20.08.2004 Georgia. South Ossetian peacekeepers take their positions near the village of Prisi outside Tskhinvali, the capital of the rebel South Ossetian region. REUTERS/Eduard Kornienko
Photo: Reuters
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Friendly Fire
// Georgia and South Ossetia were about to start war
Yesterday South Ossetia and Georgia got close to a new war as never before. The peace-keeping contingent deployed in the region was not able to somehow influence the situation and only watched the activities of the fighting parties. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili defused the tensions a little bit when declaring unilateral ceasefire during live broadcast, and eagerness to conduct negotiations, whatever the counterparts and the format.
“We’re preparing to get into Heaven”
The fighting that started in South Ossetia a week ago was about to develop into full-scale hostilities. All day long there were bitter skirmishes in the area of South Ossetia’s Prissi, Sarabuk and Dmenis villages, and Georgia’s Nuli and Avnevi settlements, with heavy artillery used along with other guns. Meanwhile, Tbilisi and Tskhinvali put the blame on each other and made triumphal statements. South Ossetia’s Defense Ministry reported, “The onset of the Georgian units, which attacked the Prissi height, has been repulsed.” Georgia’s Interior Ministry spokesperson Shota Utiashvili was quick to issue a press-release reading that no one attacked Prissi, and the “separatists” that machine-gunned the Sarabuk height, which is occupied by the Georgian forces, “were repelled.”
As evening approached, the scale of the clashes got even more threatening. The media reported knocked out Georgian IFVs (infantry fighting vehicles) and those killed and wounded with both parties (however, yesterday’s reports read there was one Georgian soldier and one Ossetian soldier killed). Tskhinvali was sure Tbilisi concentrated its troops and armored machines near the city preparing to launch a storm. “We’ve been encircled by Georgia’s BM-21 "Grad" launch vehicles of rocket systems, howitzers and tanks. They have accumulated so many machines as though they were going to wage war against China. It all is happening with international organizations turning a blind eye. The village of Khetagurovo has been almost burned down, and now they’re machine-gunning Tskhinvali,” Irina Gagloeva, the Chief of the South Ossetian Information and Press Committee, told Kommersant. “We’re trying to hold the line. But we lack the forces. We’re preparing to get into Heaven, I hope. There’s no place for us here, on earth.” Ms Gagloeva was indignant over the position of the Russian peace-keepers, who, according to her, “only registered how often the ceasefire agreement was violated, and nothing else.”
At the same time Georgia’s mass media reported that South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity and the breakaway republic’s military ministers left the capital preparing to direct the hostilities from Java, where Russia’s volunteers had arrived.
“We have no desire to wage war against you”
Yesterday’s key intrigue was whether direct talks of Tbilisi and Tskhinvali will be held. Georgia’s State Minister for Reintegration Timur Yakobashvili announced them a few days ago pointing out that it was the only way to avert war. However, South Ossetia’s Deputy Prime Minister and co-chairman of the Joint Control Commission (JCC) Boris Chochiev told Kommersant that the Ossetian party objected to a bilateral meeting and insisted on negotiations in the JCC format (the commission includes representatives of Georgia, Russia, South Ossetia and North Ossetia).
Special Envoy of the Russian Foreign Ministry Yuri Popov set off for Georgia, where he attempted to persuade Tbilisi to resume the work of the JCC. Yesterday he managed to conduct a series of talks. Nevertheless, neither party agreed to make concessions. “We stuck to our positions. Georgia’s State Minister considers it necessary to reform the negotiation format. From our viewpoint, it’s essential to keep on with the activities in the framework of the JCC,” said Mr Popov after meeting with Timur Yakobashvili. The latter, in his turn, stated that Georgia was not going to resume its participation in the JCC format because the commission “died long ago.”
At some moment you could think that no compromise was possible, and there was nothing to stop the outbreak of war. However, Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili unexpectedly interfered in the situation in the evening. First he gave a unilateral ceasefire order to the Georgian military telling them not to respond to the firing of Ossetia’s battlegroups, and called on the government in Tskhinvali to do the same. After it all TV channels broadcast a video address of the Georgian leader, where he agreed to hold talks in any format and offered Russia to be the guarantor of South Ossetia’s broadest autonomy within Georgia. “Stop the fire immediately. I beg you. We have no desire to wage war against you. Let’s avert escalation and begin talks – direct, multilateral – whatever,” Mr Saakashvili said.
He added that the Georgian party had lost several soldiers, and many houses had been destroyed. He suggested that they start immediate negotiations with Tskhinvali to discuss a peace-settlement plan stipulating that South Ossetia would be given the rights of an “unlimited autonomy.”
“Too little optimism so far”
The statement of the Georgian leader defused the tensions in the zone of the conflict. The parties ceased to fire before the broadcast finished. Marat Kulakhmetov, the Commander of the Combined Peace-keeping Forces in South Ossetia, told Kommersant, “Both parties ceased to fire. Hopefully, the firing won’t resume, though there’s too little optimism so far.” The general denied the information that the authorities of South Ossetia were urgently evacuated from Tskhinvali.
After the address of the Georgian President the government in Tskhinvali crawfished. Late at night Yuri Popov stated that on Friday Timur Yakobashvili and Boris Chochiev will conduct negotiations, with Russia being the mediator. “We managed to arrive at an agreement that the talks will start at 1 p.m. The meeting won’t be held in the framework of the JCC, whereas the JCC remains the only negotiation format. We’re planning to discuss the ways out of the current crisis, and launch the security strengthening process,” the diplomat explained.
Nonetheless, Tbilisi hasn’t abandoned the plans to overhaul the peace-settlement format in Tskhinvali. This weekend Grigol Vashadze, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Georgia, is to arrive in Moscow. He is going to suggest Russia an alternative variant of resolving the dispute.
Whatever the outcome of the forthcoming talks, it’s clear now: the international community will have to switch its attention from Abkhazia, which has become a favourite destination of several high-ranking diplomats proposing their own variants of settling the Georgia-Abkhaz dispute, to South Ossetia. The escalation of the situation in that breakaway republic can be regarded a warning to the West: you can expect a sudden war in Georgia – either with Abkhazia, or South Ossetia. And it happens at the moment when NATO considers giving Georgia the MAP in December.
Vladimir Solovyov; Georgy Dvali, Tbilisi
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 08, 2008
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