N°18 - October 11 2007 Published every two weeks/International Edition CONTENTS GEORGIA P. 1/4 GEORGIA c A small metter of settling c A small metter of settling scores between "friends scores between "friends P. 2 DUSHANBE SUMMITS Since the end of September, Georgia has been facing one of the most serious political crises c Vladimir Putin tries the country has known since its “Rose Revolution” of the autumn of 2003. The former Defense Min- to breathe new life into ister, Irakli Okruashvili, who came back to Georgia after six months in voluntary exile in the the CIS United Kingdom and in Ukraine, announced that he had formed an opposition party – Movement P. 3 TURKMENISTAN For a United Georgia – and attacked President Mikhail Saakashvili head-on. c The balancing act of Berdymukhammedov In a televised declaration on September 25, Okruashvili accused the president of having ac- KAZAKHSTAN c The redrawing quired most of his wealth illegally, and of having tried to cover up extortion charges against his of oligarch circles uncle, Temur Alasania. However, the former Prime Minister’s main allegations against the pres- ident are political in nature. Okruashvili declared that Saakashvili had, on several occasions, or- dered the attack or the assassination of opponents. One of the most sensational of these allega- tions is that the president told him to “get rid of” Badri Patarkatsishvili, the owner of the Imedi READ ALSO… media group, whose television channel is considered to favor the opposition. The former minister also hinted that the Interior Minister, Vano Merabishvili and the head of the Constitutional Se- RUSSIA INTELLIGENCE curity Department, Dato Akhalia, were directly implicated in the 2006 murder of the banker San- www.russia-intelligence.fr dro Girgvliani, for which several officials from the Interior Ministry were sentenced. Okruashvili KREMLIN also caused a sensation when, speaking of Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania’s death in 2005 - offi- c Hunting scenes in Moscow cially from carbon monoxide poisoning - he suggested that suspicions of murder were well-founded. GOVERNMENT c Vladimir Putin, The government’s response to these accusations – unprecedented in Georgian politics as they the improbable “Chancellor directly target the President for the first time – was not long in coming. Okruashvili was arrested of Russia” on September 27, two days after his interview, officially on charges of extortion and abuse of power. FOCUS Several supporters in his new political party were also arrested, as were close allies of his such as c Who will take Gazprom? Malkhaz Bukia, head of the party’s branch in Poti. On the day Okruashvili made his declaration, RAIL police arrested two other close associates: Dmitry Kitoshvili, spokesman for the President and c RZhD : Vladimir Yakunin Parliamentary Secretary, and Mikhail Kareli, the governor of Shida Kartli. unveils his industrial strategy ALERT According to several sources, Badri Patarkatsishvili, Georgia’s most prominent oligarch and a c Belarus : a good show by friend of Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, finances Okruashvili’s new political party. Okruashvili Telecom Austria is said to have met Berezovsky several items in London. The former Prime Minister’s arrest imme- UKRAINE INTELLIGENCE diately sparked a serious political crisis. Demonstrations were held in front of the parliament and, www.ukraine-intelligence.fr notwithstanding the fact that not everyone approves of Okruashvili who, after all, was a member of the government just less than a year ago, several members of the opposition announced they ELECTIONS SPECIAL c The Elusive Winner were joining his new party. Meanwhile, Saakashvili, who was in the United States at the time, made no comment for several days regarding the accusations leveled against him. The situation has c Kiev: Leonid Chernovetsky on a Slippery Slope placed the government and members of the ruling National Movement in an awkward position, while rumors have been launched as to the truthfulness of Okruashvili’s statements. c Alisher Usmanov and Rinat Akhmetov in the Orange Camp’s Sights A few explanatory points may help shed some light on this fresh battle between members of Georgia’s ruling elite, as well as on the brutal way in which the government reacted - at the cost of tarnishing its international image. The first point has to do with the 2008 presidential and leg- islative elections and the political rivalry between the President and his former protégé. Several polls taken in the first half of 2007 attest to the popularity of Okruashvili, who is a possible rival SUBSCRIPTION to Saakashvili. His new party may reap a lot of support, based on public discontent with the coun- Electronic Edition try’s stagnating economic situation. The Movement for a United Georgia, which holds its congress (PDF, published every two weeks, on November 15, has declared that it wants to reduce the power of the executive branch and the 23 issues per year) administrative function