Georgia steps up North Caucasian policy

On February 25, ‘Occupation Day’, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili explained the main idea of his policy towards the North Caucasus to journalists of the ‘Caucasian One’ TV-channel that broadcasts to the European part of Russia, including the North Caucasus.

Mr Saakashvili commented on the claims of the Russian president, who suggested that Tbilisi is trying to hamper the Sochi Olympics, saying that ‘Georgia poses no physical threat to the Olympics’, probably implying that Georgia won’t encourage any extremist activities, even though it still disapproves of the decision to give Russia the right to host the games. The President stressed that, initially, Georgia was not opposed to the choice of the International Olympic Committee, but Russia has no moral right to hold the games in a city only few kilometres away from the occupied Abkhaz (i.e. Georgian) town of Gagra, where, according to Mr Saakashwili, Russians exercised ethnic cleansing by getting rid of the Georgian population and seizing their belongings. The Georgian president said that he would bring this to the attention of the international community. It is also possible that Georgian sportsmen will boycott the Olympics. Also, the Georgian president indicated that Russia doesn’t have enough resources for a new direct confrontation with Georgia.

It is interesting to note that, while listing all the points against holding the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, he failed to mention the so-called ‘Chechen question’. Meanwhile, the Georgian parliament is discussing the possibility of recognizing the events of the Caucasian Wars of the XIX century as ‘the genocide of the Cherkess people’ by Russian troops, thus rendering the region an inappropriate venue for an international sports event. Such a move might deteriorate Georgian relations with Russia, even more so as Georgian politicians are trying to make it look less like meddling in Russian internal affairs: they say that the Georgian parliament would only support the existing decisions of the Kabardino-Balkar, Adigea and Abkhaz parliaments on the matter. These Parliaments adopted bills on ‘genocide’ in the 1990s, and it is clear that in the 2000s the nature of these republics’ attitude towards the Russian federal government changed (officially, however, the resolutions were not disavowed).

Georgian parliamentarians are also reacting to recent North Caucasian developments. For example, they brought the case of Magomed Salamov’s (the leader of the Didoi people – one of multiple native ethnicities of Dagestan) mysterious death to the attention of the OSCE and the EU Council. Not long before his death, Salamov visited Georgia and asked Tbilisi officials for help in preserving his people’s cultural identity. Some media agencies interpreted this move as an offer to integrate the Didoi people, as well as the territory they inhabit, into the Georgian Republic. Georgian politicians say that they have considerable cultural and historical ties with minority peoples of Dagestan and that they are ready to help those peoples who are being repressed in the Russian Federation. Meanwhile, Dagestani officials say that Magomed Salamov suffered from a prolonged terminal illness, so there’s no need for an investigation.

Not only Russian, but also some European politicians accused Mikhail Saakashvili of an excessively active policy towards the North Caucasus. In the same interview Saakashvili answered his accusers that there are too many divided families, too many relatives on different sides of state borders. He also said that, by lifting visa regime with the North Caucasus, he only made the lives of several thousands of people better and easier and that he would only be glad if Russia takes the same step for Georgian citizens. “We are not denying the federal borders,” Saakashvili told journalists, “but we believe that they should be transparent.”

Georgy Kalatozishvili, exclusively to VK