In the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the tone of Georgian political
life changed significantly. National elections held in 1989, 1990, and
1992 reflected that change. The nature of governance in newly
independent Georgia was most influenced by the personalities of two men,
Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Eduard Shevardnadze. But democratic institutions
evolved slowly and sporadically in the first half of the 1990s.
Establishing Democratic Institutions
Prior to the 1989 elections, the Georgian Communist Party maintained
tight control over the nomination process. Even in 1989, candidates ran
unopposed in forty-three of seventy-five races, and elsewhere pairings
with opposition candidates were manipulated to guarantee results
favoring the party. In Tbilisi grassroots movements succeeded in
nominating three candidates to the Georgian Supreme Soviet in 1989. The
leaders of these movements were mostly young intellectuals who had not
been active dissidents. Many of those figures later joined to form a new
political party, Democratic Choice for Georgia, abbreviated as DASi in
Georgian. Because of expertise in local political organization, DASi
played a leading role in drafting legislation for local and national
elections between 1990 and 1992.
The death of the Tbilisi demonstrators in April 1989 led to a major
change in the Georgian political atmosphere. Radical nationalists such
as Gamsakhurdia were the primary beneficiaries of the national outrage
following the April Tragedy. In his role as opposition leader,
Gamsakhurdia formed a new political bloc in 1990, the Round Table/Free
Georgia coalition.
In 1990 Georgia was the last Soviet republic to hold elections for
the republic parliament. Protests and strikes against the election law
and the nominating process had led to a six-month postponement of the
elections until October 1990. Opposition forces feared that the
political realities favored entrenched communist party functionaries and
the enterprise and collective farm officials they had put in place.
According to reports, about one-third of the 2,300 candidates for the
Supreme Soviet (as the Georgian parliament was still designated at that
time) fell into this category.
The electoral system adopted in August 1990, which represented a
compromise between competing versions put forward by the Patiashvili
government and the opposition, created the first truly multiparty
elections in the Soviet Union. The new Georgian election law combined
district-level, single-mandate, majority elections with a proportional
party list system for the republic as a whole; a total of 250 seats
would constitute the new parliament. On one hand, the proportional
voting system required that a party gain at least 4 percent of the total
votes to achieve representation in parliament. On the other hand,
candidates with strong local support could win office even if their
national totals fell below the 4 percent threshold. When the elections
finally were held, widespread fears of violence or communist
manipulation (expressed most vocally by Gamsakhurdia) proved unfounded.
Georgia - The 1990 Election
The 1990 parliamentary election was a struggle between what remained
of the Georgian Communist Party, which still held power at that point,
and thirty-one opposition parties constituting the Georgian national
movement. The national movement was not completely represented in the
official election, however, because many opposition parties organized
separate elections to an alternative body called the Georgian National
Congress. An important factor in the results was a provision in the
election law that forbade members of the communist party to run
simultaneously on the ticket of another party. (By contrast, in this
interim period other Soviet republics allowed even proponents of radical
reform to retain their communist party memberships while representing
popular fronts and similar organizations.)
The election decisively rejected the communists and gave a resounding
popular mandate to the Round Table/Free Georgia bloc that Gamsakhurdia
headed. That coalition captured 54 percent of the proportional vote to
gain 155 seats out of the 250 up for election, while the communists
gained 64 seats and 30 percent of the proportional vote. Communist
strongholds remained in Azerbaijani and Armenian districts of southern
Georgia. No other party reached the 4 percent share necessary for
representation in the party-list system, and only a handful of
candidates from other parties won victories in the individual district
races. Boycotts prevented voting in two districts of Abkhazia and in two
districts of South Ossetia.
Gamsakhurdia raised initial hopes for compromise in his new
government by withdrawing Round Table/Free Georgia candidacies from
runoffs against the opposition Popular Front Party in twelve races. That
move ensured the election of Popular Front candidates as individuals in
those contests; otherwise, the 4 percent rule would have precluded
representation for the Popular Front.
