A Tale of Two Countries (or, Where's Georgia?)

So... who can tell me where Georgia (the non-US state) is, and why it makes any difference in this Peace Corps/Moldova volunteers life?

Thanks to this helpful map (courtesy-o-Lonely Planet) we can see that my country is numbered 27, and Georgia number 16. We're just across that whole Black Sea thing.

But proximity is not my concern.

I'm really unsure as to how clear the whole situation is in South Ossetia, so I'm going to try and break things down as simply as I can.

Except I'm not going to even try to deny that this post could get extremely complicated.

It's no secret that all across the world there are pockets of populations that are separatists. They are fighting to break off piece of territory out of an already existing country, and create something new. They want autonomy.

In the United States, I feel like we are familiar with the Basque situation in Spain or the Zapatistas in Mexico.

Or, to use a very current example, Kosovo.

In February of 2008 the city of Kosovo broke away from Serbia and declared their independence. Several nations (the United States, Turkey, Albania, Austria, Germany, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Republic of China (Taiwan), Australia and others) announced recognition of Kosovo as a country, despite protests by Russia and others in the UN.

So as you can imagine, people in areas wishing to break away from their countries saw this Kosovo action as a pretty nice little precedent. If America and these other pretty important nations were willing to support this little break-away city... why not their efforts as well?



Georgia, in fact, has two break-away provinces - Abkhazia and South Ossetia.


Moldova, where I live, has... two: Transnistria and Gaugazia. The reason I hesitate to say two is because only one is broken away at this point - the Gaugazians and the Moldovan government have come to a settlement on their differences, and Gaugazia has been granted the autonomy they desired in a peaceful manner. They are still part of Moldova, and integrated (mostly) into the Moldovan society.

Transnistria is decidedly un-integrated.

What both Moldova and Georgia have in common is that the break-away provinces in their countries (Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia) are supported by Russia.

The Russians have troops in those areas to "keep the peace." They are peacekeepers, they say.


This means that there are indeed Russian tanks and troops less than two hours away from Chisinau, the Moldovan capitol. That's my current home.


The reason that Russia supports these territories is because both Georgia and Moldova have shown a disturbingly "western" trend. Indeed, President Bush told Georgians in 2005 that their country was a "beacon of liberty for the region and the world". Georgia wants to join NATO, and shows every indication of europeanizing.

Even Moldova, democratically-elected communist government country that we are, has indicated that it is headed firmly in the european direction, although the current government (up for re-election in February - watch this space!) has previously eschewed any NATO desires. But being a part of the EU? Moldova is all about it.


The break-away provinces in both countries lean decidedly eastwards.


To say that the desires of the main countries threaten the Russian sphere of influence is an understatement. And Russia makes no about wanting to maintain its spheres.


I could speak much more on this issue, and perhaps I will at a future date, but about this Georgian crisis....


Everyone I've talked to has asked me if I'm okay, and the answer is emphatically yes. People ask if this affects me, and the answer is really no.

But all the Peace Corps Volunteers in Georgia have been evacuated. They were very quickly taken out of there, which should make everyone feel good just in case something should flare up here. But the likelihood of that happening is not so high.


Because I don't think my host government is going to launch a large-scale military assault after declaring a truce with Transnistria, and while Russia is distracted by the Olympics.


The Moldovan government is not jaw-droppingly stupid.


Please don't misinterpret this as taking sides in this tragedy, but it's important for people to understand that Russia did not start this. Georgia is absolutely responsible for initiating what is going on.

The Georgian government has killed a lot of people. It initiated a large-scale bombardment on a city - that it calls it's own. That city has been flattened.

This all happened before Russia had a chance to respond. The Georgian general's were smug in the fact that they had thought to do this during the Olympics, a busy time for the Russians. They thought they could re-take the area, all quick and dirty-like.

Dirty being the operative word.

Furthermore, despite what you hear, Georgia is not a defenseless country. Indeed, it has been armed and trained by the U.S. Military.

The Georgian government was under the false impression that being loved by the West - a possible involvement in NATO, being a part of the "Coalition of the Willing", having soldiers in Iraq - meant that they could start something that they singularly could not finish.

They were absolutely wrong in thinking that anyone would come to their defense, and frankly, I think Russia took this as an opportunity to prove a point:


Don't f*ck with their interests.


And they're saying it very loudly and quite violently.


Moldova, by integrating Gaugazia through giving them a great deal of autonomy (their own prime minister (who is a member of the larger parliament), the right to have their own language (a hybrid of Turkish) the running of their own schools, etc), did exactly what Mikhail Gorbachev recommended for both Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia, unwilling to give up control of the areas, did not agree with these concepts, and now there is absolutely no way Abkhazia and South Ossetia are going to agree with them.


Actually, I don't really think the Russian government was willing to accept Gorbachev's idea either. It certainly isn't willing to accept that idea for Transnistria. Peace and resolution of the issue would mean getting rid of the need to have soldiers in the area.



Spheres of Influence and all that.



There is no good guy in what is happening right now.

But please don't go thinking that Georgia is being underhandedly invaded - that's not what happened. In fact, they can claim that the Russians are breaking their territorial integrity or sovereignty, or whatever, but it's important not to forget - they did do it first. They broke a ceasefire. By bombing the crap out of a city unprepared for it, because they were under a truce.



So everybody thinking that we need to go protect the poor little guy who is getting hit by the big bad monster should take a look at the broader picture. Or at least get a full understanding of the facts before making up their minds.



One final note of interest I think. United Nations ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad straight out asked Russia if they were attempting a "regime change" in Georgia. Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin replied: "Regime change is purely an American invention... We're all for democracy in Georgia."

Churkin did admit, however, that the President of Georgia had become "a problem" and was no longer seen as a possible working "partner" of Russia.

But here's the real kicker, in my mind: Khalilzad told reporters the telephone call between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were "disturbing," adding that the days of overthrowing European governments by force were over.


Nice. So, overthrowing nations by force in South American countries are Okay? And Africa is sanctioned? What about SE Asia? Is Australia included in that? Probably not, they're like, an honorary European country, right?