Corruption in South Ossetia Complicates American Mission in Georgia

American military advisers landed in Georgia on April 28, on a mission to contain al Qaeda loyalists who might be operating in the lawless Pankisi Gorge. But some local experts say that corruption and criminality plague South Ossetia, west of the advisors' base, more deeply than any military planner has publicly discussed. According to these observers, the separatist region functions as a giant no-man's land between Russia and Georgia, and as a supply base for smugglers. American advisors may find themselves entangled with corrupt payments and manipulation in this lawless region.

Security in the region, despite the prominence of Russian soldiers, seems thin. On April 24, this EurasiaNet contributor saw a Georgian official pass money to a Russian peacekeeper, who then allowed goods to cross into Georgia without paying a customs levy. EurasiaNet's correspondent had spent the morning with an Irish radio journalist examining items in the main South Ossetian market, without Russian border guards ever asking for identification or documents.

This security environment may impede American efforts to promote law and order in the gorge. Several people interviewed said that influential Georgians worry that the United States' training and logistical support will cut into profits from the smuggling of fuel, tobacco, and weapons. The prospect of well-armed Georgian troops zealously hunting for corrupt activity could also upset the country's political status quo, from Pankisi to South Ossetia and at points in between.

Experts say that official corruption, which manifests itself in Georgian officials making deals with Russian or Chechen operatives that produce untaxed profits without advancing peace, has a bigger effect on the possibility of terrorism than many politicians acknowledge. Alan Parastaev, a South Ossetian activist who runs the South Ossetian Center for Humanitarian Initiatives, charged that American planners understood the relationship between graft and terror but chose not to attack it. "There is always talk of rooting out terrorism and corruption but the two are close relatives," says Parastaev. He says Americans could broker negotiations between Georgia and its breakaway republics, but claims that "the West is more interested in feeding the corruption that exists in Tbilisi." Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze has publicly promised to root out corruption, but steps in this direction have been halting.

Meanwhile, the interchange EurasiaNet saw between Russian peacekeepers and South Ossetians indicates a level of corruption within the breakaway province. Many separatists see the Russians as the only agents capable of supporting an alternative to Shevardnadze, and as a source of (albeit illegitimate) income. Popular opinion in the region accuses Western policymakers of propping up Shevardnadze despite his inability to effect widespread reforms.

As a result, South Ossetia's self-declared government can act more forgiving to Russian misdeeds than to Georgian ones. Kosta Kochiev, Press Secretary of South Ossetia, illustrated the double standard in a recent interview. When EurasiaNet asked him why authorities had arrested a Georgian investigative reporter who filed a story on Georgian officials buying and selling arms, Kochiev appealed to sovereignty. "How is it possible for any government to allow an outsiders to visit without passports or other control?" he said, adding: "Georgian passports and visas were not readily accepted."

Other separatists and Russian representatives take this mistrust of Georgia further, painting US soldiers as North Atlantic Treaty Organization operatives in a planned Georgian offensive. (NATO staged exercises in Georgia this spring.) Kochiev toned down this rhetoric, but only somewhat. "We don't think it in itself is a provocation but we know Georgians, it is possible that they will try to use these forces in deciding their internal problems," he said in an interview. This kind of talk may demonize Georgian officials, making it easier for Georgian and Russian operatives to conduct side deals.

The situation on the ground, meanwhile, remains more violent than any government has explained. The relatives of a 22-year-old Georgian from the South Ossetian village of Tkibuli claimed that armed and masked men took the young man from his house in mid-April and shot him in both feet "as a warning not to resist house-to-house robberies." One relative, who asked for anonymity, claimed that Georgian police asked relatives not to talk to reporters "because it could hamper the investigation."

As this story indicates, reliable information sometimes seems as scarce as trust in this region. Vasili Prizemlin, who heads a joint peacekeeping contingent in South Ossetia, says representatives of all constituencies regularly meet to vet reports about arms dealing and other problems. Yet the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe reported on April 9 that "a plain-clothed policeman was held up by three armed perpetrators wearing masks, who then escaped in the policeman's car" in late March.

Whatever the ledger of guilt and innocence in South Ossetia, its instability will probably make American peacekeeping efforts hard to quantify. Russian media has reported allegations that Chechens and Kists are pushing ethnic Ossetians out of Pankisi, and that Chechens routinely trade arms with other parties in the gorge. If the United States simply wants to ferret out al Qaeda loyalists in the region, it may be facing a more complex assignment than military planners realize.