Georgia - The Gamsakhurdia Government
Gamsakhurdia's choice to head the new government, Tengiz Sigua, was
almost universally praised. Sigua, formerly director of a metallurgy
institute, had been an adroit and evenhanded deputy chairman of the
Central Election Commission supervising the 1990 election. The
government formed by Gamsakhurdia included many officials who lacked
previous government experience. Only one full minister was retained from
the communist government, although former deputy ministers were
frequently promoted to the top post in ministries concerned with the
economy. Initially, the large number of remaining communist deputies
formed no organized opposition bloc in the parliament. In fact, the
communist party faded rapidly from the scene, and most of its property
and publishing facilities were seized. The large, modern facility
Shevardnadze had built for the party's Central Committee was taken over
by the Cabinet of Ministers. The rapid decline of the communists showed
that the major attraction of communist party membership had been the
party's position of power; once that power was lost, the number of
active communists dropped almost to zero. When the new first secretary
of the party ran against Gamsakhurdia for president in 1991, he received
less than 2 percent of the vote. After the August 1991 coup in Moscow,
Gamsakhurdia banned the communist party, and deputies elected to
parliament on the communist ticket were deprived of their seats.
Georgia - Gamsakhurdia's Ouster and Its Aftermath
A small but vocal parliamentary opposition to Gamsakhurdia began to
coalesce after August 1991, particularly after government forces
reportedly fired on demonstrators in September. At this time, several of
Gamsakhurdia's top supporters in the Round Table/Free Georgia bloc
joined forces with the opposition. However, the opposition was unable to
convince Gamsakhurdia to call new elections in late 1991. The majority
of deputies, most of whom owed their presence in parliament to
Gamsakhurdia, supported him to the end. Indeed, a significant number of
deputies followed Gamsakhurdia into exile in Chechnya, where they
continued to issue resolutions and decrees condemning the "illegal
putsch."
In the aftermath of Gamsakhurdia's ouster in January 1992, parliament
ceased to function and an interim Political Consultative Council was
formed. It was to consist of about forty members, to include ten
political parties, a select group of intellectuals, and several
opposition members of parliament. This council was intended to serve as
a substitute parliament, although it only had the right to make
recommendations. Legislative functions were granted to a new and larger
body, the State Council, created in early March 1992. By May 1992, the
State Council had sixty-eight members, including representatives of more
than thirty political parties and twenty social movements that had
opposed Gamsakhurdia. Efforts were also made to bring in representatives
of Georgia's ethnic minorities, although no Abkhazian or Ossetian
representatives participated in the new council.
Almost immediately after Gamsakhurdia's ouster, Sigua resumed his
position as prime minister and created a working group to draft a new
election law that would legitimize the next elected government.
Immediately after the overthrow of Gamsakhurdia, the new government
feared that Gamsakhurdia retained enough support in Georgia to regain
power in the next election. As a result, in March the State Council
adopted an electoral system, the single transferable vote, which would
virtually guarantee representation by small parties and make it
difficult for a party list headed by one prominent figure to translate a
majority of popular votes into parliamentary control.
Georgia - New Parties and Shevardnadze's Return
After a series of last-minute changes, the electoral system for
October 1992 was a compromise combination of single-member districts and
proportional voting by party lists. To give regional parties a chance to
gain representation, separate party lists were submitted for each of ten
historical regions of Georgia. In a change from the 1990 system, no
minimum percentage was set for a party to achieve representation in
parliament if the party did sufficiently well regionally to seat
candidates. Forty-seven parties and four coalitions registered to
participate in the 1992 election. For the first time, the Central
Election Commission accepted the registration of every party that
submitted an application.
