http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/03/opinion/03iht-edhimmelreich.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
By JÖRG HIMMELREICH
Op-Ed Contributor
Published: October 2, 2009
BERLIN — The Russian-Georgian “five-day war” in August 2008 did not end the political conflict: It has all the potential to explode into a new armed confrontation any day.
This week, a much-anticipated report by an independent European Union fact-finding commission, of which I was a member, into the origins and causes of this conflict confirmed the common view that the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, bears responsibility for the outbreak of the war and that Russia is equally responsible by escalating the political pressures that led to the hostilities.
But the report has a major flaw. It fails to thoroughly analyze the decisive role that the United States played before, during and after the conflict. Only a detailed assessment of President George W. Bush’s Georgia policy and its failures can fully explain the outbreak of the war and help the E.U. and President Obama shape new policies toward Russia and Georgia.
At the beginning of his presidency, President Bush in many regards continued the Georgia policy of President Clinton, accepting Georgia’s Western orientation and rejecting Russia’s claim to a sphere of influence in its “near abroad”; supporting Georgia’s aspirations for membership in NATO; and viewing Georgia as important for American and Western security and energy interests.
After 9/11, however, President Bush changed the policy toward Georgia, introducing two elements that developed into serious strategic disadvantages. Mr. Bush not only made Georgia into a partner in the “war on terror,” but he promoted Mr. Saakashvili and Georgia into a centerpiece of his “promotion of democracy.” In Tbilisi in 2005, Mr. Bush proclaimed Mr. Saakashvili’s Georgia “a beacon of liberty.”
Even as President Bush became increasingly aware that he needed the Kremlin’s help in Iran and for other American interests, he was kept a prisoner by this exaggeration of Georgia’s importance for U.S. foreign policy.
Senior officials of the Bush administration claim they warned Mr. Saakashvili against using force against Russia. But having invested so much ideological importance in the Georgian president, Mr. Bush couldn’t warn him publicly — or, as it turned out, stop him. Having become so dependent on Mr. Saakashvili’s success, the United States lost the political influence to stop him.
Once the war broke out on the night of Aug. 7, President Bush decided against any U.S. military action, and instead to encourage President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, then holding the E.U. presidency, to seek a cease-fire. That was also a strategic mistake: Only the United States had the political clout to negotiate and enforce a serious peace agreement with Russia.
Mr. Sarkozy deserves credit for stopping the war, but he had to accept onerous Russian conditions. Since then, the E.U. has had to swallow constant Russian violations of the cease-fire agreements. President Bush’s policy failure was thus not doing rather than wrongdoing: not stopping Mr. Saakashvili and not taking the lead in the peace settlement.
Today, with Russia’s refusal to prolong international peacekeeping missions, the only political framework for American political engagement in the conflict is the U.S.-Georgia Strategic Partnership agreement to rebuild Georgia’s military — hardly a vehicle for conflict resolution.
A rethinking of U.S. diplomacy and policy toward Georgia is urgently needed. The Obama administration should follow the E.U. lead and set up its own commission of inquiry — not only to fill in the gaps in the E.U. report, but to prepare the ground for a new, balanced policy toward Georgia that takes into account the “reset” in U.S.-Russian relations.
Jörg Himmelreich, a senior trans-Atlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund, served on the European Union’s fact-finding mission on the conflict in Georgia, whose report was issued this week.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
EU: Russia, Georgia share responsibility for 2008 conflict
September 30th, 2009
(CNN) — Historical tensions and overreaction on the part of both Russia and Georgia contributed to a five-day conflict between the two in 2008, a European Union fact-finding mission concluded in a report released Wednesday.
“The conflict is rooted in a profusion of causes comprising different layers in time and actions combined,” said the report from the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia .
“While it is possible to identify the authorship of some important events and decisions marking its course, there is no way to assign overall responsibility for the conflict to one side alone. They have all failed, and it should be their responsibility to make good for it.”
Georgia launched a campaign against South Ossetia , a Russian-backed separatist Georgian territory, on August 7, 2008. The following day, Russian tanks, troops and armored vehicles poured into South Ossetia and another Russian-backed breakaway Georgian territory, Abkhazia, advancing into Georgian cities outside the rebel regions.
A total of about 850 people were killed on all sides, the report said, and untold numbers of others were wounded or went missing. About 100,000 civilians fled their homes, and about 35,000 have been unable to return.
“The fighting did not end the political conflict, nor were any of the issues that lay beneath it resolved,” the report said. “Tensions still continue. The political situation after the end of fighting turned out to be no easier and in some respects even more difficult than before.”
Russia and Georgia each blamed the other for starting the conflict, and accused each other of a variety of offenses leading up to and during the fighting, including ethnic cleansing.
(CNN) — Historical tensions and overreaction on the part of both Russia and Georgia contributed to a five-day conflict between the two in 2008, a European Union fact-finding mission concluded in a report released Wednesday.
“The conflict is rooted in a profusion of causes comprising different layers in time and actions combined,” said the report from the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia .
“While it is possible to identify the authorship of some important events and decisions marking its course, there is no way to assign overall responsibility for the conflict to one side alone. They have all failed, and it should be their responsibility to make good for it.”
Georgia launched a campaign against South Ossetia , a Russian-backed separatist Georgian territory, on August 7, 2008. The following day, Russian tanks, troops and armored vehicles poured into South Ossetia and another Russian-backed breakaway Georgian territory, Abkhazia, advancing into Georgian cities outside the rebel regions.
A total of about 850 people were killed on all sides, the report said, and untold numbers of others were wounded or went missing. About 100,000 civilians fled their homes, and about 35,000 have been unable to return.
“The fighting did not end the political conflict, nor were any of the issues that lay beneath it resolved,” the report said. “Tensions still continue. The political situation after the end of fighting turned out to be no easier and in some respects even more difficult than before.”
Russia and Georgia each blamed the other for starting the conflict, and accused each other of a variety of offenses leading up to and during the fighting, including ethnic cleansing.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Resolving Conflicts in the Caucasus
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/opinion/22iht-edlet.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
Letters to the Editor
Published: August 21, 2009
While many of the aspirations Georgians, Abkhazians and South Ossetians are divergent, as described by Oksana Antonenko (“Grim expectations,” Views, Aug. 14), there are some hopeful signs in their relationships.
Georgians, Abkhazians and South Ossetians are already engaging in the kind of informal dialogues that Oksana Antonenko calls for, and these discussions are having an effect. An informal dialogue among Georgians and South Ossetians which I facilitated in March concluded that water issues were an area that both groups wanted to resolve quickly. An official agreement on irrigation and drinking water was signed in Geneva in July.
The international community can support these dialogues by acknowledging and celebrating influential local participants who bravely meet informally in efforts to prevent a return to war.
Susan Allen Nan, Silver Spring, Maryland,
Letters to the Editor
Published: August 21, 2009
While many of the aspirations Georgians, Abkhazians and South Ossetians are divergent, as described by Oksana Antonenko (“Grim expectations,” Views, Aug. 14), there are some hopeful signs in their relationships.
Georgians, Abkhazians and South Ossetians are already engaging in the kind of informal dialogues that Oksana Antonenko calls for, and these discussions are having an effect. An informal dialogue among Georgians and South Ossetians which I facilitated in March concluded that water issues were an area that both groups wanted to resolve quickly. An official agreement on irrigation and drinking water was signed in Geneva in July.
The international community can support these dialogues by acknowledging and celebrating influential local participants who bravely meet informally in efforts to prevent a return to war.
Susan Allen Nan, Silver Spring, Maryland,
Monday, August 17, 2009
South Ossetia Tries to Disarm Its Citizens
By ELLEN BARRY
Published: August 14, 2009
TSKHINVALI, Georgia — For years, there was not much difference between a civilian and a soldier in South Ossetia, which was embroiled in a long struggle to separate from Georgia.
David G. Sanakoyev, for example, wore a tie during the day. As South Ossetia’s ombudsman for human rights, he handled complaints about prison conditions or unlawful firings. Three times a week, after work, he changed into camouflage and took up a position at the territory’s border, rotating in and out of combat duty until morning.
Then he put his suit back on, and returned to his desk — a pattern interrupted only once, he recalled, when he was shot through the thigh in a Georgian ambush.
This has been the strange way of life inside South Ossetia, on and off, since the end of the Soviet Union. The tiny population of this valley — factory workers, university students, farmers and smugglers — has been turned into a loosely organized fighting force, deployed along the boundary that separates South Ossetia from Georgian-controlled territory.
