No Putin

In the Moscow Times, Yevgenia Albats on the real reasons for the intense anti-Georgian campaign presently being conducted by the Russian government:

So what's behind this campaign, which includes open cooperation between the Kremlin and separatist regimes in the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia? I now believe that it has nothing to do with military matters, and little if anything to do with U.S. interests in the region. At issue, in fact, are the reforms proposed by Saakashvili, which could be defined as "de-communization."

The Georgian president is attempting to introduce reforms, similar to those implemented in Central Europe's post-communist states in the early 1990s, aimed at bringing to heel the bureaucracies inherited from previous, totalitarian regimes. Of the former Soviet republics, only the Baltic states have undertaken such measures. Saakashvili knows that to succeed he must earn the trust and backing of both the Georgian elite and the man in the street. If he can do this, Saakashvili would be in a position to lead his nation through the painful period of transition.

Saakashvili started with administrative reform aimed at getting rid of the corrupt bureaucrats who have been robbing Georgia blind for decades. He first cut the number of government agencies from 28 to 15. At the head of eight key agencies he installed outsiders -- ethnic Georgians who have lived, and who were educated, abroad, helping to disrupt the culture of corruption that has thrived since the Soviet era. Next, he cut the size of Georgia's corrupt police force in half. He has announced an amnesty on all tax and customs violations committed prior to Jan. 1, 2004, a gesture aimed at acknowledging that no one -- neither the state nor the business community -- played by the rules in the past, and that the entire country now needs to make a fresh start.

Finally, the government is drafting a new tax code that would create favorable conditions for foreign and domestic investors as well as forging a relationship based on trust between the government and those businessmen who are ready to put their talent and resources to work -- legally -- in building a new Georgia.

In short, Yevgenia Albats adds, "Saakashvili is no Putin."