Georgia: Stubb's marathon sprint

By Kari Huhta
     
      Alexander Stubb is still capable of anger even though he is fighting off massive fatigue.
      "I wouldn't like to listen to this kind of silliness in the 21st century", says Finland's Minister for Foreign Affairs.
      He is in a small private jet en route from Brussels to Helsinki. It is Wednesday evening and he has six days of nearly round-the-clock diplomacy behind him, aimed at ending the war between Georgia and Russia.
      By silliness he means Finnish newspapers, who claimed that Finland's reputation as a neutral country helped in the ceasefire talks between Russia and Georgia.
      "No point in imagining that we were a great peace-builder of some kind", Stubb says.
     
He feels that it is most important that the negotiations included France, the holder of the EU Presidency, and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and a NATO member with nuclear arms.
      "It was very good that we were able to be involved", Stubb adds.
      A couple of hours earlier, the foreign ministers of the EU countries, who had gathered in Brussels, had unanimously supported the peace plan that had emerged in the negotiations.
      That was just an interim phase. When the plane landed in Helsinki after a two-hour flight, information about the situation in Georgia had changed.
      Russian tanks were in the Georgian city of Gori, contrary to assurances from several different sources.
     
As recently as the week before last, Stubb and his family were on holiday in Sardinia. He cut his holiday short and left last weekend to negotiate a ceasefire in a war that had caused a humanitarian crisis in the Caucasus, shaken the international balance, and thrust the great powers up against each other.
      As Chairman-in-Office of the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Stubb negotiated peace in Tbilisi and Moscow along with his French colleague Bernard Kouchner.
      Stubb, who was hastily made Foreign Minister in April, got access to a unique view into the core of world politics.
      He found the experience "quite surreal".
      "After this crisis, it's back to the drawing board of international politics", Stubb said.
     
In addition to Stubb's interview, this story is based on information from diplomats and officials who followed his travel. The most important result of his intense shuttling and countless phone calls was the peace proposal drawn up by Nicolas Sarkozy, which was approved on Tuesday by the leaders of both Russia and Georgia.
      A peace plan is not the same as peace, but at the beginning there were no guarantees of anything.
      "It was pure improvisation. There was no plan", says Stubb, describing the early phases of the negotiations.
      Already on Thursday the previous week, the situation behind the scenes was considerably more worrying than the public perception.
      The New York Times reported that Daniel Fried, Undersecretary of State at the US State Department responsible for policy involving Georgia, warned the Georgian leadership by telephone not to go into a full-blown attack in spite of shooting by South Ossetian rebels.
      An offensive into South Ossetia could lead to a counterattack by Russia, and the United States would not be able to help Georgia militarily.
      The same evening, Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili announced a unilateral ceasefire.
      Still on holiday in Sardinia at the time, Stubb went to sleep feeling a little bit suspicious. "I fear the worst", he wrote in his blog.
     
On Friday morning, the 8th of August, Stubb's mobile phone was bulging with text messages. The fears had been realised. Georgian forces marched into South Ossetia and Russia was preparing for a counterattack.
      On Friday, the day of his tenth wedding anniversary, Stubb was on the phone from morning to evening, mostly in his swimming trunks. When he described his condition to British Foreign Secretary David Milliband, the latter responded: "I don't want to know."
      It had been obvious to Stubb that it would be necessary to go to Georgia at some stage. The situation in South Ossetia had escalated over a number of weeks. The OSCE was responsible for the international monitoring of the province, and responsibility was specifically with the foreign minister of the holder of the chairmanship-in-office.
      When Stubb returned to Finland on Saturday morning, the Foreign Ministry began preparing for a trip to Georgia for Monday. This proved impossible.
      "For some incomprehensible reason, the Finnish state does not have a plane", Stubb says on the private jet; the flight between Brussels and Helsinki again is on a plane hired from a private company.
     
Small private planes cannot get insurance for flights into war zones. Last weekend, the solution was found in France. In the midst of its summer holiday season, France was slowly waking up to the fact that the crisis required a rapid trip to Georgia. Initially France had planned only an unofficial foreign ministers' lunch in Paris on Monday.
      "The French understood that the OSCE has a mandate and an infrastructure in Georgia", Stubb says. In practice this means that the OSCE has the authority, personnel, and vehicles.
      And France has planes.
     
On Sunday Stubb travelled from Paris to Tbilisi along with French Foreign Minister Kouchner. On the plane he wrote down his first version of some kind of a plan. His six-point vision begins with the easing of the humanitarian crisis, and continues by way of mutual withdrawal to dealing with the crisis in international organisations. The draft has held surprisingly well.
      Stubb had listed the events in his notebook neatly and methodically. He clearly likes to number things. There is a six-part draft, a four-part peace plan, and a three-phase sequence for the EU.
     
At times, Stubb the negotiator bears fairly little resemblance to Stubb the Europarliamentarian, who was always the first to voice his opinions, and in a very outspoken manner.
      "It comes naturally. There is a time for lively discussion and there is a time for diplomacy", Stubb says.
     
The French plane landed in Tbilisi on Sunday as the evening grew dark, and diplomacy was put to the test. The most surreal phase of the trip began.
      Meeting them was President Saakashvili, known for his impulsiveness. Kouchner also proved to be a travelling companion who occasionally made unexpected moves.
      According to the plan visualised during the flight, Saakashvili was to be persuaded to approve the conditions for a ceasefire, humanitarian aid, and the withdrawal of forces. After that they were to be presented to the Russian leadership in Moscow.
      But first, they had dinner.
     
