How Russia Clobbered Georgia and Lost the War
Professor Piotr Dutkiewicz for RIA Novosti
2008-08-27 17:08Some critics have pointed to the conflict in Georgia as another example of botched Bush administration foreign policy, but in fact America's real strategy was brilliantly executed and it achieved exactly the intended outcome. Unfortunately it's not an outcome that brings nations together or makes the world a safer place.
First, it's important to note that this dispute is not and never was exclusively about Georgia or South Ossetia, which are the unfortunate, tragic victims of collateral damage in the geopolitical maneuvering that we are witnessing. It is not about Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili miscalculating the Russian response to his attack or overestimating the amount of support he would get from the West, both of which he did. President Saakashvili is really just a colourful bit-player.
Nor is this a case of an emboldened Russia striking back at the West for its support for Kosovo's independence, or the Orange Revolution, or the eastern Europe missile defence shield, though all of those things are factors.
Simply put, this was about the U.S. depositioning the only nuclear power in the world that consistently challenges it on foreign policy issues, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. It was a fully successful but wrong-headed attempt to undermine Russia's global status by setting a trap that Russia had to fall into. And it was about creating a villain for U.S. domestic political reasons.
Of course the U.S. realized that once pushed into this corner, Russia had no choice but to respond to the Georgian attack on its lawfully present peacekeepers and on South Ossetian civilians. Not to counter-attack would have put Russia in an untenable position. It could not claim to be able to protect its friends, allies and satellites from foreign intervention. It would have reverted to the Russia of 20 years ago - largely irrelevant, a non-entity.
American policymakers knew the trap they were setting. Going back at least to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, the United States has enforced its own "sphere of influence" policy. It knew exactly how far it had to push to provoke a reaction. Is there any way the US would sit idly by if Russian-backed Cuba tried to forcibly oust US forces from that island? Or if Russia built a missile defense system in Venezuela?
Nor did the Americans simply lose control of the hot-headed and impulsive President Saakashvili. The pundits on the ground in Tblisi have a saying: "Saakashvili doesn't go to the bathroom without calling the U.S. Embassy." The Georgian president was played masterfully by the U.S.
What country bombs its own citizens while they sleep? Would Ottawa bomb Quebec if it voted to separate? Would Belgium bomb Antwerp? Would Spain bomb its Basque regions? Even China, arguably the most repressive regime on the planet, does not bomb Tibet. The fact that Saakashvili bombed and rocketed civilian buildings in the middle of the night is a pretty good indication that he doesn't consider them citizens.
The result of Russia's counter-strike has been exactly what the U.S. wanted. Russia's political influence in the world is now diminished. With the international community almost unanimous in its condemnation of Russia, it no longer has the credibility to criticize the U.S. for its military adventures. And the powerhouse Russian economy also sustained serious damage. Foreign investors are now delaying or cancelling projects and the Russian stock market is paying the price. Meanwhile, the U.S. and its tiny partner get to express their moral outrage while painting the Russian bear as irascible and expansionist.
This was a carefully developed and magnificently executed strategy. But it fails to recognize how important it is to have Russia inside the community of nations rather than cast a pariah state.
Russia has more neighbours than any other country in the world, and many of those neighbours are countries that we need to engage. The world is not a safer place without Russian involvement in the containment of nuclear proliferation. In fact, Russia plays a critically important role in maintaining a dialogue with countries like Iran that have nuclear ambitions.
Likewise Russia's help is essential in the global war on terror. The U.S. simply cannot go it alone and hope to have any meaningful success over the long term. But now Washington says Russian Navy ships are no longer welcome to take part in the Active Endeavour counterterrorism and nonproliferation operation in the Mediterranean. That helps no one.
The world needs a cooperative and productive relationship between Russia and the U.S. - a relationship built on reciprocity. Rather than undermining and vilifying Russia, a more productive strategy for the U.S. would be to engage with Russia as much as possible as a partner on the world stage. Both Russia and the United States have legitimate national and international interests. Both can realize their interests. It is not a zero sum game. Russia does not need to be made to lose in order for the U.S. to win.
Prof. Dutkiewicz is Director of the Institute of European and Russian Studies ata Carleton University and a member of the Valdai Club .
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
Here is the original article on RIA Novosti.
Remember Fetishes?
Well problem solved! Gödel is a lost cause, but Ms. Gates can get on with her work. She only need to write down the following as a list entry:
All of Gödel fetishes (which by my reckoning = Ø).
Readers of this blog might like this post with its comment trail: In-dependance.
You may not know this, but the mouse over tool tip hold a joke withing a joke in xkcd comics.
You might want to check out Kurt Gödel and Georg Cantor.Statement By The President Of Georgia
Mikheil Saakashvili
August 26, 2008The Russian Federation’s actions are an attempt to militarily annex a sovereign nation—the nation of Georgia. This is in direct violation of international law and imperils the international security framework that has ensured peace, stability, and order for the past 60 years.
Russia's decision today confirms that its invasion of Georgia was part of a broader, premeditated plan to redraw the map of Europe. Russia today has violated all treaties and agreements that it has previously signed.
Russia’s actions have been condemned in the strongest possible terms by the entire international community, which has reaffirmed its support for Georgia’s territorial integrity. The Government of Georgia is grateful for the world’s support.
The regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are recognized by international law as being within the borders of Georgia.
Today, by its actions, the Russian Federation is seeking to validate the use of violence, direct military aggression, and ethnic cleansing to forcibly change the borders of a neighboring state.
Russia’s refusal to withdraw its military forces from Georgia—and its attempt to annex two regions of Georgia—is in direct violation of the EU-brokered cease fire to end Russia's invasion and occupation of Georgia.
The two regions in question have been de-populated by conflict and continue to be subject to widespread ethnic cleansing by Russia and its proxies—as confirmed by the United Nations and other international bodies.
These are areas where the local populations– simply because of their nationality - have been chased out, with the direct intervention of the Russian Federation.
The few civilians who remain in these regions have been given Russian passports en masse, in violation of international law and norms, making a mockery of the principle of “right to protect”.
One such expulsion took place in 1993 in Abkhazia. Others took place last week in South Ossetia and in Upper Abkhazia/the Kodori Gorge.
I remind you that before the first conflict, more than 525,000 people lived in Abkhazia. Today less than 150,000 do.
I remind you that ethnic Georgians in South Ossetia have been systematically forced to flee that territory due to Russia’s invasion. The attacks on ethnic Georgians, both inside and outside the conflict zones, are continuing.
The ethnic cleansing is something that the local rebel separatists are proud to announce—and which Russia, through its actions, is attempting to legalize.
Is it legal to remove ethnic groups from their homes using violence and terror?
Is it moral or legal for an ethnically cleansed area to be rewarded with independence by a neighbor?
If intervention in Kosovo was about stopping ethnic cleansing, today’s decision by the Russian Federation is about rewarding and legalizing ethnic cleansing.
Russia has turned logic and morality on its head.
Russia’s decision is therefore a direct and grave challenge to the international order.This a challenge for the entire world. Not just Georgia.
It means that today, annexation and ethnic cleansing have once again become tools of international relations.
If accepted by the international community, it means that foreign-sponsored groups around the world can use violence and ethnic cleansing to achieve their ends.
It means that third parties can arm, sustain and direct those groups in order to change the borders on the world’s map.
Today, it is clear around the world that Russia is acting as an aggressor state.
My appeal to the free world is to condemn and reject Russia’s dangerous and irrational decision – NOT only for Georgia’s sake – but for the sake of preserving the fundamental basis of international law and order.
On behalf of my Government and people, I condemn this reckless act and want to state clearly that the Russian action does not hold any legal value.
As before – and according to international law, Georgia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty is inviolable.
Russia’s aims, method and goals are now clear.
The Russian Federation has used military force to try to dismember my country.
In the days and weeks ahead we will work with the international community to prevent this decision from having any effect on the sovereignty of my country and from further undermining the international order.
Together we must stand united against this aggression and call on you for your assistance and immediate reaction.
This is a test for the entire world and a test for our collective solidarity.
This is the test that we—all free people—must not fail.
My friends, we are all concerned today. And today Georgia counts on your support.
Today a challenge has been posed to all of us.
Today the fate of Europe and the free world is unfortunately being played out in my small country.
But together, we can and we must unite to meet this challenge.
This is the full text of the President of Russia Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev’s televised statement:
“Based on the referendum results [in 1999 in Abkhazia and in 2006 in South Ossetia], Parliaments [of South Ossetian and Abkhaz] have appealed Russia with a request to recognize Abkhazia’s and South Ossetia’s sovereignty. The Council of Federation [the upper house of the Russian Parliament] and the State Duma [lower house of the Russian Parliament] have voted in favor of these appeals. In the face of the existing situation, a decision must be made. Taking into account freewill of the people of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, being guided by the UN Charter, the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law in respect of friendly relations between the states, the 1975 Helsinki Final Act and by other fundamental documents I have signed a decree on recognition of independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia by the Russian Federation. Russia calls on other states to follow this decision. This is not an easy choice, but this is the only possible way to save people’s lives.”
