Thorns in the 'roses'
Washington and the coup in former Soviet Georgia
By Leslie Feinberg
Has Washington just installed its first
hand-picked president through a coup in one of the former
Soviet Republics in Central Asia?
Based on results from a Jan. 4 election in Georgia, Mikhail
Saakashvili successfully deposed the formerly-U.S.-backed party
of Eduard Shevardnadze. Shevard nadze had been re-elected in
November. But he was quickly forced to resign after the
opposition, led by Saakashvili, organized large demonstrations
charging ballot fraud.
Imperialist media reports characterized the coup as a "rose
revolution," a spon taneous revolution from below, symbolized
by the red roses that opposition figure Saakashvili handed out
to followers. But Shevardnadze and Russian Foreign Minister
Igor Ivanov accused Washington of orchestrating the coup.
Ivanov said in an interview with Kom somolskaya Pravda
newspaper: "There are enough facts proving that what happened
in those days wasn't spontaneous, it didn't arise suddenly. Of
course there were preparations and the U.S. ambassador was
involved, as Shevard nadze himself admitted." (The Independent,
Jan. 2)
Shevardnadze reminded the media that Richard Miles, the U.S.
ambassador to Georgia, had also been posted in Yugo slavia
before the U.S.-engineered overthrow of President Slobodan
Milosevic.
Shevardnadze, a faithful U.S. ally, appeared stunned by
Washington's betrayal. "I was one of the staunchest supporters
of the U.S. policy," he moaned. "When they needed help on Iraq,
I gave it. I don't have an explanation to what has happened
here." (The Hindu, Dec. 31)
With strong backing from Washington, Saakashvili was elected
president on Jan. 4. He is described as the closest U.S. ally
of any national leader in the former Soviet republics outside
the Baltic states. He graduated from Columbia University Law
School and briefly worked for a Manhattan law firm.
Platinum piece of real estate
Central Asia and the Caucasus are the gateways to the vast
oil and gas reserves in the Caspian Basin. The value of these,
the world's biggest untapped oil and gas reserves, is estimated
at up to $4 trillion on the capitalist world market. But the
fossil fuels are landlocked.
Washington's war against the impoverished nation of
Afghanistan--a corridor through which first energy cartels
Enron and later Unocal planned to pipe Caspian Basin
reserves--resulted in the U.S. appointing a president and an
ambassador for Afghanistan who had both worked as Unocal
consultants.
By the time the smoke from the merciless aerial bombing had
cleared, under the cover of the "war on terror," the Pentagon
had quietly established military bases in the former Soviet
republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
And through an infusion of money and political manipulation,
Washington and Wall Street have created client governments in
the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan, Kazakstan and
Georgia.
The BP cartel--a consortium of petroleum giants in which
U.S. monopolies own a huge share--is well underway in
constructing a more than 1,000-mile pipe line, known as the
BTC, to carry oil from the vast reserves in Azerbaijan to the
Turkish port of Ceyhan. Tens of billions of dollars have
already been sunk into the project as capital investment.
That oil pipeline will snake right through Georgia.
In 1991, Georgia broke with the Soviet Union, declaring
itself independent. Georgia is strategically situated--bordered
by Turkey to the south, Russia to the north and adjacent to
Chechnya.
Soon after Georgia declared independence, it became
territorially splintered after two of the richest regions broke
away in secessionist movements: Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Immediately after Shev ard nadze was removed, Bush immediately
declared his support for Georgia's "territorial integrity."
Although Russia is still Georgia's biggest trading partner,
the U.S. has pumped some $2.3 billion in official aid into
Georgia in the decade since the defeat of the USSR.
The Pentagon officially sent military advisors there two
years ago after Shevardnadze cut a deal in May 2002 with the
U.S. that allowed Special Forces to train some 1,500-2,000
Georgian soldiers in a $64-million program.
Washington's shift in loyalties towards Shevardnadze's
opponent, former Justice Minister Mikhail Saakashvili, was no
secret. According to the Dec. 15 Daily Star, "Several analysts
seized on U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's quote that 'an
unstable Georgia automatically results in an unstable
Caucasus,' to conclude that, faced with supporting an ally who
was deeply unpopular with his people, the U.S. ditched him to
ensure stability."
Two weeks after Shevardnadze was forced to resign, U.S.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Georgia and
Azerbaijan on Dec. 5 for meetings to discuss long-term access
there for Pentagon forces. The U.S. secretary of defense
"demanded Russia withdraw its troops from Ajaria and the other
secessionist areas, and suggested the United States might be
ready to send its own troops to the Caucasus. The next day,
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell denounced 'breakaway
elements seeking to weaken Geo rgia's territorial integrity.'"
