Who are wearing the black hats? The Russians or the Georgians?
Like many of you, I spent my formative years seeing Russia as ‘the enemy’. My Dad spent the first four years of his RAF career fighting the Germans, but most of the next 30 preparing to fight the Russians.
Putin’s crude Russian nationalism and anti-Western paranoia make my blood run cold, and I wouldn’t trust the ex-KGB bastard as far as I could throw him.
I’m pre-disposed to distrust Russian governments, in other words.
ESPECIALLY THIS ONE!
And I’m pre-disposed to like those breakaway former Soviet Republics who want to embrace Western-style democracy, and who aspire to NATO and/or EU membership.
But am I alone in feeling just a tad concerned and confused by the media coverage of the latest little spat in the Caucasus?
And indeed with the direction that our policy makers seem to be taking?
It’s of largely academic interest to me, but the way things are going PPRuNers may be asked to go in as peacekeepers or monitors, so how do you blokes feel about it?
Mr Bush is stressing the USA’s commitment to Georgia's 'democratically elected government', and to Georgia’s territorial integrity, and has committed USAF aircraft to transporting Georgian reinforcements from Iraq back home. Meanwhile Condoleeza Rice has compared Russian actions to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. (The Beeb quote her as saying: “"This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia where Russia can threaten a neighbour, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed."
But is it really right to portray this in quite such an over-simplistic Cold War light? Is it right to intervene in quite such a one-sided (or seemingly one-sided) way?
Is this really the evil Russian bear attempting to crush a new pro-Western and democratic nation that aspires to NATO membership?
Although the UN, EU, NATO and OSCE recognize South Ossetia as part of Georgia, this seems pretty dubious.
I read that South Ossetia is roughly 66% Ossetian and 29% Georgian by ethnicity, with most of the remainder being Russian. More than 70% of the South Ossetia citizens voluntarily hold Russian citizenship. The South Ossetians want to unite with the other ethnic Ossetians in North Ossetia (part of Russia) and do not want to be citizens of the Georgian government in Tbilisi. They have repeatedly shown very high levels of support for independence from Georgia (not least in two recent referenda) and have repeatedly rejected Georgian offers of ‘autonomy’ instead demanding full independence. After the 2006 referendum South Ossetia declared itself a de facto status independent state.
As a result there are now two competing governments in South Ossetia, the pro-Russian, pro-independence Government of the Republic of South Ossetia, which has its capital at Tskhinvali and uses the ruble as its currency and the pro-Georgian Provisional Administrative Entity of South Ossetia which has its capital at Kurta and which uses the Georgian Lari as its currency. This was set up by the Georgian government and has no democratic mandate.
Georgia is disinclined to grant such independence to South Ossetia, which it has described as a political absurdity.
The current hostilities began when Georgian forces invaded South-Ossetian-controlled territory and began shelling the Tskhinvali capital of the break-away Government of the Republic of South Ossetia. The Georgians had already cut off electricity to South Ossetia, and had pursued policies forcing the Ossetians to rely on Russia economically. Is it really any great surprise that Russia, which has had internationally recognized peacekeeping forces in South Ossetia since 1992, should respond militarily to this attack on the South Ossetians – who it sees as its people? Were they even wrong to do so?
Am I missing something? Isn’t Russia simply responding to Georgian aggression, going to the aid of a democratic secessionist movement that wants Russian support, and of a population the majority of which sees itself as Ossetian or Russian and not Georgian?
Should the West be favouring Georgian Territorial Integrity over the rights and wishes of the South Ossetians for independence, even if they do seem to have a preference for Moscow over Tbilisi? We might not like it that anyone should choose the old evil empire over Mikheil Saakashvili’s pro-Western Georgia, but surely we should be prepared to recognize and support their choice? Isn’t supporting Georgia on this a bit like supporting the Serbs rather than the Kosovans or Bosnians? Or the Chinese over the Taiwanese?
How are the South Ossetians any different to the various Balkan groups and the Kurds who we've been only too happy to support when they’ve wanted independence? Why were we not equally keen to maintain the ‘territorial integrity’ of the FRY?
We seem to have entirely over-looked the fact that this started because Georgia mounted an armed action against an autonomous region which had overwhelmingly made its demands for full independence clear. No wonder the Russians are paranoid about the West.
Or have I been suckered by Russian propaganda?