Stratfor On the Russian/Georgian War: The Russo-Georgian War And The Balance of Power.
Condoleezza Rice's Statement On The Georgian/Russian Conflict: U.S. Advises Allies Not To Border Russia.
The former foreign minister of Armenia on Georgia, Russia, NATO, Karabakh, and most of all the stability pact proposed by the Turks: The Caucasus Movement.
Wordle.Net will take any text, RSS feed, or del.icio.us username and generate a word cloud.
This is the word cloud from GL.Mimino.Org:
From a friend of a friend, who lives in Alabama:
"I found out this afternoon that every gun shop and Wal Mart in the State of Alabama has run out of ammo. According to what I have been hearing is that the good people of state feel that their neighbor may have fallen to the Russians but they never will."
WWF Says Key Georgian Forests Ravaged By Russian Firebombs
AFP
August 20, 2008Up to 280 hectares (692 acres) of forests have been burnt or are alight in Georgia after its conflict with Russia, the WWF said Wednesday, warning that key conservation areas were under threat.
In a statement, it called on "all parties capable of helping put out forest fires in central Georgia to work together to extinguish them".
The fires are centred in the Borjomi-Kharagauli area, about 70 kilometres (43 miles) west of the strategic city of Gori, some 60 kilometres from the Georgian capital Tbilisi.
Georgia's foreign ministry had said Saturday that the Borgomi Gorge area had been targeted by Russian helicopters dropping firebombs in a dozen locations.
But a Russian defence ministry spokesman was quoted by state news agency RIA Novosti saying that Russia had "nothing to do with the forest fire in Borjomi", and that they were ready to help the Georgians douse the flames if asked.
The WWF said the threatened areas were home to the rare Caucasian red deer and Caucasian salamander. Brown bears, lynx and wolves are also found here.
"Observers on the ground have indicated to WWF that 250 to 280 hectares of forest on both sides of the Kura River have been burned or are alight," said the WWF.
Some fires have also been reported inside the Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park, about 125 kilometres (80 miles) southwest of Tbilisi.
The source of Borjomi mineral water – one of Georgia's top exports – is located in the park.
America Must Choose Between Georgia and Russia
By Sergey Lavrov
The Wall St. Journal
August 20, 2008In some Western nations an utterly one-sided picture has been painted of the recent crisis in the Georgia-South Ossetia conflict. The statements of American officials would lead one to conclude that the crisis began when Russia sent in its troops to support its peacekeepers there.
Meticulously avoided in those statements: The decision of Tbilisi to use crude military force against South Ossetia in the early hours of Aug. 8. The Georgian army used multiple rocket launchers, artillery and air force to attack the sleeping city of Tskhinvali.
Some honest independent observers acknowledge that a surprised Russia didn't respond immediately. We started moving our troops in support of peacekeepers only on the second day of Georgia's ruthless military assault. Yes, our military struck sites outside of South Ossetia. When the positions of your peacekeepers and the civilian population they have been mandated to protect are shelled, the sources of such attacks are legitimate targets.
Our military acted efficiently and professionally. It was an able ground operation that quickly achieved its very clear and legitimate objectives. It was very different, for example, from the U.S./NATO operation against Serbia over Kosovo in 1999, when an air bombardment campaign ran out of military targets and degenerated into attacks on bridges, TV towers, passenger trains and other civilian sites, even hitting an embassy.
In this instance, Russia used force in full conformity with international law, its right of self-defense, and its obligations under the agreements with regard to this particular conflict. Russia could not allow its peacekeepers to watch acts of genocide committed in front of their eyes, as happened in the Bosnian city of Srebrenica in 1995.
But what of the U.S.'s role leading up to this conflict? U.S. involvement with the Tbilisi regime-past and future-must be addressed to fully understand the conflict. When the mantra of the "Georgian democratic government" is repeated time and time again, does it mean that by U.S. standards, a democratic government is allowed to act in brutal fashion against a civilian population it claims to be its own, simply because it is "democratic"?
Another real issue is U.S. military involvement with the government of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Did Washington purposely encourage an irresponsible and unpredictable regime in this misadventure? If the U.S. couldn't control Tbilisi's behavior before, why do some in the U.S. seek to rush to rearm the Georgian military now?
Russia, by contrast, remains committed to a peaceful resolution in the Caucasus.
We'll continue to seek to deprive the present Georgian regime of the potential and resources to do more mischief. An embargo on arms supplies to the current Tbilisi regime would be a start.
We will make sure that the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan endorsed in Moscow on Aug. 12 is implemented, provided the parties to the conflict cooperate in good faith. So far we are not sure at all that Tbilisi is ready. President Saakashvili keeps trying to persuade the world that the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali was destroyed not by the Georgian attack but by the Russian forces who, according to Mr. Saakashvili, bombed the city after they entered it.
Russia is committed to the ongoing positive development of relations with the U.S. That kind of agenda is set forth in the Foreign Policy Concept-the framework document that sets out the basic directions of Russia's foreign policy-recently approved by President Dmitry Medvedev.
However, it must be remembered that, as between any other major world powers, our bilateral relationship can only advance upon the basis of reciprocity. And that is exactly what has been missing over the past 16 years. I meant precisely that when I said that the U.S. will have to choose between its virtual Georgia project and its much broader partnership with Russia.
The signs are ominous. Several joint military exercises have been cancelled by the Americans. Now Washington suggests our Navy ships are no longer welcome to take part in the Active Endeavour counterterrorism and counterproliferation operation in the Mediterranean. Washington also threatens to freeze our bilateral strategic stability dialogue.
Of course, that strategic dialogue has not led us too far since last fall, including on the issue of U.S. missile defense sites in Eastern Europe and the future of the strategic arms reduction regime. But the threat itself to drop these issues from our bilateral agenda is very indicative of the cost of the choice being made in Washington in favor of the discredited regime in Tbilisi. The U.S. seems to be eager to punish Russia to save the face of a failed "democratic" leader at the expense of solving the problems that are much more important to the entire world.
It is up to the American side to decide whether it wants a relationship with Russia that our two peoples deserve. The geopolitical reality we'll have to deal with at the end of the day will inevitably force us to cooperate.
To begin down the road of cooperation, it would not be a bad idea to do a very simple thing: Just admit for a moment that the course of history must not depend entirely on what the Georgian president is saying. Just admit that a democratically elected leader can lie. Just admit that you have other sources of information - and other objectives - that shape your foreign policy.
Mr. Lavrov is the foreign minister of the Russian Federation.
Initially, Russia (and indeed even some Georgian) sources claimed up to 2000 dead in South Ossetia from the Georgian Attacks.
Increasingly there has been doubt of these figures, and now Russia has posted new numbers of about 150.
In my view if these new numbers are correct (and if Russia is admitting it, they probably are) then we have to admit the possibility of what the Georgian government has been saying all along: that Russia has been waging (and winning) a propaganda war.
See this article from the BBC, Russia Scales Down Georgia Toll, for more information.
Statement from the meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the level of foreign ministers held at NATO Headquarters, Brussels
19 August 2008The North Atlantic Council met in special Ministerial session on 19 August 2008, expressed its grave concern over the situation in Georgia and discussed its wider implications for Euro-Atlantic stability and security. A peaceful and lasting solution to the conflict in Georgia must be based on full respect for the principles of Georgia’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity recognised by international law and UN Security Council resolutions. We deplore all loss of life, civilian casualties, and damage to civilian infrastructure that has resulted from the conflict. We are assisting humanitarian relief efforts. We met with the Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE, Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Alexander Stubb, to discuss the key issues which he believed needed to be addressed.
We welcome the agreement reached and signed by Georgia and Russia, through the diplomatic efforts of the European Union, the OSCE and the US, to end the hostilities and to bring about a political solution to the conflict. We stand fully behind these efforts. We stress the urgency of swift, complete, and good faith implementation of the agreement, including a new international mechanism to monitor respect for these engagements. Military action must cease definitively and military forces must return to their positions held prior to the outbreak of hostilities. Fully international discussions must begin on the modalities for security and stability in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Economic activity in Georgia, including international aviation and shipping, must not be hindered.
We are gravely concerned by the humanitarian situation. Allied governments are working together, and in concert with international organisations and others in the international community, to ensure that the civilian populations affected by the conflict have the assistance they need to meet immediate and ongoing humanitarian needs. We call on all parties, in accordance with their obligations under international humanitarian law, to ensure access for international humanitarian relief efforts to all affected populations.
