[Argos]

Originally Posted by simon

...but in Abkhazia it's the Abkhazians who committed the biggest human rights violations, with Russian support. About 250,000 ethnic Georgians (the majority of the population) were ethnically cleansed from Abkhazia.

That's true. Before the cleansing there were about 48 % Georgians and only 17 % Abkhazians in the country, but this is only a tiny bit of the whole, rather complicated story of Abkhazia. The conflict between Georgia and Abkhazia goes back to the second half of the 19th century, when Russia expanded to the Caucasus and heavily suppressed the mostly muslim Abkhazian population. Many of them fled into the Osman Empire and Georgians settled there. In a few decades the Georgians were twice as many as the Abkhazian people.

1931 Abkhazia became part of Georgia. The use of the abkhazian language was forbidden, repressions, Georgians were again invited to settle in Abkhazia ... After Stalin's death the ethnic minority got many lost rights back, which caused much annoyance among the Georgian mayority. 1991 Georgia became independant and adopted a new constitution without negotiations with the autonomous regions. Then Abkhazia declared itself independent.

The next months saw much unrest, ethnical, religious and political ones. When Russian transports were robbed a few times, they demanded from the Georgian government to solve the problem and guarantee safety for Russian transports. The Georgian army came there, freed all prisoners (what for?), who in turn began to loot, preferentially ethnic Abkhazians. From that moment the situation escalated and the Russians began to support the rebels. The victory was not so much caused by Russia's intervention, their troops were quite small at that time, but because of the chaos in the Georgian troops. When they fled, the ethnic Georgians joined them, far before the Abkhazians could reach them. Most of the war-crimes happened to the remaining Georgians after most of them left the country, it could have been much worse, if they remained there. Since 2002 the Abkhazian government tried to convince Moskva to associate with them, to have a customs- and currency-union and to station Russian troops in Abkhazia, Russia only granted the last request. But since 2006 Russia seems to change it's politics.

Originally Posted by simon

It could instead be said that Georgia became more important to Russia because it wants to prevent any such pipeline being built as it would reduce its leverage in the region.

I don't think so. Since the times of tsaristic Russia, Russia was interested to deny Georgia the full control over the Black Sea ports. Quite independent autonomous regions in that area could guarantee that.

Originally Posted by simon

The Adjaran people themselves overthrew Aslan Abashidze, their Russian-backed dictator, in the aftermath of the Rose Revolution. The Georgian government has subsequently reduced Adjara's autonomy too far, but that doesn't justify Russia's embargo of Georgia, which is causing a great deal of hardship.

This needs some completion, too. The Georgian parliament has installed Abazhidze, to stop communist influence in this region. In Adjaria live more than 80 % Georgians, so no ethnic problem, but a religious one. Most of them are muslims and Georgia has proved numerous times that they can't deal with religious minorities. Additionally most of the muslims were communists, there fore this intervention. Eltsin then supported Abazhidze due to this fact and Putin did not change the politics either.

In 2003 massive opposition raised against his corrupt regime of nepotism and despotism. Abakhidze could only survive with the help of Russian troops, but then Putin and Saakashvili met and made a deal (guaranteed full autonomy of Adjaria and Russian troops will no more support Abakhidze). Iwanow told him to resign and the rest was only formality. The full autonomy did not hold up longer than two months. This was the end of Russia's cooperation.

Originally Posted by simon

Why do you think Russia has the right to meddle in Georgia's affairs, but that the US and the EU don't have the right to support the elected Georgian government? The EU is a much less interested party and has a much better record of handling ethnic disputes than Russia does. Look at Chechnya.

You misunderstood. EU and the USA should have had an active political role much earlier to prevent the too dominant influence in Georgian policy. An intervention before the various escalations, which were predictable, would have been much better. To offer Georgia now NATO and EU membership without trying to solve Georgia's minority problems and to assign Russia the role of the loser is a very myopic act, which in the long-term will be of no benefit for all the involved parties.

Originally Posted by simon

I was pointing out that countries across Europe are concerned that Russia will turn off the gas to them for purely political reasons. That's something Russia has already done with oil when it cut the oil pipeline to Lithuania.

That's true and it will happen again. In foreign policy Russia has been cornered more and more. The inherited problems of Soviet era, the up-coming nationalism of the former satellites with the conflicts with their Russian minorities, the expansion of EU and NATO, the many strategically important neighbours, this all adds to Russia's uneasiness and they react more and more thin-skinned.

Therefore it's time to loosen the tension, to plan a long-term partnership and to play the cards face up. Putin may handle the current situation in some way, but the next president eventually may not. A cold war with Russia costs Europe even more than Russia.