wait a minute, we're supposed to be your best partners in Trans Caucasia, and look what you're doing to us.'

Alan Saunders: Would Armenia be affected by a block in gas supply?

Bob Miller: Well yes, and almost anything else that goes through Georgia, because the main transport routes come through Georgia. Another possibility is through Azerbaijan, but the relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia are not the closest.

Alan Saunders: You mentioned the fact that the Russians are extremely reluctant to see Georgia join NATO, but apart from that, what interest does it hold for them beyond wounded pride, guest workers, mineral water and wine?

Bob Miller: Well it is fairly strategically located. It borders on Turkey, so it's a buffer there. It is probably the key to the alternate mode of transporting oil and natural gas through this Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline that the West has been heavily involved in building, that goes right through Georgia, and if that is in hands that are unfriendly to Russia there's a fear that Russia will lose its sort of monopoly of transport of hydrocarbons from the Caspian Sea area and also from Kazakhstan, which is a possible supplier through this Baku to Erzurum pipeline.

Alan Saunders: Is this going to blow over, or is there a real possibility here of armed conflict?

Bob Miller: Well I don't think there's really a possibility. Well there's always a possibility of armed conflict, and this is one of the reason why presumably Russia is speeding up the withdrawal of certain of its troops from Georgia. But I think that's less likely than that Russia will continue to try and leverage up the pressure on Saakasvili in particular, in the hope that they will discredit Saakasvili. Up till now Saakasvili seems to be the winner. Some of the commentary that I've seen says that Saakasvili has been the tactical winner so far, and that the more Putin heavies the Georgians, the more sympathy the latter get from Europe and from the United States, and the worse Russia looks as a place for investment and so forth.

Alan Saunders: Well given the sympathy of Europe and the United States, are they likely to get involved?

Bob Miller: Well to a certain extent they're already involved by this Karl de Gucht, the Belgian Foreign Minister who was the European mediator, or quasi mediator, to whom the four Russian officers were released. So they are to a certain extent involved. But as far as material support and particularly military support, I think the Georgians are bound to be a bit disappointed there.

Alan Saunders: So beyond Georgian disappointment, do you see an end to this?

Bob Miller: Yes, of course. Like all things. With the pressure from Armenia, from Turkey, from Azerbaijan, and other countries that will be automatically victims of Russian policy. No this is kind of typical of the bullying of smaller powers that Russia readily engages in, you know, they've been trying to do it in Lithuania through the Mazeikiai Oil refinery complex and so forth, and there's a kind of predictable response pattern there from the Russians. They're not used to being kicked around by small people, and this just comes out. It's a reflex action that they generally tend to repent of later on.

Alan Saunders: Well I will not readily forget the image of Vladimir Putin being slapped by the face by a poodle. Dr Bob Miller, thank you very much for joining us.

Bob Miller: OK Alan.

Alan Saunders: And Bob Miller is visiting professor in the Transformation of Communist Systems Project at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies of the Australian National University.

Guests

Dr Bob Miller
Visiting Professor, Transformation of Communist Systems Project
at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Australian National University - Canberra

Presenter

Alan Saunders

Producer

Ian Coombe

Story Researcher and Producer

Ian Coombe