Now, with Russia guaranteeing its security, South Ossetia is asking residents to turn in their weapons voluntarily. The police have opened 50 criminal prosecutions for illegal weapons and plan to offer $300 to $400 for each Kalashnikov rifle, a top official said.
The program is a test of confidence, a year after the war between Russia and Georgia.
Mr. Sanakoyev said he had never owned a gun but felt it was still too early to disarm.
“Life has changed,” he said. “But inside, you don’t yet feel that life has changed.”
Twenty years ago, few people in this valley were armed. The first clash between Ossetians and Georgians was fought with wooden bats and hunting rifles in 1989, after an estimated 12,000 Georgian demonstrators surrounded Tskhinvali to protest its first separatist bid. In the two days of violence that followed, six people died, according to Human Rights Watch.
That began a great surge of arming. Timur Tskhovrebov, then working as a tomato farmer, became “a specialist in stealing from Soviet warehouses,” he recalled, with a broad, reminiscent smile. The commander of a 10-man local militia, he would bribe a sentry, throw a mattress over the barbed-wire fence, and clamber in and out, arms loaded with weapons, for two hours until the next sentry arrived.
“This is only one way,” said Mr. Tskhovrebov, 51. “It’s the most honest way. You just steal them.”
As they withdrew into Russian territory, Soviet troops were ready to make deals, in any case. A Kalashnikov could be traded for a Zhiguli or Lada car or, in the case of villagers, a cow. Whole arsenals, put up for sale in Chechnya, supplied South Ossetia.
Irina Kozayeva, a 74-year-old woman with a cloud of hennaed hair, recalled the awe she felt at her first major purchase: a 12.7-caliber machine gun, a World War II-era weapon often mounted on Soviet tanks and capable of shooting down aircraft.
“When I saw it, I closed the door and laid it down on the rug,” she said. “I almost fainted. The sight of such a weapon can make you crazy.”
Ossetians’ attachment to their weapons grew fierce during those years, said Dmitri Medoyev, South Ossetia’s ambassador to Russia. Before the first clashes, authorities in Georgia had stripped many Ossetian hunters of their rifles, and then the Soviet Army twice betrayed Ossetia by withdrawing its forces, Mr. Medoyev said, so “we, the population, cannot trust anyone.”
In addition to a small army, Tskhinvali contrived a defense based on the Swiss armed forces, in which every adult man was required to show up, prepared to fight, during periods of tension.
For an Ossetian, Mr. Medoyev said, “a weapon is an essential part of daily life, his worldview, his accessory, if you will.” Asked how many guns were owned privately, he said, “As many as there are people in the population, that’s how many weapons there are.”
“Of course,” he added, “I’m not counting small children.”
But conditions have changed since last August, said Vitaly G. Gassiyev, South Ossetia’s first deputy interior minister. At a brand-new Russian base in Tskhinvali, dozens of tanks and self-propelled artillery are lined up a few minutes’ drive from Georgian positions, making it unlikely that Ossetian volunteers will be called to the front anytime soon.
By disarming, Mr. Gassiyev said, South Ossetia was using the lessons Russia had learned in the north Caucasus, where wars left a residue of crime, with “guns in hands and lots of uncontrolled elements.”
Two weeks ago, the call went out for people to turn in their arms voluntarily. So far, the police have collected or confiscated 100 machine guns — among them 15 American-made M-4 carbines, presumably lost by Georgian soldiers — and 110 pounds of explosives. In the near future, the police are planning to offer citizens from $370 to $470 in exchange for turning in guns and other weapons.
“I think the project will work without question,” Mr. Gassiyev said. “There is a guarantee of security now.”
When the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe tried to sell this idea to Ossetia’s populace several years ago, it was met with ridicule, recalled Magdalena Frichova, who monitored the conflict in South Ossetia for 10 years for the International Crisis Group. But last year’s war has transformed the dynamics in Ossetia, she added, and Russia may feel a need to ensure control in a region where small militias have thrived.
“This is the fear for the Russians, that it’s going to become like the north Caucasus,” Ms. Frichova said. “You have all these armed groups that aren’t under a command.”
Nerves were still strung tight last week at a border post south of Tskhinvali. The Russian border patrol was nowhere in sight, and two Ossetian men, one in camouflage, were watching cows grazing in no man’s land, waiting for something to happen, just as they have for 18 years. A Georgian police post in Ergneti was visible through the summer foliage. Five days before, the two men said, a rocket-propelled grenade was shot from the Georgian side and exploded in the air.
“If you call someone your brother, but he shoots at you, is he still your brother?” said the man in camouflage, his face weathered by the sun. “For 18 years, they have devoured us. They are jackals, jackals.” He refused to give his name.
His friend, Timur, 39, had left military service after the war, and was watching in slacks and a turtleneck. This year has been quiet, he allowed, but not calm, not yet. Asked about the government’s program to collect weapons, he grinned mischievously.
“Officially, I have given up my gun,” he said.
Published: August 14, 2009
TSKHINVALI, Georgia — For years, there was not much difference between a civilian and a soldier in South Ossetia, which was embroiled in a long struggle to separate from Georgia.
David G. Sanakoyev, for example, wore a tie during the day. As South Ossetia’s ombudsman for human rights, he handled complaints about prison conditions or unlawful firings. Three times a week, after work, he changed into camouflage and took up a position at the territory’s border, rotating in and out of combat duty until morning.
Then he put his suit back on, and returned to his desk — a pattern interrupted only once, he recalled, when he was shot through the thigh in a Georgian ambush.
This has been the strange way of life inside South Ossetia, on and off, since the end of the Soviet Union. The tiny population of this valley — factory workers, university students, farmers and smugglers — has been turned into a loosely organized fighting force, deployed along the boundary that separates South Ossetia from Georgian-controlled territory.
Now, with Russia guaranteeing its security, South Ossetia is asking residents to turn in their weapons voluntarily. The police have opened 50 criminal prosecutions for illegal weapons and plan to offer $300 to $400 for each Kalashnikov rifle, a top official said.
The program is a test of confidence, a year after the war between Russia and Georgia.
Mr. Sanakoyev said he had never owned a gun but felt it was still too early to disarm.
“Life has changed,” he said. “But inside, you don’t yet feel that life has changed.”
Twenty years ago, few people in this valley were armed. The first clash between Ossetians and Georgians was fought with wooden bats and hunting rifles in 1989, after an estimated 12,000 Georgian demonstrators surrounded Tskhinvali to protest its first separatist bid. In the two days of violence that followed, six people died, according to Human Rights Watch.
That began a great surge of arming. Timur Tskhovrebov, then working as a tomato farmer, became “a specialist in stealing from Soviet warehouses,” he recalled, with a broad, reminiscent smile. The commander of a 10-man local militia, he would bribe a sentry, throw a mattress over the barbed-wire fence, and clamber in and out, arms loaded with weapons, for two hours until the next sentry arrived.
“This is only one way,” said Mr. Tskhovrebov, 51. “It’s the most honest way. You just steal them.”
As they withdrew into Russian territory, Soviet troops were ready to make deals, in any case. A Kalashnikov could be traded for a Zhiguli or Lada car or, in the case of villagers, a cow. Whole arsenals, put up for sale in Chechnya, supplied South Ossetia.
Irina Kozayeva, a 74-year-old woman with a cloud of hennaed hair, recalled the awe she felt at her first major purchase: a 12.7-caliber machine gun, a World War II-era weapon often mounted on Soviet tanks and capable of shooting down aircraft.
“When I saw it, I closed the door and laid it down on the rug,” she said. “I almost fainted. The sight of such a weapon can make you crazy.”
Ossetians’ attachment to their weapons grew fierce during those years, said Dmitri Medoyev, South Ossetia’s ambassador to Russia. Before the first clashes, authorities in Georgia had stripped many Ossetian hunters of their rifles, and then the Soviet Army twice betrayed Ossetia by withdrawing its forces, Mr. Medoyev said, so “we, the population, cannot trust anyone.”
In addition to a small army, Tskhinvali contrived a defense based on the Swiss armed forces, in which every adult man was required to show up, prepared to fight, during periods of tension.
For an Ossetian, Mr. Medoyev said, “a weapon is an essential part of daily life, his worldview, his accessory, if you will.” Asked how many guns were owned privately, he said, “As many as there are people in the population, that’s how many weapons there are.”
