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UN Satellite Photos Undercut Russian Claims About South Ossetia

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  • UN Satellite Photos Undercut Russian Claims About South Ossetia

    UN SATELLITE PHOTOS UNDERCUT RUSSIAN CLAIMS ABOUT SOUTH OSSETIA
    Paul Goble

    Georgiandaily
    http://georgiandaily.com/inde x.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7523 &Itemid=130
    Sept 10 2008
    NY

    Satellite photographs analyzed by United Nations experts show that
    only five percent of Tskhinvali was destroyed during the fighting
    there but that 50 percent of ethnic Georgian villages were destroyed
    in that region by Ossetian marauders behind Russian lines, a pattern
    that undercuts Moscow's claims about what took place.

    The UN satellite research program UNOSAT has released photographs
    showing the destruction in South Ossetia. Some of these were published
    in "Novaya gazeta" on Monday, but a more comprehensive sample is now
    available on the UNOSAT portal.

    These pictures and the analysis conducted by the independent experts
    at UNOSAT show, Human Rights Watch told "Novaya gazeta," that Ossetian
    units "burned and robbed Georgian villages," as HRW people on the
    ground had reported in the face of Ossetian and Russian claims to
    the contrary.

    But these photographs taken over the course of August also call into
    question repeated Russian claims that the Georgian army had destroyed
    much of the South Ossetian capital - the satellite photographs show
    only five percent of its buildings having been damaged -- and that
    Georgian forces had carried out a systematic genocide there.

    The photographs are extremely disturbing because, in the words of
    HRW experts, they demonstrate that "Georgian villages have in fact
    ceased to exist on the territory of South Ossetia." But the human
    rights group's own observers point out that now there is evidence that
    similar "marauder activities are continuing in Georgian villages in
    the buffer zone."

    "It is possible," "Novaya gazeta" concludes, "that the materials
    collected by Human Rights Watch [and the UNOSAT photographs]
    will become part of the case about military crimes at the time of
    the Georgian-Ossetian conflict, which will be considered by the
    International Criminal Court in The Hague."

    Such use of satellite photography to document the actions of various
    participants in conflicts is spreading: A year ago, for example,
    Azerbaijan used satellite photography to show the destruction of
    certain cultural monuments that has taken place in portions of that
    country now under Armenian occupation.

    One reason for this is the dramatic improvement in satellite
    photography technology in recent years, but another and more important
    factor is that such photographs not only provide the kind of objective
    proof that observer reports sometimes lack but also have a far greater
    impact on those who see them.

    And because this technology will make it more difficult for officials
    to lie about what is happening or to cover up their own crimes, one
    can hope that the very possibility that satellite photographs will
    be taken and shared will over time act to restrain those who might
    otherwise engage in crimes of war and crimes against humanity.

    Unfortunately, as these UNOSAT photographs show, neither Russian
    forces nor the irregular Ossetian units behind their lines included
    that possibility in their calculations. And as a result, an enormous
    humanitarian disaster ensued, one that is not only not over but not
    yet being blamed on its real authors.
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