Tweet
FORMER SENIOR OSCE OFFICIALS SAY GEORGIA STARTED BLOODY WAR IN SOUTH OSSETIA
PanARMENIAN.Net
10.11.2008 15:30 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Two former British military officers are expected to
give crucial evidence against Georgia when an international inquiry
is convened to establish who started the country's bloody five-day
war with Russia in August, The Sunday Times reports.
Ryan Grist, a former British Army captain, and Stephen Young, a former
RAF wing commander, are said to have concluded that, before the Russian
bombardment began, Georgian rockets and artillery were hitting civilian
areas in the breakaway region of South Ossetia every 15 or 20 seconds.
Their accounts seem likely to undermine the American-backed claims
of President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia that his little country
was the innocent victim of Russian aggression and acted solely in
self-defense.
During the war both Grist and Young were senior figures in the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The
organization had deployed teams of unarmed monitors to try to reduce
tension over South Ossetia, which had split from Georgia in the
early 1990s.
On the night war broke out, Grist was the senior OSCE official in
Georgia. He was in charge of unarmed monitors who became trapped by
the fighting. Based on their observations, Grist briefed European
Union diplomats in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, with his assessment
of the conflict.
Grist, who resigned from the OSCE shortly afterwards, has told The
New York Times it was Georgia that launched the first military strikes
against Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital.
"It was clear to me that the [Georgian] attack was completely
indiscriminate and disproportionate to any, if indeed there had been
any, provocation," he said. "The attack was clearly, in my mind,
an indiscriminate attack on the town, as a town."
He said he had made it "very clear" at a briefing to ambassadors
there was a "severe escalation".
"It would give the Russian Federation any excuse it needed in terms
of trying to support its own troops," Grist said.
Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister who helped broker the
ceasefire that ended the war and has been a fierce critic of the
Russian invasion of Georgia, is tomorrow due to announce a commission
of inquiry into the conflict at a meeting of EU foreign ministers
in Brussels.
The inquiry will be chaired by a Swiss expert as a mark of independence
and will try to establish who was to blame for the conflict. European
and OSCE sources say it is likely to seek evidence from the two former
British officers.
The inquiry comes as the EU softens its hardline position towards
Russia amid mounting European skepticism about Saakashvili's judgment.
PanARMENIAN.Net
10.11.2008 15:30 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Two former British military officers are expected to
give crucial evidence against Georgia when an international inquiry
is convened to establish who started the country's bloody five-day
war with Russia in August, The Sunday Times reports.
Ryan Grist, a former British Army captain, and Stephen Young, a former
RAF wing commander, are said to have concluded that, before the Russian
bombardment began, Georgian rockets and artillery were hitting civilian
areas in the breakaway region of South Ossetia every 15 or 20 seconds.
Their accounts seem likely to undermine the American-backed claims
of President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia that his little country
was the innocent victim of Russian aggression and acted solely in
self-defense.
During the war both Grist and Young were senior figures in the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The
organization had deployed teams of unarmed monitors to try to reduce
tension over South Ossetia, which had split from Georgia in the
early 1990s.
On the night war broke out, Grist was the senior OSCE official in
Georgia. He was in charge of unarmed monitors who became trapped by
the fighting. Based on their observations, Grist briefed European
Union diplomats in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, with his assessment
of the conflict.
Grist, who resigned from the OSCE shortly afterwards, has told The
New York Times it was Georgia that launched the first military strikes
against Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital.
"It was clear to me that the [Georgian] attack was completely
indiscriminate and disproportionate to any, if indeed there had been
any, provocation," he said. "The attack was clearly, in my mind,
an indiscriminate attack on the town, as a town."
He said he had made it "very clear" at a briefing to ambassadors
there was a "severe escalation".
"It would give the Russian Federation any excuse it needed in terms
of trying to support its own troops," Grist said.
Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister who helped broker the
ceasefire that ended the war and has been a fierce critic of the
Russian invasion of Georgia, is tomorrow due to announce a commission
of inquiry into the conflict at a meeting of EU foreign ministers
in Brussels.
The inquiry will be chaired by a Swiss expert as a mark of independence
and will try to establish who was to blame for the conflict. European
and OSCE sources say it is likely to seek evidence from the two former
British officers.
The inquiry comes as the EU softens its hardline position towards
Russia amid mounting European skepticism about Saakashvili's judgment.