South Ossetia: Russian, Georgian...independent?

A decisive referendum result has done nothing to resolve the small Caucasian statelet's future, reports Shaun Walker.


On Sunday 12 November 2006, South Ossetians went to the polls to vote in a referendum confirming the region's independence from Georgia. The result was an overwhelming "yes" to independence, with a turnout above 95% from those among the territory's 70,000 people who were eligible to vote. There was a similar vote in favour of a new term for South Ossetia's president, Eduard Kokoity. Neither outcome came as a surprise, but the chances are that nobody in the international community will take the slightest bit of notice of the results.

South Ossetia is a bite-sized chunk of land on the southern slopes of the Caucasus mountains, one of four "breakaway states" that - along with fifteen recognised nation-states - emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union (the other three are Abkhazia, Transdniestria, and Nagorno-Karabakh). The Ossetians are a largely Christian people, whose language is related to Farsi, and the majority of whom live on the northern side of the Caucasus in North Ossetia, which is part of Russia.

South Ossetia was part of the Georgian republic within the Soviet Union, but in the early 1990s tried to gain autonomy from Tbilisi, which led to violent clashes in which many died and thousands were made refugees, both Georgian and Ossetian.
Since then, South Ossetia, with the exception of a few villages controlled by the Georgian government in Tbilisi, has been run as a de facto independent state, although its proclamations of independence have been ignored by the international community. The territory is heavily reliant on Russian support. As in Abkhazia, Moscow has infuriated the Georgians by granting passports to the majority of the South Ossetian population, and providing significant economic backing.

A state of limbo

The United States, the European Union, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and Nato all issued statements before the 12 November vote that branded the referendum meaningless and unhelpful. Georgia repeatedly derided it as illegitimate, though it had no problems with backing an "alternative" election and referendum that took place in the villages that Tbilisi controls. Even Russia's quiet endorsement of the result has stopped short of official recognition.

The authorities in South Ossetia's capital, Tskhinvali, managed to gather some "international monitors" to oversee the voting, largely from members of other breakaway states but including Russians, Venezuelans, and a few renegade European communists. Few foreign correspondents turned up to cover the events, and the chances are that the results will be forgotten as quickly as those of the referendum held in Transdniestria, Moldova's breakaway statelet, on 17 September.

When the dust has settled on the ballot-boxes, everyone will be back to square one. Russia is highly unlikely to recognise South Ossetian independence or initiate procedures to facilitate the accession of the region to the Russian Federation. But equally, it is likely to continue antagonising Georgia through informal support for South Ossetia. The lastest example of this came days before the referendum when Moscow followed its announcement of sharp increases in gas prices for Georgia proper by declaring that a gas pipeline would be built directly across the Caucasus mountains to South Ossetia. President Putin has hinted that he sees no reason why South Ossetians and Abkhaz shouldn't be granted independence if Kosovo and Montenegro can be.

There is certainly an element of cynical politicking behind Russia's South Ossetia policy. Georgia is public-enemy-number-one in Moscow right now, and meddling in the breakaway zones is a sure-fire way to annoy Tbilisi. But aside from the Russians installed into high positions in the South Ossetian leadership, and the giant "our president" posters featuring a grinning Putin dotted around Tskhinvali, any visitor to South Ossetia will notice significant ground-level pro-Russian sentiment, or at least an appreciation of the possibilities that being close to Russia offers them.

A Russian passport is akin to a lifeline for South Ossetians - a way to get an education or a job in North Ossetia or Moscow. There are very few jobs in the region, so most families have at least one person working in Russia and sending money home. It becomes obvious when talking to people that reintegration into the Georgian state will not be an easy process - to start with, only the eldest generation even speaks the language. People would not be able to get jobs or study in Tbilisi - Russia provides them with their only chance to make something of their lives.

Moreover, aggressive statements from Tbilisi setting deadlines for the recovery of the territory, and military construction of a base in Gori (just twenty-five kilometres from the South Ossetian capital), do nothing to reassure the South Ossetians. With a highly militarised population, and a lack of crisis-management mechanisms, there is always the chance that localised incidents or skirmishes could escalate into something that quickly gets out of control.

A landlocked predicament

There is some irony in the fact that the South Ossetian and Georgian outlooks share similarites. Both see a much larger and aggressive neighbour (Russia for Georgia, Georgia for South Ossetia), and thus feel forced to seek comfort in third countries in ways that might not serve their interests best in the long run (the United States for Georgia, Russia for South Ossetia). Just looking at the map makes it obvious that it would be in Georgia's best interests to find a way to coexist peacefully with Russia, and in South Ossetia's to do the same with Georgia.

The South Ossetian leadership, despite having legitimate grievances against the Georgians, is mired in suspicion and introspection, making endless statements about "provocations" and "conspiracies" from the Georgian side, but reluctant to let in people (such as foreign journalists, regional analysts and constitutional experts) to whom they could put their side of the story.

The Georgians have their public relations a little better organised. When Mikheil Saakashvili's young, western-educated government came to power in Tbilisi in the "rose revolution" of 2003-04, it quickly understood that the best way to get the west onside would be to speak to it in a language it understands; there followed copious worthy pronouncements about freedom, human rights, and the path of the courageous Georgian people to be free from the jealous paws of the post-imperial Russian bear. Amid the rhetoric, Tbilisi made it abundantly clear that one of the key markers of its success would be the restoration of Georgia's territorial integrity.

But "territorial integrity", when examined closely, is as nebulous a concept as "fighting terror": open to many convenient interpretations. The breakaway states (including South Ossetia) are ready to cite Kosovo as a precedent if that territory is recognised as an independent state. This was not possible in the case of Montenegro's independence from Serbia (sanctioned by the referendum on 21 May 2006, and agreed to by the Serbian government in Belgrade), but Kosovo's claim to independence (which Serbia strenuously objects to, citing numerous legal objections) offers the opportunity for Tskhinvali to demand the same right.

At the same time, the arbitrary borderlines of some of the constituent republics within the Soviet Union (which its successor states inherited) often do not translate easily into a basis for modern statehood. Indeed, in many cases the communist elite explicitly drew frontiers for "divide and rule" reasons. In sum, the contested and imprecise idea of territorial integrity can still be used by the Georgians (with international support) in their efforts to recover South Ossetia, while the South Ossetians can invoke the concept's flaws to argue that their right of self-determination should override it.

In the case of Abkhazia, many experts and even some western diplomats privately admit that it may never be part of Georgia again. But South Ossetia is a different story. Abkhazia has a strategic coastline providing an outlet to the world beyond Russia and Georgia, as well as vast tourism potential. Even sliver-thin Transdniestria has a Soviet-era industrial complex that provides jobs and revenues. South Ossetia has nothing. It combines a small population with no industrial infrastructure, no sea access and only one road that leads anywhere except Georgia. It also has a number of ethnic Georgian villages scattered across its territory that are under the control of the Georgian government in Tbilisi.

In short, South Ossetia is unviable as a fully independent state. This makes South Ossetia a zero-sum game between Georgia and Russia. in turn, it means that South Ossetian separation from Georgia is a much more worrying prospect for western policymakers than Abkhazian.

Between north and south

The removal on 10 November of bellicose Georgian defence minister Irakli Okruashvili (who was born in South Ossetia and has frequently implied that South Ossetia could be won back by force) may be a sign that Georgia intends to adopt a more tactful approach to the conflict. The timing is symbolic on more than one count; perhaps the Georgians had one eye on Washington, where a far more powerful defence secretary had left office two days earlier.

The recent crisis between Georgia and Russia has proved what should have been obvious to them all along - that while Tbilisi can rely on kind words and lobbying from the United States when it comes up against Russia, they can't rely on anything more. And with the US election on 7 November delivering a crushing blow to the George W Bush administration, perhaps Saakashvili has also started to wonder if the next occupant of the White House will buy his freedom-and-democracy lines as much as Bush has.

Indeed, this might signal the start of a more sensible South Ossetia policy from the Georgian side. It is clear that mutual suspicion runs high, and the reintegration into Georgia of a people who have lost linguistic and cultural ties with that country will not be an easy process. Without war, wholesale destruction and ethnic cleansing, Tbilisi won't win control of South Ossetia any time soon.

At present, no attempts are being made to engage the people of South Ossetia or suggest that Georgia has anything to offer. The Georgians should focus on rebuilding Georgia proper and ensuring continued economic growth, and to reach past the obstructive South Ossetian leadership to prove to the Ossetian people that a newly prosperous and tolerant Georgia is a better option than Russia's troubled north Caucasus. It won't happen quickly. But even though 99% of South Ossetians have just voted for independence, a Tbilisi that plays down the aggressive precondition that South Ossetia must be part of Georgia might just - in a very Caucasian paradox - become the catalyst for its eventual reintegration into that country.