We have also agreed today to support Georgia, upon its request, in a number of areas. In addition, we have agreed to task the North Atlantic Council in Permanent Session to develop with Georgia rapidly the modalities for a NATO-Georgia Commission. This Commission will supervise the process set in hand at Bucharest, including the measures of support agreed at today’s meeting. These measures are intended to assist Georgia, a valued and long-standing Partner of NATO, to assess the damage caused by the military action and to help restore critical services necessary for normal public life and economic activity. Georgia's recovery, security and stability are important to the Alliance. NATO will continue to cooperate with Georgia in the framework of the Partnership for Peace and Georgia’s Individual Partnership Action Plan with NATO, and will review any additional Georgian requests for assistance. We also welcomed the fact that a number of our governments have indicated that they will actively support measures to help the economic reconstruction of Georgia.
The conflict between Georgia and Russia has compromised regional stability and security. We deeply deplore the use of force in the conflict between Georgia and Russia. We reiterate that there is no military solution to the unresolved conflicts. We remind all parties that peaceful conflict resolution is a key principle of the Partnership for Peace Framework Document.
We remain concerned by Russia's actions during this crisis and remind Russia of its responsibility for maintaining security and order in the areas where it exercises control, especially in light of continuing reports of Russia’s deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure. Russian military action has been disproportionate and inconsistent with its peacekeeping role, as well as incompatible with the principles of peaceful conflict resolution set out in the Helsinki Final Act, the NATO-Russia Founding Act and the Rome Declaration. We call on Russia to take immediate action to withdraw its troops from the areas it is supposed to leave under the six-principle agreement signed by President Saakashvili and President Medvedev1. The Alliance is considering seriously the implications of Russia’s actions for the NATO-Russia relationship. In 2002, we established the NATO-Russia Council, a framework for discussions with Russia, including on issues that divide the Alliance and Russia. We have determined that we cannot continue with business as usual. We call on Moscow to demonstrate – both in word and deed – its continued commitment to the principles upon which we agreed to base our relationship.
We reaffirmed our commitment to the decisions taken by Heads of State and Government at the Bucharest Summit in April 2008, including those regarding Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations, and we will continue our intensive engagement with Georgia to address in December the questions pertaining to its Membership Action Plan application, taking into account developments until that time.
See the Original statement on the NATO site.
Azerbaijan: Public Angry At Russian Offensive from IWPR.
Azerbaijan: Public Angry at Russian Offensive
By Tamara Grigoryeva in Baku (CRS No. 455, 19-Aug-08)Ordinary Azeris outraged by Moscow’s intervention in Georgia – but officials largely silent.
“Our home looks like a dormitory now, because so many relatives have arrived,” said 23-year-old Azerbaijani Parvana Mamedova who has helped take care of a stream of relatives from Georgia’s Marneuli region, which has an Azerbaijani minority. “We don’t have enough space in our three rooms, but it’s our duty to receive them.”
After August 8, when Russian planes bombed the military base in Marneuli, two families of relatives decided to move to Baku, until the situation settles down. Only her uncle, Asif, stayed in Georgia and joined a unit of Azerbaijani volunteers to support the Georgian army.
Azerbaijan has strong ties to both Georgia and Russia. The private reaction in Azerbaijan, Georgia’s partner in the GUAM organisation and in several energy projects, has been stronger than the public one.
Azerbaijani foreign ministry spokesman Khazar Ibrahim has been virtually the only official to comment. “Azerbaijan recognises Georgia’s territorial integrity and believes that the conflict must be settled within [the] framework…of international law,” he said.
President Ilham Aliev has remained at the Olympic Games for the duration of the crisis and made no public comment.
Opposition politicians and commentators have criticised him for doing this at a time of conflict in the Caucasus and suggested that the president is too beholden to Russia, with which he signed a cooperation agreement last month.
“Our president preferred to stay and watch the Olympics and keep silent while the presidents of several other friendly countries personally arrived in Tbilisi and expressed their support for President Saakashvili,” said analyst Ilgar Mamedov.
“I think that this position can be explained by the president of Azerbaijan’s commitment to good relations with the leadership of Russia, and his wish to preserve stability in the country on the eve of the forthcoming presidential elections.”
Only last month, Aliev and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev signed a new cooperation treaty.
Political analyst Hikmet Hajizade said the reaction was understandable. “Azerbaijan fears for of its own security,” he said. “It’s obvious that Russia shouldn’t be driven crazy, because we have seen the consequences.”
The Azerbaijani public and media were much sharper in their reactions. There have been several statements accusing Russia of supporting separatists and urging it to withdraw. Six protest rallies have been held outside the Russian embassy in Baku.
In response, the Russian ambassador to Azerbaijan Valery Istratov has held two press conferences. At the first, only four journalists, mainly representing Russian media accredited in Baku, were invited, a decision the Azerbaijani news internet site day.az described as “the ambassador’s desire to evade tricky questions from Azerbaijani journalists”.
Inevitably, Azerbaijanis have also drawn parallels between the war over South Ossetia and their own unresolved conflict with Armenia over Nagorny Karabakh. “The parallels between these conflicts are obvious,” said Hajizade. “The conflict between Georgia and Ossetia will definitely have an impact on the Karabakh conflict. If the conflict ends with Russia’s full control over Georgia, it will be very bad for Azerbaijan. Georgia is our only route for our energy and transport projects to reach the outside world.”
Hajizade also believes that “many of those in Azerbaijan, who have called for a military solution to the Nagorny Karabakh conflict have learned what lies in store for a country which defies Russia but has no real allies. On the other hand, Hajizade sees one advantage in the current crisis, “The forgotten Caucasian conflicts have become a focus of attention of the world.”
As the situation deteriorated, Georgia announced it was quitting the Commonwealth of Independent States and urged other countries to follow suit. But Azerbaijan was cautious on this. “The decision to leave the CIS is Georgia’s internal affair. Each country has the right to take decisions independently,” said Azerbaijani deputy foreign minister Hafiz Pashayev.
The conflict over South Ossetia is hurting Azerbaijan economically. The country’s main oil export route, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, was shut down anyway on August 5 after an explosion in eastern Turkey claimed by the PKK Kurdish rebels. The conflict ensured the closure of the other pipeline via Georgia, Baku-Supsa. Azerbaijan was forced to rely only on the alternative, Baku-Novorossisk via Russia. According to the Caspian Alliance Group, every day that the pipelines do not operate Azerbaijan loses more than 70 million dollars.
Energy experts and officials say this is a temporary disruption and that the pipelines via Georgia will soon be operating again.
Political analyst Rasim Musabekov called Russia’s actions in Georgia “deliberate energy blackmail towards Europe and Azerbaijan”.
“As soon as we started oil deliveries via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline, Russia started experiencing some problems,” he said. “This once again shows that the Baku-Novorossisk pipeline cannot be used as the main route to export Azerbaijani resources to Europe. Our main routes pass through Georgia. In the future we must pay more attention to their security.”
Tamara Grigoryeva is an AFP correspondent in Baku.
From IWPR: Caucasus Burning.
WPR Comment: Caucasus Burning
By Thomas de Waal, Caucasus Editor
19-Aug-08So much has been left in ruins in the Caucasus in the past week. What chance is there of a salvage operation?
The landscape is littered with wreckage. First, South Ossetia was ravaged; now Georgia is experiencing a great tragedy. Amid the wider carnage, the greatest losers are the 25,000 or so ethnic Georgians of South Ossetia. Only a month ago Ossetians and Georgians were buying and selling from one another in South Ossetia by day even as armed men in their villages exchanged fire at night. Now those Georgians face total dispossession, their homes burned by South Ossetian irregular fighters. Around 50,000 Georgians in Abkhazia are still in their homes, but they face a precarious future. These people have the greatest moral right to pass judgement on a long list of culprits.
Russia's guilt is of course the most blatant. The Russian army has unleashed atavistic violence and allowed Ossetians and North Caucasians to follow in its wake, re-inflaming inter-ethnic hatreds that had begun to fade after the wars of the 1990s. The cost of this will be there for years and Moscow should pay the price, in terms of both economic compensation for the wreckage it has caused and international opprobrium. On the latter, Germany could take the lead by threatening to cancel the joint Nord Stream project – a Russian gas pipeline with a political agenda, designed to bypass Moscow's critics in Poland and the Baltic states.
Next in line for criticism is the Georgian leadership, which has now all but lost the two disputed territories. Georgia is a small nation under threat from the Russians, and in the short term Georgians will rally around their leader. But there almost certainly will be a reckoning with their impetuous president, Mikheil Saakashvili.
Since coming to power in 2004, Saakashvili has been a man in a hurry. His economic reforms are impressive, but he was courting trouble from the start when he promised to win back Abkhazia and South Ossetia within five years. A brief look at the Balkans, Cyprus or Northern Ireland tells you that complex ethno-territorial conflicts need more time to heal than that. Yet Saakashvili deliberately thawed the (misleadingly named) "frozen conflicts", challenging the Russian-framed peacekeeping operations and moving his security forces closer to Abkhazia and South Ossetia. He kept up the economic isolation of the two territories and rejected any initiatives to open them up – for example, by allowing the Abkhaz to trade with Turkey – as a threat to Georgian sovereignty.