“Of course,” he added, “I’m not counting small children.”
But conditions have changed since last August, said Vitaly G. Gassiyev, South Ossetia’s first deputy interior minister. At a brand-new Russian base in Tskhinvali, dozens of tanks and self-propelled artillery are lined up a few minutes’ drive from Georgian positions, making it unlikely that Ossetian volunteers will be called to the front anytime soon.
By disarming, Mr. Gassiyev said, South Ossetia was using the lessons Russia had learned in the north Caucasus, where wars left a residue of crime, with “guns in hands and lots of uncontrolled elements.”
Two weeks ago, the call went out for people to turn in their arms voluntarily. So far, the police have collected or confiscated 100 machine guns — among them 15 American-made M-4 carbines, presumably lost by Georgian soldiers — and 110 pounds of explosives. In the near future, the police are planning to offer citizens from $370 to $470 in exchange for turning in guns and other weapons.
“I think the project will work without question,” Mr. Gassiyev said. “There is a guarantee of security now.”
When the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe tried to sell this idea to Ossetia’s populace several years ago, it was met with ridicule, recalled Magdalena Frichova, who monitored the conflict in South Ossetia for 10 years for the International Crisis Group. But last year’s war has transformed the dynamics in Ossetia, she added, and Russia may feel a need to ensure control in a region where small militias have thrived.
“This is the fear for the Russians, that it’s going to become like the north Caucasus,” Ms. Frichova said. “You have all these armed groups that aren’t under a command.”
Nerves were still strung tight last week at a border post south of Tskhinvali. The Russian border patrol was nowhere in sight, and two Ossetian men, one in camouflage, were watching cows grazing in no man’s land, waiting for something to happen, just as they have for 18 years. A Georgian police post in Ergneti was visible through the summer foliage. Five days before, the two men said, a rocket-propelled grenade was shot from the Georgian side and exploded in the air.
“If you call someone your brother, but he shoots at you, is he still your brother?” said the man in camouflage, his face weathered by the sun. “For 18 years, they have devoured us. They are jackals, jackals.” He refused to give his name.
His friend, Timur, 39, had left military service after the war, and was watching in slacks and a turtleneck. This year has been quiet, he allowed, but not calm, not yet. Asked about the government’s program to collect weapons, he grinned mischievously.
“Officially, I have given up my gun,” he said.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Putin Pledges to Fortify, Defend Breakaway Abkhazia
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=a0hA7f4GgZW4
By Lyubov Pronina and Helena Bedwell
Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Russia will spend as much as 16 billion rubles ($487 million) in 2010 to develop its military base in Abkhazia and fortify the border of the separatist Georgian region, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said today, a year after Russia’s five-day war with Georgia.
Russia recognized Abkhazia as a sovereign country after the war over another breakaway Georgian region, South Ossetia. Russia has deployed thousands of troops in the two regions and agreed to defend their borders.
On a visit to the Abkhaz capital Sukhumi today, the first anniversary of a European Union-brokered cease-fire agreement that brought the fighting to an end, Putin renewed Russia’s pledge to defend Abkhazia against attack and to help the region rebuild its economy.
“The Abkhaz people will succeed in reviving their economy as Russia continues to give systemic economic and political -- and, if needed, military -- support,” Putin told reporters after talks with Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh.
Russia has deployed 1,700 soldiers in Abkhazia and will increase that number to 3,636 by the end of this year when renovations are completed at its military base in the region, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov told reporters, adding that no further troop increase is planned.
‘Illegal’ Entry
The number of Russian military personnel stationed in South Ossetia is slightly smaller, Serdyukov said. Russia has military cooperation agreements with both regions.
Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Nalbandov said Putin’s trip to Sukhumi was “illegal,” because Georgian law forbids entry to the region from Russia. Georgia regards Abkhazia and South Ossetia as occupied territories. Apart from Russia, only Nicaragua has recognized the regions’ sovereignty.
“It’s no coincidence that Putin’s visiting today,” Nalbandov said. “It’s a planned provocation aimed at challenging the international community, because the cease-fire agreement was signed one year ago today.”
Georgia and its Western allies, including the U.S., say Russia has failed to meet its obligations under the cease-fire, specifically the requirement in the Aug. 12, 2008, agreement to withdraw its troops to their pre-war positions.
Black Sea Base
Russia insists that it has implemented the cease-fire agreement. In a letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who led the EU’s mediation effort last year, Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev said on Aug. 8 that Russia had “fulfilled its obligations” under the agreement “in full” by last October. Medvedev hailed the cease-fire as the “only ‘code of conduct’ in this part of the Caucasus.”
Eka Tkeshelashvili, head of Georgia’s Security Council, said Russia’s military spending in Abkhazia is aimed at bolstering its military presence on the Black Sea.
“Abkhazia wasn’t chosen for nothing,” Tkeshelashvili said by telephone in the Georgian capital Tbilisi. “We always knew that the Soviet-era base at Gudauta was operational anyway. Now they’re talking again and clearly they have further plans for these bases.”
The town of Gudauta is located on the Black Sea coast a short distance from Sochi, the Russian resort that will host the 2014 Winter Olympics. Bagapsh said in December that Abkhazia plans to benefit from the Olympics construction boom in Sochi by supplying building materials such as road metal, sand and trim stone.
‘Military Outposts’
Nalbandov said Russia’s military buildup in Abkhazia and South Ossetia “proves once more that these territories will be nothing but Russian military outposts.”
Putin said he hopes Abkhazia can achieve a level of prosperity similar to that enjoyed by small countries in Europe such as San Marino and Monaco, which have “special relations” with their neighbors.
“Monaco has a special relationship with France,” Putin said. “So the fact that a special relationship is developing between Russia and Abkhazia is an entirely normal thing.”
Putin said Russia gave Abkhazia about 2.5 billion rubles this year to support the region’s budget and will give “slightly less” in 2010.
Abkhazia requested a loan of as much as 1.5 billion rubles from Russia, Bagapsh said in May. In March, Russia pledged 5.16 billion rubles of economic aid to Abkhazia and South Ossetia to help the regions balance their budgets and meet expenses, such as pensions and state salaries.
To contact the reporters on this story: Lyubov Pronina in Sukhumi at lpronina@bloomberg.net; Helena Bedwell in Tbilisi at hbedwell@bloomberg.net
By Lyubov Pronina and Helena Bedwell
Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Russia will spend as much as 16 billion rubles ($487 million) in 2010 to develop its military base in Abkhazia and fortify the border of the separatist Georgian region, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said today, a year after Russia’s five-day war with Georgia.
Russia recognized Abkhazia as a sovereign country after the war over another breakaway Georgian region, South Ossetia. Russia has deployed thousands of troops in the two regions and agreed to defend their borders.
On a visit to the Abkhaz capital Sukhumi today, the first anniversary of a European Union-brokered cease-fire agreement that brought the fighting to an end, Putin renewed Russia’s pledge to defend Abkhazia against attack and to help the region rebuild its economy.
“The Abkhaz people will succeed in reviving their economy as Russia continues to give systemic economic and political -- and, if needed, military -- support,” Putin told reporters after talks with Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh.
Russia has deployed 1,700 soldiers in Abkhazia and will increase that number to 3,636 by the end of this year when renovations are completed at its military base in the region, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov told reporters, adding that no further troop increase is planned.
‘Illegal’ Entry
The number of Russian military personnel stationed in South Ossetia is slightly smaller, Serdyukov said. Russia has military cooperation agreements with both regions.
Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Nalbandov said Putin’s trip to Sukhumi was “illegal,” because Georgian law forbids entry to the region from Russia. Georgia regards Abkhazia and South Ossetia as occupied territories. Apart from Russia, only Nicaragua has recognized the regions’ sovereignty.
“It’s no coincidence that Putin’s visiting today,” Nalbandov said. “It’s a planned provocation aimed at challenging the international community, because the cease-fire agreement was signed one year ago today.”
Georgia and its Western allies, including the U.S., say Russia has failed to meet its obligations under the cease-fire, specifically the requirement in the Aug. 12, 2008, agreement to withdraw its troops to their pre-war positions.
Black Sea Base
Russia insists that it has implemented the cease-fire agreement. In a letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who led the EU’s mediation effort last year, Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev said on Aug. 8 that Russia had “fulfilled its obligations” under the agreement “in full” by last October. Medvedev hailed the cease-fire as the “only ‘code of conduct’ in this part of the Caucasus.”
