Georgia and Russia have stumbled into a war that need not have happened, and civilians are paying the price.
By Thomas de Waal in London (CRS No. 452, 11-Aug-08)
In the space of a few days, a real catastrophe has unfolded in the Caucasus, sparked by a conflict over a tiny piece of land that could have been averted.At the heart of this is a massive human tragedy which is not being given its proper weight as too many commentators muse on the geopolitical significance of the conflict.
The place that has suffered most is South Ossetia which is home to both ethnic Ossetians and Georgians, the latter accounting for about a third of the population.
The destruction there has been appalling and it looks as though many hundreds of civilians have died, in the first place as a result of the initial Georgian assault of August 7-8. Gosha Kelekhsayev, an Ossetian interpreter in Tskhinvali with whom I spoke by telephone on August 10 said, “I am standing in the city centre, but there’s no city left.”
Ossetians fleeing the conflict zone talk of Georgian atrocities and the indiscriminate killing of civilians.
Ethnic Georgian villages inside South Ossetia have also come under fire, and could now face expulsion as Russian forces push south. Their future must be in grave doubt.
Now, in a second wave of violence, Georgians from Gali in Abkhazia to Gori in the north of the country, are fleeing and dying.
South Ossetia is a tiny and vulnerable place, which last week had no more than 75,000 inhabitants in a patchwork of villages and one sleepy provincial town in the foothills of the Caucasus.
A cynical disregard by both Moscow and Tbilisi for the well-being of these people has triggered this conflict.
On August 7, after days of shooting incidents in the South Ossetian conflict zone, Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili made a speech in which he said that he had given the Georgian villagers orders not to fire, that he wanted to offer South Ossetia “unlimited autonomy” within the Georgian state, with Russia to be a guarantor of the arrangement.
Both sides said they were discussing a meeting the next day to discuss how to defuse the clashes.
That evening, however, Saakashvili went for the military option. The Georgian military launched a massive artillery attack on Tskhinvali, followed the next day by a ground assault involving tanks.
This was a city with no pure military targets, full of civilians who had been given no warning and were expecting peace talks at any moment.
The attack looked designed to take everybody by surprise – perhaps because much of the Russian leadership was in Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games. It also unilaterally destroyed the negotiating and peacekeeping arrangements, under the aegis of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, that have been in place for 16 years.
Russian peacekeeping troops based in South Ossetia were among those killed in the Georgian assault.
Then came the inevitable response. Moscow cares as little about the South Ossetians as it does the Georgians it is bombing, regarding the territory as a pawn in its bid to bring Georgia and its neighbours back into its sphere of influence.
As recently as August 4, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov – a relative moderate within the Moscow leadership – said, "We will do everything possible to prevent the accession of Ukraine and Georgia to NATO."
Nor could ordinary citizens of South Ossetia feel confident in the government of Eduard Kokoity, which has a reputation for allowing criminality and has engaged in provocative statements and actions towards Tbilisi over much of this summer. It is likely that the de facto authorities in Tskhinvali would long ago have lost power had they not been the rallying point against Georgia.
If politicians had shown more restraint and wisdom, this conflict could have been avoided.
Its origin lies in one of the many majority-minority disputes that accompanied the break-up of the Soviet Union. The Ossetians, a divided people with one section living within Russia on the north side of the Caucasus mountains, and the other in Georgia, generally felt more comfortable with Russian rule than as part of the new, post-Soviet Georgian state. A small nasty war with Tbilisi in 1990-92 led to a declaration of independence but cost 1,000 lives and left a huge legacy of bitterness.
But away from high politics, ethnic relations were never bad. For a decade after South Ossetia's de facto secession from Georgia in 1991, it was a shady backwater and a smugglers' haven. The region was outside Tbilisi’s control, but Ossetians and Georgians went back and forth and traded vigorously with one another at an untaxed market in the village of Ergneti.
Then Saakashvili came to power in 2004, with heady promises to restore his country's lost territories. He closed the Ergneti market and tried to cut South Ossetia off, triggering a summer of violence. Modelling himself on the medieval Georgian king David the Builder, he pledged that the country’s territorial integrity would be restored by the end of his presidency.
He sought to tear up the far-from-perfect Russian-framed negotiating framework for South Ossetia, but failed to come up with a viable alternative.
For their part, the Russians upped the stakes and baited their bête noire Saakashvili by effecting a “soft annexation” of South Ossetia. Moscow handed out Russian passports to the South Ossetians and installed its officials in government posts there. Russian soldiers, although notionally peacekeepers, have acted as an informal occupying army.
Saakashvili is a famously volatile risk-taker, veering between warmonger and peacemaker, democrat and autocrat. On several occasions international officials have pulled him back from the brink.
