Amnesty International ascertained that before they launched an assault on Tskhinvali, Georgian troops had shelled and bombed the town for a couple hours. (In the photo: the OSCE mission in Tskhinvali.)
Photo: Valeriy Mel'nikov
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Neither Russia Nor Georgia Granted Amnesty
// Amnesty International presents the evidence of guilt of all parties involved in the South Ossetian war
Yesterday Amnesty International released its report about the August developments in South Ossetia. Having analyzed the five-day war, human rights activists came to the conclusion that all its participants committed “serious violations of international law” because, waging war, they did not “distinguish between the civilian population and combatants.” To investigate numerous violations, the organization urges to create an international commission. Representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry told Kommersant that Moscow is not “allergic to such investigation, but it is a little too late to conduct it.”
The report of Amnesty International is entitled “Civilians in the line of fire: the Georgia-Russia conflict.” The 66-page document is a collection of facts and evidence of the war’s witnesses. The largest and most important chapter is devoted to the conduct of hostilities. The chapter is divided into three parts: Attacks by Georgian forces, Attacks by Russian forces, and The conduct of South Ossetian forces and militia groups.
The data concerning the beginning of the war, collected by the report’s authors, denies official Tbilisi’s statements that the Georgian army’s intrusion into South Ossetia was undertaken in response to Russian troops’ moving there. Georgia is called the assaulting party from the very beginning. “The conflict proper, dating from the Georgian assault on Tskhinvali to the signing of the ceasefire agreement, lasted five days,” the authors write in the opening notes to the “Conduct of hostilities” chapter, giving the war’s chronology, “The Georgian army entered South Ossetia at around 11.00pm on 7 August. The entry of Georgian ground forces into Tskhinvali was preceded by several hours of shelling and rocket attacks as well as limited aerial bombardment. Eyewitness reports, the nature of the munitions used and the evidence of scattered destruction in densely populated civilian areas strongly suggest that Georgian forces committed indiscriminate attacks in its assault on Tskhinvali on the night of 7 August, causing deaths and injuries among South Ossetian civilians and considerable damage to civilian objects.”
The authors cite Mamuka Kurashvili, commander of Georgian peacekeepers in the region, as saying that Georgia had “decided to restore constitutional order in the entire region” of South Ossetia. This statement contradicts the one by Georgian President Saakashvili, who said on 13 August that “[w]e clearly responded to the Russians.” The authors go on to list the variety of munitions the Georgian forces employed in the assault on Tskhinvali. Those were 122mm howitzers, 203mm self-propelled artillery system DANA, tankfire and GRAD rockets. “The Georgian authorities also acknowledged using GRAD rockets to target stockpiles of munitions and fuel depots in the western part of the town and military barracks in the northwest. Whilst these areas are all on the periphery of Tskhinvali they are all adjacent to built up civilian areas. Many missiles that missed their target consequently landed in civilian areas causing considerable damage to private houses and resulting in numerous civilian casualties. Amnesty International representatives observed extensive damage to civilian property in a radius of 100-150m from these points, particularly in the south and south west of the town, highlighting the inappropriateness of the use of GRAD missiles to target these locations.”
At the end of the Georgian part of the report, the authors conclude that “given the nature of the fighting, it is difficult to say of any individual incident whether the damage was caused by exchanges of fire between combatants or as a result of indiscriminate firing by Georgian troops.”
The analysis of Russia’s actions is also full of denials of Russian military officials’ statements, who first refused to admit bombardments of Georgian living quarters. “Most of the bombing would appear to have targeted Georgian military positions outside built up areas. However, villages and towns were hit. Amnesty International delegates also heard a number of accounts in which civilians and civilian objects were struck by aerial and missile attacks in the apparent absence of nearby military targets. Amnesty International is consequently concerned that civilians and civilian objects may have been directly attacked in violation of Article 51(3) of Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions, or that they were hit in the course of indiscriminate attacks in violation of Article 51(4).”
One of the main claims to the Russian party is the use of cluster bombs and inadequate protection of civilians in the occupied Georgian territories. “There is compelling evidence that both Russian and Georgian forces used cluster bombs, although by mid-October only Georgia had admitted their use.” As an example of using this sort of munitions, the authors point to an incident in Gori, “On 12 August at around noon, an aerial bomb attack on the main square of Gori resulted in the death of a Dutch journalist and a reported seven Georgian civilians. The intended target of this strike remains unclear. The square is not close to any military installations and there do not appear to have been any Georgian armed forces nearby.”
As to the second claim, the document reads, “As the occupying force, the Russian army had a duty to ensure the protection of civilians and civilian property in areas under their control. Whilst this may have been difficult in practice in the early days of the conflict, when Russian forces were still engaging the Georgian army, the looting and destruction of property owned by ethnic Georgians, and the threatening of remaining Georgians in South Ossetia and the surrounding “buffer zone”, continued on a large scale for several weeks after the formal cessation of hostilities. It is clear that the Russian authorities singularly failed in their duty to prevent reprisals and serious human rights abuses being carried out by South Ossetian forces and militia units.”
The authors go into detail describing the crimes of the local “militia.” “Amnesty International documented unlawful killings, beatings, threats, arson and looting perpetrated by armed groups associated with the South Ossetian side and acting with the apparent acquiescence of Russian armed forces. Whilst the looting and pillaging of ethnic Georgian villages was initially focused on South Ossetia, and limited, in the immediate aftermath of the conflict, to largely opportunistic raids on Georgian property and villages along the main roads beyond the regions borders, it progressively extended to the adjacent “buffer zone” under effective Russian control in the weeks that followed. However, Georgian-populated settlements in South Ossetia under de facto South Ossetian administrative control are not reported as having suffered extensive damage.”
In conclusion, Amnesty International ascertains that “serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law were committed by all parties.” Amnesty International “calls on all parties to the conflict to ensure that independent, impartial, prompt and thorough investigations are conducted into all allegations of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law committed by any and all forces.” It is proposed that an international commission, endowed with corresponding authorities, should deal with it.
Yesterday the Georgian Foreign Ministry refused to comment on the report by Amnesty International, referring to the necessity “to analyze the document.” At the same time deputy head the Russian Foreign Ministry’s information and press department Igor Lyakin-Frolov told Kommersant that Moscow does not mind international investigation, “We are not allergic to it. But it is a little too late. Much was said about it, but it all has bogged down in bureaucratic delays.”
Vladimir Solovyov
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 19, 2008
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