Eka Tkeshelashvili, head of Georgia’s Security Council, said Russia’s military spending in Abkhazia is aimed at bolstering its military presence on the Black Sea.
“Abkhazia wasn’t chosen for nothing,” Tkeshelashvili said by telephone in the Georgian capital Tbilisi. “We always knew that the Soviet-era base at Gudauta was operational anyway. Now they’re talking again and clearly they have further plans for these bases.”
The town of Gudauta is located on the Black Sea coast a short distance from Sochi, the Russian resort that will host the 2014 Winter Olympics. Bagapsh said in December that Abkhazia plans to benefit from the Olympics construction boom in Sochi by supplying building materials such as road metal, sand and trim stone.
‘Military Outposts’
Nalbandov said Russia’s military buildup in Abkhazia and South Ossetia “proves once more that these territories will be nothing but Russian military outposts.”
Putin said he hopes Abkhazia can achieve a level of prosperity similar to that enjoyed by small countries in Europe such as San Marino and Monaco, which have “special relations” with their neighbors.
“Monaco has a special relationship with France,” Putin said. “So the fact that a special relationship is developing between Russia and Abkhazia is an entirely normal thing.”
Putin said Russia gave Abkhazia about 2.5 billion rubles this year to support the region’s budget and will give “slightly less” in 2010.
Abkhazia requested a loan of as much as 1.5 billion rubles from Russia, Bagapsh said in May. In March, Russia pledged 5.16 billion rubles of economic aid to Abkhazia and South Ossetia to help the regions balance their budgets and meet expenses, such as pensions and state salaries.
To contact the reporters on this story: Lyubov Pronina in Sukhumi at lpronina@bloomberg.net; Helena Bedwell in Tbilisi at hbedwell@bloomberg.net
US-Russia stand-off looms as Moscow announces expansion of military bases
Russian plans to construct a Black Sea naval base in Georgian breakaway republic of Abkhazia threaten heightened tension
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/12/us-russia-georgia-military-tension
Tom Parfitt in Moscow
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 12 August 2009
The prospect of a US-Russian naval stand-off in the Black Sea loomed today after Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow would spend nearly half a billion dollars next year beefing up military bases in Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia.
Much of the money is expected to fund construction of a new naval base in the Abkhaz town of Ochamchira, within striking distance of Georgia's Poti and Batumi ports, which have been regularly visited by US warships since the war in Georgia last summer. An existing Russian airbase further north in Gudauta is also likely to be enlarged.
"We will allot a very large amount of money — 15-16bn roubles (£300,000) — for the development of our military base and strengthening of Abkhazia's state border, next year," the Russian prime minister told reporters at his summer residence in Sochi, ahead of a surprise visit to the Moscow-backed republic today. "This is an additional and serious guarantee of the security of Abkhazia and South Ossetia," he added.
Nato is increasingly nervous at Russia expanding its military reach beyond its borders and expressed "concern" earlier this year over reports that Russia planned to increase its military footprint in Abkhazia. Only Russia and Nicaragua have recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent and under international law the construction of bases on what is officially Georgian territory will be illegal. Tbilisi has said it will protest against the plans "at every international level".
However, both breakaway republics have been de facto independent for more than 15 years and the Kremlin has made it clear it will sign bilateral agreements with them as "partner states", as it sees fit. A deal on military and economic co-operation was signed with both regions, in November last year.
In a recent analysis of the situation, Ariel Cohen, an analyst with the US Heritage Foundation, wrote: "With additional warships, fighter aircraft, and military personnel near the Black Sea coast of Georgia, Russia is challenging the position of the United States, which has recently signed a strategic partnership charter with Tbilisi."
He added: "In the summer of 2008, American warships were still able to enter Georgian waters to deliver humanitarian aid for the war victims. The question is: What will happen in the future? Could there be a US-Russian naval stand-off in the Black Sea some day?"
About 1,000 Russian troops are currently based in Abkhazia. It was unclear whether Putin's announcement envisaged a significant troop build-up. Last year, Moscow said it would increase the number to 3,700 but later scaled that down.
It is thought that Russia may envisage Ochamchira as a future home for its Black Sea fleet, which is currently based on Ukrainian territory. Ukraine says it will not renew the lease after it ends in 2017.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/12/us-russia-georgia-military-tension
Tom Parfitt in Moscow
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 12 August 2009
The prospect of a US-Russian naval stand-off in the Black Sea loomed today after Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow would spend nearly half a billion dollars next year beefing up military bases in Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia.
Much of the money is expected to fund construction of a new naval base in the Abkhaz town of Ochamchira, within striking distance of Georgia's Poti and Batumi ports, which have been regularly visited by US warships since the war in Georgia last summer. An existing Russian airbase further north in Gudauta is also likely to be enlarged.
"We will allot a very large amount of money — 15-16bn roubles (£300,000) — for the development of our military base and strengthening of Abkhazia's state border, next year," the Russian prime minister told reporters at his summer residence in Sochi, ahead of a surprise visit to the Moscow-backed republic today. "This is an additional and serious guarantee of the security of Abkhazia and South Ossetia," he added.
Nato is increasingly nervous at Russia expanding its military reach beyond its borders and expressed "concern" earlier this year over reports that Russia planned to increase its military footprint in Abkhazia. Only Russia and Nicaragua have recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent and under international law the construction of bases on what is officially Georgian territory will be illegal. Tbilisi has said it will protest against the plans "at every international level".
However, both breakaway republics have been de facto independent for more than 15 years and the Kremlin has made it clear it will sign bilateral agreements with them as "partner states", as it sees fit. A deal on military and economic co-operation was signed with both regions, in November last year.
In a recent analysis of the situation, Ariel Cohen, an analyst with the US Heritage Foundation, wrote: "With additional warships, fighter aircraft, and military personnel near the Black Sea coast of Georgia, Russia is challenging the position of the United States, which has recently signed a strategic partnership charter with Tbilisi."
He added: "In the summer of 2008, American warships were still able to enter Georgian waters to deliver humanitarian aid for the war victims. The question is: What will happen in the future? Could there be a US-Russian naval stand-off in the Black Sea some day?"
About 1,000 Russian troops are currently based in Abkhazia. It was unclear whether Putin's announcement envisaged a significant troop build-up. Last year, Moscow said it would increase the number to 3,700 but later scaled that down.
It is thought that Russia may envisage Ochamchira as a future home for its Black Sea fleet, which is currently based on Ukrainian territory. Ukraine says it will not renew the lease after it ends in 2017.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
How Russia Defines Genocide Down
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/weekinreview/09levy.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
New York Times
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
Published: August 8, 2009
MOSCOW — After the conflict between Russia and Georgia broke out a year ago, each side accused the other of atrocities, but the Russians went farther. They spoke of marauding Georgian soldiers who systemically killed hundreds if not thousands of civilians in the separatist enclave of South Ossetia. Georgia was guilty not just of war crimes, they said.
IN RUINS A South Ossetian militiaman returned to his bombed apartment last August.
Dmitry Kostyukov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
It was genocide.
“Eyewitnesses say Georgian army units ran over women and children with their tanks, drove people into houses and burned them alive,” Vladimir V. Putin, the prime minister and former president declared. “What was it if not genocide?”
That word became a Russian rallying cry. But it also served to underscore how the Kremlin seemed to mishandle the campaign to shape public opinion worldwide — a pivotal arena as Russia and Georgia sought to cast blame over who started the fighting.
It was as if senior Russian officials pulled out a dog-eared Soviet propaganda playbook that called for hurling the most outlandish charge, without recognizing that in the modern global media climate, their credibility would quickly suffer if the facts proved otherwise.
In the old days, credibility might not have mattered. Language could be marshaled by the Kremlin in discomfiting ways to advance the ideals of Communism and the West just expected it. But now, Mr. Putin has presented himself and his country as democratic and forward-looking, and that same language is held to a different standard.
And so it was that reporters entered South Ossetia after the five-day war, and Russian and local officials could not explain where all the bodies were, even at one point suggesting that they had been hastily buried by family members in backyards.
It later became clear that the death toll was far lower. The Kremlin now acknowledges that 162 South Ossetian civilians died in the war, out of a population of roughly 70,000. The figure was higher on the Georgian side, with 228 civilians killed, the Georgian government said.
Last week, as Russia used the anniversary of the war to undertake a public relations effort to press its case that Georgia caused it, the genocide charge was largely absent. The Georgian conduct was instead labeled criminal.
