Two Russian servicemen of the Russian military base in the Georgian city of Batumi
Photo: Valery Melnikov
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Peacekeepers by Any Other Name
// The Price of the Question
Let's for a moment abstract away from the fact that Georgia (which, no matter how you look at it, includes Abkhazia and South Ossetia) and Russia were once parts of one country. Can it be suggested that the peacekeeping mission in South Ossetia and Abkhazia could be fulfilled not only by Russian soldiers, but by any peacekeepers? In theory. Why not?
Formally, the agreement on the Russian peacekeeping mission in South Ossetia was concluded in July 1992. Georgia could be reminded that it asked for it itself. But the conditions under which it asked can also be recalled. There was Rutskoi's famous phrase “I will raise airplanes into the air and bomb your cities.” Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze was maintaining control over Georgia only with difficulty as the supporters of Gamsakhurdia were gaining strength. Russia did not give the Georgian president a chance to refuse its peacekeepers.
Peacekeepers are supposed to be armed, neutral people who stand between conflicting sides to urge peace and nonviolence. Do the Russian peacekeepers on Georgian territory fit that description? It is still Georgian territory. No, because Moscow is a political player on part of that territory. I don't know what that game will result in – maybe a Kosovo-type scenario, with territory being separated from the country it is part of. In any case, the feeling that the Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia and South Ossetia are more than just peacekeepers is probably not wrong. It is another issue that the Georgians did not think about that for some time – soon it will be 13 years that it has all been there, to the pleasure or displeasure of those involved. But the heat of the passions running between official Tbilisi and official Moscow has reached such a level that everybody remembers everything. It i the same way in human relations – you say something in the middle of a quarrel and later you are sorry, and you push your interlocutor into an even more extreme answer, and off you go.
And it has gone off since Russia's “gas attack” on Georgia. It may be that President Saakashvili used it as a pretext to forward his own domestic interests. Every president in every country acts in his own political interests. I still think Georgia has the right to invite peacekeepers onto its own territory and, with real or feigned gratitude, ask them to leave or replace them with others. Russia has the right to defend its interests within the borders of its own country. If it thinks that it has interests beyond it borders and will keep troops against the will of the leaders of the other country, that is not peacekeeping. The question of the status of the territory, which is being answered with weapons, is called war. If, God forbid, that happens, Georgia de jure will be the defender of its territorial intergrity. And what will Russia be then?
Natalia Gevorkyan
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 08, 2006
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