TV russa vai exibir filme de ação sobre guerra da Geórgia

MOSCOU - Um filme russo de ação inspirado na guerra do ano passado contra a Geórgia e filmado no mesmo estilo da trilogia Bourne será transmitido pelo canal mais popular da televisão russa, anunciou nesta quarta-feira uma porta-voz da emissora.

O trailer de "Olympus Inferno", a mais recente interpretação russa dos fatos de agosto passado, mostra dois jovens herois escapando de tiros e explosões e um oficial georgiano enfurecido disparando sua arma.

O filme pode acabar aumentando o debate entre Moscou e Tbilisi sobre quem começou a guerra de cinco dias na região pró-Rússia da Ossétia do Sul, que se distanciou de Tbilisi no começo dos anos 90. Os laços diplomáticos entre os dois países continuam rompidos.

De acordo com a porta-voz do canal russo Channel One, o filme, que será exibido em 29 de março, é "algo como os filmes Bourne", referindo-se aos filmes de ação de Hollywood protagonizados por Matt Damon.

O relato fictício fala de um entomologista radicado nos Estados Unidos e uma jornalista russa que, enquanto tentam filmar raras borboletas noturnas com uma câmera especial com lentes de visão noturna, topam por acaso com evidências de que a Geórgia iniciou o conflito.

Os dois enfrentam obstáculos quando tentam passar pela linha de frente das forças da Geórgia e chegar à capital da Ossétia do Sul, Tskhinvali, para provar quem iniciou a guerra.

Meses de desavenças entre separatistas e tropas georgianas culminaram com a guerra, em agosto passado, quando a Geórgia enviou tropas e tanques para retomar a região rebelde e pró-Rússia da Ossétia do Sul, que rejeitou o domínio de Tbilisi em 1991-1992.

A Rússia respondeu com um contra-ataque que forçou o Exército georgiano a sair da Ossétia do Sul.

Georgia-Ossetia: fragile frontline

I just returned from Georgia, where I managed to get to the Georgian-Ossetian/Russian frontline. Peace is incredibly fragile there. Nothing separates the Georgian military police from the Russian and Ossetian troops. No peacekeepers, no natural barriers, and no man-made fortifications. Just a few checkpoints and small sandbag fortifications. The checkpoints of the two conflict parties in Ergneti are just a hundred meters from each other. And nothing else.


The relative calm rests almost exclusively on the lack of any (current) interest for renewed hostilities from either Russia or Georgia. Russia has a military victory in its pocket, and an economic crisis on its hands. Georgia is deterred by Russia’s military presence. The EU Monitoring Mission might have some psychologically restraining effects on the conflict sides. But here is little else that would prevent renewed hostilities should any of the parties become interested in stirring them. And they might be. If not now, then in the future. If not by Russia and Georgia, than by South Ossetia.

Russia has huge problems in monitoring how Russian reconstruction funding is spent by the South Ossetian authorities, who refuse any kind of scrutiny. Already a couple of Russian appointed officials to South Ossetia have resigned after apparent pressure from the local government who refuses any degree of transparency. Former Russian appointed officials to South Ossetia such as former prime minister of the region Morozov and former secretary security council Barankevich have criticised Kokoity for corruption and embezzlement of Russian money. Russia seems to exercise pressure on the South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity who tries to keep under his control all the money that flow into the region. To diffuse Russian pressures, Kokoity might have an interest in growing security tensions on the ground. Changing Kokoity against the background of security tensions could be too risky.

Some EU member states seem to have their doubts about the need to have a prolonged EU peace-monitoring presence on the ground. But withdrawing the EU monitoring mission from Georgia would be folly. It might need to stay there, in this or that form, for long. Without it, both EU’s interests in the South Caucasus and EU-Russia relations could be severely tested again. As they were in August 2008

Georgia conflict: Pro-Kremlin enclaves surround Russian borders

A necklace of pro-Kremlin enclaves around Russia's fringe stands at the forefront of Moscow's rearguard efforts to fend off encroachment from the West.

By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs correspondent
Last Updated: 12:55PM BST 09 Aug 2008

The origins of Russia's fight to control the "near abroad" goes back to the 19th century Tsarist expansion, but since 1991 a handful of statelets have sheltered under the Kremlin's wing and perpetuated the toxic legacy of the Soviet break-up.

The enclave of South Ossetia in Georgia sought Russian protection as far back as 1993. The Kremlin's troops, officially designated as peacekeepers, have since unofficially preserved the autonomy of a 70,000-strong population, more than 90 per cent Russian passport holders.

Georgia's attempts to join Nato made conflict over South Ossetia inevitable. Russia's determination to check the Atlantic alliance's eastern expansion has pitched an obscure power struggle to the centre of the global spotlight.

Observers had originally expected the flashpoint to arise in another Georgian enclave, Abkhazia on the Black Sea. A low level war of bombings and targetted assassinations recently stoked tensions with Tblisi, forcing the closure of all border crossings at the end of June.

Last month US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice used a visit to Georgia to warn Moscow to stop destablising the country's young democracy. She said: "It needs to be a part of resolving the problem and solving the problem and not contributing to it."

From the Russian perspective, the US-backed government of President Mikhail Saakashvili has already made disturbing advances since it came to power in a democratic Rose Revolution in 2003. Moscow effectively lost a third enclave, Adjaria - it had been an autonomous spot on the Turkish border - soon after Mr Saakashvili took power.

Grouped together, there are 10 separate pockets of frozen conflicts straddling both sides of the Russian border in the Caucuses. But the Russian campaign to maintain external influence stretches far beyond the troubled network of clans and tribes of the Caucasian mountains.

Along with South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, there is Crimea in the Ukraine, Transdniester in Moldova, Narva in Estonia, and eastern areas of Latvia. All still retain strong links with Moscow, while the greater European nations which they belong have forged ties with the European Union and NATO. The causes for the fault lines are historical and varied, but most of the enclaves are home to substantial populations of ethnic Russian speakers. Many moved there during the Soviet period of "Russification", when Moscow, seeking to ensure its political influence over its satellite republics, despatched large numbers of Russian settlers who then dominated economic and political life.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the tables then turned, and the Russian-speakers found themselves minority populations in countries that by then wanted nothing to with Moscow ever again. For much of the 1990s, Russia's descent into chaos meant they looked like becoming historical irrelevances, but as Moscow has regained strength again thanks to the oil boom, they have become pawns in the Kremlin's bid to re-assert its territorial influence.

As well as the garrisons of Russian "peacekeeping" troops in the likes of Ossetia and Transdniester, Moscow has also encouraged the growth of organised pro-Kremlin youth movements, Red-hued version of the successive Rose and Orange Revolutions that saw Ukraine and Georgia break decisively from Russia grip in 2003 and 2004. Such movements are there to provide willing rent-a-mobs of agitators whenever the Kremlin deems it necessary, such as last year, when Russian-speaking youths rioted in Estonia over plans to remove a Soviet war memorial. The pointed message to all nations in Russia's "near-abroad" is that ethnic tensions remain a powerful trumpcard that Moscow is always willing to play.

Ossetia-Russia-Georgia

Noam Chomsky

chomsky.info, September 9, 2008

Aghast at the atrocities committed by US forces invading the Philippines, and the rhetorical flights about liberation and noble intent that routinely accompany crimes of state, Mark Twain threw up his hands at his inability to wield his formidable weapon of satire. The immediate object of his frustration was the renowned General Funston. “No satire of Funston could reach perfection,” Twain lamented, “because Funston occupies that summit himself... [he is] satire incarnated.”

It is a thought that often comes to mind, again in August 2008 during the Russia-Georgia-Ossetia war. George Bush, Condoleezza Rica and other dignitaries solemnly invoked the sanctity of the United Nations, warning that Russia could be excluded from international institutions “by taking actions in Georgia that are inconsistent with” their principles. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations must be rigorously honored, they intoned – “all nations,” that is, apart from those that the US chooses to attack: Iraq, Serbia, perhaps Iran, and a list of others too long and familiar to mention.

The junior partner joined in as well. British foreign secretary David Miliband accused Russia of engaging in “19th century forms of diplomacy” by invading a sovereign state, something Britain would never contemplate today. That “is simply not the way that international relations can be run in the 21st century,” he added, echoing the decider-in-chief, who said that invasion of “a sovereign neighboring state…is unacceptable in the 21st century.” Mexico and Canada therefore need not fear further invasions and annexation of much of their territory, because the US now only invades states that are not on its borders, though no such constraint holds for its clients, as Lebanon learned once again in 2006.