(As is customary these days, given that both countries have hired Western public relations agencies, the Georgians issued their own dossier, maintaining that Russia was responsible for the war.)
Asked on Thursday about genocide, a deputy Russian foreign minister, Grigory B. Karasin, seemed to concede that in the turbulent days of last August, the Russian side may have overstepped.
Still, Mr. Karasin emphasized that the allegation had to be understood in the context of regional history, saying that South Ossetians had long believed that the Georgians wanted to exterminate their culture.
“Those people, I think, on an emotional line, not on a legal line, but on an emotional line, have their own right to refer to the policy of Tbilisi toward the minorities, and toward South Ossetians, as a type of genocide,” Mr. Karasin said.
Mr. Karasin did not mention it, but there was another factor. Last August, the Kremlin appeared to jump at the opportunity to turn the tables on the West over the issue of ethnic clashes and breakaway regions.
Russia had long been indignant over Western support for Kosovo, the enclave in Serbia that won recognition as independent last year. The NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, which was intended to prevent the Serbs from suppressing ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, had especially angered people here.
With the South Ossetian conflict, the Kremlin saw hypocrisy, asking why it was proper for the West to deploy force to support Kosovo in the face of supposed Serbian violence against civilians, but not for Russia to do the same thing for South Ossetia.
The Russians, in other words, ventured that if the West can call the Serbian actions genocide, then the term fit the Georgians as well.
Questioned about the genocide claim five weeks after the war, Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, replied with scorn.
“It is laughable when people suggest that we should first count the dead, implying that if there was such and such a number, it would be genocide, but 100 people less and it is not genocide,” Mr. Medvedev said. “Of course, only people who used their aircraft to bomb Yugoslav territory for 90 days could think this way.”
While the Russians have avoided mentioning the word recently, their South Ossetian allies have not entirely done so. Last week, they unveiled a series of exhibits dedicated to the war. They are housed at the Museum of Genocide.
New York Times
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
Published: August 8, 2009
MOSCOW — After the conflict between Russia and Georgia broke out a year ago, each side accused the other of atrocities, but the Russians went farther. They spoke of marauding Georgian soldiers who systemically killed hundreds if not thousands of civilians in the separatist enclave of South Ossetia. Georgia was guilty not just of war crimes, they said.
IN RUINS A South Ossetian militiaman returned to his bombed apartment last August.
Dmitry Kostyukov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
It was genocide.
“Eyewitnesses say Georgian army units ran over women and children with their tanks, drove people into houses and burned them alive,” Vladimir V. Putin, the prime minister and former president declared. “What was it if not genocide?”
That word became a Russian rallying cry. But it also served to underscore how the Kremlin seemed to mishandle the campaign to shape public opinion worldwide — a pivotal arena as Russia and Georgia sought to cast blame over who started the fighting.
It was as if senior Russian officials pulled out a dog-eared Soviet propaganda playbook that called for hurling the most outlandish charge, without recognizing that in the modern global media climate, their credibility would quickly suffer if the facts proved otherwise.
In the old days, credibility might not have mattered. Language could be marshaled by the Kremlin in discomfiting ways to advance the ideals of Communism and the West just expected it. But now, Mr. Putin has presented himself and his country as democratic and forward-looking, and that same language is held to a different standard.
And so it was that reporters entered South Ossetia after the five-day war, and Russian and local officials could not explain where all the bodies were, even at one point suggesting that they had been hastily buried by family members in backyards.
It later became clear that the death toll was far lower. The Kremlin now acknowledges that 162 South Ossetian civilians died in the war, out of a population of roughly 70,000. The figure was higher on the Georgian side, with 228 civilians killed, the Georgian government said.
Last week, as Russia used the anniversary of the war to undertake a public relations effort to press its case that Georgia caused it, the genocide charge was largely absent. The Georgian conduct was instead labeled criminal.
(As is customary these days, given that both countries have hired Western public relations agencies, the Georgians issued their own dossier, maintaining that Russia was responsible for the war.)
Asked on Thursday about genocide, a deputy Russian foreign minister, Grigory B. Karasin, seemed to concede that in the turbulent days of last August, the Russian side may have overstepped.
Still, Mr. Karasin emphasized that the allegation had to be understood in the context of regional history, saying that South Ossetians had long believed that the Georgians wanted to exterminate their culture.
“Those people, I think, on an emotional line, not on a legal line, but on an emotional line, have their own right to refer to the policy of Tbilisi toward the minorities, and toward South Ossetians, as a type of genocide,” Mr. Karasin said.
Mr. Karasin did not mention it, but there was another factor. Last August, the Kremlin appeared to jump at the opportunity to turn the tables on the West over the issue of ethnic clashes and breakaway regions.
Russia had long been indignant over Western support for Kosovo, the enclave in Serbia that won recognition as independent last year. The NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, which was intended to prevent the Serbs from suppressing ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, had especially angered people here.
With the South Ossetian conflict, the Kremlin saw hypocrisy, asking why it was proper for the West to deploy force to support Kosovo in the face of supposed Serbian violence against civilians, but not for Russia to do the same thing for South Ossetia.
The Russians, in other words, ventured that if the West can call the Serbian actions genocide, then the term fit the Georgians as well.
Questioned about the genocide claim five weeks after the war, Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, replied with scorn.
“It is laughable when people suggest that we should first count the dead, implying that if there was such and such a number, it would be genocide, but 100 people less and it is not genocide,” Mr. Medvedev said. “Of course, only people who used their aircraft to bomb Yugoslav territory for 90 days could think this way.”
While the Russians have avoided mentioning the word recently, their South Ossetian allies have not entirely done so. Last week, they unveiled a series of exhibits dedicated to the war. They are housed at the Museum of Genocide.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Year After Georgian War, Rage Has Only Hardened
Sergey Ponomarev/Associated Press
Russian soldiers cleaned their rifles on Friday in Tskhinvali, a city in the breakaway region of South Ossetia where Georgian shelling last Aug. 7 began the fighting.
TSKHINVALI, Georgia — A year after war broke out in this tiny provincial city in the breakaway region of South Ossetia, the roads are still rutted with jaw-rattling potholes and downtown buildings are shells open to the sky.
But great effort has gone into commemorating last year’s war. Near midnight on Friday, precisely a year after Georgia began shelling Tskhinvali, thousands of people gathered in the city’s main square, where a Russian-made documentary was projected on a huge screen overhead. Images of Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and President George W. Bush were juxtaposed with footage of dead Ossetians, as a floodlit violinist played melancholy music.
Georgia, too, offered heavy symbolism. In Gori, which came under Russian bombing in the war, authorities erected a replica of the Berlin Wall, a pointed commentary on Russia’s foothold on Georgian land. Georgians observed a nationwide moment of silence in the afternoon, and 500 schoolchildren dressed in red and white formed a living replica of Georgia’s flag. A year after the war, the question of who is to blame is still being fought out in public life. On Friday, the presidents of both Russia and Georgia took pains to justify their decisions to send their armies into South Ossetia.
Both have faced pressure over the war; Russia set itself at odds with the West by sending its troops into Georgia and again, more permanently, when it recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Georgia’s other separatist enclave, Abkhazia. Mr. Saakashvili, meanwhile, is blamed by domestic critics for losing control over the territories.
Meanwhile, in this valley, the rage has not abated, not at all. As they prepared to mark the war’s anniversary, Ossetians here referred to Georgians as “swine” and “livestock,” and said they would never live in peace with them again. The commemorations seemed only to stoke those feelings.
“If at some point I see a young Georgian man, and I know that he served in the army, I will kill him,” said Seldik Tedeyev, a bus driver whose son and mother died trying to leave Tskhinvali last Aug. 8. “Years will pass, time will pass, but I will kill him anyway.”
An escalating conflict here erupted into full-fledged war when Georgian forces began shelling Tskhinvali on the night of Aug. 7. Russia responded by sending columns of armor into South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia routed the Georgian Army, and then recognized the regions as sovereign nations, pledging to protect their independence with its military.
Georgia has reported more than 400 deaths in the war; Russia’s prosecutor’s office has so far reported 162. Some 30,000 ethnic Georgians who were driven from their homes remain refugees, according to Amnesty International, and Ossetian militias razed their villages to the ground.
In a speech on Friday, Mr. Saakashvili made the case he has made since the beginning: that a Russian invasion was already under way on the night of Aug. 7, and that the attack on Tskhinvali was defensive.
