Georgia and Russia Square Off at the Hague

Going mad, Valerya Novodvorskaya

Russian source here
  

The fact that we are being ruled by criminals (security officers are not just camorra but something even worse because they are zombies crawled out from the graves of Soviet Union) is not that frightening as the fact that they are losers and unprofessional persons. War with Georgia is not only a crime, but also a big mistake. I can explain the behaviour of Putin and Medvedev with the following phrase: "The Roof is sliding slowly while slates rustling silently". "What are we fighting for?" The answer to this could be: "I have left my hut and have gone to fight with Georgia to deliver their land to security officers. Farewell my relatives, farewell my friends! Lubianka, Lubianka, my Lubianka!"

Mikheil Saakashvili has been skilfully provoked and he got involved in the conflict and was forced to hit Tskhinvali. Not having done so, sarcastic Georgian opposition would wipe him out as once it happened to Zviad Gamsakhurdia who tried to prevent "Mkhedrioni" and other groups to rob Samachablo, that is South Ossetia. He has given to Abkhazia status of being part of confederation. Georgian parliament disagreed. And for support of Abkhazia, after Shevardnadze had let his army enter Abkhazia, both Zviad and his parliament were already expelled by militarists to Chechnya. He had been excluded from Georgian people by Georgia's Union of Citizens. And among present opposition leaders there are such people, who directly called to declare war against Russia. Giving them power would mean only to approach a disaster and probably nuclear Armageddon.

It was too long that Russian "peacekeepers" unleashed war in South Ossetia in order to launch it. Russian aviation heartily shelled Georgian villages just outside Samachablo (South Ossetia) so that Georgian President could not to be set under this war. Uncovered annexation of Samachablo (South Ossetia) by Russia would mean total madness. But it was not enough for Putin. Immediately after, a command was given to Abkhazians, who have lost their dignity and pride a long time ago and have become mercenaries for Russia to occupy Kodori Gorge together with Pankisi.  

When Refugees are crying from the screen: "Help South Ossetia!" – Some can sympathy them, but when you hear the voices from the crowd of poor Ossetians: "Help Abkhazia!" (And who else? Transnistria? ) – one starting to think about mob. 

Consequently, grabbed chekists' paws wanted to grab also Abkhazia, and not only Abkhazia. Russian troops entered Georgia, the bombings of Gori, Senaki, Poti and Tbilisi Airport (the locator is destructed and only old Georgian pilots are risking to take off and land). In the port of Poti, which is under leasing of Arab Sheikh for 95 years (and moreover, we will be sued by him on the international level) there were not Military vessels. Have been bombed the pipeline from which oil goes evading Russia. Bandits' troops, bandits' country. "Guys" have built everybody and decided that it will be the same everywhere. 

At the UN Churkin states the purpose of Russia: to get rid of Saakashvili. Lately, the world heard about that very thing from father-Jesuits in XVI century. Annihilation of "impious prince". Religious fanatics have killed Henry III and Henry IV. Since then, people were killed but secretly. Well, Kremlin has decided to write its own "Mein Kampf"? Or have they all smoldered there? Ownerless columns of tanks with Cossacks, "volunteers" and other marauding rubbish gad about Georgia. What are Russian tanks doing in Gori? Gathering weapon? Or mushrooms and empty bottles? 

Artificially created Russian citizens and war, launched as though to protect them – this is an ordinary fascism. And if not America... It seems, that George Bush at last has understood, what kind of cunning person has West supported, that is why now decisively supports Georgia and goes against Russia. The powerful hand of USA has laid down on a bowl of freedom and on the western values. Humanitarian aid on the vessels of Naval Forces and planes of Air Forces of USA is an attempt to stop the war. While the earth still turns around, it is not necessary to use nuclear potential yet. John McCain writes articles as a Russian dissident. Presidents of Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania and the Prime Minister of Latvia hold a rally, hand in hand, as on the Maidan in Kiev. 

No one supported us except Cuba and patented tyrant Lukashenko. We were thrown out from G8 and from the civilized world into a dug hole of outcast. Yes, if South Ossetia and Abkhazia simply wished the secession, no one would protect Saakashvili. The rights of people are above the rights of state. But they do not seek for freedom but for profitable slavery; have not obtained their own passports and received Russian passports. They are just collaborators, not insurgents. Only USA can rescue Georgian people and Russian recruits from mutual destruction. I'm afraid, nobody will rescue Russia. We'll be cursed and rejected by mankind.

Georgia at War: What I Saw Wednesday, 20 August 2008

HUFFINGTON POST
August 20, 2008

By Bernard-Henri Lévy

The first thing that strikes me as soon as we are out of Tbilisi is the strange absence of military force. I had read that the Georgian army, defeated in Ossetia, then routed in Gori, had withdrawn to the capital to defend it. 

