Georgia: Saakashvili stalled

Date: 20/03/04

The unstoppable Mikhail Saakashvili has trouble in Ajaria

FIGHTING corruption, boosting pensions, racking up air miles - the new Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili, has seemed unstoppable since he took power in January. He briefly came to a halt this week, when he tried to enter Ajaria, a strategically vital place whose ruler, Aslan Abashidze, is a pro-Russian strongman nearly twice his age - but after a few days of confrontation, he declared that he had resolved this problem as well.

Ajaria is one of three chunks of Georgia's territory where Tbilisi's writ is weak to non-existent. So far it is the only one where bloodshed has been avoided. Now it poses a challenge for a president who had promised to assert Georgia's sovereignty in practice as well as in theory. It is also proving a trial of Georgia's relations with a re-elected Vladimir Putin in Russia.

How did the crisis develop? Mr Saakashvili had long signalled that he would not continue the old habit of winking and nodding at Ajaria's virtual independence. Tensions have risen as Tbilisi prosecutors have begun to probe money-laundering by companies linked to Mr Abashidze's relatives, many of whom hold high government posts in the region. In Ajaria, opposition activists and journalists have been attacked. After a Tbilisi reporter investigating Mr Abashidze's relatives was beaten up two weeks ago, Mr Saakashvili lost patience. “I will take control over Ajaria,” he declared. On March 14th he boldly tried to enter the region, claiming to be campaigning for parliamentary elections on March 28th. But armed supporters of Mr Abashidze blocked the border.

Mr Abashidze, who was at the time visiting Moscow, begged for help from Russian troops based in Ajaria's capital, Batumi - one of the Soviet-era military bases that Mr Saakashvili is trying to get Moscow to remove. Mr Saakashvili responded by freezing the bank accounts of the Abashidze entourage, cutting transport links (Mr Abashidze returned from Moscow only in a loop via Turkey), and putting troops and gunboats on alert. The next day he suspended banking operations in Ajaria and ordered the arrest of several of Mr Abashidze's associates.

Russia has long supported two other rebel Georgian provinces, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. These places are dominated by ethnic groups that differ from the history-conscious and assertively Christian Georgians. Ajaria shares a language and culture with the rest of Georgia, but many of its people are Muslim. Unlike the other breakaway statelets, however, Ajaria never espoused separatism, only autonomy. Russia, says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a foreign-policy journal, has “no interest in creating another failed territory.” Even so, the spectre of Russian meddling gave Georgians a sickening sense of deja vu.

As so often in the past, Moscow has been sending mixed signals. At first the Russians accused Mr Saakashvili of trying to oust Mr Abashidze. Then they insisted that they (and their troops) would remain neutral. Moscow's mayor, Yury Luzhkov, flew to Batumi to support his “friend and brother”, Mr Abashidze. The mayor said he was acting alone; but the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, later said that Mr Luzhkov would act as Moscow's mediator between the two sides (“It doesn't mean that someone else can't be his brother too,” he jovially reassured a Georgian journalist). Georgia's national security adviser flew to Moscow.

Nobody seemed to want an armed confrontation. Despite an American military-training programme, the Georgian army is still weak, and its troops stationed in Batumi seem to back Mr Abashidze. The closure of Batumi's port, if prolonged, would have harmed all Georgia. The Americans were alarmed by Azerbaijan's talk of “obstacles” to the building of an American-backed oil pipeline from the Caspian to the Mediterranean, via Georgia.

On March 18th Mr Saakashvili and Mr Abashidze finally met each other, in Batumi - Mr Saakashvili's motorcade having been let across the border. A beaming Mr Saakashvili then declared that all misunderstandings were over. Mr Abashidze said there were “no issues which cannot be resolved.” But even if tensions dissipate this time, Georgia's relationship with its rebellious provinces could yet trouble Mr Saakashvili, who still has to acquire the much-needed skill of manipulating the power-brokers in Moscow.