Georgia's Saakashvili Looks to the West

Yahoo News ^ | January 26 2004 | STEVE GUTTERMAN/AP

[knighthawk]

TBILISI, Georgia - Two months after the bloodless ouster of Georgia's longtime leader, newly elected President Mikhail Saakashvili vowed to lift the troubled country out of its post-Soviet malaise and set it on a westward course.

Mikhail Saakashvili took the helm of the troubled Caucasus Mountain nation Sunday in an inauguration ceremony packed with symbolism, raising a European Union flag alongside Georgia's new banner and saluting soldiers he said will help strengthen and unify the fractured country.

"Georgia is not just a European country, but one of the most ancient European countries," Saakashvili said in a speech after taking the presidential oath with his hand on the constitution. "Our place is in European civilization."

Saakashvili, who led protests that prompted the resignation of President Eduard Shevardnadze in November, promised to tackle the deep-seated problems he has inherited as head of a country wracked since the 1991 Soviet collapse by poverty, corruption and civil war.

"We must create the Georgia that our ancestors dreamed of, the Georgia that we dream of," he told a crowd of thousands outside parliament, on the site of key protests during the November "rose revolution."

Saakashvili also said Georgia needs a strong army, and after his inaugural speech he saluted as camouflage-clad servicemen paraded past.

Saakashvili plunged into the crowd after the ceremony, shaking hands and walking up the avenue to intermittent cheers, signs of the expectations many Georgians have placed in the 36-year-old leader.

"We have very high hopes for the future, he will get things done very fast," said Mzia Bekauri, 40, who said she had quit her teaching job under Shevardnadze because she was earning $8 a month. "It wasn't worth leaving the house and the children."

Georgia's economy has been plagued by corruption and the loss of the captive Soviet-era market for its goods.

Saakashvili pledged to improve relations with Russia, which dominated Georgia for more than two centuries and still wields strong levers of control, providing most of the country's energy, maintaining two military bases on its territory and consulting with separatist regions.

"Today I am offering a hand of friendship to Russia," Saakashvili said.

But while he met with the visiting Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, he spent far more time with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, appearing at his side repeatedly in televised events.

Powell pledged American support for Saakashvili's efforts to revive Georgia, saying he hopes it will thrive and "serve as an example to the rest of the region, and the rest of the world, of what can be accomplished with a democratic government."

Powell said the United States would provide $166 million in assistance in the current fiscal year, and conveyed an invitation from President Bush for Saakashvili to visit Washington exactly a month after the inauguration.

[knighthawk]

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