With all attention on Georgia it’s easy to forget that the European Union remains mired in the institutional crisis created by the Irish No on the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon. With Irish ministers drifting back from their holidays, the issue will be getting more attention. Today’s Irish Times reports on what the Irish officials trying to deal with the crisis will view as an unwelcome leak: that a delegation visited Denmark to understand the technical details of Denmark’s opt-outs from the Treaty of Maastricht — opt-outs which, ironically, the Danes had hoped to unwind by referendum to be a full player in Lisbon implementation until they got uneasy following the Irish vote.
Just Foolish
There are a lot of bad things about the Georgia-Russia conflict, but this is just foolish: Nearly all Russia-based web sites seem to be blocked from Georgia, and by the Georgian side. Trying to surf to the Moscow Times gets me a domain-parking site, while Izvestiya.ru, just for example, yields a four-line message in Georgian. (Whatever Great Firewall of the Caucasus technology they’re using spills over in weird ways. Yesterday there were periods where I couldn’t get facebook (my productivity soared!) and couldn’t get Google.com but could get Google.de.)
C’mon guys, you’re the underdogs here. The free flow of information is your friend. Cut it out already.
How Frozen is Your Conflict?
At their meeting in Sochi — planned home of the 2014 Winter Olympics and just a hop, skip and APC ride from Abkhazia — Russia’s president Dmitri Medvedev warned Moldova’s president not to repeat the “Georgian mistake.”
Moldova, of course, claims Transnistria as part of its internationally recognized territory, but has never exercised actual control since the collapse of the Soviet Union. A Soviet Army, the 14th iirc, commanded at the time by Alexander Lebed, helped the Transnistrians enforce their counter-secession from Moldova. Since then, it’s continued its odd trajectory, something of a black hole in international legal term, reputed to be a haven for all manner of criminality and, not incidentally, an irritant to both Moldova and Ukraine.
“After the Georgian leadership lost their marbles, as they say, all the problems got worse and a military conflict erupted,” Medvedev told Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin.
“This is a serious warning, a warning to all,” he added. “And I believe we should handle other existing conflicts in this context.”
Which context? Issuing Russian passports to anyone who asks and then claiming the right to intervene to protect “Russian citizens”?
“Frozen conflicts are a real volcano which can blow up anytime,” Voronin added. “That is why taking into account what had happened elsewhere it would be useful if we exercised again such wisdom not to allow such things to repeat in our country.”
The ripples from Georgia are just starting to spread.
The road to peace in the Caucasus runs through … Rome?
It’s no surprise that George Bush is sending Dick Cheney to the Black Sea region next week. If media accounts are to be believed, and they are plausible, the Cheney faction in the administration had long pushed for a much harder anti-Russian line and may still be advocating more aggressive moves in the coming weeks. But here is Cheney’s official itinerary —
The Vice President will meet with President Aliyev of Azerbaijan, President Saakashvili of Georgia, President Yushchenko of Ukraine, and President Napolitano and Prime Minister Berlusconi of Italy, as well as senior officials of their respective governments. In addition to meetings with foreign leaders, the Vice President will attend and address the Ambrosetti forum entitled, “Intelligence on the World, Europe and Italy” in Lake Como, Italy.
The forum is apparently an Italian-centric mini-Davos but it’s perhaps of interest that no other western European leader is deemed worthy of the Cheney pop-in despite the continuing gravity of the situation. Or because of the continuing gravity?  One wonders if a new parallel strategic track on Georgia is being opened via Silvio while the main channel continues with Condi’s interactions with France.
Dans la Francophonie
So now I’m in Burundi for a couple of weeks, on business.
I’ll probably do most of my Burundi-blogging over at my home blog. But here’s a thing: Burundi is part of La Francophonie and, yup, everyone here speaks French.
Okay, not everybody. French is introduced in primary school, but it’s not taught intensively until secondary school. Since only about 10% of Burundian kids finish secondary school, French is very much the language of the educated elite. (Which in Burundi is disproportionately ethnic Tutsis. But that’s another story.) But French is the language of law and government and formal public discourse and, up until now, it’s how Burundi talks to the world. It’s everyone’s second language here; English is, so far, a pretty distant third. Continue reading
Eastern Europe: slowing growth?