“The moral of this story is even more enlightening,” Serge Halimi wrote in Le Monde diplomatique, “ when, to defend his country's borders, the charming pro-American Saakashvili repatriates some of the 2,000 soldiers he had sent to invade Iraq,” one of the largest contingents apart from the two warrior states.

Prominent analysts joined the chorus. Fareed Zakaria applauded Bush’s observation that Russia’s behavior is unacceptable today, unlike the 19th century, “when the Russian intervention would have been standard operating procedure for a great power.” We therefore must devise a strategy for bringing Russia “in line with the civilized world,” where intervention is unthinkable.

There were, to be sure, some who shared Mark Twain’s despair. One distinguished example is Chris Patten, former EU commissioner for external relations, chairman of the British Conservative Party, chancellor of Oxford University and a member of the House of Lords. He wrote that the Western reaction “is enough to make even the cynical shake their heads in disbelief” – referring to Europe’s failure to respond vigorously to the effrontery of Russian leaders, who, “like 19th-century tsars, want a sphere of influence around their borders.”

Patten rightly distinguishes Russia from the global superpower, which long ago passed the point where it demanded a sphere of influence around its borders, and demands a sphere of influence over the entire world. It also acts vigorously to enforce that demand, in accord with the Clinton doctrine that Washington has the right to use military force to defend vital interests such as “ensuring uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies and strategic resources” – and in the real world, far more.

Clinton was breaking no new ground, of course. His doctrine derives from standard principles formulated by high-level planners during World War II, which offered the prospect of global dominance. In the postwar world, they determined, the US should aim “to hold unquestioned power” while ensuring the “limitation of any exercise of sovereignty” by states that might interfere with its global designs. To secure these ends, “the foremost requirement [is] the rapid fulfillment of a program of complete rearmament,” a core element of “an integrated policy to achieve military and economic supremacy for the United States.” The plans laid during the war were implemented in various ways in the years that followed.

The goals are deeply rooted in stable institutional structures. Hence they persist through changes in occupancy of the White House, and are untroubled by the opportunity for “peace dividends,” the disappearance of the major rival from the world scene, or other marginal irrelevancies. Devising new challenges is never beyond the reach of doctrinal managers, as when Ronald Reagan strapped on his cowboy boots and declared a national emergency because the Nicaraguan army was only two days from Harlingen Texas, and might lead the hordes who are about to “sweep over the United States and take what we have,” as Lyndon Johnson lamented when he called for holding the line in Vietnam. Most ominously, those holding the reins may actually believe their own words.

Returning to the efforts to elevate Russia to the civilized world, the seven charter members of the Group of Eight industrialized countries issued a statement “condemning the action of our fellow G8 member,” Russia, which has yet to comprehend the Anglo-American commitment to non-intervention. The European Union held a rare emergency meeting to condemn Russia’s crime, its first meeting since the invasion of Iraq, which elicited no condemnation.

Russia called for an emergency session of the Security Council, but no consensus was reached because, according to Council diplomats, the US, Britain, and some others rejected a phrase that called on both sides “to renounce the use of force.”

The typical reactions recall Orwell’s observations on the “indifference to reality” of the “nationalist,” who “not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but ... has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

The basic facts are not seriously in dispute. South Ossetia, along with the much more significant region of Abkhazia, were assigned by Stalin to his native Georgia. Western leaders sternly admonish that Stalin’s directives must be respected, despite the strong opposition of Ossetians and Abkhazians. The provinces enjoyed relative autonomy until the collapse of the USSR. In 1990, Georgia’s ultranationalist president Zviad Gamsakhurdia abolished autonomous regions and invaded South Ossetia. The bitter war that followed left 1000 dead and tens of thousands of refugees, with the capital city of Tskhinvali “battered and depopulated” (New York Times).

A small Russian force then supervised an uneasy truce, broken decisively on 7 August 2008 when Georgian president Saakashvili’s ordered his forces to invade. According to “an extensive set of witnesses,” the Times reports, Georgia’s military at once “began pounding civilian sections of the city of Tskhinvali, as well as a Russian peacekeeping base there, with heavy barrages of rocket and artillery fire.” The predictable Russian response drove Georgian forces out of South Ossetia, and Russia went on to conquer parts of Georgia, then partially withdrawing to the vicinity of South Ossetia. There were many casualties and atrocities. As is normal, the innocent suffered severely.

Russia reported at first that ten Russian peacekeepers were killed by Georgian shelling. The West took little notice. That too is normal. There was, for example, no reaction when Aviation Week reported that 200 Russians were killed in an Israeli air raid in Lebanon in 1982 during a US-backed invasion that left some 15-20,000 dead, with no credible pretext beyond strengthening Israeli control over the occupied West Bank.

Among Ossetians who fled north, the “prevailing view,” according to the London Financial Times, “is that Georgia’s pro-western leader, Mikheil Saakashvili, tried to wipe out their breakaway enclave.” Ossetian militias, under Russian eyes, then brutally drove out Georgians, in areas beyond Ossetia as well. “Georgia said its attack had been necessary to stop a Russian attack that already had been under way,” the New York Times reports, but weeks later “there has been no independent evidence, beyond Georgia’s insistence that its version is true, that Russian forces were attacking before the Georgian barrages.”

In Russia, the Wall Street Journal reports, “legislators, officials and local analysts have embraced the theory that the Bush administration encouraged Georgia, its ally, to start the war in order to precipitate an international crisis that would play up the national-security experience of Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate.” In contrast, French author Bernard-Henri Levy, writing in the New Republic, proclaims that “no one can ignore the fact that President Saakashvili only decided to act when he no longer had a choice, and war had already come. In spite of this accumulation of facts that should have been blindingly obvious to all scrupulous, good-faith observers, many in the media rushed as one man toward the thesis of the Georgians as instigators, as irresponsible provocateurs of the war.”

The Russian propaganda system made the mistake of presenting evidence, which was easily refuted. Its Western counterparts, more wisely, keep to authoritative pronouncements, like Levy’s denunciation of the major Western media for ignoring what is “blindingly obvious to all scrupulous, good-faith observers” for whom loyalty to the state suffices to establish The Truth – which, perhaps, is even true, serious analysts might conclude.

The Russians are losing the “propaganda war,” BBC reported, as Washington and its allies have succeeded in “presenting the Russian actions as aggression and playing down the Georgian attack into South Ossetia on 7 August, which triggered the Russian operation,” though “the evidence from South Ossetia about that attack indicates that it was extensive and damaging.” Russia has “not yet learned how to play the media game,” the BBC observes. That is natural. Propaganda has typically become more sophisticated as countries become more free and the state loses the ability to control the population by force.

The Russian failure to provide credible evidence was partially overcome by the Financial Times, which discovered that the Pentagon had provided combat training to Georgian special forces commandos shortly before the Georgian attack on August 7, revelations that “could add fuel to accusations by Vladimir Putin, Russian prime minister, last month that the US had `orchestrated’ the war in the Georgian enclave.” The training was in part carried out by former US special forces recruited by private military contractors, including MPRI, which, as the journal notes, “was hired by the Pentagon in 1995 to train the Croatian military prior to their invasion of the ethnically-Serbian Krajina region, which led to the displacement of 200,000 refugees and was one of the worst incidents of ethnic cleansing in the Balkan wars.” The US-backed Krajina expulsion (generally estimated at 250,000, with many killed) was possibly the worst case of ethnic cleansing in Europe since World War II. Its fate in approved history is rather like that of photographs of Trotsky in Stalinist Russia, for simple and sufficient reasons: it does not accord with the required image of US nobility confronting Serbian evil.

The toll of the August 2008 Caucasus war is subject to varying estimates. A month afterwards, the Financial Times cited Russian reports that “at least 133 civilians died in the attack, as well as 59 of its own peacekeepers,” while in the ensuing Russian mass invasion and aerial bombardment of Georgia, according to the FT, 215 Georgians died, including 146 soldiers and 69 civilians. Further revelations are likely to follow.

In the background lie two crucial issues. One is control over pipelines to Azerbaijan and Central Asia. Georgia was chosen as a corridor by Clinton to bypass Russia and Iran, and was also heavily militarized for the purpose. Hence Georgia is “a very major and strategic asset to us,” Zbigniew Brzezinski observes.

It is noteworthy that analysts are becoming less reticent in explaining real US motives in the region as pretexts of dire threats and liberation fade and it becomes more difficult to deflect Iraqi demands for withdrawal of the occupying army. Thus the editors of the Washington Post admonished Barack Obama for regarding Afghanistan as “the central front” for the United States, reminding him that Iraq “lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world's largest oil reserves,” and Afghanistan’s “strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq.” A welcome, if belated, recognition of reality about the US invasion.

