Georgia: more sinned against than sinning - By Robert Parsons

<blockquote>"Steele also ridicules the notion that Saakashvili fell into a trap. The truth of the matter is that the Americans had been warning him since the spring to keep turning the other cheek in the face of persistent provocations – to begin with in Abkhazia, but since July, in South Ossetia as well. And the notion of a trap does not stem solely from the western side. I had many conversations with Russian soldiers in Georgia last week and several told me and others that they had been preparing for this for weeks."</blockquote>


Georgia: more sinned against than sinning

By Robert Parsons
guardian.co.uk,
Friday August 29 2008
Source

In the crisis over South Ossetia, Russia cannot be painted as the innocent party. To do so stretches our credulity to the limits

Jonathan Steele's commentary on the Russia-Georgia conflict is ensnared in the same traps that it purports to condemn. Not content to skate over the facts – such as they are known – he adds insult to Georgian injury with a generalised attack on the Georgian national character. This may be the level of debate one expects of the Russian media, but not elsewhere.

Mikheil Saakashvili's decision to launch an attack on South Ossetian positions was certainly ill-considered, but it is not right to imply, as Steele does, that it was taken on a capricious whim. This conflict has been simmering for years and that both sides have engaged in sporadic attacks against each other.

The context of this month's sudden expansion of the conflict goes back several months and includes a series of provocative acts by the Russians in Georgia's other breakaway province of Abkhazia. But it was the circumstances immediately before August 7 that tripped the Georgians into precipitate action.

For the first time in many years, the Ossetians began artillery and mortar-fire attacks on Georgian villages in South Ossetia, ignored a Georgian appeal for a ceasefire and began evacuating women and children to Russia in the north. At the same time, Murat Kulakhbekov, the Russian commander of the peacekeeping forces, told the Georgians that he could no longer control the Ossetians. On the night of the August 7, the Georgians say the Russians began moving large numbers of troops and armour through the Roki tunnel into South Ossetia.

Steele also ridicules the notion that Saakashvili fell into a trap. The truth of the matter is that the Americans had been warning him since the spring to keep turning the other cheek in the face of persistent provocations – to begin with in Abkhazia, but since July, in South Ossetia as well. And the notion of a trap does not stem solely from the western side. I had many conversations with Russian soldiers in Georgia last week and several told me and others that they had been preparing for this for weeks.

Just like Vladimir Putin, Steele seeks to draw an analogy with Kosovo. There are several differences. First, Georgia has not sought to undermine South Ossetia's autonomy, apart from a brief period of madness under Zviad Gamsakhurdia in the early 1990s. On the contrary, it is offering the Ossetians extensive autonomous rights. Secondly, almost a third of villages in South Ossetia are Georgian, while many of the others are mixed. Separating them, except by ethnic cleansing, is well-nigh impossible. And thirdly, while Nato attacked Kosovo to prevent ethnic cleansing, Russia's attack on Georgia has been followed by ethnic cleansing.

Steele asks how the Americans would have reacted if Serbia's leaders had suddenly killed US peacekeepers in Kosovo. Well, nobody suddenly killed anyone in South Ossetia. This had been coming from a long way back. And part of the reason for that was that the Russian peacekeepers were anything but. At very best, they sought to freeze the conflict, and at worst, they openly took the Ossetian side. Furthermore, the peacekeeping force in South Ossetia was disproportionately weighted against the Georgians as it consisted in equal parts of Russians, South Ossetians, North Ossetians and Georgians. This is one reason why the Georgians wanted to internationalise the peacekeeping operation. Needless to say, the Russians consistently opposed the idea.

He says too that Russia's destruction of Georgia's military and economic infrastructure was remarkably like Nato's destruction of Serbia's. But, ignoring the obvious difference in scale, it needs to be pointed out too that the destruction of Serbia's infrastructure came before Serbia agreed to sign a ceasefire, while Russia's wilful destruction of Georgia has continued long after Saakashvili signed a ceasefire and withdrew his troops.

Steele ought to know all this. If he doesn't, he most certainly does know that in October 1999, the Russians launched a ground offensive against their breakaway province of Chechnya after an air offensive of mindless brutality that killed thousands of innocent Russians citizens in Grozny and elsewhere. The grounds for their attack were pretty much the same as those used by the Georgians. Strangely, nowhere does this get a mention in his piece. Instead, our credulity is stretched to the limits by the suggestion that the Russians invaded Georgia this month to help the Ossetians.

Steele also presents as one of the abiding images of the South Ossetian crisis the moving concert given in the ruins of Tskhinvali by Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky orchestra. Moving to some, perhaps, but not to the thousands of Georgian refugees being ethnically cleansed at that very moment from their villages in South Ossetia – nor to Georgian villagers being held at that very moment in a pen within earshot of the concert.


*** Comment


By harrakaharraka
Aug 30 08


romanempire

you said:

Where is the evidence that Ossetians ignored a Georgian appeal for a ceasefire? There are witness testimonies that everything was calm around Tskhinvali hours before the Georgian attack.

one piece of overwhelming evidence was in a tv interview given by the president of s.ossetia, i believe this was between the 4 and 6th august, it was reported in transcript form on the 6th august. in this interview

(page2) in the interview, the president of s.ossetia states there is no need for him to negotiate anymore (ie because the russians are on their way to stick the boot in).

page 1 also shows the georgians were trying to negotiate.

[www.tol.cz]