Russia - Georgia/Sarkartvelo

Georgia, or Sarkartvelo as it's known locally (or as it should be known "the country that can't shoot straight), is the southernmost region of Russia and the first republic to give Mother Russia the finger. Naturally, fighting began immediately in the south Ossetia region and the Mingrelia area has killed hundreds. In May of 1991, Zvaid Gamsakhurdia was elected president of Georgia with an overwhelming majority of the popular vote (86.5 percent). Not content with popular support, Zvaid began to conceive and implement very undemocratic statutes, such as "making fun of the president gets you six years in the slammer." He also put his money on the wrong ponies when he backed the coup plotters who failed to overthrow Yeltsin. He cracked down on the southern Muslim state of Ossetia, which instigated a revolt effective enough to force him to flee on January 6, 1992. The opposition, which consisted of his prime minister and foreign minister (who had backed Yeltsin), invited Eduard Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister and first secretary of the Georgian Communist Party, to be chairman of the state council. OK so he made a few mistakes.

The return of old hard-line communist hacks did not satisfy the Muslim Abkhazian separatists, under Chechen Shamil Basayev who, feeling their oats, had taken over the Abkhazian region along the Black Sea.

The Russians meddled and brokered a cease-fire, which was quickly broken on September 16, 1993. Despite a pistol-waving Shevardnadze, the rebels took over the strategic Black Sea port of Sukhumi. The bizarre twist is that Shevardnadze blames the Russians for setting him up by brokering a phony cease-fire and then letting the rebels take over the country. The fact that the "rebels" were using Russian-supplied weapons and equipment confirmed the perception that the Russians were backing the Abkhazians. In September 1999, Russia lifted the border restriction off the top of Abkhazia allowing weapons and goods to flow in. This was in retaliation to Georgia's refusal to seal their northern border with Chechnya. Dagestan, Ingushetia and North Ossetia have all welcomed Russian troops in providing a sealed border except for the snow mountain passes to on Georgia's 50-mile-long northern border with Chechnya. Next rumor, the Chechens will set up a government in exile in Tiblisi, which will of course prompt Russia to find some reason to kick poor Georgia back into the arms of Moscow.

http://www.parliament.ge/

http://www.sakartvelo.com/

http://sergi.virtualave.net/sakartvelo/