Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Via Shevardnadze, il difficile viene adesso

Via Shevardnadze, il difficile viene adesso
I nuovi leader georgiani hanno un potere solo apparente. E dovranno
guadagnarsi il sostegno di Putin
ASTRIT DAKLI
Per la Georgia il difficile viene adesso. Liberarsi di Eduard Ambrosjevic
Shevardnadze è stato tutto sommato relativamente facile: regnava già da
undici anni su un paese trovato e lasciato rimanere nel caos e nello
sconforto, non aveva più veri alleati da nessuna parte e all'interno troppa
gente non ne poteva più di lui. Sono dunque bastati venti giorni di
manifestazioni di piazza per ottenere quel che potenti servizi segreti non
avevano saputo ottenere con anni di complotti, eserciti di killer e abbozzi
di guerriglie. Meglio così che in un altro modo, dunque: almeno l'ormai
anziano ministro degli esteri della perestrojka potrà cercar di passare una
vecchiaia serena a casa sua o dove meglio crederà. Lui di sangue sulle mani
e sulla coscienza ne ha molto meno di tanti suoi «colleghi» e predecessori.
Ma che succederà ora? I giovani uomini e donne che apparentemente hanno
preso il potere a Tbilisi, con l'apparente appoggio di Russia e Stati uniti
(nel Caucaso quasi niente di quel che appare in realtà è) non promettono
molto di buono: una presidente ad interim di formazione russa, Nino
Burdzhanadze, che fino a un anno fa si professava più femminista che
politica e che ora rivendica l'appartenenza della Georgia all'Occidente; e
un leader di formazione americana, Mikheil Saakashvili, che cerca e trova
l'accordo con i russi ma non nasconde un nazionalismo oltranzista che con i
russi non potrà non venire in conflitto. La loro cosa migliore è il non aver
cercato di usare la violenza per prendere il potere: ma adesso che il potere
ce l'hanno, saranno altrettanto capaci di moderarsi e non accendere
pericolosi fuochi?
Intorno a loro l'esplosivo è tantissimo. Intanto, dentro la Georgia stessa,
bisogna ancora vedere se e quanto il loro potere arriva fino al controllo
sulle forze armate e sulle bande paramilitari che da tredici anni infestano
il paese. E bisogna vedere se e quanto saranno in grado di dare un rapido
segnale di miglioramento dell'economia, oggi allo stremo: non basterà certo
qualche milione di dollari regalato da Usa e Ue.
Poi, sui confini, è il disastro.Una regione, l'Abkhazia, si è resa del tutto
indipendente già da dieci anni, altre due (Adzharja e Nord Ossetia) lo sono
de facto: tutte e tre sono da sempre protette dalle forze armate russe, che
Mosca lo ammetta o meno, e nessuna di esse è minimamente disposta a
rimettere in causa la propria autonomia. Il leader dell'Adzharja, Aslan
Abashidze, potrebbe persino cercar di diventare leader nazionale. Ma i
vincitori di Tbilisi sono in prima istanza nazionalisti georgiani, e non
nascondo le loro idee di restaurazione di un potere centrale su tutto il
territorio che nel 1990 era la Georgia sovietica.
E anche fuori da quel territorio il quadro è fosco e pericoloso. C'è la
confinante Cecenia, cancro micidiale che già da anni sta trasformando un
angolo della Georgia (la valle di Pankisi) in una zona di guerra. Ci sono
diverse repubbliche autonome a forte componente islamica lungo la frontiera
nord, dentro la Federazione russa, perennemente inquiete e tradizionalmente
ostili all'idea di una Georgia cristiano-ortodossa forte e in espansione. E
c'è la questione dell'oleodotto, questo lunghissimo tubo fra i campi
petroliferi di Baku, sulla costa dell'Azerbaigian sul Mar Caspio, e il porto
turco di Ceyhan, sul Mediterraneo. Un tubo che le multinazionali petrolifere
stanno costruendo attraverso il territorio georgiano facendo un serio
dispiacere a Mosca, che vorrebbe veder quel petrolio passare dai suoi
oleodotti, peraltro già in funzione.
Shevardnadze sperava di ricavare, dal suo «sì» all'oleodotto, aiuti
economici e sicurezza militare: non ha avuto quasi niente e all'ultimo gli
Usa gli hanno preferito i suoi oppositori, certo più americani di lui.