The second issue is expansion of NATO to the East, described by George Kennan in 1997 as “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era, [which] may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations.”

As the USSR collapsed, Mikhail Gorbachev made a concession that was astonishing in the light of recent history and strategic realities: he agreed to allow a united Germany to join a hostile military alliance. This “stunning concession” was hailed by Western media, NATO, and President Bush I, who called it a demonstration of “statesmanship ... in the best interests of all countries of Europe, including the Soviet Union.”

Gorbachev agreed to the stunning concession on the basis of “assurances that NATO would not extend its jurisdiction to the east, `not one inch’ in [Secretary of State] Jim Baker's exact words.” This reminder by Jack Matlock, the leading Soviet expert of the Foreign Service and US ambassador to Russia in the crucial years 1987 to 1991, is confirmed by Strobe Talbott, the highest official in charge of Eastern Europe in the Clinton administration. On the basis of a full review of the diplomatic record, Talbott reports that “Secretary of State Baker did say to then Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze, in the context of the Soviet Union's reluctant willingness to let a unified Germany remain part of NATO, that NATO would not move to the east.”

Clinton quickly reneged on that commitment, also dismissing Gorbachev’s effort to end the Cold War with cooperation among partners. NATO also rejected a Russian proposal for a nuclear-weapons-free-zone from the Arctic to the Black Sea, which would have “interfered with plans to extend NATO,” strategic analyst and former NATO planner Michael MccGwire observes.

Rejecting these possibilities, the US took a triumphalist stand that threatened Russian security and also played a major role in driving Russia to severe economic and social collapse, with millions of deaths. The process was sharply escalated by Bush’s further expansion of NATO, dismantling of crucial disarmament agreements, and aggressive militarism. Matlock writes that Russia might have tolerated incorporation of former Russian satellites into NATO if it “had not bombed Serbia and continued expanding. But, in the final analysis, ABM missiles in Poland, and the drive for Georgia and Ukraine in NATO crossed absolute red lines. The insistence on recognizing Kosovo independence was sort of the very last straw. Putin had learned that concessions to the U.S. were not reciprocated, but used to promote U.S. dominance in the world. Once he had the strength to resist, he did so,” in Georgia.

Clinton officials argue that expansion of NATO posed no military threat, and was no more than a benign move to allow former Russian satellites to join the EU (Talbott). That is hardly persuasive. Austria, Sweden and Finland are in the EU but not NATO. If the Warsaw Pact had survived and was incorporating Latin American countries – let alone Canada and Mexico – the US would not easily be persuaded that the Pact is just a Quaker meeting. There should be no need to review the record of US violence to block mostly fanciful ties to Moscow in “our little region over here,” the Western hemisphere, to quote Secretary of War Henry Stimson when he explained that all regional systems must be dismantled after World II, apart from our own, which are to be extended.

To underscore the conclusion, in the midst of the current crisis in the Caucasus, Washington professes concern that Russia might resume military and intelligence cooperation with Cuba at a level not remotely approaching US-Georgia relations, and not a further step towards a significant security threat.

Missile defense too is presented here as benign, though leading US strategic analysts have explained why Russian planners must regard the systems and their chosen location as the basis for a potential threat to the Russian deterrent, hence in effect a first-strike weapon. The Russian invasion of Georgia was used as a pretext to conclude the agreement to place these systems in Poland, thus “bolstering an argument made repeatedly by Moscow and rejected by Washington: that the true target of the system is Russia,” AP commentator Desmond Butler observed.

Matlock is not alone in regarding Kosovo as an important factor. “Recognition of South Ossetia's and Abkhazia's independence was justified on the principle of a mistreated minority's right to secession - the principle Bush had established for Kosovo,” the Boston Globe editors comment.

But there are crucial differences. Strobe Talbott recognizes that “there's a degree of payback for what the U.S. and NATO did in Kosovo nine years ago,” but insists that the “analogy is utterly and profoundly false.” No one is a better position to know why it is profoundly false, and he has lucidly explained the reasons, in his preface to a book on NATO’s bombing of Serbia by his associate John Norris. Talbott writes that those who want to know “how events looked and felt at the time to those of us who were involved” in the war should turn to Norris’s well-informed account. Norris concludes that “it was Yugoslavia’s resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform – not the plight of Kosovar Albanians – that best explains NATO’s war.”

That the motive for the NATO bombing could not have been “the plight of Kosovar Albanians” was already clear from the rich Western documentary record revealing that the atrocities were, overwhelmingly, the anticipated consequence of the bombing, not its cause. But even before the record was released, it should have been evident to all but the most fervent loyalists that humanitarian concern could hardly have motivated the US and Britain, which at the same time were lending decisive support to atrocities well beyond what was reported from Kosovo, with a background far more horrendous than anything that had happened in the Balkans. But these are mere facts, hence of no moment to Orwell’s “nationalists” – in this case, most of the Western intellectual community, who had made an enormous investment in self-aggrandizement and prevarication about the “noble phase” of US foreign policy and its “saintly glow” as the millennium approached its end, with the bombing of Serbia as the jewel in the crown.

Nevertheless, it is interesting to hear from the highest level that the real reason for the bombing was that Serbia was a lone holdout in Europe to the political and economic programs of the Clinton administration and its allies, though it will be a long time before such annoyances are allowed to enter the canon.

There are of course other differences between Kosovo and the regions of Georgia that call for independence or union with Russia. Thus Russia is not known to have a huge military base there named after a hero of the invasion of Afghanistan, comparable to Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, named after a Vietnam war hero and presumably part of the vast US basing system aimed at the Middle East energy-producing regions. And there are many other differences.

There is much talk about a “new cold war” instigated by brutal Russian behavior in Georgia. One cannot fail to be alarmed by signs of confrontation, among them new US naval contingents in the Black Sea – the counterpart would hardly be tolerated in the Caribbean. Efforts to expand NATO to Ukraine, now contemplated, could become extremely hazardous.

Nonetheless, a new cold war seems unlikely. To evaluate the prospect, we should begin with clarity about the old cold war. Fevered rhetoric aside, in practice the cold war was a tacit compact in which each of the contestants was largely free to resort to violence and subversion to control its own domains: for Russia, its Eastern neighbors; for the global superpower, most of the world. Human society need not endure – and might not survive – a resurrection of anything like that.

A sensible alternative is the Gorbachev vision rejected by Clinton and undermined by Bush. Sane advice along these lines has recently been given by former Israeli Foreign Minister and historian Shlomo ben-Ami, writing in the Beirut Daily Star: “Russia must seek genuine strategic partnership with the US, and the latter must understand that, when excluded and despised, Russia can be a major global spoiler. Ignored and humiliated by the US since the Cold War ended, Russia needs integration into a new global order that respects its interests as a resurgent power, not an anti-Western strategy of confrontation.”

Georgia-Russia conflict

Conflict in Abkhazia, which is located in a strategic position in the Black Sea (in the North-west region of the Republic of Georgia), began with social unrest and efforts of the local Authorities to separate the area from the Republic of Georgia; the whole situation resulted in an armed conflict and a series of serious incidents in the summer of 1992, when the Government of Georgia sent 2.000 men to Abkhazia to restore order. The conflict was vigorous, with 200 being killed and hundreds wounded. The leadership of Abkhazia withdrew from the capital, Sukhumi, to Gudauta City.

Following the 858/1993 U.N. Security Council Resolution, dated on the 24^th of August 1993, the U.N. Observers Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) was established to observe and verify whether the signatories complied with the Agreement on the separation of forces, signed in Moscow on the 14^th of May 1994. The task of the Mission is to:

• Investigate whether the Armistice Agreement, dated on the 27^th of July 1993, between the Government of Georgia and the Authorities of Abkhazia is implemented, with particular emphasis on the situation in Sukhumi city.
• Consider reports of violations of armistice between the parties.
• Submit a Report on U.N. Mandate implementation to the Secretary General, including violations of the Armistice Agreement

The initial strength of the Force amounted to 88 Military Observers from the following countries: Egypt, Albania, Austria, France, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Greece, USA, UK, Indonesia, Jordan, Korea, Bangladesh, Hungary, Ukraine, Uruguay, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, and the Czech Republic.

Since the 5^th of September 1994, Greece has allocated five (5) cadres (two (2) from the Army, two (2) from the Navy and one (1) from the Air Force) to the Mission.

Following a U.N. demand that was accepted by the Hellenic MOD, a Transportation contingent was established for the area, consisting of 15 cadres, one (1) command vehicle and five (5) general purpose vehicles. This team will be sent to Georgia, if necessary, following a U.N. mandate.