His rhetoric was just what the Russians wanted to hear and they moved in to fill the vacuum economically, politically and militarily. Many Abkhaz were unhappy about being swallowed by Russia, but the argument that Moscow was guaranteeing their security trumped all others. Now the Russians are triumphant.
How did Georgia's 2003 Rose Revolution, which was greeted with such euphoria by Georgians, end up like this? I was present at Saakashvili's first press conference after the revolution. There he said explicitly – and in Russian – that in contrast to his predecessor, Eduard Shevardnadze, he wanted "normal relations" with Russia.
Vladimir Putin, pushing first as president and now as prime minister to build the resurgent Russia that we saw rampaging through Georgia last week, played a leading role in this. But it is hard to imagine the wily Shevardnadze allowing himself to get sucked into a war with Russia.
Many Washington policy makers played their part, too. They loved the idea of a new "beacon of democracy" run by thirty-something economic reformers astride an important energy corridor and standing up to Russia. But they all too often neglected to pay attention to what Georgia was actually doing. The Georgians basked in American attention and felt emboldened to challenge Moscow even more. When President George W. Bush stood on Freedom Square in Tbilisi in May 2005 and told Georgians, "The path of freedom you have chosen is not easy, but you will not travel it alone", they believed it meant something.
When I asked a senior United States official four years ago what Washington would do if Russia attempted a military assault on Georgia, he said, "We won't send in the US cavalry." But now it looks as though this was precisely what Saakashvili was counting on.
As for Europe, France and Germany, they might say that their cooler approach to Georgia all along looks wise in retrospect. But they have little to be proud of. The European Union had the opportunity to approve a new border-monitoring force for Georgia in 2005, when the Russians blocked the continuation of the old one under the aegis of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. But France and Germany vetoed the plan. The unarmed force could have been an early-warning system had it been in place this year, and might have helped deter the Russian campaign.
Few western policy makers have engaged seriously with the South Caucasus, and they would do well now to ponder the fact that South Ossetia was not even the most dangerous of the region's conflicts. That dubious honour goes to Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan. There, tens of thousands of troops face each other across 110 miles (175 kilometres) of trenches, and angry rhetoric is strong on both sides. The fragile Karabakh ceasefire is observed by just six unarmed European monitors. If the world wakes up to the danger of the ceasefire breaking, there will have been at least one good outcome from the Georgian tragedy.
Negotiations over the Karabakh conflict have been fruitless so far, but they have come up with a useful formula for squaring the separatist circle. A draft peace plan under discussion would defer the issue of the status of the disputed region of Karabakh itself. Instead, the region would have some interim status short of statehood while other issues, such as the return of Azerbaijani land currently occupied by Armenians outside Nagorno-Karabakh, are resolved and refugees begin to return home.
That kind of solution now looks to be the most desirable one for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Abkhaz and Ossetians themselves have far more reason to want to live well with their Georgian neighbours than the Russians do. Giving them some kind of international guarantees and more power to dictate their own futures is the only way to lift the Russian wolf off their shoulders and allow at least some Georgian refugees to go home.
Yet it is probably too late. The Russians now have a tight grip and will try to keep others out. President Dmitry Medvedev said last week that Abkhaz and Ossetians "do not trust anyone but Russian troops...We are the only guarantors of stability in the region".
Answering that charge is a big physical and moral challenge for both Europe and the United States. If they want to fix things in the region, they need to consider a new version of the mass peaceful intervention they made in the Balkans from the mid-1990s, in the form of policemen and peacekeepers, human-rights investigations, and large-scale economic investment. It would be expensive, but in the end it would probably cost much less than doing nothing.
Thomas de Waal is IWPR Caucasus editor.
This piece first appeared in The Wall Street Journal.
The views expressed in this article are not necessarily the views of IWPR
The Times Of London
Monday, August 18, 2008
'Putin has given us an order that everyone must leave or be shot' By Tony Halpin in Gori“The soldiers told us they had an order from Putin - leave or be killed.” Manana Dioshvili showed no emotion as she described how Russian troops forced her to flee her home. Her former neighbours nodded in agreement, huddled together in a kindergarten whose windows had been blown out by a Russian bomb.
“That's how they explained themselves to us,” she recalled of the moment they fled the ethnic Georgian village of Kurta, near the capital of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali.
“They said, ‘Putin has given us an order that everyone must be either shot or forced to leave'. They told us we should ask the Americans for help now because they would kill us if we stayed.”
Vardo Babutidze, 79, was not lucky enough to be visited by Russian soldiers. Her husband Georgi, 85, was shot twice through the chest by an Ossetian paramilitary who came to their house to demand weapons.
“We didn't have any guns, so he shot Georgi in front of me without saying a word,” she said. “A neighbour helped me to bury him in our garden and then I just fled.”
Manana Galigashvili, 53, whose husband Andrei stared vacantly from a bed behind her, said that Ossetian soldiers had returned later and torched the house. They, too, had left after a soldier threatened to slit their throats.
Frightened refugees told similar stories all over the city of Gori yesterday as the Russian army extended its reach deep into Georgian territory despite a ceasefire agreement signed by President Medvedev that requires them to withdraw.
Troops and tanks moved to within 25 miles (40km) of the capital, Tbilisi, setting up roadblocks and digging in defensive positions in the hills above the highway. A line of tanks faced towards Tbilisi outside the village of Kaspi, a day after soldiers had blown up the railway line linking the capital to Georgia's main port of Poti.
Six Russian checkpoints have been set up on the road from Tbilisi to Gori, starting at the village of Igoeti, the closest to the capital that occupying troops have been since the conflict started on August 7. Troops searched the few cars that were allowed on to the road by Georgian police, who blocked the highway three miles away and fumed at the latest indignity heaped upon them by the Russians.
The heavy military presence all along the route offered no indication that Russian forces were preparing to comply with President Medvedev's promise by withdrawing today. However, convoys of aid from the International Red Cross and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees were allowed to travel into Gori.
Alexander Lomaia, Georgia's National Security Council secretary, stood in the shadow of Stalin's statue in Gori's main square and admitted that he had no idea when or if the Russians would go. He said he had been unable even to obtain assurances that they would not enter Tbilisi, a prospect that has left many Georgians in a state of panic.
“If they are not staying here, why did they blow up our TV centre and bring their transmitters to broadcast their own TV and radio? It looks very suspicious,” he said. “It is a matter of fact that they have expanded geographically since yesterday.
“We feel legally bound to the commitment to cease fire that we have made but it looks like they don't feel committed to this agreement. After the ceasefire, they exploded the bridge and went deeper into our territory ... they have cut the country in two.”
The regional governor, Lado Vardzelashvili, has returned to Gori but the Russians still refuse to allow Georgian police into the city.
Mr Lomaia said: “We have two options - either we attack them to get into the city or obey the rules that they impose ... They say that the moment they see any Georgian police cars in the city they will shoot.”
Although many buildings in the main square have suffered bomb damage Gori remains largely intact, contrary to Georgian government claims that it had been destroyed. But food supplies are running low.
Behind the shattered glass walls of Gori's “Complex Sports School”, refugees screamed and jostled each other as local officials tried to distribute boxes of food supplied by the Turkish Red Crescent. Each box contained packets of flour, rice, beans and pasta.
Outside, a group of women complained that profiteers had been selling aid. Nana Piekrishvili said: “They organise lines and tell us to come at a particular time but then they have nothing to give us. There are men walking away with aid boxes and we get nothing. They are also coming to people's homes and looking for humanitarian aid to take back so that they can start selling it on the streets.”
Despite refusing to allow Georgian police into Gori, there were few Russian troops visible inside the city, though tanks blocked a road about 500 metres from the main square.
Locals said that the army had withdrawn to the outskirts of Gori but patrolled the streets in armoured vehicles at night and had imposed a 10pm curfew. Everyone is now waiting to see if the Russians will leave.
Mr Lomaia seemed highly sceptical. He said: “I think they will ask for some concessions and will be bargaining hard. That's why they are taking as many places as they can now.”
From IWPR: South Ossetia: IWPR Contributors Amongst War Dead.
South Ossetia: IWPR Contributors Amongst War Dead
Reporters were caught in gunfire in Tskhinvali.
By IWPR in Tbilisi, 15-Aug-08Gia Chikhladze and Alexander Klimchuk were killed in Tskhinvali last week.
Two journalists who contributed to IWPR, Gia Chikhladze and Alexander Klimchuk, have died in the conflict over South Ossetia. We send our deepest sympathies to their loved ones.
Both of them were in the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali and died there on August 8, when their car was fired on. Their relatives and friends are doing everything they can to try and get their bodies delivered home to Tbilisi.
