President Saakashvili and Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili have proved over the course of the four day operation that the government is now fully committed to pulling wayward leaders back into Tbilisi’s orbit.

The crisis broke in late July when former presidential representative to the region, Emzari Kvitsiani, threatened to use the illegal Monadire militia to assert his control over the region. According to him, Tbilisi had betrayed the ethnic Svan-populated region by withholding aid and not punishing the ‘real’ criminals behind the murder of ethnic Svan Sandro Girgvliani. The Georgian government, however, accused him of treason. According to the president’s office, Kvitsiani was in contact with Russian KGB officers based in Abkhazia and received military equipment and supplies from Moscow to add to the region’s instability.

The Kodori Gorge is a strategically important region of Georgia. It is the only part of Abkhazia that is not under the control of the self-proclaimed secessionist authorities in Sukhumi.

Both the Abkhazian de facto leaders and the Russian government reacted strongly to Tbilisi’s operation in the gorge. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the operation was a direct violation of the Moscow ceasefire agreement, since Georgia brought troops into the Abkhazian conflict zone. However, the Georgian government maintained that the gorge was part of its territory and therefore it had the right and obligation to restore order there, and to protect the local population from a runaway warlord.

The operation was a swift and clear show of Georgia’s newly obtained military prowess. Although it was officially a police operation with troops from the Interior Ministry, in fact the defense minister was present in the gorge throughout the operation and military troops were also involved, if in a supportive capacity. Official statistics place the number of casualties at one civilian death and several injured on both sides of the conflict. Kvitsiani was not captured, although both his sister and his nephew, who is rumored to be a mafia kingpin in the region, were arrested on charges of treason. In addition, a Georgian opposition leader, Irakli Batiashvili, was also arrested for treason after allegedly providing Kvitsiani with information during the government’s operation against him. However, Batiashvili has denied the charges and several other opposition groups have united in protest against the operation in the gorge.

The government was quick to denounce the opposition efforts as misguided, politically motivated and bordering on treason. High ranking officials within the government also raised the idea of passing a radical ‘Georgian’ version of the American Patriot Act in the wake of the arrests to give the government more power to control possibly ‘threatening’ protests and other meetings that could be considered dangerous for national security. However, no law has been presented to the parliament, which is in recess, and the public outcry against the proposed measures has been strong.

The operation in the Kodori Gorge was an ideal platform for the Georgian government to showcase its commitment to reinstating the country’s territorial integrity. The operation was controversial: many in Georgia feared it would lead to a renewed cycle of violence in the Abkhazian conflict zone, especially since the public was given little information about the government’s activities during the operation itself. However, since the military element of the campaign was contained to the Kodori Gorge, the operation was successful and gave Saakashvili the perfect opportunity to both showcase the country’s new military strength and his control over it.