“Our beloved nation was fighting for its very existence,” he said. “The heirs of the old K.G.B. decided to put an end to what they call the ‘Georgian project,’ our collective attempt to build a European state in a corner of Europe that had never before had one.”
President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia, in remarks to filmmakers in Moscow, described the decision to send in troops as the most difficult of his life.
“Each time I remember these events, I rewind the tape, as they say, and realize that on one hand, we had no other choice in that situation,” he said. “On the other hand, the events were unfolding under the worst-case scenario, probably, the most sorrowful scenario.”
Russia responded “harshly” to Georgia, he said, “saving hundreds and thousands of lives and restoring peace in the Caucasus that was at serious risk.”
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, South Ossetia has been cut off from Georgia politically and economically, and Tskhinvali came to feel less like a city than a village, with passing cars kicking up clouds of dust. Its prewar population was estimated at 70,000 — including Ossetians and many ethnic Georgians, who farmed on the lush strip of land north of the capital. Both groups, on Friday, were thinking about what they had lost.
Mr. Tedeyev, 47, sat in the shade of a tree in his courtyard, stone-faced. He has four memorial services to go to next week — among others, for his 22-year-old son, who was shot by advancing Georgian infantry when he tried to drive north to Russia. Mr. Tedeyev’s mother was killed moments before, when a shell hit the car.
Mr. Tedeyev grew up in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, and has many relatives in Georgia, but since his son’s death he has severed all contact with them. He has heard from only one of them — a favorite aunt — and when he heard her voice on the phone he hung up. He smokes two packs of cigarettes every night, he said, thinking obsessively about that drive out of the city.
“I don’t like to see people,” he said. “I sit quietly alone in a room.”
On the other side of the border, Nana Tsitsuashvili, 50, dissolved into tears as she stood in Gori’s central square before the Berlin Wall exhibit. A year ago, she fled Gori when it was under bombardment; nine of her neighbors were killed, she said, and she still has trouble conceiving that Russia would use bombs on civilians. But Nino Gabinashvili, 16, one of the students who gathered to form a Georgian flag, had no such difficulty.
“August showed us that Russia is our enemy,” said Ms. Gabinashvili, whose family fled Gori as Russian soldiers entered. “Ossetians are not enemies, they are just toys in the Russians’ hands, but eventually they will realize this.”
Olesya Vartanyan contributed reporting from Tbilisi, Georgia.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Georgia peace fragile one year after war
Tue Aug 4, 2009 9:23am EDT
By Matt Robinson and Amie Ferris-Rotman -Analysis
FULL STORY:
http://www.reuters.com/article/joeBiden/idUSTRE5733LN20090804
TBILISI/TSKHINVALI, Georgia (Reuters) - A dangerous security vacuum in Georgia's rebel regions and an unfulfilled ceasefire pact threaten renewed hostilities a year after the Caucasus country's five-day war with Russia.
With the withdrawal of military observers from South Ossetia and Abkhazia, little has been done to confront the danger of skirmishes boiling over into full-blown hostilities, analysts warn. Unarmed European Union monitors are denied access.
Friday marks the anniversary of Georgia's assault on pro-Moscow South Ossetia, and Russia's crushing counter-strike.
A year on, Georgian police hold positions behind sandbags a few hundred meters from the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali, while Russian FSB security service officers in camouflage uniform control the borders of the rebel territory 50 km (30 miles) from Tbilisi at their nearest point.
"We came for a long time and we're ready to defend this republic," said Pavel Bozhov, a border patrol officer of the FSB, which is successor to the KGB.
Hansjoerg Haber, heading 240 EU monitors deployed after the war but patrolling only as far as the boundary, said they were succeeding in "refreezing the conflict."
"But if we don't introduce a dynamic element, like confidence building, it could at some stage re-erupt."
The lead-up to the anniversary has seen a spike in tensions.
South Ossetia and Georgia have traded accusations of mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades fired over the boundary.
Russia warned Saturday it would use "all available force" to defend South Ossetia, a statement Georgia said demonstrated Moscow's "dangerous designs."
"The biggest danger is probably less some pre-planned military campaign or intervention, but a situation which starts as a local conflagration and goes out of control," said Lawrence Sheets of the International Crisis Group thinktank.
Georgia launched an assault on South Ossetia on August 7 after days of skirmishes and months of tension between Moscow and Tbilisi over South Ossetia and the rebel Black Sea region of Abkhazia, which both broke away in wars in the early 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Russia responded with a devastating counter-strike that routed the Georgian military. Russian forces pushed into Georgia proper, shaking confidence in oil and gas routes running West through the former Soviet republic. An EU-brokered ceasefire called for forces to withdraw to pre-war positions.
By Matt Robinson and Amie Ferris-Rotman -Analysis
FULL STORY:
http://www.reuters.com/article/joeBiden/idUSTRE5733LN20090804
TBILISI/TSKHINVALI, Georgia (Reuters) - A dangerous security vacuum in Georgia's rebel regions and an unfulfilled ceasefire pact threaten renewed hostilities a year after the Caucasus country's five-day war with Russia.
With the withdrawal of military observers from South Ossetia and Abkhazia, little has been done to confront the danger of skirmishes boiling over into full-blown hostilities, analysts warn. Unarmed European Union monitors are denied access.
Friday marks the anniversary of Georgia's assault on pro-Moscow South Ossetia, and Russia's crushing counter-strike.
A year on, Georgian police hold positions behind sandbags a few hundred meters from the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali, while Russian FSB security service officers in camouflage uniform control the borders of the rebel territory 50 km (30 miles) from Tbilisi at their nearest point.
"We came for a long time and we're ready to defend this republic," said Pavel Bozhov, a border patrol officer of the FSB, which is successor to the KGB.
Hansjoerg Haber, heading 240 EU monitors deployed after the war but patrolling only as far as the boundary, said they were succeeding in "refreezing the conflict."
"But if we don't introduce a dynamic element, like confidence building, it could at some stage re-erupt."
The lead-up to the anniversary has seen a spike in tensions.
South Ossetia and Georgia have traded accusations of mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades fired over the boundary.
Russia warned Saturday it would use "all available force" to defend South Ossetia, a statement Georgia said demonstrated Moscow's "dangerous designs."
"The biggest danger is probably less some pre-planned military campaign or intervention, but a situation which starts as a local conflagration and goes out of control," said Lawrence Sheets of the International Crisis Group thinktank.
Georgia launched an assault on South Ossetia on August 7 after days of skirmishes and months of tension between Moscow and Tbilisi over South Ossetia and the rebel Black Sea region of Abkhazia, which both broke away in wars in the early 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Russia responded with a devastating counter-strike that routed the Georgian military. Russian forces pushed into Georgia proper, shaking confidence in oil and gas routes running West through the former Soviet republic. An EU-brokered ceasefire called for forces to withdraw to pre-war positions.
Russia Accused of Altering Border
New York Times
By ELLEN BARRY
Published: August 2, 2009
FULL STORY:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/world/europe/03georgia.html?emc=tnt&tntema
MOSCOW — Georgia accused Russia of attempting to take a small wedge of additional territory on Sunday on the boundary of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, amid mounting tension days before the anniversary of last year’s five-day war.
Shota Utiashvili, a spokesman for Georgia’s Interior Ministry, said Russian reconnaissance teams entered the village of Kveshi in the disputed region in an attempt to move the boundary several hundred yards to a strategically better position. Though Russian border guards have been deployed on South Ossetia’s boundary with Georgia since April 30, he said, they have been reinforcing it gradually. Press officers for the separatist government of South Ossetia could not be reached for comment.
Steve Bird, a spokesman for the European Union Monitoring Mission, said patrols in Kveshi found no evidence of any action there. He said there were perennial arguments about the exact location of the boundary of South Ossetia, and that “the overall picture is more tense as the anniversary approaches.”
By ELLEN BARRY
Published: August 2, 2009
FULL STORY:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/world/europe/03georgia.html?emc=tnt&tntema
MOSCOW — Georgia accused Russia of attempting to take a small wedge of additional territory on Sunday on the boundary of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, amid mounting tension days before the anniversary of last year’s five-day war.
Shota Utiashvili, a spokesman for Georgia’s Interior Ministry, said Russian reconnaissance teams entered the village of Kveshi in the disputed region in an attempt to move the boundary several hundred yards to a strategically better position. Though Russian border guards have been deployed on South Ossetia’s boundary with Georgia since April 30, he said, they have been reinforcing it gradually. Press officers for the separatist government of South Ossetia could not be reached for comment.