Questi, oggi, devono ringraziare Vladimir Putin, che ha dato loro la mano
decisiva per vincere e che mantiene in pugno (sapendole usare, a differenza
del suo predecessore Boris Eltsin) troppe armi puntate contro la Georgia:
dalle truppe tuttora stanziate in diverse basi militari al controllo sulle
regioni secessioniste, dai legami economici fino al milione di georgiani (su
una popolazione di cinque milioni) emigrati in Russia che alimentano il loro
paese con le rimesse. Se vorranno restare al loro posto e non farsi
travolgere in pochi mesi, i nuovi leader dovranno essere molto prudenti.
-- 
Saluti & Salute
    Pomero

relativamente facile:
Davvero? Strano visto che e' ancora in Georgia e che e' sostenuto
dall'esercito :)
*LOL*
-Stefano

 Via Shevardnadze, il difficile viene adesso
Se il potere non finirą in mano ai comunisti, tutto si potrą aggiustare...
-- 
 - Bet Dalet Gimel -
"Odi profanum vulgus et arceo"

aggiustare...
Comunisti?? LOL! Maperfavore!
Sihaya
--------------------------------
Inviato via 
http://arianna.libero.it/usenet/

 guadagnarsi il sostegno di Putin
In realta' Shevardnadze e' stato ESTREMAMENTE impopolare in TUTTO
questo
periodo, e per TUTTO questo tempo ha dovuto usare trucchi tipo
elezioni
truffaldine per restare al potere.
Il fatto che sia stato buttato fuori solo adesso e' segno piu' di
intrighi
politici che altro, il che non e' un buon segno.
Ecco un'articolo illuminante a proposito apparso su un giornale Russo
in
lingua inglese.
http://www.exile.ru/178/178010101.html
TBILISI, GEORGIA - If you want to understand what's really going on
beneath the current election crisis in the former Soviet republic of
Georgia - a struggle that threatens to push the country back into the
kind of civil war which killed tens of thousands from 1989 through
1993 - then you need to pull the camera back. Way back, to the global
level. That's because Georgia is a battleground not just between local
political factions vying for power, but also between the geostrategic
interests of America and Russia, between competing Big Oil interests,
and between the forces of globalization and the forces which defy
globalization (chaos, tradition, isolation).
Georgia, in other words, is one of the world's key battlegrounds on
every level that matters, and that is why so much is at stake in the
election crisis. Most tiny nations - Georgia has a population of about
5 million - would relish the thought of being so important; the
opportunity to play off powers and up one's price would seem to be
limitless. In Georgia's case, its location and its importance have
been its curse.
Bad luck not just because it means the Georgians are surrounded by
venal, war-like Caucasus states or brutal, imperial Russia, but also
because, thanks to the Caspian Sea oil, the Americans have been no
less deeply involved in Georgia?with the usual destruction that comes
with American aid and regime support in this part of the world. In
Russia, American-backed aid and loans were a crucial factor in
creating one of the most corrupt regimes on earth and its subsequent
default.
In Georgia, the situation is even worse. America has given more aid
per capita to Georgia over the past ten years than to any other
country besides Israel. The corruption is correspondingly worse:
Georgia ranks far below Russia on the Transparency International
corruption rating, below all CIS countries, below even Papua-New
Guinea, and ahead of only five other nations, including such
illustrious examples as Haiti and Nigeria. You won't see a single
result of all those hundreds of millions of dollars in aid grants -
everything was stolen, every last penny. So you have to assume that
the aid served another purpose besides establishing democracy or
helping the Georgian people - and that purpose is the Baku-Ceyhan
pipeline, the Frontera oil company, and NATO and U.S. Special Forces
access.
The result is that Georgia, which just 15 years ago was considered the
Soviet Union's wealthiest republic, is today one of the poorest and
most corrupt nations in the world, with huge chunks of its territory
in the hands of separatists or local petty despots, hundreds of
thousands of internally-displaced refugees, an infrastructure in such
disrepair it makes Russia look like Switzerland, a ghost town when it
comes to attracting foreign investment and capital. Its impoverished
citizens, who are lucky to receive their wages or pensions, are also
weighted down by a crippling external debt.
And yet somehow, in spite of this, Georgia is one of the most charming
places on earth.
In order to untangle the web that connects Georgia's election crisis
to global politics, keep in mind four things: James Baker III,
Ambassador Richard Miles, Caspian Sea oil, and Russia.
When James Baker was sent out to Georgia this past July to lecture its
President, Eduard Shevardnadze, about the need to ensure that the
upcoming parliamentary elections were "free and fair," it must have
raised a lot of eyebrows. Eyebrows of the "you've got to be shitting
me" variety.