The largest of the electoral alliances, and one of the most
controversial, was the Peace Bloc (Mshvidoba). This broad coalition of
seven parties ranged from the heavily ex-communist Democratic Union to
the Union for the Revival of Ajaria, a party of the conservative Ajarian
political elite. Ultimately, the strong programmatic differences among
the seven parties would render the Peace Bloc ineffective as a
parliamentary faction. The Democratic Union filled as much as 70 percent
of the places given the coalition on the party lists. In the 1992
election, the Peace Bloc draw a plurality of votes, thus earning the
coalition twenty-nine seats in parliament.
The second most important coalition, the October 11 Bloc, included
moderate reform leaders of four parties. Members typically had academic
backgrounds with few or no communist connections, and the median age of
bloc leaders was about fifteen years less than that of the Democratic
Union leadership. The October 11 Bloc won eighteen seats, the second
largest number in the 1992 election.
A third coalition, the Unity Bloc (Ertoba), lost two of its four
member parties before the election. Many of the leaders of the
Liberal-Democratic National Party, one of the two remaining constituent
parties of the Unity Bloc, were, like the leaders of the Democratic
Union, former communist officials who continued to hold influential
posts in the Georgian government and mass media. Both the Peace Bloc and
the Unity Bloc put prominent cultural figures at the top of their
electoral lists to gain attention.
Shevardnadze's actions were crucial in building the foundation for
the 1992 election. From the time of his return to Georgia, Shevardnadze
enjoyed unparalleled respect and recognition. Because of his unique
position, the State Council acted to separate Shevardnadze from party
politics by creating a potentially powerful new elected post, chairman
of parliament, which would also be contested in the October elections.
Because no other candidate emerged, Shevardnadze was convinced to forego
partisan politics and grasp this opportunity for national leadership.
The elections took place as scheduled in October 1992 in most regions
of the country. International monitors from ten nations reported that,
with minor exceptions, the balloting was free and fair. Predictably,
Gamsakhurdia declared the results rigged and invalid. Interethnic
tensions and Gamsakhurdia's activity forced postponement of elections in
nine of the eighty-four administrative districts, located in Abkhazia,
South Ossetia, and western Georgia. Voters in those areas were
encouraged to travel to adjoining districts, however, to vote in all but
the regional races. Together, the nonvoting districts represented 9.1
percent of the registered voters in Georgia. In no voting district did
less than 60 percent of eligible voters participate.
An important factor in the high voter turnout was the special ballot
for Shevardnadze as chairman of the new parliament; a large number of
voters cast ballots only for Shevardnadze and submitted blank or
otherwise invalid ballots for the other races. Shevardnadze received an
overwhelming endorsement, winning approximately 96 percent of the vote.
In all, fifty-one of the ninety-two members of the previous State
Council were elected to the new parliament. The four sitting members of
the State Council Presidium (Shevardnadze, Ioseliani, Sigua, and
Kitovani) also were reelected.
Georgia - Formation of the Shevardnadze Government
The government team selected by Shevardnadze, called the Cabinet of
Ministers, was quickly approved by parliament in November 1992. Sigua
returned as prime minister. Four deputy prime ministers were chosen in
November 1992, including Tengiz Kitovani, former head of the National
Guard and minister of defense in the new cabinet. In December 1992, the
Presidium of the Cabinet of Ministers was created. This body included
the prime minister and his deputy prime ministers as well as the
minister of agriculture, the minister of finance, the minister of state
property management, the minister of economics, and the minister of
foreign affairs.
In December 1992, the Georgian government included eighteen
ministries, four state committees, and fifteen departments, which
together employed more than 7,600 officials. Many appointees to top
government posts, including several ministers, had held positions in the
apparatus of the Georgian Communist Party. Although Shevardnadze's early
appointments favored his contemporaries and former associates, by late
1993 about half of the top state administrative apparatus were
academics. Less than 10 percent were former communists, about 75 percent
were under age forty, and more than half came from opposition parties.