I reach the outskirts of the city, moving forty kilometers on the highway that slices through the country from east to west. But I see almost no trace of the army which has supposedly regrouped in order to fiercely resist the Russian invasion. Here we see a police station. A little farther on, a handful of soldiers, their uniforms still too new. But no combat units. No anti-aircraft weaponry. Not even the trenches and zigzagging fortifications which, in all the besieged cities of the world, are set up to at least slightly impede the enemy's advance.

A dispatch received while we are driving announces that Russian tanks are now approaching the capital. The information is relayed by various radio stations and then finally denied, creating unspeakable chaos and making the few cars which had ventured outside the city turn back immediately. But the authorities, the powers that be, seem strangely to have given up.

Is the Georgian army there, but hiding? Ready to intervene but also invisible? Are we perhaps in the middle of one of those wars in which the supreme ruse is to let yourself be seen as little as possible, the way they did in the forgotten wars of Africa? Or has President Saakashvili deliberately chosen non-combat as a way to force us, the Europeans and Americans, to accept our responsibilities ("You claim to be our friends? You have said a hundred times that with our democratic institutions, our wish to become part of Europe, our government composed of -- unique in the annals of history - an Anglo-Georgian Prime Minister, American-Georgian cabinet ministers, an Israelo-Georgian Minister of Defense - is the first in its Western class? Well, now is the time to step up and prove it."). I don't know. The fact is that the first significant military presence we run into is a long Russian convoy, at least one hundred vehicles long, headed in the direction of Tbilisi, casually waiting to get gas. Then, forty kilometers outside the city, around Okami, we see a battalion, as usual Russian, attached to a unit of armored vehicles whose role is to stop journalists from going one direction and refugees from going the other.

One of them, a peasant, wounded in the forehead, still dazed and terrified, tells me the story of fleeing his village in Ossetia on foot, three days ago. The Russians arrived, and in their wake, Cossack and Ossetian gangs pillaged, raped and murdered. As they did in Chechnya, they rounded up the young men and drove them away in trucks, to unknown destinations. Fathers were killed in front of their sons. Sons were killed in front of their fathers. In the basement of a house which they blew up with propane cylinders they had collected, they came upon a family and stripped them of everything they had tried to hide and then forced the adults to kneel down and executed them with a single shot to the head. The Russian officer in charge at the check point listens to the story. But he doesn't care. In any case he looks like he has been drinking too much and he just doesn't care. For him, the war is over. No scrap of paper, a ceasefire, a five or six-point agreement- will change his victory. And this pathetic refugee can say whatever he wants.

II

As we approach Gori, the situation is different, the tension is suddenly palpable. Georgian jeeps are sprawled in the ditches on the sides of the road. Farther along is a burnt-out tank. Even farther along is a more important check point which completely blocks the group of journalists we have joined. And it is here that we are clearly told that we are no longer welcome, "You are in Russian territory now," barks an officer puffed up with importance. "Only those with Russian accreditation may go farther."

Fortunately a car with diplomatic flags comes up. It belongs to the Estonian Ambassador, and is carrying the Ambassador and Alexander Lomaia, the Secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, who is authorized to go behind the Russian lines to look for the wounded. He agrees to take me with him, as well as the European deputy Marie-Anne Isler-Béguin and Tara Bahrampour from the Washington Post. "I cannot guarantee anyone's safety, is that clear?" Lomaia asks. Yes. It is clear. And we all pile into the Audi and head toward Gori.

After crossing through six new check points, one of which consists of a tree trunk hoisted up and down by a winch commanded by a group of paramilitaries, we arrive in Gori. We are not in the center of the city. But from where Lomaia has dropped us, before taking off in the Audi to collect his wounded, from this intersection dominated by an enormous tank as big as a rolling bunker, we can see fires burning everywhere. Rockets lighting up the sky at regular intervals, followed by short detonations. The emptiness.

The slight odor of putrefaction and death. Most of all, the incessant rumbling of armored vehicles. Almost every other car is an unmarked car jammed with militia, recognizable because of their white armbands and their headbands. Gori does not belong to the Ossetia which the Russians claim they have come to "liberate." It is a Georgian town. And they have burned it down, pillaged it, reduced it to a ghost town. Emptied.

"It's logical," explains General Vyachislav Borisov, as we stand in the stench and the night waiting for Lomaia to return. "We are here because the Georgians are incompetent, because their administration collapsed and the town was being looted. Look at this," showing me on his cell phone photographs of weapons of Israeli origin, which he emphasizes heavily, "Do you think we could leave all this lying around without supervision? And let me tell you," he struts around, striking a match to light a cigarette, startling the little blond tank gunner who had fallen asleep in his turret, "We summoned the Israeli Foreign Minister to Moscow.

