An old man sits near a portrait of the baby son of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in Tbilisi on October 19, 2006.
Photo: Dmitry Lebedev
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Georgia and Its President are at Odds
// Not Everyone is Blaming Russia
The Georgian parliament has decided to create a commission "for studying the facts of the violation of the rights of Georgians in the Russian Federation." The first results of the parliamentary investigation are promised to appear next week, when a delegation of monitoring groups from the Council of Europe are scheduled to arrive in Tbilisi. Meanwhile, the attitude of the Georgians themselves towards to the conflict with Russia is far from unanimous. Many believe that Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili is to blame.
Fall is the best season for produce in Georgia, but the mood in the markets is decidedly subdued. Georgian peasants are suffering the most from the closure of the Russian market, and their thoughts are occupied by thoughts of when the borders may reopen. In the meantime, those in Western Georgia sell produce in South Ossetia, where people take it to Vladikavkaz, but those in Eastern Georgia have only the internal market. According to David Imnadzhe, a Georgian wine merchant, the Georgian government has promised to open trade with Turkey, but he sees little hope of creating a market somewhere that is "not Russia." As he puts it, "the price of groceries has already gone up… [Mikhail Saakashvili] should have thought harder before he insulted Putin by calling him a Lilliputian."
Most Georgians appear to see only problems arising from Saakashvili's negative rhetoric. Still, however, there is no movement towards popular revolt in Georgia. Mr. Imnadzhe, explaining why he believes that America will not buck Russia to back Georgia, noted, "all the Arabs are for Russia, and the Arabs are more terrifying now than we, the Georgians. We only drink wine and call each other names, but the Arabs shoot rockets." He went on to justify the common Georgian's reluctant acceptance of the status quo: "America will force our president to make peace with Putin. And if America doesn't, Putin will soon be gone. We have what – a year to wait?"
The only person talking about revolution in Georgia is Irina Sarishvili, who leads the recently-founded "Imedi" ("Hope") party. Ms. Sarishvili formerly led the party bloc of Igor Giorgadze, who is widely believed to be backed by the Kremlin and whose allies were recently imprisoned on charges of fomenting revolution, after which the bloc collapsed. Ms. Sarishvili also sees no chance for real revolution in Georgia, even as winter approaches and prices rise.
She does, however, believe that Georgia is in a dead-end position to which it has been driven by America. Russia does not want to see Georgia in NATO for obvious reasons, and Ms. Sarishvili herself believes that Georgia's accession to membership in the alliance will cause it to lose Abkhazia and South Ossetia as a result of active ill-will from Russia, which has so far been encouraging the separatist provinces in their attempts to leave Georgia and possibly join Russia.
The Georgian media largely shares her opinion, and speculation is rife that Mr. Saakashvili's recent announcement of his intention to hold presidential elections in 2008 instead of 2009 are linked with the fact that US President George Bush will leave office in 2008, and the new American administration may not be as kindly disposed towards Mr. Saakashvili as Mr. Bush has been. The recent EU summit in Finland, during which not a word was said about the deportation of Georgians from Russia, has also served as proof of the general belief that "no one wants to quarrel with Russia: everyone wants Russian gas. Only Saakashvili doesn't understand that."
Izolda Meskhi, a woman working in Tiblisi hotel, has been cut off from her husband, who is working in Moscow, for the last six months. Ms. Meskhi came back to Georgia for her daughter's wedding and has been unable to return due to Russia's blanket visa ban for Georgians. She believes that Mr. Saakashvili's foreign policies are damaging to the country, but she also praised the great steps that the Georgian economy has made under him. Many of these gains are visible on the street in Tbilisi, with its many cars, fountains, cafes, restored historical buildings, and new apartment buildings.
Nevertheless, Hezri Aldamovy, Chechen rebel commander Aslan Maskhadov's former envoy to Georgia, who traces Georgia's current difficult position to the blows suffered by the Georgian economy by Russia's recent ban on Georgian wines in a move whose murky origins probably lie in the recent bad blood between the two countries, takes the unsentimental view that "the situation in Georgia is bad, no two ways about it."
Olga Allenova
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 23, 2006
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