Re. your Point 6 (“the fly in the ointment of the argument that Russia planned the attack is, of course, that Georgia attacked, and it is hard to see how Russia could have “planned” to have somebody else attack it!”) you will find a good list of very extreme Russian actions against Georgia (plus Georgians living in Russia) in the book “The New Cold War” by Edward Lucas. I recommend it highly and am in no way related to the author.
Cheers,
ET

I posted to Bozhidar regarding the history of the Caucasus region. This is not contemporary, but more or less medieval history. Since you might not have access to some of the resources, the Ossetian’s were uprooted from their homeland by Mongolian forces, and found refuge in Georgia at the time. Here they were governed by Georgians, and in many cases adopted Christianity from the Georgians. You can take it from there with some of the contemporary stuff that is out there on the web.

And the passports issue is raised yet again, which is of significant interest. It would be like the UK issuing passports to citizens of North Holland and using it as a justification for attack on all of the Netherlands. If the particular S. Ossetians with Russian passports are so keen on being Russian, perhaps they should leave.

A quick scan of the various bodies of international law should make clear that 1. good neighborly relations requires that states refrain from granting en masse citizenship and passports on citizens of another country (prior to the outbreak of recent hostilities this was a primary Russian effort) and 2. citizens residing abroad are subject to the jurisdiction of the place of residence, not their country of passport issuance. Unfortunately, S. Ossetia’s territory is part of Georgia. As I said above, the Russians haven’t even recognized it as independent (much less the world) hence common usage of the term de facto in front of its name indicating the opposite of de jure, meaning ‘of the law’. Here the Russians can confer only limited jurisdiction on matters of consular affairs, for instance, and all other actions need to be approved by the host state.

The Russian constitutional declaration that it can protect its citizens abroad through force is not covered under any form of international law, except those instances where ethnic cleansing and genocide are documented and undisputed evidence exists. So far, this is not the case in S. Ossetia.

It will be interesting to see how the increased amount of passport issuance by the Russian government in the Ukraine is going in the Crimea area. Better yet, lets all just turn our backs for ten years, wake up, and hand the Crimea to Russia because it has citizens there. This is a severely flawed argument.

Moderator, NewsGeorgia.net

Ummm, not really. Kosovo’s population increased a bit after 1877-78 but that’s because Serbia throw out the Albanians from Nis (100% populated by Albanians that got it thanks to Russia) but in 1912, when Serbs, thanks to Russia got Kosovo Albanians made over 75%. As far as being their heartland: that is a Serbian lie; Serbs ruled it from 1180 till 1400 or so, Bulgars, the Byzantines and the Turks ruled it for much longer and there was no continuation of Serbia. For 400 years, Serbs were vassals and there was Serb rule anywhere, let alone Kosovo. Ask Serbs who did they threw out to the mountains when they seized Kosovo originally?
You can read it all here, from Noel Malcolm: http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=4173

Serbs will say anything about Albanians, Macedonians, MonteNegrins, Bosnians and Croats to get to keep the land. Kosovo became “their heartland” when they used the 1389 battle (half surrendered, half run away) to rally Serbian nationalism, that’s all.

Kosovo is already independent, and I may hope both provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia will do the same as Kosovo did.

And about your statement.. Ossetians being driven from north into what was Georgian territory? I’m not getting the picture, are you talking about the mass movement of a group of ppl.. Moving to find a new place to live, which became south ossetia?

Or you might be refering to some of the ossetian extremists from north georgia, who wreaked havoc in different places of Georgia? Attacking the people?

I’m not sure about it, but well I really want to say that in no any way Mr. Saakashvili had the right to murder those civilians at night.
It must have been a great feeling for those troopers, to shoot people with tanks, while they are in their beds..

And yes you must be right if you want to tell me that russian bombing also made civilian casualties.. I’m sure that happened too, but not on such a precise way as Georgia was doing to the Ossetians..
Russia had a peace keeping force in south ossetia, lots of people had russian passports in that region. So the big red Russian bear will have some sticks to beat Mr. Saakashvili with..

I wonder if you ever got to notice how every presidential candidate wants to keep the missile shield.. How they all have/had weapon industries lobbyists as advisors..

I can not understand why, and feel ashamed for the fact that my country is allied with US and Nato. And that our guys need to die in some lonesome desert in Afghanistan.

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=klwWcp9eiPw

For good historical reads on this subject check out David Marshall Lang and his book “The Georgians,” Richard Rosen’s book “History of the Caucasus Nations,” and Sebastian Smith’s Book “Allahs Mountains,” – (you may have already read that as it is primarily about Chechnya).