And he was told that if he continues to supply arms to the Georgians we would continue to supply Hezbollah and Hamas." We would continue? What an admission! Two hours go by. Two hours of bragging and threats. Sometimes a passing car would slow, but it would change its mind after noticing the tank and speed off. Finally Lomaia came back, bringing with him an old woman and the pregnant woman he had pulled from hell, and asked us to take them back to Tbilisi.

III

President Saakashvili, accompanied by his counselor Daniel Kunnin, listens to my story. We are in the Presidential residence of Avlabari. It is two AM but the noria of his counselors is working as it would during business hours. He is young. Very young. With a youthfulness which can be seen in the impatience of his movements, the intensity of his gaze, his abrupt laughter, even the way he guzzles cans of Red Bull as if it were Coca-Cola. All of these people in fact are very young. All these ministers and counselors were students sponsored by various Soros-type foundations, whose studies at Yale, Princeton and Chicago were interrupted by the Rose Revolution. He is a francophile and speaks French. Keen on philosophy. A democrat. A European. A liberal in both the American and European senses of the word. Of all the great resistance fighters I have met in my life, of all the Massouds and Izetbegovics I have had occasion to defend, he is the one who is the most unfamiliar with war, its rites, its emblems, its culture - but he is dealing with it.

"Let me make one thing clear," he interrupts me, with a sudden gravity. "We cannot let them say that we started this war ... It was early August. My ministers were on vacation, as I was too, in Italy, at a weight-loss spa, getting ready to go to Beijing. Then in the Italian press I read, "War preparations are under way in Georgia." You understand me. Here I was just hanging out in Italy and I read in the paper that my own country is preparing for a war! Realizing that something was wrong, I rushed back to Tbilisi. And what did my intelligence services tell me?" He makes the face of someone who has posed a difficult riddle and is waiting for you to find the answer, "That the Russians at the exact moment they are showering the press corps with this garbage are also emptying Shrinvali of its inhabitants, they're massing troops and troop transports, positioning fuel trucks on Georgian soil, and finally, sending columns of tanks through the Roky tunnel which separates the two Ossetias. Now, suppose you are the leader of the country and you hear this, what do you do?" He gets up to answer two cell phones which are ringing at the same time on his desk, comes back, stretching out his long legs ... "After the hundred and fiftieth tank lines itself up facing your cities, you are forced to admit that the war has begun, and despite the disproportion in the forces opposing us, you no longer have a choice."

"With the agreement of your allies?" I asked. "With the members of NATO who have more or less slammed the door in your face?" "The real problem," he says, sidestepping, "is the stakes involved in this war. Putin and Medvedev were looking for a pretext to invade. Why?" He begins counting on his fingers, "Number one, we are a democracy and incarnate an alternative to Putinism as an exit from communism. Two, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan [oil] pipeline goes through our country, such that if we fall, if Moscow replaces me with an employee of Gazprom, you, the Europeans, would be 100% dependent on the Russians for your energy supply. "And number three," as he takes a peach from the fruit basket which is brought to him by his assistant--"She's Ossentian, mind you!"--and then resumes, "Number three, look at the map. Russia is an ally of Iran. Our Armenian neighbors are also not far from Iran. Now imagine a pro-Russian government installed in Tbilisi. You would have a geostrategic continuum stretching from Moscow to Tehran which I seriously doubt would be doing business with the free world. I hope NATO understands this."

IV

Friday morning. I, along with Raphaël Gluksmann, Gilles Hertzog and Marie-Anne Isler-Béguin, the European deputy, decided to return to Gori which, according to the ceasefire agreement written by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the Russians would have begun evacuating, and where we are supposed to meet with the Orthodox Patriarch of Tbilisi who is himself on his way to an Ossetian village where hundreds of Georgian corpses have reportedly been left for the dogs and pigs. But the Patriarch is nowhere to be found. And the Russians have not evacuated Gori. And this time we are blocked twenty kilometers short of Gori when a car is held up in front of us by a squadron of irregulars, who, under the placid gaze of a Russian officer, haul the journalists out of the car and take their cameras, money, personal objects, and finally even their car. So it was a false report, part of that habitual ballet of false reports at which the artisans of Russian propaganda seem to be past masters. So off we go toward Kaspi, halfway between Gori and Tbilisi, where the interpreter for the deputy has family, and where the situation is in theory calmer - but two other surprises await us there.