James Baker? This is the same guy who Bush Jr. hired in 2000 to steal
the Florida vote, handing the U.S. presidency over to a tool who lost
by half a million votes. The way Baker railroaded Bush into the
presidency has done more damage to American democracy than anything
since Nixon and Watergate. Sending him into corrupt Georgia to demand
that they have "free and fair elections" is like sending Yegor Gaidar
into Iraq in order to advise them on privatization and the transition
to a market economy - which Bush also did.
So what the hell was Jim Baker doing in Georgia playing the role of
some Jimmy Carter bleeding heart? After all, Bush didn't send him to
Azerbaijan, which became the former Soviet Union's first official
dynasty after its pro-U.S. leader handed power to his son in a rigged
election. Nor have we raised much of a fuss about free and fair
elections to our other new friends in the region. Fuss? Tchya, right.
Uzbek strongman Karimov must have received about 100,000 dollars in
aid for every American soldier he allowed to be based in his police
state (assuming we have about 5,000 soldiers there). Or you could say
that we gave about $1,000,000 in aid to Karimov for every political
opponent he's got rotting in jail, boiled skin melted onto busted
bones. And Kyrgyzstan - which just started getting its big Santa
packages from Uncle Sam after it gave us an air base - has actually
slid backwards into deeper authoritarianism ever since Bush started
stuffing its leaders' pockets.
So why was Baker playing the knit-capped human rights hippie in
Georgia? The obvious answer is that he wasn't. When James Baker wades
into an oil-soaked, unstable region full of corrupt despots, points at
one and tells him he has to play fair this time, it means only one
thing: "You're out, we're backing new people, and we expect you to go
peacefully or else."
Baker is more than just the man responsible for engineering the
closest thing America has ever had to a coup d'etat. He's also Mr.
Oil. Specifically, Caspian Sea oil. His law firm, Baker Botts, boasts
on its web page, "Baker Botts has been and continues to be the leading
international law firm involved in the reemergence of the oil, gas and
related hydrocarbon transportation industries in the Caspian region
and has one of the most active practices of any U.S. law firm with
respect to other types of investment in the region." The Caspian Sea
oil is set to be pumped out of Azerbaijan and transported via Georgia
to the Turkish Mediterranean sea port of Ceyhan. Former President
Clinton had labeled the oil route a "vital national interest" while
Vice President Dick Cheney named the oil region a vital strategic
interest for the first half of the 21st Century. The U.S. oil firms
with Caspian Sea interests seamlessly tied their interests to
America's via their lawyer, James Baker. Among notables with interests
in the Caspian Sea oil are Brent Scowcroft, Bush Sr.'s National
Security Advisor; John Sununu, Bush Sr.'s Chief of Staff; and Zbigniew
Brzezinski, Carter's National Security Advisor. Then there is Frontera
Oil, a company set up five years ago specifically to exploit Georgian
oil. Its board includes former Clinton CIA chief John Deutch and
former Texas senator Lloyd Bensten. Frontera's chairman is former
Clinton deputy energy secretary Bill White, who was in charge of
formulating Clinton's Caspian Sea policy.
As you will see, it's the oil transnationals who decided on regime
change in Georgia, using a sudden interest in Jeffersonian democracy
as the pretext, while indulging the the anti-democratic but stable
Aliyev dynasty in nextdoor Azerbaijan.
By the way, if you think that Baker is just a dedicated patriot doing
his job for God and country, remember this: Baker Botts is also the
lead counsel for Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, the Saudi defense
minister, defending him in a lawsuit filed by the families of the
victims of 9/11 - that's right, Baker is defending Saudi
terror-financiers against American terror victims. Which shouldn't
come as too much of a surprise, considering that Baker is also the
senior counsel to the notorious Carlyle Group of investors. On
September 11th, 2001, Baker was reportedly with members of the bin
Laden family - his business partners - in the Ritz Carlton in
Washington D.C.
So let me repeat it again: James Baker getting sent to Georgia by
President Bush in order to demand that Shevardnadze hold free and fair
elections is tantamount to a push for a coup.
Which brings us to Richard Miles, the U.S. ambassador to Georgia.
Miles, who served in the Marines and studied Russian at the U.S. Army
Institute in Germany (read: U.S. intelligence), is a career diplomat
specializing in military-strategic issues and Eastern Europe. Not
surprising then that he played a key role in at least one U.S.-backed
democratic coup and military takeover just a few years ago.
