| JRL HOME | SUPPORT | SUBSCRIBE | RESEARCH & ANALYTICAL SUPPLEMENT | |
Old Saint Basil's Cathedral in MoscowJohnson's Russia List title and scenes of Saint Petersburg
Excerpts from the JRL E-Mail Community :: Founded and Edited by David Johnson

#24 - JRL 2006-130 - JRL Home
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006
From: Sergei Roy <SergeiRoy@yandex.ru>
Subject: Re: JRL 129 #22/The "Montenegrin precedent"

Re: JRL 129 #22. Untimely Thoughts: Weekly Russia Experts Panel ­ The “Montenegrin precedent.”
Comment by Sergei Roy, editor, intelligent.ru:

Peter Lavelle formulated the question regarding the link between the Montenegro case and that of South Ossetia and Abkhazia with admirable clarity: “To what degree do South Ossetia and Abkhazia have a case for independence from Georgia based on the ‘Montenegrin precedent?’”

In their reply to Peter Lavelle’s query, the panelists (with the exception of Patrick Armstrong, perhaps) were obviously motivated not by the plight of the peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but by their suspicions regarding the possibility of Russia using the Montenegrin precedent as justification for incorporating these territories in the Russian Federation or using the precedent to its advantage in some other way.

On Friday, June 2, President Putin stated in his reply to AFP that “Russia has never raised the question of incorporating any territories outside its borders as part of the Russian state. Nor do we have any such plans.” That is clear enough, and answers any innuendoes by the panelists regarding Russia’s intentions about these territories. Neither this statement, though, nor the panelists’ speculations provide a satisfactory answer to the query about the bearing of the “Montenegrin precedent” on the aspirations of the peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

In my view, the case of South Ossetia and Abkhazia for independence is not just different from the “Montenegrin precedent” ­ it is much stronger. There are several factors at play here that, curiously, none of the panelists have mentioned ­ though they are quite obvious and much more relevant to the situation than, say, the “four persuasive arguments” of Mr. Bugajski.

1. Both South Ossetia and Abkhazia are de facto independent from Georgia ­ administratively, politically, militarily, or in any other respect one cares to name. Georgia does not have any control whatsoever over these territories. They are not recognized by the “international community” (which, in the context of the panelists’ discourse, apparently means EU, US, NATO, and other alphabetic organizations) as independent republics, but that is a problem for the “international community,” not the peoples of these republics.

The problem for the “international community” (in this particular sense, from which Russia is excluded) is quite stark: will it accede to Georgia’s desire to help it re-establish its control (sovereignty) over these territories, or will it follow some more reasonable course? I believe that coming to the aid of Georgia in its warlike ambitions will be unreasonable on the part of the “international community” because, in effect, that would mean helping Georgia establish an occupation regime in these territories ­ an undertaking that will merely lead to a resumption of hostilities in these areas and, quite possibly, on a wider scale.

This is inevitable in view of a number of other factors.

2. Both South Ossetia and Abkhazia have recently fought bloody wars with Georgia, and a restoration of the pre-war situation (on which Georgia insists) is a clear non-starter ­ right on the ground. Paper agreements may be forced by international pressure and even signed, but any attempt to bring back, say, Georgian refugees back to Abkhazia will merely result in a resumption of bloody strife. I cannot stress it forcefully enough: this is not a matter for speculation by dabblers in geopolitical “arrangements,” this is a matter of blood, of civil war and atrocities inevitable in a civil war, as past record shows. Anyone who has lived (as I have) in the Caucasus for an extended period of time knows this in his bones. “A shot lasts an instant, but the report resounds in the mountains for a hundred years,” this Caucasian proverb is as true now as it was a hundred and more years ago.

2. Both South Ossetians and Abkhazians are divided peoples. They do not have just the controversial right to self-determination but the rather more unquestionable right to reunification. There is a fairly recent, mighty precedent here: the reunification of Germany. What was right for West and East Germans should be right for South and North Ossetians, for Abkhazians on former Georgian territory and Abazinians in Karachai-Circassia. The men of North Ossetia and other RF republics (which formed a Confederation of Mountain Peoples) went to fight alongside their brothers in the wars of the 90s, they will do so again if hostilities flare up anew ­ and no Russian government (or any other) will be able to stop them.

3. The peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia are not “pawns in the regional competition between Moscow and Tbilisi,” as Donald Jensen puts it. These peoples would take this slight for what it is, a cheap insult, not a scholarly or politically sound judgment. Up to 80 percent of the population of these republics are citizens of the Russian Federation, Russian passport holders, and as such they are entitled to protection by the Russian state as stipulated in the RF Constitution. They are not citizens of any EU country or of the United States, they are full-fledged citizens of Russia, and this consideration should come first in any “international settlement,” should any such be contemplated.

President Putin made it clear that Russia has no plans to annex these territories (see above), but that does not mean that Russia will do the Pontius Pilate bit and wash its hands of the fate of its citizens. Apart from politico-legal considerations, it will not be able to do so in very practical, down-to-earth terms, for here comes point

4. The peoples of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia survive only by dint of their economic and kinship ties with Russia. Georgia’s basket case economy is no help to them at all, nor will it be any help in the foreseeable future as Georgia faces further rises in the price of Russian gas and electricity. In this, most important ­ economic and even financial sense (the people of both republics are using RF currency) ­ South Ossetia and Abkhazia are already independent of Georgia, they are totally reliant on Russia for their continued existence. (Just as, incidentally, is Georgia itself, with a third of its able-bodied population living in Russia and providing for their families back home.)

I would like to conclude with a strong plea for pundits debating regional issues to show greater respect for the realities of the situation on the ground, with fewer flights of geopolitical fancy and conspiracy theories about “Kremlin-sponsored separatist movements.” A little first-hand knowledge of the past history and present mood of human beings involved in the conflict will go a long way toward eliminating a great deal of geopolitical gobbledygook. As Ludwig von Wittgenstein put it in his “Tractatus logico-philosophicus,” “What you are not in a position to speak of, you should be silent about.”