First, there is the destruction. Here too. But this time it is destruction which has apparently targeted neither houses nor people. What have they destroyed instead? The bridge. The train station. The train tracks, which are already being repaired by a team of logisticians who are being supervised by the head mechanic from his room because of a severe hip wound. And the electronic command system of the Heidelberg cement factory, built with German capital, which was hit by a laser-guided missile. "There were 650 workers here," the factory director, Levan Baramatze, tells me. "Only 120 were able to come in today. Our production machine is broken." In Poti, the Russians sank the Georgian war ships. They even hit the BTC pipeline at three different points. Here in Kaspi, they deliberately took out the vital centers upon which the region and the country both depend. In other words, targeted terrorism. The will to bring this country to its knees.

Then there is the second surprise, the tanks. I repeat, we are standing at the outskirts of the capital. Condoleezza Rice is at this exact moment giving her press conference. Yet out of the blue comes one of those combats helicopters whose appearance always signals the worst, flying at low altitude just above the treetops. And suddenly the few people still in Kaspi find themselves in the street, first in their own doorways, then jammed ten at a time into old Lada cars, screaming at everyone and especially at our drivers that the Russians are coming and we must get out. At first we don't believe it. We figure it's like the false rumor we heard the day before yesterday. But no, the tanks are there. Five of them. And a field engineering unit digging trenches. The message is clear. With or without Condoleezza Rice, the Russians have moved in. They move around Georgian lands as if it were conquered terrain. This isn't exactly like Prague in 1968, it's the 21st century version of the coup, slow, bit by bit, with blows of humiliation, intimidation, panic.

V

This time the meeting is at four AM. Saakashvili has spent the end of the day with Rice, the day before with Sarkozy. He is grateful to both for their efforts, for the trouble they took and the friendship they demonstrated, which no one can doubt - didn't he call "Nicolas" "tu"? And the Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain, "close to Ms. Rice," - hasn't he been calling three times a day since the beginning of this crisis? But this time, I find he has a melancholy air unlike that first night. Maybe it's fatigue, so many sleepless nights, the continuing setbacks, the grumbling which he can feel rising in the country and which we, alas, must to confirm: "What if Misha is incapable of protecting us? And if our ebullient young President only attracts more of the same? What if in order to survive we will have to accept the wishes of Putin and his puppet?" All of that must figure in the melancholy of the President. Plus something else on top of it, something cloudier and that applies to how to say, his friends' strange attitude.

For example, the ceasefire agreement which his friend Sarkozy brought and which had been written by four hands in Moscow with Medvedev. He recalls the French President, here in this same office, impatient for him to sign it, raising his voice, almost yelling, "You have no other choice, Misha. Be realistic, you don't have a choice. When the Russians come to overthrow you, not one of your friends will lift a finger to save you." And finally what a strange reaction when he, Misha Saakashvili, got them to call Medvedev but Medvedev sent word that he was asleep - it was only nine o'clock, but apparently he was already asleep, and would be unreachable until the following morning at 9 AM - here the French President got antsy again; his French yet again didn't want to wait--in a rush to go home? too sure that signing was what mattered, regardless of what was being signed? This is not how you negotiate, thinks Misha. This is also not how you act with your friends.

I have seen the document. I have seen the written annotations by the two Presidents, the Georgian and the French. I saw the second document, again signed by Sarkozy and given to Condoleeza Rice in Brégançon, for her to give to Saakashvili. And finally I saw the memorandum of remarks, written during the evening by the Georgians, a vital piece in their eyes. They managed to cross out - and this is by no means negligible - all allusions to the future "status" of Ossetia. They also got it to be specified - again, not a small detail - that the "reasonable perimeter" in which the Russian troups would be authorized to patrol to protect the security of the Russian-speaking population of Georgia be a perimeter of a "few kilometers." The territorial integrity of Georgia, however, is mentioned nowhere in either document. As for the argument of legitimate aid for the Russian-speaking people - we tremble to think what could happen if we consider the Russian-speakers in the Ukraine, the Baltic countries or in Poland, who may one day decide that they too have been threatened by a "genocidal" will.

The last word will belong to the American Richard Holbrooke, a ranking diplomat close to Barack Obama whom I meet in the bar of our hotel at the tail end of the night: "There is floating in this affair a bad smell of appeasement." He is right. Either we are capable of raising our voice and saying STOP to Putin in Georgia. Or the man who went, in his own words, "down into the toilets" to kill the civilians in Chechnya will feel he has the right to do the same thing to any one of his neighbors.

Is this how we will build Europe, peace and the world of tomorrow?

Translated from the French by Sara Sugihara

Other languages:  French original
 
Russian 
 
Italian

ALERT: Cluster bombs that can expode any moment!!! THEY ARE LEFT EVEYWHERE BY RUSSIANS!!