Ambassador Miles was the chief of mission (effectively ambassador) to
Yugoslavia from 1996 to 1999. He was one of the key instruments in
America's drive to push the Kosovo crisis towards war and eventual
occupation by NATO forces. If you go back and read accounts of Miles'
service, he was first involved with the Serbian democratic opposition
in the 1997 elections and drive to get Milosevic thrown out of power.
Miles' biography hilariously cites his speeches to opposition leaders
in which he tells the Serbs about his alleged hippie days and sit-ins
at the Pentagon in the 60s. I dunno, call me a sin-ic and all, but
somehow I have a hard time seeing Ambassador Miles beating a
tambourine and denouncing the pigs?
Despite his and America's efforts, the Serbian opposition failed to
unseat Milosevic in 1997. So American policy moved to undermine him by
backing a different opposition group - the KLA - and pushing for war
in Kosovo. The following year, in 1998, Miles took a leading role in
the Western "observer" convoys which oversaw cease-fires in Kosovo.
After the war, a BBC documentary revealed that the OSCE mission in
Kosovo was a front for the CIA to gather intelligence on the Serbs,
then prepare for and trigger the war against Serbia.
In 2000, Milosevic was thrown out of power in circumstances that look
a lot like today's in Georgia: a rigged election leading to street
protests by the U.S.-backed democratic-nationalist opposition and a
powerful youth group; their refusal to recognize the results; and a
stand-off which threatened to spill into civil war. American funding,
propaganda, and the war in Kosovo were all key to getting rid of
Milosevic, and it worked, with Richard Miles running the whole
American-engineered coup. The result was that Milosevic was thrown out
of power, a pro-U.S. government took power, aid started to flow, and
American bases in Kosovo look secure for a long time to come. Miles
wasn't there to oversee the final stage of the coup and takeover that
he spearheaded - in 2000, he moved to the ambassadorship in Bulgaria,
speeding this tiny "New Europe" nation into NATO's orbit, a move
effected, some allege, by funneling aid through friendly yet corrupt
Bulgarian politicians.
Miles was named U.S. Ambassador to Georgia in March of 2002. Roughly
ten years earlier, he had been named ambassador to Azerbaijan, the
first leg of the Caspian Sea oil pipeline, and he served there long
enough to watch approvingly as Haidar Aliyev established his decidedly
anti-democratic dynasty.
Miles was named ambassador to Georgia last year at a crucial moment.
America had just introduced its first units of Special Forces
ostensibly to train special Georgian battalions to rid the Pankisi
Gorge of supposed Al Qaeda terrorists. It caused an uproar in Russia
and was one of the key moves which drastically cooled relations
between Russia and America. The Al Qaeda rumors were generally
recognized as a bogus excuse to introduce American forces, thereby
pulling Georgia deeper into America's grip. Not that the Georgians
minded - most welcomed the arrival of the American Green Berets,
naively believing that they would protect Georgia from the Russians
and reconquer lost territory. This move backfired and the Russians now
have more control over Georgia than any time since the collapse of the
Soviet Union, but more on that later.
In his Senate confirmation hearings in Washington that year, Miles
began his statement, "President Shevardnadze will retire in 2005. As
you well know, three years is the blink of an eye in the world of
politics. A top priority of U.S. policy on Georgia during this
critical period will be to help Georgian political leaders and
Georgian society to prepare for a peaceful and democratic transition
of power in 2005."
Sounds nice on the surface, but what it means in the local context is
this: America is not only going to make sure that this "transition of
power" takes place, but how and to whom. Here's how: "As we engage
with a new generation of leaders, we will also maintain a partnership
with President Shevardnadze in his commitment to advancing democratic
and market economic reform and fighting corruption." Leaving aside the
black humor - America partnering up with Shevardnadze to fight
corruption is about as insane as Hitler partnering up with the Iron
Guard to fight anti-Semitism in the Balkans - his mission was clear:
to put into power younger, more pliant Georgian politicians.
Shevardnadze was bad for stability: he is 75 years old, grossly
unpopular, too wily to control.
And this is where the global/local connection gets confusing. 
Russia. What the hell was Russia's role in all of this? 
Any Georgian will tell you that Russia's role has been purely
destructive, an attempt to keep control. Russians will answer that the
Georgians brought it all on themselves through their hostile, often
brutal anti-Russian behavior which drove out hundreds of thousands of
ethnic Russians.
Russia was behind the carving up of Georgian territory, supporting
separatists who control Abkhazia in the northwest and and South
Ossetia in the north (which have been practically annexed by Russia)
as well as a de facto breakaway region in Adjaria, whose capital,
Batumi, is now the site of an annual August Love Parade for Russia's
rich techno youth. Russia has military bases in Georgia that it wants
to keep. In other words, Russia has been holding a gun to Georgia's
head, telling it that if it tries to leave Russia's orbit, it will do
so in rags. Georgia has defiantly resisted even to the point of
self-destruction - if you know the sense of pride and self-worth
Georgians have, you'd understand it.