Giga was working for Newsweek and had been employed by a number of publications in Georgia, such as Eurasianet and Civil Georgia. He was 30 and leaves behind his wife Nata and two children, Sopho and Luka. He was the only breadwinner in his family and was also supporting his wife's parents.
Alexander (Sasha) was 27. He began his career as a print journalist, then became a photographer and worked for ITAR-TASS news agency. His pictures were also published in foreign publications such as Le Monde, Newsweek and the Financial Times. He was unmarried. His parents relied on him for an income.
The two, who were great friends, had both worked for IWPR. Giga wrote many stories for the Caucasus Reporting Service on subjects as diverse as Dukhobors, Kurds, AIDS sufferers and ostrich farms. Sasha took photographs that were published in our newspaper Panorama and also formed a photo-exhibition in our office.
"I loved working with Giga," said Marina von Koenig (formerly Rennau), IWPR's former Caucasus director. "He would always try to find interesting angles to stories, talk to lots of people until he was sure that there was nothing he could have missed. He loved to travel on assignment. Even without a commission, he would follow his intuition and bits of information to remote areas of Georgia to return with an exciting story.
"South Ossetia was one of the places he went to regularly, coming back with features, interviews or pictures. He had friends there."
Giga was a great nature-lover and once walked all the way from Bakuriani in central Georgia to Tbilisi. He also loved literature. "I heard his parents and neighbours saying that he was quoting Pushkin's poems when he was just three," said Marina. "They loved to retell this story."
Timo Vogt, a German photographer with whom Sasha built the Caucasus-Images agency, said of his colleague, "Sasha often reacted with humour to the problems and difficulties in his country.
"Photography became his life. He always approached foreign photographers who visited Georgia, and invited them to his house.
"All the fees he earned as a photographer were spent immediately on his parents who cannot work any longer. Once when he wanted to buy a new lens for his camera, his washing machine broke and the lens had to wait. His family was a priority. He wanted a simple life, he wanted to travel and to take pictures. But his last trip brought him into a war."
Unfortunately Giga and Sasha are not the only journalists to have died in the conflict. A Dutch cameraman, Stan Storiman, 39, was killed in Gori on August 12. More than ten journalists have been wounded. (Details can be found on http://www.newssafety.com)
An appeal has been set up to help Giga and Sasha's families.
As I wrote in a previous post I arrived at the Montreal Russian Consulate on Friday only to find about four other very Georgian People milling around wondering where everyone was. We all waited together and then a couple of phone calls later we found out that the demonstration had been postponed to Saturday.
This is typically Georgian: people just know these things through personal contacts; everybody knows everything about everyone.
Anyways, I was pretty disappointed, but figured I better go back to Ottawa.
I got to the bus station and found out that I'd have an hour and a half to wait for the bus, so I had some time to kill. I thought what the hell, let's see if i can find a really cheap place to stay for the night, so that I can attend protest tomorrow.
Well, waiting in line for twenty minutes for my turn at the information counter, but what I suspected from the start turned out to be true: they were useless. Not only didn't they know any hotels or hostels, they looked at me like I was the first person to ever ask them for help finding accommodations. (And another thing, how come no matter what I ask, I find no need to occupy an information counter more that 1 minute, yet other people manage to get into a ten minute conversation?)
And then I had a great idea: ask anyone with a backpack! I looked around for anyone reading a travel guide and in a couple of minutes of talking to two Germans from Kiel and München-Gladbach I found a place to stay about a twenty minute walk from the bus station. The Auberge Chez Jean was run by a French woman from France so it was civilized in all the right ways and uncivilized in all the ways I find charming (polite, formal service, no hot water).
The next day I got up (with a hangover - what do you think I did until 3 AM?) and made my way to the Russian consulate.
It was like I was back in Georgia. The men were constantly smoking and squatting around, the women were organizing everything. Everyone was talking Georgian. It was great that I was able to follow bits and pieces of what was said.
Then we began to demonstrate. I must say, I've never really been comfortable with the idea demonstrating... it just seems like such a silly way to make a point. But still, things being what they are, it is one of the few ways one can be really express oneself. And besides, if you're wrong, all you've done is make a fool of yourself: I do that all the time anyway.
I have to give credit to three really great people. One Georgian woman – who if you'd seen, you'd never imagine would raise her voice at anyone – took control of the crowd and really got us going.
At some point she was yelling, and I heard her say Faschismus, and so asked her if she spoke German. It turns out she spoke German, English, Russian, French and Georgian.
And then a just when we thought we'd reached the pinnacle of energy, this woman and her daughter showed up and essentially took control of the whole crowd. I could tell by the national costume that the daughter was wearing that they weren't Georgian but I didn't recognize the flags they brought.
And wouldn't you know it, they were Chechens.
Chechens have a difficult past with Georgians: Chechens are Muslims, and Georgians are Christians, Georgians have traditionally supported Russians in the Caucuses and Chechens opposed them, Chechens supported Russia in the war against Georgia in Abkhazia in the 90s, finally The Georgia was a destination of refuge for Chechens fleeing the Russian/Chechen wars that followed.
And the Chechens never had it easy with the Georgians either: as Refugees, they were really disliked for bringing problems to a country with plenty of problems already (and it was difficult for many Georgians to accept that they should accept refugees from a people who had fought against them only a few years ago). And another thing: preferring to think of themselves as Europeans, I don't think that a lot of Georgians like being reminded of their similarities with people that many of them would consider a bit barbaric.
The Chechen woman said that her husband had been tortured and killed by Russians. She said that Georgians had robbed them more than once as refugees. Still she said she respected the Georgians, many of which had helped her as well. Her daughter she said missed Tbilisi very much.
When she had arrived in Montreal with her daughters (the other one was married she said) she didn't want her daughter to lose touch with the Caucasus so at first she looked for a Georgian dance troupe, and when that proved impossible, she found an Armenian dance troupe.
So believe it or not, there's a 17 year old Chechen Girl in Montreal, Canada who knows Armenian dances.
And when the Chechens showed up, a remarkable thing happened: all the Georgians started speaking in Russian. So here we were, protesting the Russian Consulate, all speaking Russian. If this seems a bit Ironic to you, get used to it.
We protested at the Consulate for a while, and then we marched down St. Catharine.
And then, in real Georgian tradition we had a Supra, but with Mexican food as a concession to our geography.
Did it change anything? Certainly not. Nothing really changes anything. I think supporting dead causes is stupid, but once in a while, it's exactly what you have to do.
I'm in Montreal to protest in front of the Consulate of the Russian Federation(odd that I have travel from Ottawa (where the Embassy is to Montreal where there is only a consulate &ndash but Monteal is where there is a Georgian diaspora) so I don't have time for many posts.
I would really hope that nobody is using this blog as their only source of information, but just in case that this is far from over: Russians forces do not seem to be withdrawing, but rather advancing deeper and are conducting a policy of destruction. Military and civilian infrastructure is being targeted and destroyed. Massive Fires have been started (and the Russians have prevented Turkish firefighting aircraft from putting them out). The Russians have set up checkpoints twenty kilometers from Tbilisi. The Russians have destroyed Georgian naval vessels at their docks. As Kurt Vonnegut would have said: And so on.
And the unbelievable: The Russians it seems are logistically supporting the ethnic cleansing of the Georgian villages in by the South Ossetians. The entire demographic situation has been changed.
Some cease fire:the Georgians are begin forced to watch as there their entire country is destroyed (The Russians are being really smart, leaving Tbilisi alone, where all the foreigner are as they totally destroy everythng else). It's a disaster.
And what I most feared and thought impossible: Georgians I know are avoiding the Russian language, and are talking about the Russians using words I've never thought I'd hear from them. Please Georgians keep in mind, the Georgian side is not completely without fault. The those Russian paramilitary groups don't have the right to represent the Russian people. I know these are not very trying times, but all the more reason to keep your heads.
See the IWPR article: Gori: Russian Allies Triumphant As City Burns.
Gori: Russian Allies Triumphant as City Burns
By Idrak Abbasov in Gori (CRS No. 454, 14-Aug-08)An IWPR journalist, allowed into Gori on a Russian tank, witnesses exultant pro-Moscow fighters rampaging through the blazing city.
“The Georgians have to understand that we’re not afraid of [United States President] Bush….threatening us with his marines and paratroopers,” insisted the Russian soldier who called himself a commander, tank captain and a member of what he says are Russia’s peacekeeping troops.
His tank was standing outside the Georgian town of Gori.
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev announced on August 12 that what he described as a peace enforcement mission in Georgia had ended. But Russian troops, assisted by North Caucasian irregular militias, have continued to rampage through Georgian territory.
On August 15, there were reports that the Russian military remained in the Black Sea port of Poti, the western town of Senaki and the central town of Gori.
The previous day, I was able to get into Gori and saw terrifying scenes of exultant pro-Russian fighters rampaging through a city apparently empty of civilians.