In September 1993, the cabinet included the following ministries:
agriculture and the food industry; communications; culture; defense;
economic reform; education; environment; finance; foreign affairs;
health; industry; internal affairs; justice; labor and social security;
state property management; and trade and supply. Each of the five deputy
prime ministers supervised a group of ministries.
In practice, the Cabinet of Ministers was a major obstacle to reform
in 1993. Pro-reform ministers were isolated by the domination of former
communists in the Presidium, which stood between Shevardnadze and the
administrative machinery of the ministries. In 1993 Shevardnadze himself
was reluctant to push hard for the rapid reforms advocated by
progressives in parliament. The cabinet was superficially restructured
in August 1993, but reformers clamored for a smaller cabinet under
direct control of the head of state.
Georgia - Parliament
In 1993 some twenty-six parties and eleven factions held seats in the
new parliament, which continued to be called the Supreme Soviet. The
legislative branch's basic powers were outlined in the Law on State
Power, an interim law rescinding the strict limits placed on legislative
activity by Gamsakhurdia's 1991 constitution. Thus in 1993 the
parliament had the power to elect and dismiss the head of state by a
two-thirds vote; to nullify laws passed by local or national bodies if
they conflicted with national law; to decide questions of war and peace;
to reject any candidate for national office proposed by the head of
state; and, upon demand of one-fifth of the deputies, to declare a vote
of no confidence in the sitting cabinet.
Activity within the legislative body was prescribed by the Temporary
Regulation of the Georgian Parliament. The parliament as a whole elected
all administrative officials, including a speaker and two deputy
speakers. Seventeen specialized commissions examined all bills in their
respective fields. The speaker had little power over commission chairs
or over deputies in general, and parliament suffered from an inefficient
structure, insufficient staff, and poor communications. The two days per
week allotted for legislative debate often did not allow full
consideration of bills.
The major parliamentary reform factions--the Democrats, the Greens,
the Liberals, the National Democrats, and the Republicans--were not able
to maintain a coalition to promote reform legislation. Of that group,
the National Democrats showed the most internal discipline. Shevardnadze
received support from a large group of deputies from single-member
districts, aligned with Liberals and Democrats. His radical opposition,
a combination of several very small parties, was weakened by disunity,
but it frequently was able to obstruct debate. The often disorderly
parliamentary debates reduced support among the Georgian public, to whom
sessions were widely televised.
In November 1993, Shevardnadze was able to merge three small parties
with a breakaway faction of the Republicans to form a new party, the
Union of Citizens of Georgia, of which he became chairman. This was a
new step for the head of state, who previously had refrained from
political identification and had relied on coalitions to support his
policies. At the same time, Shevardnadze also sought to include the
entire loose parliamentary coalition that had recently supported him, in
a concerted effort to normalize government after the Abkhazian crisis
abated.
Georgia - The Chief Executive
The 1992 Law on State Power gave Shevardnadze power beyond the
executive functions of presidential office. As chairman of parliament,
he had the right to call routine or extraordinary parliamentary
sessions, preside over parliamentary deliberations, and propose
constitutional changes and legislation. As head of state, Shevardnadze
nominated the prime minister, the cabinet, the chairman of the
Information and Intelligence Service, and the president of the National
Bank of Georgia (although the parliament had the right of approval of
these officials).
Without parliamentary approval, the head of government appointed all
senior military leaders and provincial officials such as prefects and
mayors. Additional power came from his control of the entire system of
state administration, and he could form his own administrative
apparatus, which had the potential to act as a shadow government beyond
the control of any other branch. Key agencies chaired by Shevardnadze in
1993 were the Council for National Security and Defense, the Emergency
Economic Council, and the Scientific and Technical Commission, which
advised on military and industrial questions.
In response to calls by the opposition for his resignation during the
Abkhazian crisis of mid-1993, Shevardnadze requested and received from
parliament emergency powers to appoint all ministers except the prime
minister and to issue decrees on economic policy without legislative
approval. When the Sigua government resigned in August, parliament
quickly approved Shevardnadze's nomination of industrialist Otar
Patsatsia as prime minister. Although Shevardnadze argued that greater
central power was necessary to curb turmoil, his critics saw him setting
a precedent for future dictatorship and human rights abuses.