Steve Bird, a spokesman for the European Union Monitoring Mission, said patrols in Kveshi found no evidence of any action there. He said there were perennial arguments about the exact location of the boundary of South Ossetia, and that “the overall picture is more tense as the anniversary approaches.”
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Biden Delivers 'Tough Love' Message to Georgian Leaders
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/23/AR2009072301541.html
Vice President Says Conflict With Russia Won't Be Solved With Militarization, Encourages Nation to Pursue Democratic Reforms
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, July 23, 2009; 9:56 AM
TBILISI, Georgia, July 23 -- Vice President Biden put off a request from Georgia for new defensive weapons on Thursday and told the nation's leaders they would never be able to use military means to recover territories lost in last year's war with Russia, a senior administration official said.
Biden also urged Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to do more to deepen democratic reforms in this former Soviet republic. He later held a long meeting with
four opposition leaders who have condemned Saakashvili as a despot and argued that the Bush administration had coddled him.
As he prepared to address parliament at the end of a four-day trip to Ukraine and Georgia, Biden continued to deliver a mixed message of what an advisor called "tough love," emphasizing again that the United States would not sacrifice the two former Soviet republics as it seeks to improve relations with Russia, nor recognize the Kremlin's claim to a sphere of "privileged interests" in the region.
In a sign that Obama administration's balancing act was being scrutinized in Moscow, the Russian government issued a stern warning that it would not allow Georgia, which it says was the aggressor in last year's war, to re-arm itself.
"We will continue inhibiting rearmament of the Saakashvili regime and are taking concrete measures against this," Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told the ITAR-Tass news agency.
"We have a deep worry regarding the activity of the Georgian leadership over remilitarizing its country, which several states are responding to in a surprisingly calm and positive way," he added, vowing that Russia would limit or suspend military and economic cooperation with countries that supply arms to Georgia.
Saakashvili had urged Biden to speed up delivery of antiaircraft and antitank weapons that Georgian officials have argued would help deter and slow a Russian attack. In an interview on Tuesday, Saakashvili said a U.S. decision not to provide the weaponry would be a sign of weakness that would encourage the Russians to invade.
"We are a country under attack, under partial occupation," he told Biden at the start of their meeting.
But a senior administration official, briefing reporters after the meeting on condition of anonymity, said Biden refused to commit to arms deliveries and instead argued that the Georgian military needed further training and non-material help.
ad_icon
"A key for Georgia here is the modernization of its military, building its capacities, and at this stage, it's not so much a matter of weaponry or military hardware," he said. The Pentagon will continue working to train the Georgian military "to hypothetically use some of the weaponry they desire," the officials said.
Biden also postponed a decision on a Georgian suggestion that the United States join a European Union civilian monitoring mission along the border of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two breakaway regions that Russia recognized as independent from Georgia after the war.
In an interview with the BBC, Biden said the administration was open to the idea but had not received a request from the Europeans on the matter.
Vice President Says Conflict With Russia Won't Be Solved With Militarization, Encourages Nation to Pursue Democratic Reforms
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, July 23, 2009; 9:56 AM
TBILISI, Georgia, July 23 -- Vice President Biden put off a request from Georgia for new defensive weapons on Thursday and told the nation's leaders they would never be able to use military means to recover territories lost in last year's war with Russia, a senior administration official said.
Biden also urged Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to do more to deepen democratic reforms in this former Soviet republic. He later held a long meeting with
four opposition leaders who have condemned Saakashvili as a despot and argued that the Bush administration had coddled him.
As he prepared to address parliament at the end of a four-day trip to Ukraine and Georgia, Biden continued to deliver a mixed message of what an advisor called "tough love," emphasizing again that the United States would not sacrifice the two former Soviet republics as it seeks to improve relations with Russia, nor recognize the Kremlin's claim to a sphere of "privileged interests" in the region.
In a sign that Obama administration's balancing act was being scrutinized in Moscow, the Russian government issued a stern warning that it would not allow Georgia, which it says was the aggressor in last year's war, to re-arm itself.
"We will continue inhibiting rearmament of the Saakashvili regime and are taking concrete measures against this," Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told the ITAR-Tass news agency.
"We have a deep worry regarding the activity of the Georgian leadership over remilitarizing its country, which several states are responding to in a surprisingly calm and positive way," he added, vowing that Russia would limit or suspend military and economic cooperation with countries that supply arms to Georgia.
Saakashvili had urged Biden to speed up delivery of antiaircraft and antitank weapons that Georgian officials have argued would help deter and slow a Russian attack. In an interview on Tuesday, Saakashvili said a U.S. decision not to provide the weaponry would be a sign of weakness that would encourage the Russians to invade.
"We are a country under attack, under partial occupation," he told Biden at the start of their meeting.
But a senior administration official, briefing reporters after the meeting on condition of anonymity, said Biden refused to commit to arms deliveries and instead argued that the Georgian military needed further training and non-material help.
ad_icon
"A key for Georgia here is the modernization of its military, building its capacities, and at this stage, it's not so much a matter of weaponry or military hardware," he said. The Pentagon will continue working to train the Georgian military "to hypothetically use some of the weaponry they desire," the officials said.
Biden also postponed a decision on a Georgian suggestion that the United States join a European Union civilian monitoring mission along the border of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two breakaway regions that Russia recognized as independent from Georgia after the war.
In an interview with the BBC, Biden said the administration was open to the idea but had not received a request from the Europeans on the matter.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Getty Villa Presents Treasures from the Republic of Georgia, the Land of the Golden Fleece
http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=32060
LOS ANGELES, CA.- In a spectacular display of archaeological finds, The Golden Graves of Ancient Vani, on view from July 16–October 5, 2009, at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa, presents more than 140 objects from one of the most celebrated archaeological sites in the Republic of Georgia, including four recently excavated bronze lamps, shown together for the first time.
Vani was an important settlement in the ancient kingdom of Colchis, a region best known as the destination of Jason and the Argonauts in their mythical quest for the Golden Fleece. Even in antiquity, Colchis was renowned as a region rich in gold, and excavations at Vani have confirmed this reputation. Prompted by reports of jewelry that came to the surface following heavy rainfall in the area, archaeologists in the late 1930s began to systematically explore Vani. Their excavations have uncovered a series of burials in which the deceased were laid to rest wearing a sumptuous array of ornaments, and have revealed that Vani was a major political and religious center.
The Golden Graves of Ancient Vani features an extraordinary array of objects, dating from the mid-fifth to mid-first centuries B.C. From an impressive variety of locally-made gold jewelry to imports from the Persian Empire and the Greek world, the ancient treasures in the exhibition reveal both the region’s rich material resources and a complex and fruitful network of interactions with neighboring peoples.
“This exhibition provides a wonderful opportunity to tell the story of this ancient temple city and give visitors a view into the complex interrelations of ancient cultures,” says Michael Brand, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “We are delighted to have these objects together here in Los Angeles for the very first time.”
David Lordkipanidze, director of the Georgian National Museum, adds, “We are delighted that these exquisite objects from one of Georgia’s most important archeological sites are serving as the cultural bridge between Georgian museums and American institutions such as the Getty Museum, the Smithsonian, and the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University. We are equally pleased to see the Getty Villa bejeweled by the magnificent Georgian treasures of Vani, providing audiences a glimpse into our country, its history, and rich culture. We hope this collaboration with the Getty Museum is only the beginning of a long lasting relationship between our institutions. ”
Although The Golden Graves of Ancient Vani, organized by the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, has toured the United States and Europe, the Getty presentation includes four elaborate bronze lamps that were discovered during excavations at the site in 2007. Part of a hoard of precious bronzes, they may have been deposited during a time of crisis. The discovery of this well-preserved cache of ancient metalwork is significant for the light it sheds on the manufacture and use of bronze in ancient Colchis. Furthermore, the artistry of the lamps is difficult to parallel—for example, the careful rendering of the Indian elephant heads that serve as nozzles for an Incense Burner (250–100 B.C.), or the elaborate composition of the Lamp with Elephant Heads and Human Figures (250–100 B.C.). Two of the lamps—the Lamp with Zeus and Ganymede and Lamp with Erotes (250–100 B.C.)—have never been displayed before, and were brought to the Getty for cleaning and analysis as part of a collaborative project with Georgian archaeologists and conservators.