I got in quite by chance. A Russian tank commander I spoke to befriended me because we both come from the same city, the Azerbaijani capital, Baku.
That afternoon, I took my chances walking past the last Georgian roadblock on the road to Gori. I was stopped by Russian soldiers and brought to their commander.
The commander checked my documents and learning that I was from Baku said he was born there himself. He returned me my documents and my camera and told the soldiers, “Don’t touch him, he’s my compatriot.”
The officer asked me about Baku, how life was there and how the city had changed.
Then he escorted me into Gori on his tank and warned not to wander off.
The city was burning and the firing was continuous. There were lots of Russian soldiers there and even more irregular fighters with white armbands.
I was told that soldiers had been brought here from Chechnya. There were fighters of several Caucasian nationalities. I didn’t see a single civilian. All around was smoke and the smell of gunfire. Everyone was celebrating victory, congratulating one another and asking each other loudly when they should advance.
My mobile phone rang. My editor was calling from Baku. Because of the non-stop firing and rumble of tanks, I couldn’t hear anything and I moved away from my protectors in the tank by 20 or 25 metres to talk to him. I sheltered in some bushes and began to talk to my editor.
At that moment, some men with white armbands seized my phone. They threw me on the ground and levelled their guns at me and shouted, “Who are you? Whose side are you on?”
I was saved by my minder from Baku who arrived on the scene and told them that I was “one of us”. A few seconds later and it might have been too late.
After that I was released, my attackers turned friendly, returned my phone and even asked to borrow it to call home. They thanked me by treating me to Pepsi and giving me cigarettes and a lighter.
One of them was a well-built tall North Caucasian in his thirties with white armbands on both arms. He was unshaven and unwashed and spoke with a strong accent. He told me, “The Georgians say we are raping women in Gori – but there aren’t any here! If they had been here, we’d have done it with pleasure!”
Then my new friend from Baku took me back out of the town on his tank to the road back to Tbilisi.
My attempts to reach the city had begun the day before. You could hear shooting coming from there and it was hard to get access to the town.
Around midnight that night Georgia’s security council said that the road to Gori was now open. The next morning I decided to try again.
The road into the town was closed and Georgian soldiers advised journalists not to go any further. But we took the decision to try and see with our own eyes what was going on.
Gori is only 70 kilometres from Tbilisi in the centre of Georgia. On the road north out of the capital, we saw Georgian police and soldiers but armed only with automatic weapons and without any heavy weaponry. I counted 12 Georgian checkpoints.
The last Georgian post was three km from Gori. On the morning of August 14, the road was opened for a short time and journalists and international officials from the OSCE and UNHCR were allowed through.
Near the entrance to the town stood Russian tanks and armoured vehicles and artillery. Nearby were burnt Georgian armoured vehicles and tanks.
Suddenly a burst of firing came from the direction of the town and everyone on the road ran in panic.
A few minutes later, journalists regrouped and gathered again 10 to 15 km from the entrance of the town.
Not a sound could be heard from the town. Journalists began to talk to the Russian soldiers.
Then three Niva vans came out of Gori, full of armed men with white armbands. They got out of the cars and ran towards the journalists, firing several shots in the air and even some at the journalists.
Journalists began to run again. The militiamen stole three of the journalists’ cars. Tamar Urushadze, a correspondent for Georgian public television, had been talking live on air and was lightly wounded in the arm.
The people in the UNHCR vehicles also ran away and hid in the wood not far away.
All this happened in full view of the Russian soldiers who had introduced themselves as peacekeepers.
A few minutes later, remembering their peacekeeping role, the Russian soldiers did finally intervene and stop the irregulars with white armbands stealing the UN vehicles.
About an hour later, the Niva belonging to Imedi television channel was completely wrecked.
Then everything was quiet for two hours.
Around 4 pm, a group of Russian armoured vehicles suddenly moved out of Gori in the direction of Tbilisi, unimpeded by the Georgian military, which let them pass its checkpoints. Then, after passing several roadblocks, the vehicles suddenly stopped and went back in the direction of Gori.
Later, IWPR was told by the Russian military that this sortie had been specially planned to provoke a Georgian attack.
One Russian armoured vehicle broke down 150 metres away from their post. Journalists went up and began to ask questions. The Russian soldiers swore at them. Several of the Georgian women journalists answered back, saying, “What are you doing on Georgian territory, what do you need here? Go away, leave us in peace.” Then the Russian soldiers pointed their weapons at them, swore and shouted, “If you don’t go away and shut up, we’ll open fire.”
Around 5 pm, five Georgian police cars came up to the Russian roadblock and negotiated for a humanitarian corridor to be opened up to Gori. Journalists listened in on the conversation and asked for permission to carry on. “We cannot guarantee your safety,” said one soldier.
The Russians said that they did not control the town and there were irregular fighters there from Abkhazia and Ossetia. One Russian officer said that the Abkhaz and Ossetians were taking revenge on the Georgians. “They are doing just what you did in Tskhinvali and we cannot stop them,” he said.
What I saw in Gori confirmed that.
Idrak is a journalist with the Azerbaijani newspaper Ayna and a member of IWPR’s Cross Caucasus Journalism Network.
See the IWPR article: North Ossetia Flooded With Refugees.
North Ossetia Flooded With Refugees
By Alan Tskhurbayev in Vladikavkaz (CRS No. 454, 14-Aug-08)
Local parliament calls on Moscow to formally recognise independence of its southern kin.
North Ossetia, no stranger to conflicts on its border, is once again dealing with a flood of refugees with tales of horror and misery.
“We had neither light, nor water and food,” said Tatyana Valieva, 40, from Tskhinvali, recalling the Georgian bombardment of the South Ossetian capital. “We only heard explosions, but had little idea of what was going on.
“When the bombing ebbed, we would shout out to the people in other cellars, and they would shout back, but this would last only briefly until it all started again. We had to sleep on wooden planks.”
Tatyana worked as a teacher in a kindergarten in Tskhinvali. She was at her neighbours’ house on August 7 when the bombing attack on the town started, and spent the next four days in their cellar.
During a lull in the fighting on the fourth day, Tatyana and six other women left their shelter and found their house completely ruined and surrounding streets strewn with bodies. A truck was picking up women and wounded to take them to North Ossetia. On the way there, the vehicle came under an attack, but, luckily, no one in it was hurt. Tatyana is now in a refugee camp in North Ossetia.
“It’s no longer possible to live there, out homes are destroyed, as well as our lives,” she said. “I don’t know what will happen next, I just don’t understand.”
The camp, consisting of several dozen tents, is located in Alagir, a town 100 kilometres away from the border with South Ossetia. The camp meets only the most basic needs of the refugees. Some of them have moved to the neighbouring republics of the North Caucasus, finding shelter in sanatoriums and hostels there. But many prefer to stay in the camp in order to be as close as possible to their sons and husbands still fighting on the other side of the mountains.
According to official information, around 35,000 people fled the fighting to North Ossetia. Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin has said 500 million rubles (around 20 million US dollars) will be provided to support the refugees.
Around eight thousand have now returned, mainly to see what condition their houses are in, although it is not clear how many can move back in permanently.
There are chaotic scenes on the mountainous border between the two Ossetias, with numerous tanks, armoured personnel carriers and military tanks rumbling slowly in the direction of Tskhinvali. Passenger vehicles, many of them badly battered, carrying civilians pass in the opposite direction. Groups of young volunteers wearing military uniforms, but not armed, are waiting to be sent to the conflict zone.
“Before the Russian army came to our aid, we had only grenade-launchers to use against the Georgian tanks that were moving on Tskhinvali, firing indiscriminately at all the buildings,” said one of them, a middle-aged man, who refused to give his name. “They just razed the town to the ground.”
“If what this country [Georgia] has is democracy, then I just don’t know what to think.”
In North Ossetia, volunteers started to sign up to go to South Ossetia as soon as the conflict broke out last week. Anyone aged between 20 and 45, who’s served in the Russian army, could be recruited. Around 500 volunteers crossed over to South Ossetia on the first day of the hostilities. Several days later, 10,000 volunteers were registered in Vladikavkaz. Many have been killed or wounded.
A total of 178 wounded civilians from South Ossetia, including 17 children, have officially been admitted into hospitals in North Ossetia.
However, officials say the casualty toll is much higher as many wounded have not been registered and many more are in South Ossetia.
An accurate death toll from the fighting of August 7-8 has yet to be compiled.
The parliament of North Ossetia adopted a resolution on August 13 calling on the Russian leadership to recognise the independence of South Ossetia.
“All the suffering will have been pointless if the borders of South Ossetia are not defended by Russian forces and we cannot put off this question any longer,” said one parliamentarian.
Alan Tskhurbayev is an IWPR-trained reporter in Vladikavkaz.
Humanitarian aid groups and U.N. monitors are unable to relieve suffering in large parts of Georgia due to the ongoing war and lawlessness, which a French-brokered cease-fire has not stopped so far, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday.