Georgia - The Judicial System
When Georgia was part of the Soviet Union, the Supreme Court of
Georgia was subordinate to the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union, and
the rule of law in Georgia, still based largely on the Soviet
constitution, included the same limitations on personal rights.
Beginning in 1990, the court system of Georgia began a major transition
toward establishment of an independent judiciary that would replace the
powerless rubber-stamp courts of the Soviet period. The first steps,
taken in late 1990, were to forbid Supreme Court judges from holding
communist party membership and to remove Supreme Court activities from
the supervision of the party. After the overthrow of Gamsakhurdia, the
pre-Soviet constitution of 1921 was restored, providing the legal basis
for separation of powers and an independent court. Substantial
opposition to actual independence was centered in the Cabinet of
Ministers, however, some of whose members would lose de facto judicial
power.
The Supreme Court
In 1993 the Supreme Court had thirty-nine members, of whom nine
worked on civil cases and thirty on criminal cases. All judges had been
elected for ten-year terms in 1990 and 1991. Shevardnadze made no effort
to replace judges elected under Gamsakhurdia, although they had been
seated under a different constitutional system. The Supreme Court's
functions include interpreting laws, trying cases of serious criminal
acts and appeals of regional court decisions, and supervising
application of the law by other government agencies.
The Procurator General
The postcommunist judicial system has continued the multiple role of
the procurator general's office as an agency of investigation, a
constitutional court supervising the application of the law, and the
institution behind prosecution of crimes in court. In 1993 the
procurator general's office retained a semimilitary structure and total
authority over the investigation of court cases; judges had no power to
reject evidence gained improperly. Advocates of democratization
identified abolition of the office of procurator general as essential,
with separation of the responsibilities of the procurator general and
the courts as a first step.
Prospects for Reform
All parties in Georgia agreed that judicial reform depended on
passage of a new constitution delineating the separation of powers. If
such a constitution prescribed a strong executive system, the head of
government would appoint Supreme Court judges; if a parliamentary system
were called for, parliament would make the court appointments. In early
1994, however, the constitution was the subject of prolonged political
wrangling that showed no sign of abating. At that point, experts found a
second fundamental obstacle to judicial reform in a national psychology
that had no experience with democratic institutions and felt most secure
with a unitary, identifiable government power. Reform was also required
in the training of lawyers and judges, who under the old system entered
the profession through the sponsorship of political figures rather than
on their own merit.
Regional Courts
Until the Gamsakhurdia period, regional courts were elected by
regional party soviets; since 1990 regional courts have been appointed
by regional officials. After the beginning of ethnic struggles in South
Ossetia and Abkhazia, regional military courts also were established.
The head of state appoints military judges, and the Supreme Court
reviews military court decisions. The Tbilisi City Court has separate
jurisdiction in supervising the observance of laws in the capital city.
Georgia - The Constitution
Under Gamsakhurdia Georgia had continued to function under the
Soviet-era constitution of 1978, which was based on the 1977
constitution of the Soviet Union. The first postcommunist parliament
amended that document extensively. In February 1992, the Georgian
National Congress (the alternate parliament elected in 1990) formally
designated the Georgian constitution of February 21, 1921, as the
effective constitution of Georgia. That declaration received legitimacy
from the signatures of Jaba Ioseliani and Tengiz Kitovani, at that time
two of the three members of the governing Military Council.
In February 1993, Shevardnadze called for extensive revisions of the
1921 constitution. Characterizing large sections of that document as
wholly unacceptable, Shevardnadze proposed forming a constitutional
commission to draft a new version by December 1993. According to
Shevardnadze's timetable, the draft would be refined by parliament in
the spring of 1994 and then submitted for approval by popular referendum
in the fall of 1994.
