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THE EU AND THE AUTOPSY OF THE CAUCASIAN CONFLICT
Denis Sinyakov
REUTERS
12:2101/10/2009
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Fedyashin) - The
long wait for the European Union's report on the Caucasian conflict
is finally over.
It appears that both sides are to blame.
Georgia first started the conflict, while Russia fuelled separatist
attitudes, provoked Tbilisi, and used Georgia's actions against South
Ossetia to further its own interests and occupy part of Georgia's
territory.
These are the main conclusions of the long-awaited, 900-page EU report
on the August 2008 war.
The European Commission ordered the report on the causes and course
of this five-day war almost nine months ago, and received it only on
September 30.
The report's publication has been delayed since last July.
In theory, the report does not openly specify who is to blame for
what, because its objectives did not include assigning blame to any
party. But it is clearly impossible not to draw such a conclusion from
the document's 900 pages of facts. It is clear from a brief summary
of the report (a more detailed analysis will take much longer) that
Georgia was the first to pull the trigger. But Russia also played
its part. Moscow was ready for such a scenario, and used Mikheil
Saakashvili's mistake to move into not only into South Ossetia but
also Abkhazia.
In summary, the main conclusions are not sensational, except of course
for the first official admission that Saakashvili started the war
(although his personal contribution is not mentioned). But it is clear
from the timing of the events that Russia and some other countries
were telling the truth.
The conflict set the Baltic and Polish contingent of the EU at
loggerheads with the Western members. Rehashing the conflict is a
thankless task. It is obvious that no matter the report's conclusion,
one of the sides will not like them. As the authors of the report admit
themselves, they have done all they could to filter the existing facts
as much as possible, abstain from dogmatic conclusions and a search
for culprits, and assess the war without emotion or political bias.
One can take this as one will. However, when experts submit their
work to diplomats, the results sometimes undergo amazing change. It
is common knowledge that the authors of the report were pressured
by various parties, particularly by the Saakashvili government. The
Georgian president's Integration Minister Temuri Yakobashvili even
said a couple of months ago that two of the experts were on Gazprom's
payroll. A day before the report's publication, Georgian officials told
Western journalists at a special briefing that the main conclusion
of the report was that Russia is guilty of war crimes and ethnic
cleansing, and that some Russian units had even entered South Ossetia
in advance, thus provoking Georgia's shelling of Tskhinvali.
Yakobashvili announced that it does not matter who started the
war and blamed Russians for their attempts to reduce the debate to
this issue. The main point is that Russia was preparing for the war
in advance.
This sounds a bit odd in light of the fact that the Georgian president
has always maintained that Moscow attacked South Ossetia and Georgia
had to repel this aggression. Nevertheless, Tbilisi had previously
claimed that it was "restoring constitutional order" in Tskhinvali and
"restoring its control over the city," and later that the shelling was
necessary to protect Georgian villages against separatist attacks. Only
later did Georgian officials begin talking about "Russian aggression."
But Saakashvili has given so many different explanations for the
start of the war that he has even confused his own minister. All the
more so since the Georgian president has always been very sensitive
to any reports on this war.
The report was prepared by the Geneva-based International Independent
Fact Finding Mission into the Conflict in Georgia (IIFFMCG), which
is officially completely independent of Brussels. The Mission is
headed by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, who has written several
books on the Caucasus and its recent conflicts, and is considered an
expert on this subject. Her group included about 30 European experts
- former ambassadors, defense ministers, other military officials,
and historians. They had to collect a huge amount of information and
testimony, systematize all of it, and then present it so as not to
offend anyone or rekindle more hostility either in the Caucasus or
in Europe.
Geneva seems to have been created to smooth out rough edges and
neutralize acids. It can take in some very unpleasant people and
produce something more or less neutral and civilized. Of course,
you could say this is sugarcoating the facts, but this is part and
parcel of any political debate, and is absolutely necessary in some
situations.
It follows from the report that although Georgia started the conflict,
it has already punished itself, while Russia is also responsible for
exploiting the prelude and the aftermath of the war.
If we omit some details, the conclusions are generally correct. It
is clear what Georgia has done. And nobody is arguing with the fact
that Moscow used the events before and after the war to further its
own interests. It would have been criminal and irresponsible not to
use an opportunity to protect a small nation against an attack from
the country that had been trying to destroy it since the end of the
first Georgian-Ossetian war in 1992. It would have been strange to
expect Moscow to be indifferent to all the commotion on its southern
border. Perhaps this would have been possible under Boris Yeltsin,
but not now that South Ossetia and Abkhazia have enjoyed de facto
independence for almost 15 years.
It would be useful to remember that this conflict did not come as a
bolt from the blue. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned his then
counterpart Condoleezza Rice that Saakashvili had been preparing to
resolve the issue of South Ossetia and Abkhazia by force. He issued
this warning three times -- two months, one month, and two weeks
before the Georgian invasion of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
It is still necessary to analyze the details of the report, but
judging from the main conclusion, Saakashvili will now face more
problems with his political legitimacy and shaken reputation. Be
that as it may, the report has refuted his main argument that Russia
unleashed the conflict. Let us recall that at first he accused
Moscow of sacrilegiously timing its aggression with the opening of
the Olympic Games.
After the report, PACE is very likely to reconsider Georgia's proposal
to deprive Russia of its voting rights in that council. The vote on
the Tbilisi-proposed resolution is due Thursday, October 1. It will
be very awkward to support this resolution after Geneva's autopsy of
the Caucasian conflict.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not
necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
Denis Sinyakov
REUTERS
12:2101/10/2009
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Fedyashin) - The
long wait for the European Union's report on the Caucasian conflict
is finally over.