On a visit to Washington in 2004, he received a tongue-lashing from then Secretary of State Colin Powell, who told him to act with restraint. Two months ago, he could have triggered a war with his other breakaway province of Abkhazia by calling for the expulsion of Russian peacekeepers from there, but European diplomats persuaded him to step back.
This time, he has stepped over the precipice.
The provocation is real, but the Georgian president is rash to believe that this is a war he can win, or that the West is happy to see it happen.
Both President George Bush and Senator John McCain – now Republican presidential hopeful – have visited Georgia and made glowing speeches in praise of Saakashvili. But Washington is now caught in a bind – it is supportive of Tbilisi, looking for ways to stop the war, but also keen not to get involved in a conflict with Moscow.
The reaction across much of Europe will be much more one of exasperation. Even before this crisis, a number of governments, notably France and Germany, were talking of 'Georgia fatigue'. Though they broadly wished the Saakashvili government well, they did not buy the line that he was a model democrat. The sight of his riot police tear-gassing protesters in Tbilisi and smashing up an opposition television station last November dispelled that illusion.
And they have a long agenda of issues to discuss with Russia which they regard as more important than its post-Soviet quarrel with Tbilisi. Paris and Berlin will now say they were right to urge caution on Georgia's NATO ambitions at the recent summit in Bucharest. When the dust settles, there will be angry words with Tbilisi as well as with Moscow.
Both sides deserve to be loudly condemned. The focus of the humanitarian concern has now shifted to the territory of Georgia proper, with reports of dozens of civilian casualties from Russian air-raids and a mass flight from the town of Gori, to the south of South Ossetia.
The concern now is that Moscow is using the plight of the Ossetians as cover for its ambitions to overthrow the government of Saakashvili. There is almost certainly a debate going on within the Russian leadership about how far to go in Georgia – whether to stop now and claim the moral high ground in South Ossetia, or carry on and effect “regime change” in Tbilisi, ignoring western outrage.
The signs are that the hawks, in the shape of former president and current prime minister Vladimir Putin, who has virtually a personal feud with Saakashvili, are in charge. Putin reacted angrily to events from Beijing many hours before President Dmitry Medvedev made a public statement. And it was Putin who flew down to Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, to coordinate the Russian handling of the crisis and made the ominous comment that the Georgian people would “pass objective judgement on their own leadership”.
Another area of great concern is Abkhazia, where there are reports that Russia has sent in thousands more troops, much exceeding the 3,000 peacekeepers it is allowed to keep there under the terms of the 1993 ceasefire agreement.
There are reports that Abkhaz and Russian troops are pushing into the Upper Kodori Gorge, the only area of Abkhazia under Georgian control. And there will be fears for the more than 20,000 ethnic Georgians living in the southern Abkhaz region of Gali who live in a precarious position, caught between Tbilisi and the de facto authorities in Sukhumi.
Diplomatically, the real problem in this crisis is that there is no obvious mediator who would be perceived as impartial.
The Russians, who hold a formal mediating role in South Ossetia, are now a party to the conflict. Western NATO countries, and particularly the Americans, are seen as friends of Georgia.
For the conflict to begin to end, all parties must state clearly that this is in the first place a humanitarian tragedy for civilians – both Georgian and Ossetian – and promise impartial help and support for all those who are suffering.
Source: IWPR
Also in this Issue (IWPR)
2 comments:
Just wanted to update you on what is going on in Georgia and around it based on some insider information. There is intentional information blockade and not much truth is allowed out. Russia has hacked most Georgian web pages and information sources, including official channels and Ministry of Foreign Affairs web pages. Targeted bombing of mobile communication antennas make it very difficult to communicate.
According to the official Russian information sources all this appears as a Georgian aggression on the civilian Osethian population. There are claims by Russian officials about ethnic cleansing and genocide. There are calls for bringing Saakashvili to tribunal for war crimes and genocide. However all this is totally fabricated lie.
A week or two before the clashes started Russia started evacuation of the civilian population from South Osethia. This was from time to time aired on the Russian TV. The commentary said that there is a threat of Georgian aggression and people are leaving in panic. However the video footage did not suggest anything resembling panic evacuation - people were leaving calmly with suitcases in a very organized way on buses. In the end almost no civilian was left in Tskinvali, Osethia's capital.
A month before this Russia started military exercise in North Caucus When we alerted the international community about the amassing Russian troops on the Georgian borders, Russians said they had planned military training, and nothing more.