Georgia - Human Rights
Human rights protection and media freedom have been hindered in
postcommunist Georgia by the national government's assumption of central
executive power to deal with states of political and military emergency
and by the existence of semi-independent military forces. In 1993 the
expression of opposition views in the independent media was interrupted
by official and unofficial actions against newspapers and broadcasters,
despite a stated policy that expression of antigovernment views would be
tolerated if not accompanied by violent acts.
Both sides of the Abkhazian conflict claimed widespread interference
with civilian human rights by their opponents. Among the charges were
abuse of military prisoners, the taking of civilian hostages, and the
shelling and blockading of civilian areas. In 1993 the Shevardnadze
government began addressing claims of human rights abuses by its
military forces and police, particularly against Gamsakhurdia partisans
and the Abkhazian population. In January the Parliamentary Commission on
Human Rights and Ethnic Minority Affairs formed the Council of Ethnic
Minorities, which met with representatives of the Meskhetian Turk exile
population to resolve the grievances of that group. At the same time,
the Interethnic Congress of the People of Georgia was formed to improve
ethnic Georgians' appreciation of minority rights.
Despite the government's efforts, the Abkhazian conflict continued
the tension between necessary wartime controls and the need to protect
human rights. In June 1993, the international human rights group
Helsinki Watch cited Georgia for political persecution, media
obstruction, and military abuses of civilian rights, and in October the
United States listed human rights progress as a prerequisite for
continued economic aid.
Georgia - The Media
The 1992 Law on the Press nominally reversed the rigorous state
censorship of the Soviet and Gamsakhurdia periods and guaranteed freedom
of speech. In 1993 Georgian law contained no prohibition of public
criticism of the head of state, and Shevardnadze was subjected to
accusations and comments from every direction. Three television channels
are in operation; one, Ibervision, is run independently. Numerous
independent newspapers are published; Sakartvelos Respublika
(The Georgian Republic) presents the official government view in the
daily press.
Despite some liberalization, in 1994 national security remained a
rationale for media restriction. During the crisis of September 1993,
two pro-Gamsakhurdia newspapers were closed and the office of an
independent weekly were attacked by gunmen. The Free Media Association,
an organization including eight independent newspapers, blamed a
progovernment party for the attack. After his controversial decision in
October to join the CIS, Shevardnadze threatened to close hostile
newspapers, and no television channel discussed the widespread
disagreement with the head of state's CIS initiative.
Georgia - Foreign Relations
Soviet policy effectively cut traditional commercial and diplomatic
links to Turkey, which became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization ( NATO) in 1952, and to Iran, a United States ally until
the late 1970s. Instead, virtually all transportation and commercial
links were directed to Russia and the other Soviet republics. The same
redirection occurred with diplomatic ties, which the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of the Soviet Union controlled. Shevardnadze's presence as
Soviet foreign minister from 1985 to 1990 provided little direct benefit
to Georgia aside from the large number of highranking guests who visited
the republic in that period. That group included Britain's Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher and United States Secretary of State George
Shultz.
Under Gamsakhurdia Georgia's efforts to break out of the diplomatic
isolation of the Soviet period were stymied by the reluctance of the
outside world to recognize breakaway republics while the Soviet Union
still existed. Romania, which granted recognition in August 1991, was
one of the few countries to do so during the Gamsakhurdia period.
Several Georgian delegations came to the United States in 1991 in an
effort to establish diplomatic ties, but Washington largely ignored
those efforts. Given stable internal conditions, the dissolution of the
Soviet Union in late 1991 would have released Georgia from its
isolation, but by that time the revolt against Gamsakhurdia was in full
force. After the violent overthrow of Gamsakhurdia, other governments
were reluctant to recognize the legitimacy of his successors. This
situation changed in March 1992, when the internationally prominent
Shevardnadze returned to Georgia and became chairman of the State
Council.
