Georgia Quitting CIS: Good Riddance

Georgian parliament has been discussing the expediency of Georgia's staying in the Community of Independent States (CIS). November 22 a majority of the national parliament voted in favor of quitting the CIS.

Speaker Nino Burjanadze met the parliamentarians' initiative with understanding. She made a statement saying that the CIS has outlived its purpose, and moreover, in the final account, failed to fulfill it.

The role of the Community on post-Soviet area has been much spoken and written about. At one of the CIS summits Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed the general view of the political elites of the former Soviet republics: the CIS has been created for the purpose of a civilized divorce and is at present a mere kind of a discussion club. The Russian leader has repeatedly stressed that the organization needed serious reforming. Therefore N. Burjanadze's opinion of the CIS came as no surprise.

It is good that the speaker of the Georgian parliament has adequately assessed the consequences of her country's walking out of the CIS. According to N. Burjanadze, the first thing to come would be an automatic raise of the price of gas. This would be quite enough for a politically and economically shaky state. The nearly two-fold raise of the price of gas may become a veritable disaster for Georgia and may lead to a complete standstill of its national economy. Besides, another cold fall and winter would not add any popularity to president M. Saakashvili and his team.

The opinion of Georgian economy minister Kakha Bendukidze that, in the long run, such a measure on the part of Russia is economically disadvantageous primarily to Russia itself due to the loss of a promising energy market, is worth considering. However, in this particular case the political mood in Russia would evidently dominate the economic expediency. But there is yet another negative military-political aspect of raising the price of gas for Georgia that should be taken into account by Moscow in pursuing its energy policies.

In the event of such a decision Georgian propaganda would not miss the opportunity to present, at home and abroad, Moscow's actions as a new round of the cold war, thus giving Tbilisi "hawks" another chance to prolong their life in big politics. The existence of an external enemy is a most powerful political resource for the Saakashvili regime that it has been blatantly using for two years already, constantly calling on the Georgian people to "take national revenge". In the meantime, fascization of this regime has been going on before everybody's very eyes, to full delight of "democrats" from Washington.

N. Burjanadze has already said that the new Georgian authorities are not scared at any possible hardships. It is hard not to agree with this statement, as it is very wealthy people who are in power in Georgia today, people who have everything. It is the common people who again stand to lose. In this context, to shift the blame to Russia is not only bad taste, but also a proof of the evident feebleness of the corrupted, mendacious and impotent Georgian political elite that has, for two years, been unable to find common ground with Russia. The more's the pity, as most Russians have very kindly feelings and love for the Georgian people, know and love Georgian culture and value our age-old friendship.