Meet... South Ossetia

Regions and territories: South Ossetia

Mountainous South Ossetia, which is in Georgia, is separated from North Ossetia, which is in Russia, by the border between the two countries running high in the Caucasus. Much of the region lies more than 1000 metres above sea level.

• Territory: South Ossetia
• Status: Break-away region of Georgia. Separated from Georgia in a 1991-92 war.
• Status: Region within Georgia
• Population: Approximately 70,000
• Capital: Tskhinvali
• Major languages: Ossetian, Georgian, Russian
• Major religion: Christianity
• Currency: Russian rouble, Georgian lari

Long a source of tension in the region, South Ossetia was the focus of a full-blown war between Russia and Georgia in 2008. In the aftermath, it declared independence from Georgia and was recognised by Russia, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

South Ossetia is inhabited mostly by ethnic Ossetians who speak a language remotely related to Farsi. Georgians account for less than one-third of the population.

Tbilisi is adamant that there can be no compromise over South Ossetia being part of Georgia. It firmly resists Ossetian separatism, shunning the use of the name South Ossetia which it sees as implying political bonds with North Ossetia, and therefore as a threat to Georgia's territorial integrity.

As far as Georgia is concerned, the use of the word "north" in the title North Ossetia is misleading. In Tbilisi's eyes, the region of Russia which bears that name is the only Ossetia. It prefers to call South Ossetia, which is part of the Georgian province of Shida Kartli, by the ancient name of Samachablo or, more recently, Tskhinvali region.

In August 2008, Georgia's efforts to regain control of the area seem to have suffered a crippling blow when Russia - a staunch ally of South Ossetia's separatists - defeated a Georgian incursion into South Ossetia in a bloody five-day conflict. Russia subsequently became the first country to recognise the self-declared republic, to the dismay of Tbilisi and the West.

President: Eduard Kokoity

One-time wrestling champion Eduard Kokoity, or Kokoyev, won unrecognised presidential elections in South Ossetia in December 2001 and again in November 2006.

A businessman and former communist, he holds Russian citizenship.

South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity

He has angered Tbilisi by stating his aim to be the unification of North and South Ossetia within the Russian Federation. He describes Russia as the main guarantor of stability in the Caucasus and has strong ties with the like-minded Abkhaz leadership.

He has warned Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili against aggressive Georgian nationalism and insists that the people of South Ossetia do not regard themselves as part of Georgia.

Mr Kokoity was born in 1964.

History

The Ossetians are believed to be descended from tribes which migrated into the area from Asia many hundreds of years ago and settled in what is now North Ossetia.

Tskhinvali, the capital of breakaway South Ossetia

As the Russian empire expanded into the area in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Ossetians did not join other peoples of the North Caucasus in putting up fierce resistance. Some fought alongside the Russians against neighbours who had long been rivals, while others made the difficult journey south across the mountains to escape.

By tradition, the Ossetians have had good relations with Russians and were regarded as loyal citizens, first of the Russian empire and later of the Soviet Union. They sided with the Kremlin when Bolshevik forces occupied Georgia in the early 1920s and, as part of the carve-up which followed, the South Ossetian Autonomous Region was created in Georgia and North Ossetia was formed in Russia.

Violence flares

In the twilight of the Soviet Union, as Georgian nationalist Zviad Gamsakhurdia came to prominence in Tbilisi, South Ossetia too flexed its separatist muscles. Soviet forces were sent to keep the peace in late 1989 following violent clashes between Georgians and Ossetians in the capital, Tskhinvali. Violence flared again as South Ossetia declared its intention to secede from Georgia in 1990 and, the following year, effective independence.

Protesters rally against presence of Georgian troops near South Ossetia

The collapse of the USSR and Georgian independence in 1991 did nothing to dampen South Ossetia's determination to consolidate the break with Tbilisi. Sporadic violence involving Georgian irregular forces and Ossetian fighters continued until the summer of 1992 when agreement on the deployment of Georgian, Ossetian and Russian peacekeepers was reached. Hundreds died in the fighting.

Political stalemate followed. Separatist voices became less strident during President Shevardnadze's rule in Georgia. South Ossetia, its economy and infrastructure a shambles and crime rife, faded from the headlines. It returned to the foreground when Mikhail Saakashvili took the reins as president in Tbilisi.

He was quick to spell out his intention to bring breakaway regions to heel. He has offered South Ossetia dialogue and autonomy within a single Georgian state but that falls far short of what separatists demand.

It came as no surprise when South Ossetians voted overwhelmingly in favour of restating their demand for independence from Tbilisi in an unrecognised referendum in November 2006. A simultaneous referendum among the region's ethnic Georgians voted just as emphatically to stay with Tbilisi.

Russia maintains close contacts with the leadership in Tskhinvali where separatists welcome Moscow's supportive stance. To Georgia's deep annoyance, most South Ossetians have Russian passports and the Russian rouble is commonly used in trade.

The tensions came to head in early August 2008, when, after nearly a week of clashes between Georgian troops and separatist forces, Georgia launched an full air and ground assault attack on South Ossetia, reportedly gaining control of Tskhinvali.

Russia said its citizens were under attack and responded by pouring thousands of troops into South Ossetia and launching bombing raids on Georgian targets. Within days, Russian troops had swept the Georgian forces out of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and then proceeded to occupy parts of Georgia.

Although Russia pulled its forces back towards South Ossetia and Abkhazia under a cease-fire agreement brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, it kept control of a buffer zone on the breakaway republics' borders, prompting the US and France to accuse Moscow of failing to abide by the truce deal.

Days later, Russia announced it was formally recognising both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, to protests from the West, which also criticised Russia for sending troops beyond the republics' boundaries. Moscow accuses Georgian forces of committing atrocities during their incursion into Tskhinvali, and says it is now highly unlikely the region will ever agree to rejoin Georgia.

Georgia-Russia Conflict Timeline (includes South Ossetia and Abkhazia)

2008

26 August 2008 – Russian President Medvedev formally recognizes the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and accuses Georgian President Saakashvili of using ‘genocide to solve his political problems.’

22 August 2008 – Russia promises a 'partial' withdrawal of troops by the end of the day, but claims some “peacekeepers” will be left inside Georgia. US General Craddock calls the move 'far too little, far too slow'.

21 August 2008 – Thousands protest in Abkhazia, pleading Russia to recognise its own independence.

21 August 2008 – In response to statement by NATO, Russia suspends its military co-operation arrangements with Russia until further notice.

20—21 August 2008 – As Russia pushes its own proposal forward, the UN Security Council remains deadlocked over the conflict; Western powers demand Russia to step up its troop withdrawal from Georgia.

20 August 2008 – US and EU countries reprimand Russia for failing to adhere to the EU-brokered ceasefire agreement.

19 August 2008 – NATO freezes its partnership with Russia, and declares normal relations with Russia to be impossible. Statement issued by NAC (North Atlantic Council) emphasizes concern over Georgia´s territorial integrity and the humanitarian situation.

19 August 2008 – Medvedev tells Sarkozy that—contrary to the EU ceasefire—Russian troops will remain in a buffer zone inside Georgia proper on the border with South Ossetia, and the remainder of troops will go back to South Ossetia and to Russia.

17 August 2008 – Medvedev tells President Nicolas Sarkozy in a telephone conversation that Russian troops will begin to withdraw from Georgia on Monday 18th of August.

16 August 2008 – President Medvedev signs six-point EU-brokered ceasefire, which includes a promise to withdraw troops to pre-conflict positions.

11 August 2008 – French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner visits recent bombardments in Gori, approximately 50km outside of Tbilisi. Kouchner and French President Sarkozy expected to travel to Moscow on the evening of 11 August.

11 August 2008 – As 2,000 Georgian troops prepare to leave Iraq and return home, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin criticize the US for facilitating the move of troops ‘practically to the conflict zone.’

11 August 2008 – Russia has stationed more than 9,000 paratroopers in Abkhazia, thus exceeding the limit of 3,000 from the 1994 peace agreement. It continues to move more troops and armour across the border; there are reports that the movement also includes T-72 tanks and Hurricane rocket launchers.

11 August – European Commission calls on Russia to ‘stop immediately all military activity on Georgian territory.’

11 August 2008 – Russia delivers an ultimatum to Georgia: that it must disarm 1,500 troops in Zugdidi, near Abkhazia, which Georgia rejects.

11 August 2008 – Kouchner arrives in Georgia in the hope of brining about an armistice between Russia and Georgia, while the two sides continue fighting.