A statement issued by his office said Ban welcomed Wednesday's cease-fire agreement between Russia and Georgia "but notes that notwithstanding this agreement, violence continues, with civilians bearing the brunt."
Georgia's president Mikhail Saakashvili said a column of more than 100 Russian tanks and other vehicles was heading toward Kutaisi, the nation's second-largest city.
Ban urged all combatants "to respect and protect civilians in accordance with international humanitarian law and human rights law" and urged all parties "to control forces under their command to ensure that the current state of lawlessness ceases."
The Georgian ambassador to the United Nations, Irakli Alasani, told reporters at the U.N. that Georgia was complying with the ceasefire but that Russia was violating it.
"Georgian cities remain subject to the hostile and aggressive behavior of Russia," he said. "Looting, destruction, murder have become customary."
"Their aim is to destroy Georgian democracy and take away the freedom of Georgia's people," he said.
Alasania bristled at questions about whether Georgia had misjudged the balance of power in the Caucasus by launching an attack last week on the breakaway South Ossetia region, which is allied with and supported by Russia.
He insisted Georgia had only sent "suppressive fire on South Ossetia after Georgia was attacked" from the South Ossetian side.
"Nevertheless, we have remorse about casualties" on all sides, he said.
Alasania said he had been told that 175 Georgians had died in the conflict as of Wednesday, but added that the toll would surely go higher.
The U.N.'s expert on internally displaced persons, Walter Kalin, expressed alarm about the safety of 100,000 displaced people in Georgia, in a statement from the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
Humanitarian aid provided by the United States and by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees is arriving in Georgia, but the country is partially divided by Russian troops.
U.N. agencies and humanitarian groups "have begun providing relief supplies to tens of thousands of affected persons in those areas of the country that are accessible," Ban said.
"However, large parts of the conflict-affected area, particularly South Ossetia and the Gori region, remain for the most part inaccessible to humanitarian organizations due to ongoing insecurity, lawlessness and other constraints."
The U.N. resident coordinator in Georgia, Robert Watkins, appealed to Russia and Georgia to open a corridor for delivery of relief aid, which was one of the key elements of the cease-fire agreement.
Ban demanded "safe and unimpeded access for humanitarian actors to all conflict-affected areas," and called on the Russians and Georgians to "honor this commitment and take immediate measures to allow and facilitate the work of humanitarian actors in assessing the needs of the conflict-affected population,and to ensure their safety.
The United Nations separately announced that it had landed a second airlift of 32 tons of relief supplies in Georgia on Thursday, and expected a third airlift on Friday morning.
France is in discussion with other Security Council members in a bid to draft a council resolution to "cement" the provisions of the cease-fire it proposed to Russia and Georgia, but no meetings on the subject were scheduled on Thursday or announced for Friday.
See the IWPR article: Armenia Offers Safe Haven for Fleeing Georgians.
Armenia Offers Safe Haven for Fleeing Georgians
By Naira Melkumian in Yerevan and Bavra (CRS No. 454, 14-Aug-08)Thousands cross border, as opposition blames president for delay in returning from Olympics.
Armenia, the closest country to the Georgian-Russian fighting, has opened its borders to thousands fleeing the conflict – but its political leadership has kept virtually silent throughout the crisis.
Since the conflict in South Ossetia broke out last week, the customs checkpoint at Bavra at the Armenian-Georgian border has been the only safe crossing point for people wishing to leave Georgia. Most were Armenian tourists fleeing, but others were Georgians deciding to leave for a place of safety.
“There is something terrible happening there, we saw burnt tanks on our way here…A bomb fell just a few metres away from us near the Suram Pass and the shrapnel damaged the door of my car,” Alik, who was traveling with his wife and baby, told IWPR.
“We left on August 8, the day the war started because we didn’t think our visit to Georgia would be so dangerous,” said Anna, who was with her husband and child. “We went to [the Black Sea resort of] Kobuleti, everything was calm there but the general atmosphere was very tense; what we feared most was the road, of course.”
The Armenian foreign ministry said that more than 10,000 people had crossed the Bavra crossing since the war began.
Most came in their own cars, others in Georgian tourist buses and traveled on in buses sent to the border to bring them back to Yerevan for free.
More than two thousand foreign citizens, staff and relatives of those working for embassies or international organisations also crossed into Armenia, heading for the nearest safe international airport in Yerevan.
Thousands of Armenian tourists holidaying on the Black Sea were taken by surprise by the conflict.
“On the night of August 8-9 we were woken by strange noises outside the building we were renting an apartment in,” said Rita Karapetian, an IWPR contributor who was in Kobuleti.
“The electricity went off in the whole city, television broadcasting had stopped before that. The neighbours in the yard said that a war has started, and the Russian air forces had attacked strategic targets in different cities of Georgia.”
Along with others, she cut short her holidays and headed for the border.
That was not the case, however, with Armenian president Serzh Sarkisian who continued his vacation in China, where he has been attending the Olympic Games. Sarkisian finally returned home on August 14, almost a week after the crisis began.
Armenia has tried to keep a low profile in the crisis. All statements on the crisis were made by Armenia’s deputy foreign minister. “Armenia is very concerned about the situation in South Ossetia and expresses hopes that the parties will make efforts to settle the issues under dispute peacefully as soon as possible,” read an official statement from the foreign ministry on August 8.
Armenian and Georgian officials denied a report that Georgia had been attacked by planes from the Russian military base in Gyumri in northern Armenia.
When President Mikheil Saakashvili called on other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States to quit the organisation in solidarity with Georgia, the Armenian foreign ministry declared publicly it would not do so, saying that staying in the CIS was Armenia’s “long-term political choice”.
Sarkisian telephoned Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on August 13 and offered his sympathies. He then called Saakashvili on August 14 and offered condolences and humanitarian aid.
Sarkisian's long silence drew sharp criticism from the Armenian opposition. The Armenian National Congress, led by former president Levon Ter-Petrosian, criticised what it called the president’s “inadequate and dubious behaviour” and called on him to fly home.
Opposition member of parliament Stepan Safarian said, “By offering condolences only to the president of the Russian Federation, Serzh Sarkisian violated a balance because condolences should have been sent to three sides, Russia, Georgia and South Ossetia.”
Armenians are watching nervously to see how the Georgian-Russian clash will continue. The landlocked country’s economy is very reliant on both countries and experts believe the conflict will hurt trade, when the economy is already in a downturn.
On August 7, the Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation cut supplies of Russian gas to Armenia by 30 per cent without prior warning, but prime minister Tigran Sarkisian later said that full supplies of 4.7 million cubic metres of natural gas had been restored.
Armenia is heavily dependent on Georgia’s Black Sea ports for its trade and is also suffering because of the Russian blockade of the port of Poti.
Businessman Hmayak Mnatsakanian said his freight consignment of fruit he had been planning to send out of Poti for five days ago had been stranded and he had only just managed to get it returned to Armenia, although he feared it was now all spoiled.
“Each truck costs about 50 thousand dollars, and if the goods are damaged I'll face a huge debt, leaving aside the fact it cost two thousand dollars to send it to Georgia.
“But the most important thing is I came home safe and sound. I can't believe I'm on home soil.”
Naira Melkumian is a freelance journalist and IWPR contributor.
The Russians seem to be still in Gori as US aid is beginning to arrive.
Russia has already said that it no longer necessarily will support Georgian terrestrial integrity and this will make reintegration of South Ossetia much more difficult (not that it was going to be easy anyway).
Now the three biggest questions in my mind are:
The answer to the second question is no. It was an Abkhaz side operation that took Kodori and the Russians will say it doesn't really concern them.
I have no idea about the other two.
If the Russians keep Gori, the whole country is paralyzed: all the major East-West roads go through Gori. By holding Gori the Russians can effectively negate the sovereignty of all if Georgia. But Gori is very close to the South Ossetian conflict zone, which gives the Russians an argument for holding it.
Ultimately, what happens will all depend on the coming test of wills between the US and Russia (and let's hope it will only be a test of wills).
This is Gori:
This is the Kodori Gorge:
Russia Says To Forget Georgian Territorial Integrity
Associated Press
August 14, 2008Russia's foreign minister says the question of Georgia's territorial integrity is a dead issue, a sign that Moscow could absorb two separatist regions in the wake of recent fighting.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made the statement Thursday simultaneously with the announcement that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was meeting in the Kremlin with the separatist regions' leaders.
Lavrov tells reporters, "One can forget about any talk about Georgia's territorial integrity." That's because he believes it's impossible to persuade South Ossetia and Abkhazia that they can be forced to be a part of Georgia.
McCain Adviser Got Money From Georgia
By Pete Yost, Associated PressJohn McCain's chief foreign policy adviser and his business partner lobbied the senator or his staff on 49 occasions in a 3 1/2-year span while being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the government of the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
The payments raise ethical questions about the intersection of Randy Scheunemann's personal financial interests and his advice to the Republican presidential candidate who is seizing on Russian aggression in Georgia as a campaign issue.