Saakashvili offered Kouchner and Stubb the midnight meal on a roof terrace - in spite of the ongoing warfare. Stubb later spoke about the dinner to Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who said that he knows the place.
      When Stubb marvelled at the quality of Russian intelligence-gathering, Lavrov noted that he had been in Tbilisi himself.
      The late hour was not a problem for Saakashvili, as he likes to work at night.
      In the middle of the dinner Saakashvili proposed a late-night drive to Gori, the city where Stalin was born, and which is located 65 kilometres down the road to South Ossetia. Russia had fired on Gori.
      Stubb and Kouchner managed to postpone the trip until the following day.
     
One impression that was reinforced was that the war was a messy accident.
      Georgia had no great plan. Even as the fighting intensified, Saakashvili had prepared to travel to Beijing for the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.
      On Monday morning, Stubb and Kouchner were supposed to get Saakashvili's signature on a four-part unofficial peace treaty, whose details were ironed out at the French Embassy. The basis of it was Stubb's draft, and helping with the writing of it were Finnish diplomats familiar with local conditions.
      Georgia's Foreign Minister Ekaterine Tkeshelashvili approved the plan. However, the exhausted Foreign Minister did not know where President Saakashvili was.
     
After a few phone calls , the President was found in his office. He signed the paper, which was referred to in diplomatic jargon as a "non-paper".
      The four-part proposal was more balanced from Georgia's point of view than Sarkozy's six-part peace plan. The paper signed by Kouchner and Stubb promised Georgia territorial integrity. It also set the same requirements for withdrawal for Russia as it did for Georgia. There were no such demands in the peace plan.
     
The most important aspect at the beginning was the ceasefire, and Russia's support was urgently needed for that to be achieved. "At that point I felt that we should go to Moscow", Stubb said.
      Kouchner had other plans.
      "I want to touch people", he said, according to people who were present.
      What followed was Kouchner's and Stubb's visit to Gori, which got plenty of publicity. They were photographed in front of an apartment building that had been damaged by Russian shelling.
      "Of course it looked terrible", says Stubb.
     
However, human tragedies were seasoned with a helping of war propaganda.
      With the cameras rolling, Saakashvili appeared on the scene, wearing a bullet-proof vest. A body was carried past Stubb and Kouchner in front of an empty military hospital, escorted by a doctor and a priest.
      The noise of jet fighters frightened and confused people.
     
War propaganda is a term that is often repeated in Stubb's speeches. Contradictory and erroneous information constantly comes out of crisis areas.
      In the draft agreement, the parties agree to refrain from incitement, but Saakashvili's fiery speeches did not stop even for the signing of the paper.
      The paths of the Finnish and the French foreign ministers split in Gori on Monday evening.
      Stubb and Kouchner did not meet again until Wednesday morning in Brussels.
      Kouchner sought more contact with people by visiting the Stalin Museum. He also decided to stop on the Russian side in North Ossetia before moving on to Moscow.
     
The bombing of radar installations in Tbilisi made the departure of Kouchner's plane uncertain. The situation in North Ossetia was also unsure. Therefore, Stubb and his aides left on Monday evening by car toward the Armenian capital Yerevan, from where they were to fly to Moscow.
      It had been just a day since the beginning of the negotiating trip.
     
The chartered plane which was to come to Yerevan suffered a technical malfunction in Helsinki. Another plane was found in Moscow, and it finally took off from Yerevan en route for Moscow at 4:45 on Tuesday morning.
      Taking a different routing, Kouchner also reached Moscow early on Tuesday, but he did not want to take part in the negotiations with Foreign Minister Lavrov.
      "The President of France wanted to take control of the situation, and we had nothing against that", Stubb says.
      When President Sarkozy arrived to negotiate with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, Stubb held talks with Lavrov one-on-one, initially without the presence of any aides.
      Stubb presented the preliminary paper signed in Tbilisi, although it was already being overshadowed by the new version.
      "I knew that France had its own draft", Stubb said. He and Kouchner called each other repeatedly.
     
In contrast to Tbilisi, there were ready plans in Moscow.
      On Tuesday at lunch, Lavrov told Stubb that Medvedev would soon announce an end to hostilities, and this is what happened. At the press conference, the politicians knew what questions the Russian journalists would put forward, and in what order.
      What happened in negotiations between Sarkozy and Medvedev was less clear, but a couple of important things are known.
      After the negotiations began, Russia's former President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin arrived on the scene. In the Prime Minister's office, Putin has a foreign affairs bureau with 50 employees.
      In the negotiations, a fifth part of the peace plan emerged, giving Russia very free hands to act in Georgian territory in the name of peacekeeping.
     
On the plane on Wednesday, Stubb does not comment on the new version of the peace plan, because he was not involved in negotiating it. He had flown from Moscow to Brussels on Tuesday evening.
      On Wednesday morning, he and Kouchner were to have secured the support of the EU foreign ministers for the peace plan.
      On Wednesday, on his way back to Helsinki, Stubb does not want to comment in detail on how the war in Georgia reflects on Finland.
     
The international repercussions are nevertheless significant.
      "There will certainly be new formulations in Finland's security policy report. This cannot help but be reflected in it. Let's sit and think", says Stubb.
      In any case, the frequently downplayed OSCE took on a new role.
      So far it is the only international player in Georgia that is approved by all sides. This means plenty of additional work for Finland's Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
     
Stubb will probably have to return to Georgia. Next week the NATO foreign ministers are also meeting, and there might be reason to visit the UN as well.
      But not yet.
      After a crushing six days, Stubb's energy is waning, but it needs to be restored in a few days.
      Stubb was scheduled to take part in the Helsinki City Marathon on Saturday. At this point running the necessary 42.195 kilometres seems to be a relatively short distance.




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