In 1992 and 1993, United States aid to Georgia totaled US$224
million, most of it humanitarian, placing Georgia second in per capita
United States aid among the former Soviet republics. In September 1993,
Shevardnadze appealed directly to the United States Congress for
additional aid. At that time, President William J. Clinton officially
backed Shevardnadze's efforts to maintain the territorial integrity of
Georgia. Reports of human rights offenses against opposition figures,
however, brought United States warnings late in 1993 that continued
support depended on the Georgian government's observance of
international human rights principles.
Georgia - The Foreign Policy Establishment
Shevardnadze's diplomatic contacts and personal relationships with
many of the world's leaders ended Georgia's international isolation in
1992. In March Germany became the first Western country to post an
ambassador to Georgia; Shevardnadze's close relations with German
foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher were a key factor in that
decision. Recognition by the United States came in April 1992, and a
United States embassy was opened in June 1992. Georgia became the 179th
member of the United Nations in July 1992; it was the last of the former
Soviet republics to be admitted. By December 1992, six countries had
diplomatic missions in Tbilisi: China, Germany, Israel, Russia, Turkey,
and the United States. Seventeen other countries began conducting
diplomatic affairs with Georgia through their ambassadors to Russia or
Ukraine. In August 1993, the United States granted Georgia
most-favored-nation status, and the European Community offered technical
economic assistance.
Unlike some former Soviet republics such as Armenia, Lithuania, and
Ukraine, Georgia lacked a large number of emigrants in the West who
could establish links to the outside world once internal conditions made
such connections possible. Small groups of Georgian exiles lived in
Paris and other European capitals, but they were mostly descended from
members of the Social Democratic government that had been forced into
exile with the incorporation of Georgia into the Soviet empire in 1921.
The only large group of emigrants that maintained contact with
Georgia were Georgian Jews who had taken advantage of the Soviet Union's
expansion of Jewish emigration rights in the 1970s and 1980s. Because
Jews had lived in Georgia for many centuries and because Georgia had no
history of anti-Semitism, many Georgian Jews continued to feel an
attachment to Georgia and its culture, language, and people. Largely as
a result of these ties, relations between Georgia and Israel flourished
on many levels.
Georgia - Relations with Neighboring Countries
Of particular importance to Georgia's postcommunist foreign policy
and national security was the improvement of relations with neighbors on
all sides: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, and Turkey. This goal was
complicated by a number of ethnic and political issues as well as by
historical differences.
Armenia and Azerbaijan
Among former Soviet republics, the neighboring Transcaucasian nations
of Armenia and Azerbaijan have special significance for Georgia. Despite
Georgia's obvious cultural and religious affinities with Armenia,
relations between Georgia and Muslim Azerbaijan generally have been
closer than those with Christian Armenia. Economic and political factors
have contributed to this situation. First, Georgian fuel needs make good
relations with Azerbaijan vital to the health of the Georgian economy.
Second, Georgians have sympathized with Azerbaijan's position in the
conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the ethnic Armenian enclave
of Nagorno-Karabakh because of similarities to Georgia's internal
problems with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Both countries cite the
principle of "inviolability of state borders" in defending
national interests against claims by ethnic minorities.
In December 1990, Georgia under Gamsakhurdia signed a cooperation
agreement with Azerbaijan affecting the economic, scientific, technical,
and cultural spheres. In February 1993, Georgia under Shevardnadze
concluded a far-reaching treaty of friendship, cooperation, and mutual
relations with Azerbaijan, including a mutual security arrangement and
assurances that Georgia would not reexport Azerbaijani oil or natural
gas to Armenia. In 1993 Azerbaijan exerted some pressure on Georgia to
join the blockade of Armenia and to curb incursions by Armenians from
Georgian territory into Azerbaijan. The issue of discrimination against
the Azerbaijani minority in Georgia, a serious matter during
Gamsakhurdia's tenure, was partially resolved under Shevardnadze.