McCain warned Russian leaders Tuesday that their assault in Georgia risks "the benefits they enjoy from being part of the civilized world."
On April 17, a month and a half after Scheunemann stopped working for Georgia, his partner signed a $200,000 agreement with the Georgian government. The deal added to an arrangement that brought in more than $800,000 to the two-man firm from 2004 to mid-2007. For the duration of the campaign, Scheunemann is taking a leave of absence from the firm.
"Scheunemann's work as a lobbyist poses valid questions about McCain's judgment in choosing someone who — and whose firm — are paid to promote the interests of other nations," said New York University law professor Stephen Gillers. "So one must ask whether McCain is getting disinterested advice, at least when the issues concern those nations."
"If McCain wants advice from someone whose private interests as a once and future lobbyist may affect the objectivity of the advice, that's his choice to make."
McCain has been to Georgia three times since 1997 and "this is an issue that he has been involved with for well over a decade," said McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers.
McCain's strong condemnation in recent days of Russia's military action against Georgia as "totally, absolutely unacceptable" reflects long-standing ties between McCain and hardline conservatives such as Scheunemann, an aide in the 1990s to then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.
Scheunemann, who also was a foreign policy adviser in McCain's 2000 presidential campaign, has for years traveled the same road as McCain in pushing for regime change in Iraq and promoting NATO membership for Georgia and other former Soviet republics.
While their politics coincide, Russia's invasion of Georgia casts a spotlight on Scheunemann's business interests and McCain's conduct as a senator.
Scheunemann's firm lobbied McCain's office on four bills and resolutions regarding Georgia, with McCain as a co-sponsor or supporter of all of them.
In addition to the 49 contacts with McCain or his staff regarding Georgia, Scheunemann's firm has lobbied the senator or his aides on at least 47 occasions since 2001 on behalf of the governments of Taiwan and Macedonia, which each paid Scheunemann and his partner Mike Mitchell over half a million dollars; Romania, which paid over $400,000; and Latvia, which paid nearly $250,000. Federal law requires Scheunemann to publicly disclose to the Justice Department all his lobbying contacts as an agent of a foreign government.
After contacts with McCain's staff, the senator introduced a resolution saluting the people of Georgia on the first anniversary of the Rose Revolution that brought Mikhail Saakashvili to power.
Four months ago, on the same day that Scheunemann's partner signed the latest $200,000 agreement with Georgia, McCain spoke with Saakashvili by phone. The senator then issued a strong statement saying that "we must not allow Russia to believe it has a free hand to engage in policies that undermine Georgian sovereignty."
Rogers, the McCain campaign spokesman, said the call took place at the request of the embassy of Georgia. And McCain campaign spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace added that the senator has full confidence in Scheunemann. "We're proud of anyone who has worked on the side of angels in fledgling democracies," she said in an interview.
McCain called Saakashvili again on Tuesday. "I told him that I know I speak for every American when I said to him, today, we are all Georgians," McCain told a cheering crowd in York, Pa. McCain's Democratic rival, Barack Obama, had spoken with Saakashvili the day before.
In 2005 and 2006, McCain signed onto a resolution expressing support for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia; introduced a resolution expressing support for a peace plan for Georgia's breakaway province of Ossetia; and co-sponsored a measure supporting admission of four nations including Georgia into NATO.
On Tuesday, McCain told Fox News that "as you know, through the NATO membership, ... if a member nation is attacked, it is viewed as an attack on all."
Scheunemann's lobbying firm is one of three that he has operated since 1999, with clients including BP Amoco, defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. and the National Rifle Association.
Scheunemann is part of the community of neoconservatives who relentlessly pushed for war in Iraq.
No one in Washington is more closely aligned with the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq than prominent neoconservatives, who for years had regime change in Iraq as a goal as part of their philosophy that the United States shouldn't be reluctant to use its power, both diplomatic and military, to spread democracy and to guarantee world order.
Now, McCain and other politicians who pushed for the invasion are seeking to emphasize the progress, albeit fragile, of the current troop surge in Iraq.
In the months before the war began, Scheuenemann ran the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, set up in November 2002 when public support for the looming invasion was eroding.
Before that, Scheunemann was on board with the Project for the New American Century, whose letter to Bush nine days after the Sept. 11 attacks pointed to Iraq as a possible link to the terrorists.
The letter said American forces must be prepared to support "by all means necessary" the U.S. government's commitment to opponents of Saddam Hussein.
Scheunemann was among the letter's 37 signers, a Who's Who of neoconservative luminaries including William Kristol and Richard Perle.
If anything, Scheunemann's duties have been enhanced from McCain's 2000 presidential campaign, when Scheunemann also advised McCain on national security and foreign policy issues.
Earlier in his political career, McCain displayed the kind of caution that could be expected from someone who fought in Vietnam and was a prisoner of war.
In 1983, McCain urged U.S. withdrawal from Lebanon. "I do not see any obtainable objectives in Lebanon, and the longer we stay there, the harder it will be to leave," he said.
As the United States prepared for the first Gulf war, McCain was among a handful of members in Congress who began raising caution flags about the operation.
"If you get involved in a major ground war in the Saudi desert, I think support will erode significantly," said McCain. "Nor should it be supported. We cannot even contemplate, in my view, trading American blood for Iraqi blood."
The bloody conflict over South Ossetia will have been good for something at least if it teaches two lessons. The first is that Georgia will never now get South Ossetia and Abkhazia back. The second is for the west: it is not to make promises that it neither can, nor will, fulfil when push comes to shove.
Georgia will not get its separatist provinces back unless Russia collapses as a state, which is unlikely. The populations and leaderships of these regions have repeatedly demonstrated their desire to separate from Georgia; and Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister, made it clear again and again that Russia would fight to defend these regions if Georgian forces attacked them.
The Georgians, like the Serbs in the case of Kosovo, should recognise reality and formally recognise the independence of these territories in return for a limited partition and an agreement to join certain Georgian-populated areas to Georgia. This would open the way either for an internationally recognised independence from Georgia or, more likely in the case of South Ossetia, joining North Ossetia as an autonomous republic of the Russian Federation. For the Georgians, the resolution of their territorial conflicts would make it more likely that they could eventually join the European Union – though after the Georgian administration’s initiation of this conflict, that cannot possibly be considered for many years.
Western governments should exert pressure on Georgia to accept this solution. These governments have a duty to do this because they, and most especially the US, bear a considerable share of the responsibility for the Georgian assault on South Ossetia and deserve the humiliation they are now suffering. It is true that western governments, including the US, always urged restraint on Tbilisi. Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s president, was told firmly by the Bush administration that he must not start a war.
On the other hand, the Bush administration, with the full support of the US Congress, armed, trained and overwhelmingly financed the Georgian military. It did this although the dangers of war involving these forces were obvious and after the Georgian government had told its own people that these forces were intended for the recovery of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
The Bush administration, backed by Congress, Republican presidential candidate John McCain and most of the US media also adopted a highly uncritical attitude to both the undemocratic and the chauvinist aspects of the Saakashvili administration and its growing resemblance to that of the crazed nationalist leader, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, in the early 1990s.
Instead, according to European officials, the Bush administration even put heavy pressure on US and international monitoring groups not to condemn flagrant abuses by Mr Saakashvili’s supporters during the last Georgian elections. Ossete and Abkhaz concerns were ignored, and the origins of the conflict were often wittingly or unwittingly falsified in accordance with Georgian propaganda.
Finally, and most importantly, the US pushed strongly for a Nato membership action plan for Georgia at the last alliance summit and would have achieved this if France and Germany had not resisted strongly. Given all this, it was not wholly unreasonable of Mr Saakashvili to assume that if he started a war with Russia and was defeated, the US would come to his aid.
Yet all this time, Washington had not the slightest intention of defending Georgia, and knew it. Quite apart from its lack of desire to go to war with Russia over a place almost no American had heard of until last week, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan it does not have an army to send to the Caucasus.
The latest conflict is humiliating for the US, but it may have saved us from a far more catastrophic future: namely an offer of Nato membership to Georgia and Ukraine provoking conflicts with Russia in which the west would be legally committed to come to these countries’ aid – and would yet again fail to do so. There must be no question of this being allowed to happen – above all because the expansion of Nato would make such conflicts much more likely.
Instead, the west should demonstrate to Moscow its real will and ability to defend those east European countries that have already been admitted into Nato, and to which it is therefore legally and morally committed – especially the Baltic states. We should say this and mean it. Under no circumstances should we extend such guarantees to more countries that we do not intend to defend. To do so would be irresponsible, unethical and above all contemptible.
The writer is a professor in the war studies department of King’s College London and a senior fellow of the New America Foundation. He covered the Georgian civil wars of the 1990s as a correspondent for the Times (London)
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