Georgian and Russian authorities should take urgent measures to protect the civilian population in Georgian villages from unexploded ordnance left by Russian attacks, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch researchers documented additional Russian cluster munitions attacks during the conflict in Georgia, refuting Russia's earlier denials that it used the weapon. Human Rights Watch researchers saw and photographed unexploded submunitions from cluster munitions in and around the villages of Shindisi, in the Gori district of Georgia. Residents from Shindisi and the nearby Pkhvenisi village told Human Rights Watch researchers there are hundreds of unexploded submunitions in the area. Submunition "duds" are highly dangerous and can explode if picked up or otherwise disturbed.
 
Human Rights Watch called upon Russia to immediately stop using cluster munitions, weapons so dangerous to civilians that more than 100 nations have agreed to ban their use.
 
Zura Tatrishvili, 62, showed Human Rights Watch researchers an unexploded submunition that he had picked up without realizing that just touching it could make it explode. "We were playing with them, as were the Georgian soldiers," said Tatrishvili. "It was only when one of the bombs exploded after a soldier threw it that we understood that they were dangerous." Even now, Tatrishvili continues to keep his livestock in a pen with unexploded submunitions, demonstrating the need for clearance as well as education.
 
During the attack on August 8 in Shindisi, Vano Gogidze, 45, was killed and his relative, Dato Gogidze, 39, was injured. Also in Shindisi, Ramaz Arabashvili, 40, was killed and four people were wounded when a submunition that they had gathered from a field exploded on August 10. On August 18, in Pkhvenisi, Veliko Bedianashvili, 70, died when a submunition exploded in his hand. "There are so many of these lying around. The fields are full of them," said his son, Durmiskhan Bedianashvili.
 
Cluster munitions contain dozens or hundreds of smaller submunitions or bomblets and cause unacceptable humanitarian harm in two ways. First, their broad-area effect kills and injures civilians indiscriminately during strikes. Second, many submunitions do not explode, becoming de facto landmines that cause civilian casualties for months or years to come.
 

THE ARTICLE SEE YOU HERE http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HRW/ff8d2d925b55f0975913a03cb70eefd6.htm
AN HERE http://www.google.nl/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=nl&q=CLUSTER+BOMBS+GEORGIA&meta=&btnG=Google+zoeken  
CLUSTER BOMBS USED IN GEORGIA! MORE ARTICLES
 
 
SPREAD THIS INFORMATION !!!!!!!!! TODAY MUST BE DONE EVREYTHING TO PREVENT MORE CASUALTIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

CLUSTER BOMBS AND ALSO GRANADES ARE LEFT EVEYWHERE ON THE TERRITORY OF GEORGIA! THAT CAN EXPLODE ANY MOMENT IF PUCKED UP, CHILDERN IN DANGER !!!!! DO SOMETHING

THE RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN WAR WAS PREPLANNED IN MOSCOW