In the early 1990s, Armenia maintained fundamentally good relations
with Georgia. The main incentive for this policy was the fact that
Azerbaijan's blockade of Armenian transport routes and pipelines meant
that routes through Georgia were Armenia's only direct connection with
the outside world. Other considerations in the Armenian view were the
need to protect the Armenians in Georgia and the need to stem the
overflow of violence from Georgian territory. The official ties that
Georgia forged with Azerbaijan between 1991 and 1993 strained relations
with Armenia, which was in a state of virtual war with Azerbaijan for
much of that period. Nevertheless, Gamsakhurdia signed a treaty with
Armenia on principles of cooperation in July 1991, and Shevardnadze
signed a friendship treaty with Armenia in May 1993. With the aim of
restoring mutually beneficial economic relations in the Caucasus,
Shevardnadze also attempted (without success) to mediate the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in early 1993.
Georgia - Russia
Of all countries, Georgia's relations with Russia were both the most
important and the most ambivalent. Russia (and previously the Soviet
Union) was deeply involved at many levels in the conflicts in South
Ossetia and Abkhazia, and in 1993 Ajarian leaders also declared Russia
the protector of their national interests. Thus Russia seemingly holds
the key to a resolution of those conflicts in a way that would avoid the
fragmentation of Georgia. Trade ties with Russia, disrupted by
Gamsakhurdia's struggle with Gorbachev and by ethnic conflicts on
Georgia's borders with Russia, also are critical to reviving the
Georgian economy.
Russia finally recognized Georgia's independence in mid-1992 and
appointed an ambassador in October. In 1993 Russia's official position
was that a stable, independent Georgia was necessary for security along
Russia's southern border. The conditions behind that position were
Russia's need for access to the Black Sea, which was endangered by shaky
relations with Ukraine, the need for a buffer between Russia and Islamic
extremist movements Russia feared in Turkey and Iran, the need to
protect the 370,000 ethnic Russians in Georgia, and the refugee influx
and violence in the Russian Caucasus caused by turmoil across the
mountains in Georgia. Although Shevardnadze was officially well
regarded, Russian nationalists, many of them in the Russian army, wished
to depose him as punishment for his initial refusal to bring Georgia
into the CIS and for his role as the Soviet foreign minister who
"lost" the former Soviet republics in 1991.
In pursuing its official goals, Russia offered mediation of Georgia's
conflicts with the Abkhazian, Ajarian, and Ossetian minorities,
encouraging Georgia to increase the autonomy of those groups for the
sake of national stability. At the same time, Russian military policy
makers openly declared Georgia's strategic importance to Russian
national security. Such statements raised suspicions that, as in 1801
and 1921, Russia would take advantage of Georgia's weakened position and
sweep the little republic back into the empire.
Despite the misgivings of his fellow Georgians, in 1993 Shevardnadze
pursued talks toward a comprehensive bilateral Georgian-Russian treaty
of friendship. Discussions were interrupted by surges of fighting in
Abkhazia, however, and relations were cooled by Shevardnadze's claim
that Russia was aiding the secessionist campaign that had begun in
August.
In September 1993, the fall of Sukhumi to Abkhazian forces signaled
the crumbling of the Georgian army, and the return of Gamsakhurdia
threatened to split Georgia into several parts. Shevardnadze,
recognizing the necessity of outside military help to maintain his
government, agreed to join the CIS on terms dictated by Russia in return
for protection of government supply lines by Russian troops. Meanwhile,
despite denials by the Yeltsin government, an unknown number of Russians
still gave "unofficial" military advice and mat�riel to the
Abkhazian forces, which experts believed would not have posed a major
threat to Tbilisi without such assistance. Shevardnadze defended CIS
membership at home as an absolute necessity for Georgia's survival as
well as a stimulant to increased trade with Russia.
Georgia - Turkey