“This is the first time we’ve brought objects directly from an archaeological site to the Museum for treatment and conservation, which carries with it great responsibility. We have been extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to exchange knowledge and expertise with our Georgian colleagues and were delighted to have Dr. Nino Kalandadze, a visiting conservator morefrom the Georgian National Museum, at the Villa for several weeks working on the lamps with our conservation team,” says Jerry Podany, the Getty Museum’s senior conservator of antiquities.
The exhibition focuses on a treasure trove of objects from five of the 28 graves that have been excavated at the site so far. They date to 450–250 B.C, when Vani was at the height of its prosperity. Among them, Grave 11 is the earliest and perhaps the richest burial. Dating to the mid-fifth century B.C., it contains four bodies laid inside a wooden structure and, outside it, a horse. Although all four bodies wore jewelry, one—a woman—was much more elaborately adorned, indicating her elite status.
The Necklace with Turtle Pendants (about 450 B.C.), a stunning example of Colchian goldwork, is one of the five necklaces discovered in this grave. The shells of the turtles are intricately decorated with granulation—the application of numerous tiny gold spheres—and are indicative of the advanced skill of Colchian goldworkers.
Another burial, Grave 24, excavated in 2004, exemplifies the cultural contacts enjoyed by the local aristocracy, for alongside another assemblage of gold jewelry and adornments are vessels imported from—or inspired by—both the Greek world and the Persian Empire. Of particular interest is the Silver Belt (350–300 B.C.) that depicts a banqueter attended by servants, testifying to the cultural importance of feasting.
The other three burials featured in the exhibition include a grave of a woman (Grave 6), which contained a striking polychrome pendant, manufactured in the Persian Empire but imported and adapted for local use at Vani; the grave of a warrior (Grave 9), whose gold ring bears an inscription in Greek, Dedatos, which may be his name; and the grave of an infant girl (Grave 4), who was adorned with gold jewelry just like her elders.
“The archaeological finds not only demonstrate the highly refined craftsmanship of local goldworkers, but also testify to contacts with both the Greek world and the Persian Empire,” says Karol Wight, the Getty Museum’s senior curator of antiquities. “Through our presentation, we hope to introduce visitors to an ancient heritage that expands our knowledge of an important civilization in this region. Many of the objects unearthed at Vani are without parallel in the ancient Mediterranean world.”
After the mid-third century B.C., evidence of rich burials ceases at the site. Most of the structures—such as altars and cult buildings—seem to have a religious or ritual function and, according to some scholars, Vani served thereafter as a sanctuary-city. Among the treasures from this period is the Torso of a Youth (200–100 B.C.), a well-proportioned bronze in a style that recalls Greek sculptures dating to 490–460 B.C., but that seems to have been made locally. It was discovered in an archaeological context that indicates it was a victim of the military destruction sustained at Vani around 50 B.C., which brought activity at the site to an abrupt end.
J. Paul Getty Museum |
LOS ANGELES, CA.- In a spectacular display of archaeological finds, The Golden Graves of Ancient Vani, on view from July 16–October 5, 2009, at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa, presents more than 140 objects from one of the most celebrated archaeological sites in the Republic of Georgia, including four recently excavated bronze lamps, shown together for the first time.
Vani was an important settlement in the ancient kingdom of Colchis, a region best known as the destination of Jason and the Argonauts in their mythical quest for the Golden Fleece. Even in antiquity, Colchis was renowned as a region rich in gold, and excavations at Vani have confirmed this reputation. Prompted by reports of jewelry that came to the surface following heavy rainfall in the area, archaeologists in the late 1930s began to systematically explore Vani. Their excavations have uncovered a series of burials in which the deceased were laid to rest wearing a sumptuous array of ornaments, and have revealed that Vani was a major political and religious center.
The Golden Graves of Ancient Vani features an extraordinary array of objects, dating from the mid-fifth to mid-first centuries B.C. From an impressive variety of locally-made gold jewelry to imports from the Persian Empire and the Greek world, the ancient treasures in the exhibition reveal both the region’s rich material resources and a complex and fruitful network of interactions with neighboring peoples.
“This exhibition provides a wonderful opportunity to tell the story of this ancient temple city and give visitors a view into the complex interrelations of ancient cultures,” says Michael Brand, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “We are delighted to have these objects together here in Los Angeles for the very first time.”
David Lordkipanidze, director of the Georgian National Museum, adds, “We are delighted that these exquisite objects from one of Georgia’s most important archeological sites are serving as the cultural bridge between Georgian museums and American institutions such as the Getty Museum, the Smithsonian, and the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University. We are equally pleased to see the Getty Villa bejeweled by the magnificent Georgian treasures of Vani, providing audiences a glimpse into our country, its history, and rich culture. We hope this collaboration with the Getty Museum is only the beginning of a long lasting relationship between our institutions. ”
Although The Golden Graves of Ancient Vani, organized by the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, has toured the United States and Europe, the Getty presentation includes four elaborate bronze lamps that were discovered during excavations at the site in 2007. Part of a hoard of precious bronzes, they may have been deposited during a time of crisis. The discovery of this well-preserved cache of ancient metalwork is significant for the light it sheds on the manufacture and use of bronze in ancient Colchis. Furthermore, the artistry of the lamps is difficult to parallel—for example, the careful rendering of the Indian elephant heads that serve as nozzles for an Incense Burner (250–100 B.C.), or the elaborate composition of the Lamp with Elephant Heads and Human Figures (250–100 B.C.). Two of the lamps—the Lamp with Zeus and Ganymede and Lamp with Erotes (250–100 B.C.)—have never been displayed before, and were brought to the Getty for cleaning and analysis as part of a collaborative project with Georgian archaeologists and conservators.
“This is the first time we’ve brought objects directly from an archaeological site to the Museum for treatment and conservation, which carries with it great responsibility. We have been extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to exchange knowledge and expertise with our Georgian colleagues and were delighted to have Dr. Nino Kalandadze, a visiting conservator morefrom the Georgian National Museum, at the Villa for several weeks working on the lamps with our conservation team,” says Jerry Podany, the Getty Museum’s senior conservator of antiquities.
The exhibition focuses on a treasure trove of objects from five of the 28 graves that have been excavated at the site so far. They date to 450–250 B.C, when Vani was at the height of its prosperity. Among them, Grave 11 is the earliest and perhaps the richest burial. Dating to the mid-fifth century B.C., it contains four bodies laid inside a wooden structure and, outside it, a horse. Although all four bodies wore jewelry, one—a woman—was much more elaborately adorned, indicating her elite status.
The Necklace with Turtle Pendants (about 450 B.C.), a stunning example of Colchian goldwork, is one of the five necklaces discovered in this grave. The shells of the turtles are intricately decorated with granulation—the application of numerous tiny gold spheres—and are indicative of the advanced skill of Colchian goldworkers.
Another burial, Grave 24, excavated in 2004, exemplifies the cultural contacts enjoyed by the local aristocracy, for alongside another assemblage of gold jewelry and adornments are vessels imported from—or inspired by—both the Greek world and the Persian Empire. Of particular interest is the Silver Belt (350–300 B.C.) that depicts a banqueter attended by servants, testifying to the cultural importance of feasting.
The other three burials featured in the exhibition include a grave of a woman (Grave 6), which contained a striking polychrome pendant, manufactured in the Persian Empire but imported and adapted for local use at Vani; the grave of a warrior (Grave 9), whose gold ring bears an inscription in Greek, Dedatos, which may be his name; and the grave of an infant girl (Grave 4), who was adorned with gold jewelry just like her elders.
“The archaeological finds not only demonstrate the highly refined craftsmanship of local goldworkers, but also testify to contacts with both the Greek world and the Persian Empire,” says Karol Wight, the Getty Museum’s senior curator of antiquities. “Through our presentation, we hope to introduce visitors to an ancient heritage that expands our knowledge of an important civilization in this region. Many of the objects unearthed at Vani are without parallel in the ancient Mediterranean world.”
After the mid-third century B.C., evidence of rich burials ceases at the site. Most of the structures—such as altars and cult buildings—seem to have a religious or ritual function and, according to some scholars, Vani served thereafter as a sanctuary-city. Among the treasures from this period is the Torso of a Youth (200–100 B.C.), a well-proportioned bronze in a style that recalls Greek sculptures dating to 490–460 B.C., but that seems to have been made locally. It was discovered in an archaeological context that indicates it was a victim of the military destruction sustained at Vani around 50 B.C., which brought activity at the site to an abrupt end.
J. Paul Getty Museum |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)