source: http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2008/59/04.html

Pavel Felgenhauer

Last week military tension in Georgia's separatist region of South Ossetia escalated into all-out war. The Ossetian separatists were provoking a conflict to give the Russian military a pretext for direct intervention. Late in the evening of August 7, a heavy mortar bombardment of Georgian villages near the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali provoked Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to order a major assault. The night attack by Georgian troops outfitted with Western-made night-vision equipment flushed the Ossetian fighters out and Tskhinvali was overrun in the morning. To stop the Georgian offensive thousands of Russian troops with hundreds of pieces of armor invaded through the Roki tunnel and rushed forward. Russian jets began bombing Georgian military installations and cities (see EDM, August 7).
From August 8 to 10, the Georgian army was engaged in ferocious battles with the Russian invaders in and around Tskhinvali. On August 10, the Georgian authorities announced that they were withdrawing all their forces from South Ossetia and asked for a ceasefire and peace talks (Interfax, August 10). On August 12, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accepted a French-brokered peace plan, and a shaky truce was established. The Georgian army concentrated its forces on defending the capital of Tbilisi. Tens of thousands of Russian troops and over a thousand pieces of armor were relocated to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russian troops moved out of the breakaway regions to occupy other Georgian provinces in the West (Zugdidi, Senaki, and Poti), disarming local police forces and destroying Georgian military bases (Interfax, August 13). Marauding Ossetian paramilitaries and Russian servicemen went pillaging and terrorizing the local population in and around Gori south of Tskhinvali (AP, August 13).
Moscow declared that it was forced to go to battle by the initial Georgian attack in South Ossetia (RIA-Novosti, August 8). But there is sufficient evidence that this massive invasion was preplanned beforehand for August (see EDM, June 12). The swiftness with which large Russian contingents were moved into Georgia, the rapid deployment of a Black Sea naval task force, the fact that large contingents of troops were sent to Abkhazia where there was no Georgian attack all seem to indicate a rigidly prepared battle plan. This war was not an improvised reaction to a sudden Georgian military offensive in South Ossetia, since masses of troops cannot be held for long in 24-hour battle readiness. The invasion was inevitable, no matter what the Georgians did.
It seems the main drive of the Russian invasion was Georgia's aspiration to join NATO, while the separatist problem was only a pretext. Georgia occupies a key geopolitical position, and Moscow is afraid that if George joins NATO, Russia will be flushed out of Transcaucasia. The NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, last April, where Ukraine and Georgia did not get the so-called Membership Action Plan or MAP to join the Alliance but were promised eventual membership, seems to have prompted a decision to go to war (Interfax, April 3).
Before using arms, Moscow issued ominous threats. Russia unilaterally rebuked CIS sanctions against Abkhazia (RIA-Novosti, March 6). The Kremlin-controlled State Duma passed a resolution calling for recognition of Abkhaz and South Ossetian sovereignty (RIA-Novosti, March 21). Vladimir Putin promised Abkhazia and South Ossetia "not declarative, but material support" and announced that Georgian aspirations for "speedy Atlantic integration" endangered security (www.mid.ru, April 3). Russia's top military commander Yuri Baluyevsky threatened "military action to defend our interests near our borders," if Georgia and Ukraine joined NATO (RIA-Novosti, April 11). In apparently the last warning, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Georgia of failing to pass a law forbidding foreign military bases after Russia moved its bases out last November. Lavrov linked Georgian intransigence with "Western plans to pull it into NATO" (ITAR-TASS, May 5).
Material military preparations were made. On May 31, Railroad troops were moved to repair the tracks south of Sokhumi to prepare the infrastructure for the invasion. On July 30, they completed their work and all was set for major combat in August, since later bad weather would impede an invasion (see EDM, June 12, July 30). The West seems to have dismissed the Russian warnings and preparations as bluff until it was too late. U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza stated in Tbilisi, "Now we know" the true mission of the Railroad troops in Abkhazia (Interfax, August 11). He would have done better to subscribe to EDM.
The main task of the Russian invasion--to cause a total state failure and fully destroy the reformed Georgian army, making NATO membership impossible--has not yet been achieved, despite all the havoc. More attacks and devastation may be planned. Ballistic Tochka-U missiles with a range of 110 km have been deployed in Abkhazia and South Ossetia from which they could reach Tbilisi. Two seem to have already been fired at Western Georgia, according to statements from Abkhaz separatists (Novaya Gazeta, August 14). A missile attack, officially attributed to separatists, could kill hundreds, creating a devastating panic and possible regime collapse.

RESPONSE TO MR. IVANOV’S INTERVIEW ON CNN OF AUGUST 11, 2008

RESPONSE TO MR. IVANOV’S INTERVIEW ON CNN OF AUGUST 11, 2008

Note: This paper represents a response to the interview of the Deputy Prime-Minister of the Russian Federation Mr. Ivanov. Cynical tenor of the interview demonstrated a clear misinterpretation and disregard of internationally recognized norms and practices in international law. The current legal stand taken by the Russian Federation sets an extremely dangerous precedent and imperils progressive development and proper application of international law at the same time running counter to the sole and spirit of international legal order. The paper was prepared by group of students and does not in any way reflect the official position of the Government of Georgia.

Tbilisi, August 12, 2008

I. Introduction

On 11 August 2008, Deputy Prime-Minister of the Russian Federation gave a televised interview on CNN during which he accused Georgia of genocide and claimed that the Russian Federation was carrying out a peace-enforcement operation and was protecting its nationals. It is clear that the submissions of Mr. Ivanov are based on misinterpretation of facts as well as erroneous legal arguments. The speech was intended to be a propaganda aimed at misleading the international community and disguise an apparent fact of aggression against Georgia which stands as clear retaliation for Georgia’s aspiration for sovereignty, democracy and western values. This paper tries to respond to unjustified arguments put forward by Mr. Ivanov and unmask the act of aggression on the part of the Russian Federation that is still ongoing at the time of writing.

II. Georgia Was Acting Pursuant to its Right of Self-defense as Proclaimed by the UN Charter and Customary International Law

Mr. Ivanov, with a bright smile on his face, accused Georgia of conducting attack against South Ossetia and the Russian Federation. The facts on ground document an opposite. It should be mentioned at the outset that South Ossetia has historically been an integral part of the Georgian territory as recognized by the international community. The territory has however been under de facto control of separatists backed by the Russian Federation. From early July onwards Georgian villages, official forces and peacekeepers were under constant and intensive attack from the separatist forces. The separatists used fire-arms, grenades, tanks, artillery as well as different types of mines against the officials of the Government of Georgia as well as peaceful population. Kidnapping of the officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia has been a widespread occurrence as well. Dozens of casualties were reported among the peaceful population.

