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SOUTH OSSETIA’S CLONED SEPARATISM
OLEG FESENKO, VITALY KULIK,
Research Center for Civil Society Problems, Kyiv
Recently there have been some developments in the settlement of the South Ossetian conflict (South Ossetia is Georgia’s secessionist region).
For example, early in May the Tbilisi officials voiced that “it is necessary to carry on the political dialogue with the authorities of the Tskhinvali region”. But Mikheil Saakashvili’s government decided to negotiate with the “alternative President” of South Ossetia Dmitry Sanakoev, who is close to the Georgian government, and not with President of the unrecognized republic South Ossetia Eduard Kokoity (whose administration controls about 80% of South Ossetia’s area). It follows that South Ossetia has two governments and two presidents. Tbilisi does not want to deal with Kokoity and is ready to speak with Sanakoev.
On November 12, 2006 the South Ossetian authorities held the presidential election which Eduard Kokoity, de facto South Ossetia’s President, won. Eduard Kokoity was inaugurated as President in Tskhinvali on November 25. Simultaneously with the November 12 election, the “alternative election” organized by the non-governmental organization “Association of the National Salvation of South Ossetia” took place in opposition to Kokoity. Dmitry Sanakoev was elected as “alternative President” of South Ossetia. He was inaugurated as President in the village of Kurta on December 1, 2006.
On December 7, 2006, “alternative President” of South Ossetia Dmitry Sanakoev formed the government. Djemal Karkusov was appointed “alternative Minister of the Interior”, Maya Chigoeva-Tsaboshvili – Minister of Foreign Affairs, Avtandil Goguidze – Finance Minister, Teymuraz Djerapov – Minister of Economy, Tamaz Maisuradze – Minister of Railway Construction and Transport, Konstantin Kevlishvili – Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Vladimir Sanakoev – Minister of Information, Science and New Technologies.
The Georgian authorities do not recognize the results of the November 12 elections, but say that the alternative election indicates that many South Ossetians come out against Eduard Kokoity’s regime.
It is interesting that Dmitry Sanakoev was Prime Minister of South Ossetia, a man of former President Ludvig Chibirov and was supported by the Kremlin in his opposition to the current leader of South Ossetia Eduard Kokoity. Later on, Dmitry Sanakoev differed from the President of South Ossetia in political beliefs and became the head of the civil society group “The People of South Ossetia for Peace”.
However, in spite of all the efforts made by the “alternative government” of South Ossetia, it fails to control the entire South Ossetia. Dmitry Sanakoev is recognized as President nowhere except his native village of Kurta.
Now the Georgian authorities have launched initiatives on legitimatizing their South Ossetian proponents.
In March 2007 the village of Kurta hosted the “historic meeting” between Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Dmitry Sanakoev. As a matter of fact, the Georgian party called the event the first conciliatory meeting between the Georgian authorities and the “mutinous” enclave of Tskhinvali.
According to President Mikheil Saakashvili’s proposal, the Georgian Parliament has passed the law on creation of “the provisional administrative unit South Ossetia” with the subsequent appointment of the so-called “alternative President” Dmitry Sanakoev its head.
Tbilisi formulated the matrix memorandum “On the future measures agreement in order to settle the conflict in a full-scale way in the Tskhinvali district/South Ossetia, Georgia”. All the Georgian official papers used to mention this area as the Tskhinvali Region or “the former South Ossetian autonomy”. The bill on restitution of the Ossetian ethnic origin to the Georgian citizens prescribes that the region’s name is “South Ossetia” (as it named itself).
This way, Saakashvili tried to legitimize his “relations” with Sanakoev and create a new kind of the settlement of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict. Russia does not take part in that scheme.
In this respect, it is understandable and logical for Georgia to wreck the first in 2007 meeting of the Mixed Control Committee on South Ossetia.
On April 12, 2007 the South Ossetian part of the Committee on the settlement of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict made a statement that “there was no sense in carrying on the “dialogue” between the Georgian government and the puppet group created by the government, which does not reflect the position of the Ossetian people”. On several conditions, the conflict will not be settled by quite new means focusing in the largest measure on the interests of South Ossetia as an unrecognized international legal entity.
For the time being it is unclear what will come of the Tbilisi’s actions. It is doubtful that alternative President Dmitry Sanakoev will manage to control South Ossetia. However, there are reasons for supposing that Tbilisi will try to use his “alternative government” as a negotiator in the conflict settlement. But such a trick is unlikely to be successful. Eduard Kokoity said that one might just as well “elect an alternative Georgian president in Tskhinvali” and in a day Georgia would “recognize” the independence of South Ossetia.
The “cloning” of the unrecognized governments will make the region’s situation still more tangle and perpetuates the stand-off. Whatever Eduard Kokoity’s regime is, it maintains stability in South Ossetia, there are no ethnic conflicts (except the mutual provocations on the frontier with Georgia). If South Ossetia has a number of presidents, it will lead to new confrontation and its consequences will reverberate far beyond Georgia and the whole South Caucasus.
June 15, 2007
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