Something other than Georgia for a change. Via the 8th Circle, here’s a recent article in the Economist about a possible economic downturn in Eastern Europe:
The party is nearly over
After a good run, Eastern Europe faces an economic slowdown
IT HAS gone on splendidly for years, and the party isn’t quite finished yet. For a decade or more eastern Europe has benefited from exceptional (and mostly unforeseen) good fortune. Economic and political stability, including for ten countries membership of the European Union, has boosted investors’ confidence and cut borrowing costs. A big pool of cheap and diligent workers, along with the unleashing of entrepreneurial talents, has produced thriving new private businesses. In most countries, growth rates have been stellar (see chart).
Inevitably, it could not last. Wage costs are creeping up. Labour shortages are biting. Out-of-date infrastructure, such as Poland’s notorious roads, is clogging trade. In several countries inflation is rising. And world markets, both for raising capital and for exporting, are looking tougher.
Well… perhaps. Continue reading
Russia has BFFs too
Not many, but some.
One is Armenia. The Armenians are annoyed at the Georgians for their generally shoddy treatment of the Armenian minority in Georgia. More to the point, Armenians generally look down their magnificent noses at Georgians, considering them self-indulgent, emotional, shrill, slovenly, unreliable, and just generally second-rate. Georgians don’t love Armenians either — they consider them sly, stuck-up and grasping. There are no exactly equivalent Western European stereotypes, but if you think “dour Scots versus hand-waving Italians” you’ll get the general idea.
Continue reading
Georgia, Bulgaria and the Second Balkan War
So, the Second Balkan War.
Unless you’re a history buff, or Bulgarian, you probably don’t know about this. And that’s fine. Unless you’re a history buff, or Bulgarian, there’s no reason to. Still, I think it might have some relevance to recent events.
Short version: back in 1912, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece teamed up to attack Turkey. They won. In fact, they won big, grabbing huge slabs of territory from the hapless Ottomans… but they couldn’t agree on how to divide their spoils. The disagreement got so sharp that just a few months later, the Bulgarians tried to resolve it with a surprise attack on the Serbs and the Greeks.
Continue reading
Gamsakhurdia
So, Georgia Georgia Georgia. Yet there’s one name I’ve hardly seen mentioned: the late Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the first president of independent Georgia.
That’s sort of strange. Because if there’s one man who’s responsible for the current mess in Georgia — more than Saakashvili, more than Putin — it’s Gamsakhurdia.
Why? Continue reading
Back in Tbilisi
We’re back after a happily uneventful, if hot and a bit long, drive from Yerevan. Went past one of the air bases that was bombed, and saw what looked like a burned field, but otherwise no damage visible from the public road.
The city itself is more difficult to judge, and I’ve been too preoccupied with personal things to manage to do anything like a general taking stock. Quick impressions: lots of visible police, some with submachineguns prominently held; traffic seemed lighter, but then again it’s mid-August; jets flying by at odd hours in the afternoon. Our corner grocery didn’t have any Parmalat milk; on the other hand, it did have pizza kits. Even under regular circumstances, consistency is not the strong point of the Georgian market. (Winter promises to be more interesting than I really wanted.) Our local swingin hotspot is swingin again, after a couple of very quiet days last week.
Down the street, work seems to be getting close to finished on a small office building. There was a night watchman, and a lot of leftover material was piled at the front so as to block the entrances that are still open. Is this a regular precaution, or are the builders worried about refugee squatters? There are said to be 60,000 refugees in and around the city, and lurid rumors about their attempts to occupy houses and other buildings. Lurid rumors are, in fact, something of a general commodity. Makes me more than usually skeptical.
The default screen on several ATMs that I saw was an appeal for donations to help people from the zones of conflict. A local mobile company was a major vector of organization for the patriotic rallies of this last week. Political mobilization in the 21st century.
We’re glad to be here.
Update: Forgot to mention: There’s a pretty widespread assumption among the internationals that a fair number of phone lines are, shall we say, shared. The three candidates for listening in can be transparently called the Hosts, the Neighbors and the Friends.