The Russian Federation was actively supporting separatists by armed supplies, trainings, logistic, etc. The Russian Officials held highest governmental posts in self-proclaimed government of South Ossetia. As a result, the support provided by the Russian peacekeepers to carry out attacks on Georgian police and civilian population in the conflict zone clearly qualifies as “substantial involvement” within the meaning of the famous holding of Nicaragua. Hence, Russian Federation is directly implicated in the above-mentioned attacks on the Georgian villages. Consequently, the only available measure for Georgia was to invoke its right of individual self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Thus the military attack on Georgian civilian population, police forces and Georgian peacekeepers in Tskhinvali region unequivocally falls within concept of armed attack as proclaimed by the ICJ in the Iranian Oil Platforms as well as in Congo case. The factual circumstances further suggest continuous nature of the attack against Georgia’s territorial integrity and political independence. The use of force by Georgia met the standard of “necessity” and “last resort” since it was carried out only after the public call for peace and cooperation by the President of Georgia. In particular, on the eve of 8 August 2008, President of Georgia Mikhael Saakashvili in his televised speech addressed the nation, the people of Tskhinvali Region, separatist de facto authorities, the Russian Federation and international community at large to help putting an end to the ongoing violence. Moreover, the President reiterated desire of Georgian state of peaceful resolution of the conflict with full protection of the interest of ethnic Ossetians and expressed readiness to have the meeting in any format to start the dialogue. Earlier, the Minister of Reintegration of Georgia Mr. Temur Iakobashvili went to Tskhinvali to meet personally the Chief Negotiator Chochiev (South Ossetian de facto authority) and the commander of the Russian peacekeeping forces General Kulakhmetov.

In the morning of 8 August 2008, President Saakashvili called upon Russian Federation to withdraw its officials serving in the Tskhinvali separatist government (i.e. V. Lunev – Minister of Defense; M. Mindzaev – Interior Minister; A. Barnkevich – Secretary of Security Council; I Morozov – Prime Minister) and let the situation stabilize. Despite the call on peace and cooperation made at the highest political level of the Georgian government, the armed attacks against Georgian villages continued. The de facto President, Eduard Kokoiti officially declared war against Georgia in the afternoon of 8 August 2008. Kokoiti’s declaration of war as well as the attacks in question resulted from the activity of the Russian peacekeepers in the region being under exclusive and direct command of the Russian Federation. Stemming from the above-mentioned, Georgia had no other means but to resort to armed force with a view to repelling the armed attacks against it. Hence, resort to military force in the face of real and immediate threat to the survival of the nation was clearly legitimate, as well as implemented in full compliance with international law.

III. Claim that Georgia Committed Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing Is without Factual and Legal Arguments and Is Put Forward as a Means to Downplay the Act of Aggression Committed by the Russian Federation

The accusation by Mr. Ivanov that Georgian forces committed genocide and ethnic cleansing is a total lie aimed at misleading the international community. It must be noted as a preliminary matter that it was the Georgian population that was subjected to ethnic cleansing in South Ossetia in early nineties. This act was carried out by the separatist forces with the support of the Russian Federation and gave rise to thousands of displacements from South Ossetian region. The response from Georgian armed forces was fully in line with the requirements of laws of war, namely the fundamental principle of distinction and proportionality. Thus, the fire was used exclusively against military objects, while resulting civilian casualties was limited to military necessity and proportionate to the military advantage sought to be achieved.

It must be also mentioned that the actions of the Georgian government in South Ossetia were not motivated by special intention to “destroy in whole or in part” a specific ethnic group which is necessary to qualify an act of genocide, but rather the necessity to protect the Georgian population of the conflict zone from the attacks of the separatists. It can be confirmed by the efforts of the Georgian government to resolve the conflict with separatists by peaceful means during the recent period. Georgian forces launched the operation in the region only in response to the prior attacks by the separatists against Georgian villages within the conflict zone. The clearest indication of the preference of the Georgian government to solve the conflict through peaceful negotiations has been the statement of the President Saakashvili on 7 August 2008 before the above mentioned operation was launched, ordering Georgian forces to cease fire and urging separatists to engage in peace talks for the resolution of the conflict, promising amnesty for crimes possibly committed. On August 8, after launching the offensive, Georgia declared a three-hour cease-fire to allow civilians to leave Tskhinvali by creating a humanitarian corridor. Besides, the Georgian government expressed its willingness to accept internally displaced persons on its territory and provide necessary humanitarian assistance. These factors serve as a clear indication that the actions of the Georgian government were never aimed at the destruction of ethnic Ossetian as such.

It should be also mentioned that the complex actions taken by the Government of Georgia over the years in the conflict region is an apparent proof to the fact that Georgia has never had any genocidal intents toward ethnic Ossetians. Over the years large part of ethnic Ossetians have been under the jurisdiction of Georgia. The President of Georgia ordered the creation of Temporary Administration for Southern Ossetia which was exclusively staffed by ethnic Ossetians, all the necessary measures have been created for ethnic Ossetians to maintain their cultural and ethnic identity, schools, kinder gardens, etc.