Russia and Georgia have been in a kind of war of attrition for the
past decade now, with Russia intermittently applying its instruments
of torture (separatism, cutting off gas supplies, closing off markets)
and Georgia vainly trying to rapidly absorb itself into the West in
the naive belief that somehow they can escape their geographic fate.
The war of attrition's balance was seriously upset last year with the
introduction of American Green Berets. That, combined with the recent
groundbreaking on the Caspian Sea pipeline, seemed to radically shift
things in Georgia's favor.
The Russians, however, reacted quietly, brutally, and efficiently.
Last year, Putin calmed down the hysterics over the American Special
Forces in Georgia by proclaiming that it was "no big deal." The White
House and Big Oil companies must have been giving each other high
fives over that facing of Russia, right in their own back yards! But
by this summer, there was no joy in Texasville .
Russian energy monopolies Gazprom and RAO-ES managed to essentially
take over the natural gas and much of the energy grid networks in
Georgia. On July 1st of this year, Gazprom, which had just bought out
Georgia's gas pipelines, signed a secret 25-year agreement to be the
sole supplier of gas to Georgia, while at the same time, Tblisi's
energy grid was secretly sold to RAO-UES, headed by self-described
"liberal-imperialist" Anatoly Chubais.
Washington was, to say the least, not pleased. After the sale, the
White House issued a statement expressing its regret that the power
grid had been sold off by its American owners, AES. The news caused
protests in Tblisi, and the opposition parties slammed Shevardnadze.
He reacted dismissively, calling his critics "incompetent." Shortly
afterwards, he started to show his anger by attacking AES as "robbers
and cheats." This wasn't so much an attack on AES as on the American
government which backed AES's investment as part of a national
strategic interest.
In fact AES probably had no choice: massive corruption kept AES from
even hoping to turn a profit, Russian energy supplies played havoc
with its network, and finally, some old-fashioned pressure was
applied: AES's chief financial officer was found dead in his Tblisi
home.
This not only dramatically increased Russia's control over Georgia,
but it raised questions as to how Russia gained control. Who sold it
all to them? Which country owned which politician? Could it be
possible that Shevardnadze had joined with his old enemies Russia
against his closest friend, America? Why would he do it? The oldest
reasons of all: power and money. Shevardnadze, and the small clan
around him which has stolen nearly everything of worth in Georgia for
going on a decade, needs to stay in power at all costs. At some point
they must have decided that it was in their best interests to side
with the Russians.
Washington must have sensed that it was losing control over Georgia
and its leadership. In early June - about 6 weeks before Baker flew to
Tblisi to give his famous civics lesson to Shevardnadze - President
Bush sent his top energy advisor, Stephen Mann, to Tblisi to warn him
that "Georgia should do nothing that undercuts the powerful promise of
an East-West energy corridor." He added, "Support for any competing
gas export pipelines at this stage would be destructive for Shah
Deniz," a separate U.S.-backed gas pipeline that will travel from
Azerbaijan to Turkey via Georgia. In other words, the Americans were
losing Georgia, and Bush sent Mann in to warn Shevardnadze not to let
it happen. Clearly the US had word of what was going on with Gazprom
and RAO-UES. But they were unable to stop it.
Now the menacing appearance by James Baker one month later in
Shevardnadze's office, lecturing him about free and fair elections,
makes more sense. America was losing Georgia to the Russians. Goodbye
Caspian Sea oil, the world's last untapped ocean of fuel. Goodbye NATO
bases and forward momentum. Sure, Shevardnadze had done a lot for
America in the past - Baker still talks about their warm personal
friendship - but that was then and this was now. One can see the
chairman of ExxonMobil saying to Baker, like Jeff Goldblum in Deep
Cover, "I know you like Shevardnadze and so do I, but?[sharply wipes
right palm of hand over left palm]...he's gotta go." By sending Baker,
the Vladimiro Montesinos of the Bush Administration, to tell
Shevardnadze to make sure his elections were exactly the kind of
elections Baker had denied to his own countrymen, Bush was sending a
message: he had declared war on Shevardnadze.

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Il fatto che sia stato buttato fuori solo adesso
Buttato fuori?  Fino a prova contraria e' ancora l'unico e legittimo
presidente :)
-Stefano