It appears that both sides are to blame.
Georgia first started the conflict, while Russia fuelled separatist
attitudes, provoked Tbilisi, and used Georgia's actions against South
Ossetia to further its own interests and occupy part of Georgia's
territory.
These are the main conclusions of the long-awaited, 900-page EU report
on the August 2008 war.
The European Commission ordered the report on the causes and course
of this five-day war almost nine months ago, and received it only on
September 30.
The report's publication has been delayed since last July.
In theory, the report does not openly specify who is to blame for
what, because its objectives did not include assigning blame to any
party. But it is clearly impossible not to draw such a conclusion from
the document's 900 pages of facts. It is clear from a brief summary
of the report (a more detailed analysis will take much longer) that
Georgia was the first to pull the trigger. But Russia also played
its part. Moscow was ready for such a scenario, and used Mikheil
Saakashvili's mistake to move into not only into South Ossetia but
also Abkhazia.
In summary, the main conclusions are not sensational, except of course
for the first official admission that Saakashvili started the war
(although his personal contribution is not mentioned). But it is clear
from the timing of the events that Russia and some other countries
were telling the truth.
The conflict set the Baltic and Polish contingent of the EU at
loggerheads with the Western members. Rehashing the conflict is a
thankless task. It is obvious that no matter the report's conclusion,
one of the sides will not like them. As the authors of the report admit
themselves, they have done all they could to filter the existing facts
as much as possible, abstain from dogmatic conclusions and a search
for culprits, and assess the war without emotion or political bias.
One can take this as one will. However, when experts submit their
work to diplomats, the results sometimes undergo amazing change. It
is common knowledge that the authors of the report were pressured
by various parties, particularly by the Saakashvili government. The
Georgian president's Integration Minister Temuri Yakobashvili even
said a couple of months ago that two of the experts were on Gazprom's
payroll. A day before the report's publication, Georgian officials told
Western journalists at a special briefing that the main conclusion
of the report was that Russia is guilty of war crimes and ethnic
cleansing, and that some Russian units had even entered South Ossetia
in advance, thus provoking Georgia's shelling of Tskhinvali.
Yakobashvili announced that it does not matter who started the
war and blamed Russians for their attempts to reduce the debate to
this issue. The main point is that Russia was preparing for the war
in advance.
This sounds a bit odd in light of the fact that the Georgian president
has always maintained that Moscow attacked South Ossetia and Georgia
had to repel this aggression. Nevertheless, Tbilisi had previously
claimed that it was "restoring constitutional order" in Tskhinvali and
"restoring its control over the city," and later that the shelling was
necessary to protect Georgian villages against separatist attacks. Only
later did Georgian officials begin talking about "Russian aggression."
But Saakashvili has given so many different explanations for the
start of the war that he has even confused his own minister. All the
more so since the Georgian president has always been very sensitive
to any reports on this war.
The report was prepared by the Geneva-based International Independent
Fact Finding Mission into the Conflict in Georgia (IIFFMCG), which
is officially completely independent of Brussels. The Mission is
headed by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, who has written several
books on the Caucasus and its recent conflicts, and is considered an
expert on this subject. Her group included about 30 European experts
- former ambassadors, defense ministers, other military officials,
and historians. They had to collect a huge amount of information and
testimony, systematize all of it, and then present it so as not to
offend anyone or rekindle more hostility either in the Caucasus or
in Europe.
Geneva seems to have been created to smooth out rough edges and
neutralize acids. It can take in some very unpleasant people and
produce something more or less neutral and civilized. Of course,
you could say this is sugarcoating the facts, but this is part and
parcel of any political debate, and is absolutely necessary in some
situations.
It follows from the report that although Georgia started the conflict,
it has already punished itself, while Russia is also responsible for
exploiting the prelude and the aftermath of the war.
If we omit some details, the conclusions are generally correct. It
is clear what Georgia has done. And nobody is arguing with the fact
that Moscow used the events before and after the war to further its
own interests. It would have been criminal and irresponsible not to
use an opportunity to protect a small nation against an attack from
the country that had been trying to destroy it since the end of the
first Georgian-Ossetian war in 1992. It would have been strange to
expect Moscow to be indifferent to all the commotion on its southern
border. Perhaps this would have been possible under Boris Yeltsin,
but not now that South Ossetia and Abkhazia have enjoyed de facto
independence for almost 15 years.
It would be useful to remember that this conflict did not come as a
bolt from the blue. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned his then
counterpart Condoleezza Rice that Saakashvili had been preparing to
resolve the issue of South Ossetia and Abkhazia by force. He issued
this warning three times -- two months, one month, and two weeks
before the Georgian invasion of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
It is still necessary to analyze the details of the report, but
judging from the main conclusion, Saakashvili will now face more
problems with his political legitimacy and shaken reputation. Be
that as it may, the report has refuted his main argument that Russia
unleashed the conflict. Let us recall that at first he accused
Moscow of sacrilegiously timing its aggression with the opening of
the Olympic Games.
After the report, PACE is very likely to reconsider Georgia's proposal
to deprive Russia of its voting rights in that council. The vote on
the Tbilisi-proposed resolution is due Thursday, October 1. It will
be very awkward to support this resolution after Geneva's autopsy of
the Caucasian conflict.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not
necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.