Thus the accusations of Mr. Ivanov is far from truth and is part of dirty propaganda to and used as a pretext to justify aggressive actions on the part of the Russian Federation.

As for today it the troops of the Russian Federation that are carrying out the policy of ethnic cleansing in the villages of conflict region. Arbitrary killings of ethnic Georgians are carried out on mass scale. Modern type concentration camps are set up and the civilians are subjected to killings and inhuman treatment.

IV. The Claims of the Russian Federation Carrying Out Peace-enforcement Operation and Protection of Citizens of the Russian Federation is without any Legal Grounds and Constitutes an Apparent Act of Aggression

According to Mr Ivanov, the aim of Russian forces is enforcement of peace and protection of the rights of Russian citizens and for this purpose they target only military objectives.

(i) Peace-enforcement: From the perspective of the legality of the use of force, it is necessary to underline the arguable validity of justification advanced by the Russian Federation for the use of force against Georgia, i.e. peace-enforcement lacks an independent basis under the international legal framework. There are only two justifications for the use of force under the UN Charter framework: self-defense under Article 51 and Chapter VII enforcement measures. Even if this pretext is viewed within the ambit of the right of self-defense, it would not satisfy the requirements for the exercise of this right, i.e. presence of the “armed attack” as well as necessity and proportionality of response to such an attack. It is questionable whether the actions of the Georgian forces within South Ossetia which is the part of the territory of Georgia and not the Russian Federation would qualify as an armed attack against the Russian Federation.

Further, it is to be underlined that Russian fighter jets have targeted not only military objectives but also civilian objects, in violation of one of the cardinal principles of the international humanitarian law, the principle of distinction, aimed at distinguishing between these two categories of objectives and protecting civilian population. Even if one accepts that the purpose of the Russian forces is to enforce peace, this goal can hardly be achieved by targeting civilian population.

Ivanov denied that Russian troops were going far beyond the conflict zones, noting that they did not cross the administrative border between South Ossetia and Georgia. In fact, that Russian forces are not satisfied by the withdrawal of Georgian troops from the conflict zone of South Ossetia. On 9 August 2008 the President of Georgia declared cease-fire and Georgian forces left the territory of South Ossettia. Despite this Russian forces have occupied large parts of the Georgian territory and are carrying out massive bombings of Georgian cities throughout the country far from the conflict region. Cities of Poti, Kareli, Kaspi were subjected to intensive bombings despite the formal declaration of cease-fire from the President of the Russian Federation.

As for the parallels to the NATO bombing of Belgrade, first of all, this case significantly differs from the situation in Georgia, by the actions of the respective central government and the breakaway region as well as the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe that served as a ground for intervention and the presence of the Security Council prior reactions to that situation, calling on Yugoslavia to stop its actions.

(ii) Protection of national abroad: Russia cannot justify its use of force against Georgian state in pretext of the protection of its nationals abroad. Russia has been threatening Georgia to use force “for the protection of its nationals” in the Georgian two breakaway regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali. First and foremost, it is a separate violation of the international law (interference of domestic affairs prescribed by Article 2(7) of the UN Charter) by Russia to grant Russian passport of the people in the separatist regions for the sole purpose of artificial change of the composition of population. Russia cannot legally claim right to diplomatic protection over those persons, since despite the Russian internal legal regulations on citizenship the people residing in the Tskinvali Region have no genuine link with the Russian Federation that has been established to be necessary in order to exercise diplomatic protection over individuals as defined by the ICJ in the Nottebohm case (Lichtenstein v. Guatemala).

Moreover, international law does not recognize the legality of use of force for the protection of the “nationals abroad.” The ILC in its First Report on Diplomatic Protection of 2000, approved by the General Assembly by its resolution, emphasized that the state practice in combination with the prohibition of use of force under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter outlaws use of force under the pretexts of diplomatic protection. The only exception to this provision, permitting the unilateral use of force by States, is Article 51, which deals with the right of self-defense. The illegality of Russia’s possible invocation of the right to self-defense is discussed above.

Thus, any use of force by the Russian Federation against Georgia can only be categorized as an illegal armed reprisal, which is clearly prohibited under international law, inter alia, by the GA Resolution 2625 on Friendly Relations and Cooperation among Nations, by the ICJ in Nicaragua case in the Advisory Opinion on the Legality of Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons and Article 50(1)(a) of the ILC Articles of State Responsibility. Moreover, Russia’s actions goes beyond the illegal armed reprisal and meets the standards of the international wrongful act of aggression as understood under the international law. Therefore, Russia should bear international legal responsibility for the measures taken against Georgia.