11 August 2008 – Russia moves troops and armour into Abkhazia.

10 August 2008 – Georgia reports to have offered Russia a peace deal, saying it would withdraw its troops from South Ossetia. Russia denied any cessation of armed conflict by the Georgians, and demanded an unconditional withdrawal from South Ossetia.

10 August 2008 – Georgia reports death of 130 Georgian civilians and 1,165 injuries. Russia rejects the claim that it has hit civilians.

10 August 2008 – US President George W. Bush declares Russia’s troop build-up to be a ‘disproportionate response’; UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband denounces Russia’s bombing of targets ‘well beyond’ South Ossetia.

10 August 2008 – Reports of bombs dropped outside of Tbilisi, near a military airport.

10 August 2008 – Russian diplomat reports death count of 2,000 in South Ossetia; the numbers have not been verified.

9 August 2008 – Georgia claims to have shot down two Russian warplanes.

9 August 2008 – Abkhazian Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba claims Abkhaz forces have embarked upon an operation to drive Georgian forces out of the hotly-disputed Kodori gorge.

8 August 2008 – President Saakashvili declares a ‘state of war.’

8 August 2008 – Both South Ossetia and Georgia lay claim to the disputed territory during intense shelling of Tskhinvali by both sides. Georgia accuses Russia of provoking ‘undeclared war.’ Russia warns Georgia that its ‘aggression’ will not go ‘unpunished.’

7 August 2008 – Georgia claims South Ossetia igniting a ‘war’; Russia calls the situation ‘extremely dangerous.

1 August 2008 – Explosion in South Ossetia; Georgia reports injury of two policemen.

22 July 2008 – UN Security Council holds a special closed session regarding reports of the flight of Russian jets over South Ossetia; no unanimous decisions are made.

29-30 July 2008 – South Ossetia accuses Georgia of shelling villages outside of Tskhinvali. Georgia asserts that South Ossetians directed fire towards its monitoring group.

10 July 2008 – In a press conference with President Saakashvili, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for an end to violence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

3-4 July 2008 – Explosions in South Ossetia prompt Russia to accuse Georgia of military intervention and to condemn its ‘aggression’.

30 June-2 July 2008 – Blasts in Sukhumi market and Russian peacekeepers’ checkpoint on Georgian-Abkhaz border. Russia blames Georgian special forces for the incidents.

17 June 2008 – Four Russian peacekeepers detained in Abkhazia for allegedly transporting illegal ammunition; Russian Defence Ministry demands their return.

14-15 June 2008 – Reports of an ‘intensive’ exchange of fire outskirts of Tskhinvali between Georgian and South Ossetian troops.

6-7 June 2008 – Saakshivili and Medvedev meet, but agree that they cannot resolve ‘all of their problems’; Georgia declares the two sides must meet for a longer discussion.

5 June 2008 – EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana declares EU’s will to ‘try to assist all sides in lowering the temperature’ in Abkhazia.

June 2008 – Abkhazia breaks all ties with Georgian government

31 May 2008 – Russia deploys 300 ‘unarmed’ soldiers to Abkhazia, claiming they are required for railway repair works. Georgia indicts Russia in planning a military intervention.

26 May 2008 – UN Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) confirms Georgian UAV shot down by Russian jet in Abkhazia on 20 April; Russian Foreign Minister claims video has ‘serious inconsistencies’.

15 May 2008 – Reports of Russian warning of troop increases in South Ossetia.

15 May 2008 – Russian defence chief Yuri Baluyevsky urges NATO to help stop the ‘military build-up’ in Georgia, and names the US, Turkey, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria the top providers of military resources to Georgia.

9 May 2008 – Reports that Georgian Deputy Prime Minister Giorgi Baramidze maintains that war between Georgia and Russia could break out ‘tonight, tomorrow, anytime.’

5 May 2008 – Georgian news agency reports of the construction of a new Russian military base for peacekeepers in Abkhazia.

4 May 2008 – Separatist forces in Abkhazia declare they have shot down two Georgian UAVs, bringing the total to four since March. Georgia claims the flight of drones is its ‘sovereign right’, and any aggression against them would be seen as a ‘blatant violation of sovereignty’.

2 May 2008 – US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expresses Washington’s concern over rise in troop levels in Abkhazia.

30 April 2008 – NATO points to Russia’s role in ‘raising tensions’, stating that its troop deployment ‘undermines’ Georgia’s ‘territorial integrity’.

25 April 2008 – Russian Foreign Ministry claims Georgia is potentially planning a military intervention in Abkhazia.

25 April 2008 – Russia vows to use ‘all’ its resources to protect Russian citizens in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

25 April 2008 – Russia tells Tbilisi not to rely on NATO to resolve conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

April 2008 – Tbilisi accuses Moscow of mapping out ‘de facto annexation’ of South Ossetia and Abkhazia after Russia formalizes ties with both territories.

April 2008—At NATO Bucharest Summit, members postpone decision on Georgian membership until December.

March 2008 – Georgia’s request to join NATO provokes Russian parliament to push for complete independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

February-March 2008 – Kosovo declares independence, triggering South Ossetia’s push for recognition of independence by the international community.

1989-2007

October 2007 – OSCE talks on South Ossetia collapse.

August 2007 – Georgia claims Russia intruded its airspace twice; rebuffed by Moscow.

June 2007 – South Ossetia asserts Tskhinvali shelled by Georgian mortar and sniper fire; claim rejected by Tbilisi.

April 2007 – Tense relations between Georgia and Russia as Georgian parliament elects to create a provisional government in South Ossetia.

November 2006 – South Ossetia formalises break from Tbilisi in a referendum. Georgian foreign minister accuses Russia of provoking a potential war in its support of South Ossetia.

September 2006 – Tensions flare when Georgian helicopter carrying Defence Minister Okruashvili is shelled in South Ossetia.

July 2006 – Georgian parliament insists on the departure of Russian peacekeepers from South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and requests international troops in their place.

July 2006 – Official opening of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.

January 2006 – Blasts on Russian side of border with Georgia cuts gas and electricity. President Saakashvili implicates Russia in the disruption of supplies.

May 2005 – Shooting in South Ossetia results in death of Georgian policeman and four South Ossetians.

January 2005 – Georgian President Saakashvili offers a plan for eventual autonomy of South Ossetia, who rejects it in favour of complete independence. Saakshivili presents same proposal for Abkhazia, on the condition of right of return of Georgian refugees from 1993 conflict.

October 2004 – Presidential elections in Abkhazia not recognized by Tbilisi. Electoral tension in Abkhazia between presumed winner Sergei Bagapsh and allegedly Moscow-backed Raul Khadzhimba.

January 2004 – Mikhail Saakashvili elected president of Georgia.

November 2003 – Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze ousted in bloodless putsch, dubbed the ‘Rose Revolution’.

May 2003 – Work begun on the BTC pipeline.

2002 – South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity requests Moscow’s recognition of autonomy of South Ossetia, and its eventual anschluss to Russia.

March 2001 – Georgia and Abkhazia sign a peace deal not to use armed force against one another.

May 1998 – Fighting erupts between Abkhazians and Georgians in Gali in Abkhazia, resulting in displacement of 40,000 Georgians from Abkhazia.

November 1996 – Election of first South Ossetian president.

1994 – Ceasefire between Abkhazia and Georgia, allowing for the deployment of up to 3,000 Russian peacekeeping troops. UN-led mediation with Russia designated ‘special role’ as a ‘facilitator’ of the peace process.

July 1992 – Abkhazia declares independence from Georgia, resulting in intense fighting through 1994, mass displacement of people, and eventual Georgian military defeat.

June 1992 – Officials from Georgia, Russia, and South Ossetia meet in Sochi for a peace deal, which includes the formation of a peacekeeping force of 500 troops from each of three parties.

December 1990 – Renewed fighting between Georgia and South Ossetia until 1992.

November 1989 – South Ossetia declares ‘autonomy’ from Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, resulting in three months of armed conflict.

Abkhazia and South Ossetia: heart of conflict, key to solution

George Hewitt

The Georgia-Russia war of August 2008 carries a vital lesson: the small territories that broke from Georgia's control in the early 1990s have their own voice, identity, and interest. They must be active participants in deciding their own future, says George Hewitt, the leading scholar of Abkhazian linguistics and history.

(This article was first published on 18 August 2008)

19 - 08 - 2008

On the second full day of the Georgia-Russia war of 8-12 August 2008, Russian patrol-boats operating off the Black Sea shore of Abkhazia sank four Georgian vessels apparently intent on landing in the territory. The identity of these vessels is not yet clear, but it is interesting to note that a published list of military equipment in the possession of the Georgian government - equipment largely supplied over many years by Tbilisi's western friends - includes a ship called the General Mazniashvili.