(AFP, Dec. 7)
The moment Shevardnadze stepped down, acting president Nino
Burjanadze didn't waste a second: One of her first calls was
reportedly to bigwigs from BP--the oil cartel building the
pipeline.
"Between calls from U.S. Secretary Colin Powell and others
on her first day, Burjanadze met with Ed Johnson, BP's Georgia
manager, to assure him Georgia's revolution wouldn't affect the
project." (Calgary Herald, Jan. 3)
And immediately after Shevardnadze was forced out of office,
Saakashvili publicly announced his support for the pipe line.
And he is also continuing to push, as did his predecessors, for
Georgia to join NATO.
Instant coup--just add oil
Georgia is the first of the former Soviet Republics where
the U.S. has been able to outright install a hand-picked leader
through a coup. But Washington hopes this is just the
beginning.
The Hindu newspaper in India did an extensive exposé
of this effort on Dec. 31.
"According to the former head of Russia's Federal Security
Service, Nikolai Kovalyov, Georgia's young opposition leaders,
including Mr. Saakashvili, had been trained in U.S.-funded
camps in Serbia along with representatives from Ukraine,
Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan and a few other former Soviet
republics. They studied the Yugoslav experience of removing the
president, Slobodan Milosevic, with the help of massive public
protests organized by Serbia's student movement Otpor."
The counter-revolutionary student organization
Otpor--Resist--used a leftist-sounding name and clenched-fist
symbol. The Washington Post reported on Dec. 11, 2000, that
Otpor was trained in tactics by State Department
operatives.
"We are working with civil movements in several countries,
and I don't want to name them. But Georgia is the first success
story," Otpor's leader, Slobodan Djinovic, told the BBC.
But is the prospect for a stable pipeline just a
pipedream?
From bread basket to bread lines
Georgia, a nation of 5.5 million about the size of West
Virginia, is today the poorest of the three countries that the
pipeline will pass through.
What was once an oppressed nation under the rule of czarist
Russia became the bread basket of the Soviet Union after the
Russian Revolution, enjoying one of the highest standards of
living of the former Soviet republics. Its vineyards were
famous for the wines they produced. Tourism flourished on its
Black Sea beaches.
But 13 years after the USSR was overturned, the economy of
Georgia has plummeted further than any other of the former
Soviet republics. Industries collapsed. The country is mired in
joblessness and acute poverty. The budget cupboard is bare and
the economy is saddled with $1.8 billion in foreign debt. (AFP,
Dec. 29)
Pensions are as low as $7 a month. Lack of government
services has left many without heat or electricity this winter.
(Guardian Unlimited, Jan. 2)
The "rose movement" was not the popular revolution it was
touted to be, but billing it as such helped raise expectations
among the impoverished of Georgia.
Worker Dato Bashidze said of Saakash vili's electoral
victory, "He'll have a little time. That's why we elected him,
to get to work on our demands." (New York Times, Jan. 5)
However, workers who collectively recall the rights of labor
during decades in the socialist federation didn't even wait for
the Jan. 4 election.
On Dec. 15, about 200 workers laying pipe for the BTC in
Georgia went on strike for the third time in a week. The
workers, employed by a subcontractor near the city of
Rustavi--18 miles southeast of the capital--demanded back
wages.
"We are not getting our salaries on time," said David, a
striking worker and a resident of Rustavi. "There are problems
with the contracts--they offer us to work for a few days,
theoretically as a trial period and then dismiss us without
pay." (AFP, Dec. 16)
One day earlier, some 500 workers demonstrated in the
Gardabani region, 36 miles east of the capital.
Two days earlier, workers protested in Tsalka, about 20
miles southwest of Tbilisi. "The [striking] workers at Tsalka
were mainly women who cook for the workers," a Petrofac
official who requested anonymity told AFP. In order to press
their demand that salaries be paid--and fast--"They practically
held our representatives hostage for three hours."
On a plateau in the Georgian uplands, farmers are unhappy
with the pipeline construction because, they explain, it blocks
access to their fields, the excavators create choking dust and
they have not been given enough compensation for their lost
land.
The Jan. 5 New York Times explained, "They had hoped that
with up to a million barrels of oil a day flowing beneath their
feet all their problems would somehow be solved: they would get
gas and electricity for the first time in years, their potholed
road would be fixed and people would have work."
As an opposition leader, Saakashvili had run on a demagogic
platform, decrying corruption. He assailed the health care
system in Georgia as "one of the most barbaric in the
world."
However, now he's stressing, "We cannot restore the old
social-welfare system" of the Soviet era. (AP, Jan. 6)
His prescription is to develop the capitalist economy. But
that's what led to widespread poverty and the rising tide of
anger in the first place.
Reprinted from the Jan. 22, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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