An update on Georgia

Only a few days after our arrival back in the UK the conflict in South Ossetia has escalated into a war and is making headlines. When we were in Gori (home town of Stalin in Georgia) no one could have imagined that Russia would find reason to bomb it a couple of weeks later and move in with tanks.

Here are two comments by GML International (who have a Georgian investment fund) which I found helpful:

- "We believe it is absolutely not possible that Russia is planning an extensive occupation of Georgian territory beyond South Ossetia and Abkhazia, although Russia appears to be seeking to create a demilitarised zone in Georgian territory adjacent to the borders with these two regions, in order to undermine Georgian military capabilities. We expect a cease-fire to be agreed in the next couple of days, and for Russian bombing of Georgian territory to cease, if it has not already ceased. Then the long diplomatic wrangling about the security situations in the two regions will begin. Russia hosts the Winter Olympics in Sochi on the Black Sea coast in 2014 (which is seen in Russia as at least as important for Russia's "coming out" on the world stage, as this summer's Olympics in Beijing is to China). Sochi is only 60 km from the border with Abkhazia, and Russia cannot afford to have a war going on so close to its showcase for the world."

- "The mood in Tbilisi is defiant and very patriotic. The universal feeling of Georgians with whom we have spoken is that it was necessary to bring the situations in South Ossetia and Abkhazia to a head, and to seek a resolution 'once and for all'. There is strong support for President Saakashvili among everyone we have spoken with, even among those who have been very critical of his actions in the past. The 'end game' as our Georgian clients and friends see it, is to have a United Nations or other international peacekeeping force replace Russian 'peacekeeping' troops in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, in order for residents to be able to return to their homes and live peacefully (including the approximately 300,000 eithnic Georgian refugees from these regions, who were driven from their homes in the early 1990s during extensive civil strife). The Georgian Government has been actively seeking reconciliation with both regions, offering large measures of autonomy but under the sovereign umbrella of Georgia, and the Georgian Government believes that once the situation stabilises, Abkhaz and Ossetian people will find that Georgia has more to offer than Russia. The Georgian Government's calculus has no doubt included the view that Russia cannot be too supportive of independence (from Georgia) for South Ossetia and Abkhazia, due to the separatist ambitions of various of its own regions, including Chechnya. Our own view is that the Georgian Government has significant responsibility for provoking this conflict over the last several weeks, and we are not sure that the timing of bringing the issues to the fore was optimal."