Why interesting? Because General Mazniashvili (aka Mazniev) is best known for his role in spreading "fire and sword" through Abkhazia and South Ossetia on behalf of Georgia's Menshevik government of 1918-21. The naming of the ship is a revealing indicator of current official Georgian sentiment about a figure central to the pitiless effort ninety years ago to establish control over these two areas. It is also a reminder to Abkhazians and South Ossetians that their hard-won freedom from Georgian rule in the brutal wars of the early 1990s is part of a longer history of defence of their integrity that deserves the world's attention, understanding and respect.

These peoples, and not just the Georgians - or Russians, or Americans, or anyone else involved in the latest war in the region - have their own history, many of whose artefacts have been deliberately pulverised in this generation (see Thomas de Waal, "Abkhazia's archive: fire of war, ashes of history" [20 October 2006]). The lesson of the short war of August 2008 is that their Abkhazian and South Ossetian voices must be heard and their own choices must be included in any decisions about their future if the cycle of conflict - of which 1918-21 and 1991-93 are but two episodes - is going to be broken rather than repeated.

George Hewitt is professor of Caucasian languages at London's School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS). Among his many works are "Peoples of the Caucasus" (in F. Fernández-Armesto, ed.), Guide to the Peoples of Europe (Times Books, 1994) and (as editor) The Abkhazians, a handbook (Curzon Press, 1999)

Also by George Hewitt in openDemocracy:

"Sakartvelo, roots of turmoil" (27 November 2003),

"Abkhazia: land in limbo" (10 October 2006).

A political boomerang

The torrent of media commentary on the Georgia-Russia war has been characterised by near-obsessive geopolitical calculation, which - as so often where Georgia and the region is concerned - tends by default to view Georgia's "lost" territories (if they are viewed at all) as nothing more than inconsiderate and irritating pawns on a global chessboard. For this reason - but mainly because Abkhazia and South Ossetia matter in themselves and are central to any resolution of the issues underlying the August 2008 war - it is useful to consider the arguments for taking them and their claims seriously.

A striking feature of the Georgian political landscape even in these desperate days of Mikheil Saakashvili's humiliation is that there is very little recognition in the country of how deep are the scars inflicted by Georgia's invasions of South Ossetia (1990-92) and Abkhazia (1992-93). It is only when Georgia can at an official level come to take responsibility for its own role in this period that progress in resolving these now so-called "frozen conflicts" can be made.

One vital ingredient of this rethinking is to recognise the longstanding residency-claims of South Ossetians and Abkhazians to their respective territories. During the heady days of nationalism that exploded in Tbilisi in 1989, the man who was to become the first post-Soviet president of Georgia - Zviad Gamsakhurdia - even charged that the Ossetians only appeared in Georgia on the coat-tails of the Red Army's invasion in 1921.

It was and is a myth" (see "The North-west Caucasus and Great Britain", Autumn 1992). The late specialist on Iranian languages, Ilya Gershevitch, once told me that in his view the language of the South Ossetians differs so radically from that spoken in North Ossetia that the split must have occurred in pre-Christian times. Moreover, Queen Tamar (ruled 1184-1213), the sovereign under whom Georgia attained its "golden age", was at least half-Ossetian and also took one husband who was Ossetian. But such myths - which are also circulated to deny that the Abkhazians are the indigenous population of Abkhazia - can become truly dangerous in times of tension.

Amid Georgia's late-Soviet disintegration, intellectuals and nascent civil society in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia realised the perils that the chauvinistic rhetoric aimed against them from Tbilisi posed. They formed national forums (Adamon Nykhas in South Ossetia, Aydgylara in Abkhazia) to defend their respective collective and political interests, and created links between the regions that continue to this day.

Zviad Gamsakhurdia - believing his own myths, a self-harming flaw shared by his successor-but-one Mikheil Saakashvili - thought it would be an easy matter to dislodge the South Ossetians from the territory (which Georgians decided to rename Samachablo). The result was war that started in 1990, escalated in 1991, and expired in spring 1992. By this latter date Gamsakhurdia had been overthrown, and a military junta had assumed control in Tbilisi; in March 1992 this junta invited Eduard Shevardnadze - the former boss of Georgia's Soviet-era Communist Party, and later Soviet foreign minister under Mikhail Gorbachev - to lead it.

Gamsakhurdia and his armed supporters resisted the new authorities from his base in the west Georgian province of Mingrelia. Shevardnadze chose to compromise with the South Ossetians, and the two sides (with the involvement of the then Russian president, Boris Yeltsin) signed the Dagomys accords. The provisions of the agreement included a tripartite (Georgian, Ossetian, Russian) peacekeeping force to monitor the ceasefire.

As a result, South Ossetia after 1992 - typified by its quiet capital Tskhinval (Tskhinvali) - became a neglected backwater with little to offer its citizens other than to travel by the Roki tunnel into the Russia Federation's republic of North Ossetia in search of work. This situation continued through the decade of Eduard Shevardnadze's rule in Georgia; it began to change after Mikhail Saakashvili came to power in 2004, with a pledge to restore South Ossetia and Abkhazia to Georgian control (and within two years) high on his nationalistic agenda.

Also on Abkhazia in openDemocracy:

Thomas de Waal & Zeyno Baran, "Abkhazia-Georgia, Kosovo-Serbia: parallel worlds?" (2 August 2006),

Thomas de Waal, "Abkhazia's archive: fire of war, ashes of history" (20 October 2006),

Nikolaj Nielsen, "A small bomb in Gali" (8 July 2008)

The effects of his active - or meddlesome - stance were soon felt. A local market on the border with the disputed territory, where the two sides had no problems cooperating for purposes of trade, was closed down on the grounds that it was part of the "black economy". Then a pliable Ossetian was found to head a pro-Georgian "government" for South Ossetia, based in villages on the Georgian side of the border.

None of this "worked" even in its own terms. A singular aspect of the August 2008 war is that it confounds the long-held expectation the South Ossetian "problem" would prove easier for Tbilisi to manage and solve than that of Abkhazia - the larger, more prosperous and better defended of the two disputed regions. Instead, Saakashvili's reclamation project has come to grief in South Ossetia, which is now more distant from Tbilisi's rule than ever (see Donald Rayfield, "The Georgia-Russia conflict: lost territory, found nation", 13 August 2008).

The folly of war

It all looked different to Georgia's latest myth-maker as recently as January 2008, when Mikheil Saakashvili was was re-elected president. He promised again the two territories would be recovered, during his second term. The months of tension that followed climaxed in the ferocious assault led by Grad-missiles that was launched on an unsuspecting Tskhinval on the night of 7-8 August 2008.

Saakashvili continues to claim that Georgian actions were a response to the introduction of Russian tanks, though he makes no mention of the fifteen Russian peacekeepers killed before heavy weaponry arrived. At least part of Russia's calculation in the febrile months of 2008 has been a desire to hold back in order to let the world see the true nature of the Saakashvili regime. In the event, that stance did nothing to save Russia's peacekeepers, nor did it have any notable effect on western leaders who ignored the fact of the opening attack on Tskhinval in their rush to condemn Russia's response.

But the folly of the decision to attack South Ossetia's capital - whatever its immediate origins - is not Saakashvili's alone. It must be related to the wider pattern of western policy and support for Georgia that has intensified in the Saakashvili era but which was already established in the crucial period of the early 1990s.

The key decision in this respect took place when Zviad Gamsakhurdia's war in South Ossetia was still in progress; when the Zviadist were battling the Shevardnistas in Mingrelia; when threats continued against Abkhazia; when there was no legitimate government in power in Tbilisi; and when chaos reigned across Georgia. At that very moment, the west decided that this was the appropriate time to recognise the country within its Soviet borders.

Among openDemocracy's articles on Georgian politics and the region:

Neal Ascherson, "Tbilisi, Georgia: the rose revolution's rocky road" (15 July 2005),

Donald Rayfield, "Georgia and Russia: with you, without you" (3 October 2006),

Robert Parsons, "Russia and Georgia: a lover's revenge" (6 October 2006),

Vicken Cheterian, "Georgia's arms race" (4 July 2007),

Donald Rayfield, "Russia and Georgia: a war of perceptions" (24 August 2007),

Alexander Rondeli, "Georgia: politics after revolution" (14 November 2007),

Robert Parsons, "Georgia's race to the summit" (4 January 2008),

Robert Parsons, "Mikheil Saakashvili's bitter victory" (11 January 2008),

Jonathan Wheatley, "Georgia's democratic stalemate" (14 April 2008),

Robert Parsons, "Georgia, Abkhazia, Russia: the war option" (13 May 2008),

Thomas de Waal, "The Russia-Georgia tinderbox" (16 May 2008),

Robert Parsons, "Georgia's dangerous gulf" (30 May 2008),

Alexander Rondeli, "Georgia's search for itself" (8 July 2008),

Thomas de Waal, "South Ossetia: the avoidable tragedy" (11 August 2008),

Ghia Nodia, "The war for Georgia: Russia, the west, the future" (12 August 2008),

Donald Rayfield, "The Georgia-Russia conflict: lost territory, found nation" (13 August 2008).