A week before the war broke up, as they were evacuating people from South Osethia, Georgian villages were subjected to systematic shelling from Tskinvali. There were not much casualties but the situation was getting more and more unbearable. There were warnings from the Georgian side to stop but no one paid any attention. Cynically enough, the Russian sources were twisting the story and saying that it is Georgian military who is shooting at the Russian "peacekeepers" and the civilian population (who were already evacuated). In the end Georgia warned them that if the shelling of the Georgian villages did not stop they would respond. At the same time Russian 58th army started to enter Roki Tunnel. Russia was denying this in the beginning. Georgia started to take control over continues shelling from Tskinvali and moved its forces inside to suppress the sources of fire. As soon as Georgia responded Russia broke up a story that Georgia attacked its "peacekeepers" and therefore in order to protect its citizens they are bringing in regular army and they will severely punish for the violation of the lives of their citizens.
From Roki tunnel 150 tanks and huge army moved in. Then the fierce battles have started.
Russia has been working for months to stage this war and fabricate the situation of "ethnic cleansing and genocide" of Osethians by Georgians? Why was it necessary? If we recall Russia was telling the UN and EU that recognizing independence of Kosovoo would set a precedent for others, including Abkhazia and Osethia, and Russia would be free to recognize their independence. Counterargument for the Kosovo precedent was that Kosovo suffered from genocide and ethnic cleansing, which was not the case in Abkhazia and Osethia. That is why now Russia is using terms "genocide" so frequently because they want to create a Kosovo precedent in Osethia and Abkhazia. They want to prove that Georgians committed atrocities, ethnic cleansing and genocide and therefore it is impossible that these two ethnic groups could be together - hence independence for Osethia and Abkhazia. So similar to what happened in Kosovo.
You will see now how Russian info sources are "documenting" cases of genocide. They are recording stories from "refugees" as if Georgian troops were committing barbarian acts, such as burning alive young children in houses, crashing old woman with a tank, and so forth and so forth. There is a lot of attention on "documenting" these cases and submitting charges against Georgian President to the tribunal.
Timing was also perfect - the whole world is looking and the Beijing games, people, including politicians, are vacationing. The world will pay little attention to what is going on.
Russia also purses other goals here - they want to use the situation and without fighting finally split Abkhazia from Georgia. They did not want to have fighting in Abkhazia, near Sochi - the next Olympic games site. This would damage reputation and could risk Sochi's Olympics games. However Russia does want to have Abkhazia in Russia before the games so that Georgian border could be as far as possible from Sochi. Thus like in pool game - they hit one ball (Osethia) and want to score the other ball (Abkhazia) as well.
Another and very serious motive is the desire to change the regime in Georgia. On the security council meeting Russia demanded removal of Saakashvili and his government as a condition for cease fire!
Russia's protection of its peace keepers is happening through rather strange tactics - instead of protecting them in Osethia where the war is going on, Russian planes are bombing the most important economic and communication infrastructure in the other parts of Georgia, which are completely unrelated to South Osethia. Poti sea Port is completely destroyed, military airports, destroyed, Georgian military bases targeted, telecommunication facilities are destroied. There are lots of civilian casualties as well. Russians opened another front in Abkhazia as well and have occupied Zugdidi an administrative center of Samegrelo region.
There is a massive occupation and military aggression of Georgia from Russia, under the pretext of Russians protecting their citizens and peacekeepers. In this context the word peackeepers becomes ridiculous and full of cynicism.
Unfortunately the world does not really react. Georgians do appreciate "deep concerns" of friendly nations and their leaders, but that does not help against Russian aggression. The rule of thumb - the big bully wins - prevails here as well.
“PRECEDENTS” FOREGOING INDEPENDENCE IN REVOLTING TERRITORIES
The massacre of South Ossetians that has been happening during the reign of Georgian presidents in revolting territories starting from 1991 bears witness to the fact that Georgia is not capable of offering any form of mutual existence within any Georgian jurisdiction. Georgia’s insistent and endless attempts to render a pliable status by militant means have achieved a reverse result. The heavy casualties that have occurred and will still occur on either side will hinder any form of coexistence for many generations to come. Russia will have to recognize the status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent sovereign states following the instance of Kosovo. To which, it is well known, Russia was formally strongly opposed.
In reality Russia was not directly against Kosovo’s independence itself as it was to the manner in which independence was rendered. No effort was given to working out an agreed procedure enhancing all similar cases. The US and a number of EU countries just bombed their argumentation into Belgrade following which the “discussants” recognized Kosovo’s autonomy. The precedent was set becoming a beacon for resolving other similar conflicts.
Kosovo’s second “precedent”, by far more grievous than the first, was blasting resistance out of Serbia by the bombardment of its capital. Russia’s crumping of Georgian military infrastructure in the same manner, following which Abkhazia and South Ossetia similar to Kosovo will eventually become independent, is a one to one transcript of the “precedents” laid out by the US and EU member countries. The difference is that Russia had a far better cause to apply force as Russian peacekeepers were killed by Georgian troops and the obstruction of Tskhinvali was begun by using mass destructive weapons.
So, who still doubts there are no formulas in adjusting such matters?
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