Not necessarily ‘scientific’…but here is a fairly good overview of early S. Ossetian history from globalsecurity.org. There is reference to a very old publication by Baron von Haxthausen (hard to find, by the way)…nonetheless, and also reference to parts of the more modern works listed above.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/south-ossetia-7.htm

Have fun reading!
Moderator, NewsGeorgia.net

Thanks for this thoughtful analysis. What a relief to know that not everybody writing on the subject is a zombie.

It would be interesting to know what you think the next constructive step is in developing relations with Russia.

Thanks again

Particularly, with reference to the following statement…

“…In 2002 South Ossetia’s elected president, Eduard Kokoity, officially requested that Moscow recognize the Republic of South Ossetia and its absorption into the Russian Federation.”

Certainly, provocative, but the fact remains that no major international body (to include the UN, EU, OSCE, CEU, NATO, etc) or no major individual power (to include Russia) has ever recognized South Ossetia’s call for (late-80′s, 1992, or 2006) independence. In fact, the referendums had no standing from Tbilisi, S. Ossetia’s central authority, and were thus discarded by all…including the Russian Federation.

Throughout time immemorial, the land of S. Ossetia has been Georgian, and locally governed by Georgian’s and S. Ossetian’s even under many imperial masters. The regionss original name, Samachalbo, was named after the Georgian ruling dynasty of the region and allowed S. Ossetians to settle there after being driven out of their true homelands further North. Various states of autonomy resulted in the centuries that followed, but not even the Soviet Union recognized such a call for independence under its own political structure in the early 1990′s where it always remained part of the GSSR.

Disturbingly, few ethnic Georgians living in the region have been awarded the right to vote during previous referendums/elections and often remain disenfranchised through both political machination and fear ( they are around 25% of the population, by the way). Even after the first war in the 1990′s, the cease fire established that Georgia would maintain large portions of S. Ossetia under its control where it has since established an alternative government.

This is truly a convoluted situation where neither the US or Russian attempts to back key players are right in any sense. Each has motives, some outlined above, and rhetoric and action to leverage against each other. Only one thing is for certain, war is not the answer as each side has blood on its hands. The damage may be irreparable.

Further points to ponder…………………………….

Noticeably absent in your treatment was the Russian destruction of Chechnya on two occasions as it has sought increased autonomy. Kind of odd that they would support similar actions by S. Ossetian’s in Georgia for which they so ruthlessly meted out justice during two protracted wars, right? The same 9-11 rhetoric lambasted above was President Putin’s guiding doctrine to rid the region of terrorists as Russia-US relations reached an all time high in major media outlets. Furthermore, Russia’s inability to help Georgian forces establish a strong border in the Pankisi Gorge region, crucial in order to prevent the flow of Chechen fighters in and out of the conflict zone, required the US (enter increased US presence in region) to fill the void and create a fully operational Georgian border patrol, much to Moscow’s happiness (See news/handshakes/smiles all around by Russian and US leaders as border patrol ‘hailed a success’).

Also, kind of odd for Russia to issue passports to S. Ossetians, many found unsigned…actually, its not to outlandish as it is quite similar to what Russia did in the 1960′s in China as it encroached on China’s Eastern border provoking military clashes with Chinese forces in a effort to seize more territory…a dispute that took almost 40 years to settle in 2005 when the border was formally established.

Saakashvili depicting Georgia as a European democracy confronted with a bullying undemocratic neighbour is all the more absurd as both Georgia and Russia are members of the Council of Europe, that is to say, parties to the European Convention of Human Rights and subject to the compulsory jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Only democracies can be members of the C. of E. Greece was suspended during the colonels dictatorship, for example, and Belarus is still waiting to be let in. Both individuals and states can bring cases before the Strasbourg court, so there is nothing to stop Saakashvili taking Russia to court for killing his country’s citizens and destroying their property. He’d probably win, but by going to court, he would admit that Russia was a democracy! The above applies also to Saakashvili’s questionable domestic conduct (Professor Leupp’s point 1) which will no doubt sooner or later end up in the Strasbourg court. Thus, whatever Georgia is, Russia, Britain, France, Poland, Ireland, Latvia, Ukraine and the rest of the C. of E.’s 43 member states are too. And vice versa!

Point 6: the fly in the ointment of the argument that Russia planned the attack is, of course, that Georgia attacked, and it is hard to see how Russia could have “planned” to have somebody else attack it! Equally, of course, the fly in the ointment that the US planned the attack is that, if it had, it would hardly have left Saakashvili in the lurch as it did, thereby destroying US credibility worldwide.

And, of course, as Professor Leupp points out, the cherry on the cake is that Saakashvili has torpedoed US policy in Kosovo!