of the governors. Most important of all, it wants to resolve the “frozen con- SPECIAL OFFER flicts” in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Okruashvili may insist on this last point in a bid to gain the Discount 15 % votes of the 250,000 Georgian refugees chased from the self-proclaimed republics. Indeed, Okru- € 600 ashvili uses symbols to play on national sentiment: the party has its headquarters near the Geor- €510 per year gian Orthodox Church Patriarchy, and it was presented to the public in d d d Continue page 4 A EURASIAN INTELLIGENCE PUBLICATION CENTRAL ASIA & CASPIAN INTELLIGENCE DUSHANBE SUMMITS c Vladimir Putin tries to breathe new life into the CIS From October 4 to 6, Tajikistan was host to a triple summit: the cult to convince Uzbekistan, for example, to reverse its protection- CIS, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) of the CIS ist measures, which block the global development of Central Asian and the Eurasian Economic Community (EEC). The CIS, which trade. Uzbekistan’s neighbors are also calling on it to do away with has never been an effective institution, is no longer a decision-mak- the visa system with Tajikistan, which was established in 1999, in ing body, but rather a platform for discussion in which bilateral and order to allow the free circulation of peoples - one of the guiding multilateral negotiations are held. The Ukrainian President was principles of the EEC. In the spring of 2007, Tashkent agreed to absent from the meeting for internal political reasons, while both lift visa requirements for Kyrgyz citizens going to Uzbekistan for Georgia and Azerbaijan have shown little interest in the post-So- less than two months. viet institution, the first in a rather pointed manner, the second in Besides these two developments, the CIS summit focused on a more discreet fashion. Most observers didn't expect too much several major themes: migration policy, the fight against terrorism from the summit of the CIS heads of state held October 5 in Dushanbe. and military cooperation. Several reform projects concerning the Some sceptics even went so far as to assert that Vladimir Putin's functioning of the CIS were also discussed, although it appears un- 55th birthday would be its key event. It's true that since its creation likely that these will become effective in view of the refusal of some in December 1991, the CIS has not exactly sparkled with effective- member states to be a part of a supranational system with Russia ness, a fact admitted recently by the Kremlin chief in repeating the as the dominant player. Georgia, therefore, did not sign the sum- formular first used by the former Ukrainian president Leonid mit’s final document. Migration policy was the only theme that ap- Kravchuk about "a civilised handling of a divorce" between the for- pears to have drawn a consensus. Indeed, all the participating mer Soviet republics.Looking at it more closely, however, the countries acknowledged that the extent of migration for employ- Dushanbe summit - especially its agenda points devoted to the CIS ment purposes required a liberalization policy on the part of Rus- Treaty organisation for collective security and the Eurasian eco- sia, which would legalize millions of illegal immigrants from Cen- nomic community -- illustrates a new political will by Russia and tral Asia, the Caucasus and Moldavia. Several agreements concerning could mark serious progress in economic and military integration. the legal and social protection of migrants are expected to be signed The nomination of Sergey Lebedev, director of Russian external in this framework on the initiative of Kazakhstan. intelligence services (SVR) since 2000, to the Executive secretariat This three-day meeting was also an opportunity for more in- of the CIS confirms the importance still attached to the post-So- formal bilateral meetings. Vladimir Putin and Gurbanguly Berdy- viet space by Vladimir Putin. mukhammedov held a discreet meeting in a bid to push forward The event that attracted the most attention from the media was the Caspian gas pipeline project and to discourage Turkmenistan undoubtedly the signing, by the secretaries of the CSTO and of the from taking part in the competing TransCaspian pipeline. Sev- Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Nikolay Bordyuzha eral officials from Gazprom were part of the Russian delegation and Bolat Nurgaliev, of a “Memorandum of Mutual Understand- - a reminder that Russia’s near-total monopoly on Central Asian ing”. The agreement sets the goals shared by the two institutions gas cannot be broken without triggering a sharp reaction from and guidelines for cooperation for the period 2008-2010. This in- Moscow. A meeting between the Tajik and Kyrgyz presidents was cludes, in particular, anti-drug trafficking operations involving the also on the agenda in a bid to endorse discussions held on Sep- border guards of the various member states and a joint recovery tember 19 during President Emomali Rakhmon’s visit to Bishkek.