This decision was in line with the international community's arbitrary approach of recognising only the Soviet Union's union-republics (as well as the constituent-republics of Yugoslavia) as separate states. In the case of Georgia, the west had refrained from applying this policy when Georgia was misruled by Zviad Gamsakhurdia; but almost as soon as Shevardnadze returned to Georgia, attitudes changed. A "friend of the west" was in power, and - although no elections were planned until October 1992, and thus even rudimentary democratic legitimacy could not yet be be claimed - western states (led by John Major's government in Britain - an appropriate echo of its equally disastrous policy in former-Yugoslavia) - rushed to recognise Shevardnadze's government and establish diplomatic relations.

Georgia also gained in this period unconditional membership of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations. The result was, for Abkhazia - whose people were then pressing a claim of right to independence - disaster. For Eduard Shevardnadze celebrated his country's joining of the UN by launching his own war on Abkhazia, in an attempt to rally dissenters (including armed Zviadists) to this zealous Georgian nationalist cause. The gamble brought untold destruction; its many victims included the thousands of Mingrelians and Georgians living in Abkhazia. For - although it took thirteen months, and the result was long in the balance - the gamble failed, and the humiliating defeat inflicted on Shevardnadze's troops by the Abkhazians and their Caucasian allies on 30 September 1993 meant the effective loss to Tbilisi of the lush and potentially rich republic.

In spring 1994, ceasefire accords - the equivalent of the Dagomys accords over South Ossetia - were agreed in Moscow. By then, the west's attentions were focused on the Balkan mess it had done so much to create, and it was - how times change - only too happy to leave peacekeeping responsibilities to Russia. As a result, Russian forces constituted almost all of the 3,000-strong peacekeeping contingent along the demilitarised zone adjacent to the Ingur river, Abkhazia's traditional frontier with Mingrelia in Georgia.

Thus, a further link between Abkhazia and South Ossetia was made, as Abkhazia too - typified by its quiet capital Sukhum (Sukhumi) - became a neglected backwater with little to offer its citizens except to seek work elsewhere or (for those who stayed) to use whatever Russian help was on offer to restore their destroyed infrastructure and economy as best they could (see "Postwar Developments in the Georgian-Abkhazian dispute", Parliamentary Human Rights Group, June 1996).

The Caucasian satrap

The recognition of Georgia's Soviet borders - echoed again (among other western leaders) by the quite ridiculous statements of Nato's secretary-general and Britain's foreign secretary even as the full effects of Mikheil Saakashvili's misadventure were still emerging - is the source of much of Abkhazia's and South Ossetia's agony; and indeed of Georgia's agony too. For since the early 1990s, and notwithstanding its clear culpability in the wars on the two territories, Georgia has - at any point of crisis or argument around either of these "frozen" conflicts - been able to call upon its fellow United Nations members to insist on the observation of the principle of territorial integrity; in effect, saying that Georgia can do as it pleases with regard to its "internal" problems and nuisance-peoples.

There is more. Georgia in the 1990s looked likely at times to become a "failed state", and a country ruled by Eduard Shevardnadze could call on all sorts of assistance - not just quite understandable and welcome economic investment, but more worryingly an enormous amount of military equipment and associated training programmes (which accelerated in the period after 9/11 and as Vladimir Putin began to establish a coherent government and a firm foreign policy in Russia after the chaos of the Boris Yeltsin years).

Why did Georgia need such a prodigious amount of armaments, and military equipment of this type? Not even the most deranged Georgian leader would consider starting a war with Russia (a judgment that, admittedly, may have to be revised). Azerbaijan shares with Georgia the interest in peaceful oversight of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline which brings both countries considerable wealth. Georgia and Armenia have been rivals for centuries, but there is no hint of any potential military conflict (notwithstanding the disaffection and poverty of the Armenian minority in Georgia's Javakheti region). Georgia and its other neighbour, Turkey, have no grounds for hostility.

The conclusion is clear: the targets of Georgia's military bonanza were South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The outcome was to fuel not just Georgia's military machine but the self-aggrandisement and hubris of those of its leaders who concluded that the west - especially the United States, its chief supplier - would support an armed effort by Tbilisi to restore control over South Ossetia and/or Abkhazia.

This must have been one factor behind Mikheil Saakashvili's monstrous blunder on the eve of the opening of the Olympic games in China's capital city.

The bonds between Abkhazia and South Ossetia forged in the pivotal early 1990s included a mutual defence arrangement. When Georgian forces attacked Tskhinval on 7-8 August 2008, the Abkhazians had to decide how to put this into effect. The decision was made to try to dislodge the Georgian troops who had - in violation of the ceasefire accords - deployed into the upper Kodor (Kodori) valley (part of Abkhazia) in July 2006, an act followed by the transference there of Tbilisi's already-established (on the South Ossetia model) "Abkhazian government-in-exile".

The move towards the upper Kodor valley was both an attempt to present Georgia with a second front, and to pre-empt any repetition of the new South Ossetian tragedy in Abkhazia itself. Abkhazian ground-troops entered the gorge at daybreak on 12 August to find that most of the Georgian soldiers had fled; by midnight, the whole area was secure.

The aftermath is revealing. The Russians are reported to have discovered in the materials captured from Georgian military personnel in South Ossetia a series of maps depicting Georgia's plans for a step-by-step capture of Abkhazian territory. On their own account, the Abkhazians found in the centre of the Kodor gorge a plaque (in both Georgian and English) stating: sainpormatsio tsent'ri NAT'O-s shesaxeb ("Information Centre about NATO").

Mikheil Saakashvili's televised speeches - including his effective declaration of war against South Ossetia - are accompanied by the parading of a European Union flag in his office. Georgia is a member neither of Nato nor the European Union, and its symbolic actions in relation to both are evidence of an unresolved political dysfunction.

A path in the rubble

The military and political residue of the war of August 2008 is still far from settled. The diplomatic one awaits. When the ceasefire agreement negotiated by Nicolas Sarkozy and accepted by Mikheil Saakashvili and Dmitry Medvedev begins to be fully implemented, the west needs seriously to reconsider its unwise recognition of the country within its Joseph Stalin-set borders. The ground of international law has shifted over Kosovo; it can be moved again to recognise Georgia in its de facto borders and to recognise the republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as two new states (see Neal Ascherson, "After the war: recognising reality in Abkhazia and the Caucasus", 15 August 2008).

An understanding of the history outlined in this article - including, once more, the key events of the early 1990s and all that has happened since - is the only way to lay the foundation for peaceful relations between the various peoples living in this part of Transcaucasia.

The negotiations to come must address the difficult issues that have lain dormant since the post-Soviet wars, such as the resettling of the Kartvelian (Mingrelian and Georgian) refugees who fled or were expelled as the Abkhazian war ended. Many have endured wretched conditions in various places in Georgia since 1993: those housed for years in a dilapidated city-centre hotel in Tbilisi were cleared to allow real-estate development, and those living in a part of Tsqneti (lying above Tbilisi) were reportedly displaced again when the land was given by Saakashvili to his ally-rival and former speaker of the Georgian parliament, Nino Burdzhanadze (also touted in the west as a possible replacement for Saakashvili if and when his western backers tire of him).

One reason for the neglect and/or maltreatment the refugees have suffered under the regimes of Eduard Shevardnadze and Mikheil Saakashvili is a further insight into Georgia's testing politics: most of them are Mingrelians, which makes them fellow members of the Kartvelian language-family but also kept at a distance by many Georgians (even though many, such as Zviad Gamsakhurdia, have been or become Georgian super-patriots). But this is also a possible key to diplomatic, political - and economic - progress: for if a viable peace can be established in an independent Abkhazia, there will be a greater likelihood that at last many of these hard-working people will be able to restart their lives in Abkhazia.

The days after the short, bitter war have been fraught; the period ahead will contain many dangers. A third flawed post-Soviet Georgian leader has brought disaster on his country. The west's foolhardy reinforcement of nationalist vainglory has helped lead Georgia into another crisis, one that only Georgians can resolve. Meanwhile, the South Ossetians and Abkhazians - whatever Mikheil Saakashvili, or indeed General Mazniashvili, might say - have other plans. The world should listen to them.