Police kills the leader of the Ingush opposition Magomed Evloev

Sunday 31 August in Nazran one of the leaders of the Ingush opposition Magomed Evloev was arrested by policemen upon his arrival from Moscow. Shortly after that they police announced, that he resisted arrest and they had to shoot at him. Evloev was taken to the hospital with his head wounded and died there.

It is an outrageous event. The police acted exactly like bandits and they even did not try to hide their criminal actions much.

I am afraid, this will further aggravate already precarious situation in Ingushetia and a few more officials will die following Mr Evloev’s death. Throughout North Caucasus this horrible events might send a destructive, violent wave.

Evloev was a lawyer, formerly he worked in prosecution. Lately he directed famous opposition website www.ingushetiya.ru The authorities tried to close it down several times and even had a court decision to shut it, but it still carried on working. Mr Evloev was also known as one of the organisers of public protest events in Ingushetia earlier this year and previously.

Aparently the authorities decided to make use of the havoc caused by war in Georgia and go for drastic measures like killing opposition leaders outright.

Sources close to Mr Evloev say, that the opposition was about to launch a campaign for Ingushetia’s secession from Russian Federation. One website even publishes their draft statement in Russian http://caucasustimes.com/article.asp?id=16341

Chechens in South Ossetia

In Chechnya, it is believed that the official counts of Russian military losses during the fighting in South Ossetia have been greatly understated. In Chechnya alone, many bodies of killed soldiers have been delivered from the Intelligence Directorate special purpose battalions “Vostok” and “Zapad”, which consist of ethnic Chechens. The Ministry of Defense reports 74 soldiers killed altogether.

The Chechen special forces, though they prefer not to speak of losses suffered, express strong displeasure regarding their commanders. In the words of one “Vostok” soldier, they were “set up”.

“Our battalion was added to the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Southern Ossetia last fall. Before the beginning of these events (meaning the Georgian offensive into Tskhinvali), there were two companies of our battalion here.” said one of the “Vostok” servicemen, who called himself Vakhid, “Even though we were ready for possible provocation, a mass attack on Tskhinvali was nevertheless unanticipated.”

“They practically set us up there. The turrets on the tanks given to us didn’t work; our armored vehicles broke down nearly every hundred meters. The Georgians, meanwhile, brought massive fire on our positions from “Grad” rocket launchers and long-range artillery, Georgian planes bombed us, and we, realistically, weren’t able to give them a serious response. Men were killed in our group, including our commander.”

“There (in Tskhinvali), it was real hell. Over the course of all of these days we weren’t able to communicate with our families, who naturally were very worried, because there was no way to reach us and we were unable to recharge our cell phones. My older brother broke through to us on the third day because there was information that we had all been killed. We were practically all on the brink of extermination, if not for the ‘Kadyrovsky’ regiment[1] , who came to our aid.” he said unexpectedly. “They stopped the Georgian attack and saved us from certain death.”

continued here: http://peaceinthecaucasus.org/articles/2008.08.18.chechen_forces_sossetia.html

Truthful western voices about South Ossetia and Abkhazia

I’m glad there are quite a few much more realistic voices appearing in western alternative media, like open democracy. It’s good to see, there are alternatives to the much promoted old-fashioned realpolitik, that leads us all back to XIX century.

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On the second full day of the Georgia-Russia war of 8-12 August 2008, Russian patrol-boats operating off the Black Sea shore of Abkhazia sank four Georgian vessels apparently intent on landing in the territory. The identity of these vessels is not yet clear, but it is interesting to note that a published list of military equipment in the possession of the Georgian government – equipment largely supplied over many years by Tbilisi’s western friends – includes a ship called the General Mazniashvili.

Why interesting? Because General Mazniashvili (aka Mazniev) is best known for his role in spreading “fire and sword” through Abkhazia and South Ossetia on behalf of Georgia’s Menshevik government of 1918-21. The naming of the ship is a revealing indicator of current official Georgian sentiment about a figure central to the pitiless effort ninety years ago to establish control over these two areas. It is also a reminder to Abkhazians and South Ossetians that their hard-won freedom from Georgian rule in the brutal wars of the early 1990s is part of a longer history of defence of their integrity that deserves the world’s attention, understanding and respect.

These peoples, and not just the Georgians – or Russians, or Americans, or anyone else involved in the latest war in the region – have their own history, many of whose artefacts have been deliberately pulverised in this generation (see Thomas de Waal, “Abkhazia’s archive: fire of war, ashes of history” [20 October 2006]). The lesson of the short war of August 2008 is that their Abkhazian and South Ossetian voices must be heard and their own choices must be included in any decisions about their future if the cycle of conflict – of which 1918-21 and 1991-93 are but two episodes – is going to be broken rather than repeated.

continues http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/abkhazia-and-south-ossetia-heart-of-conflict-key-to-solution

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or this one

The embers of the five-day war between Georgia and Russia of 8-12 August 2008 are not quite extinguished, but the ceasefire agreement skilfully negotiated by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and agreed with his counterparts Dmitri Medvedev (Russia) and Mikheil Saakashvili (Georgia) gives hope for an end to this intense, destructive and tragic conflict.

Donald Rayfield is emeritus professor of the school of modern languages, Queen Mary University of London. Among his books is Stalin and his Hangmen (Random House, 2005), which has appeared in five other languages. He is editor-in-chief of the Comprehensive Georgian-English Dictionary (Garnett Press, 2006), a work of 1,440,000 entries and nearly 1,800 pages in two volumes

Also by Donald Rayfield in openDemocracy:

“Georgia and Russia: with you, without you” (3 October 2006)

“Russia vs Georgia: a war of perceptions” (24 August 2007)

More broadly, when the citizens displaced and wounded by the war have been able to regain a modicum of security and humanitarian relief in rebuilding their shattered lives, the space must be made for a thoroughgoing investigation into its background, causes and lessons. It may be appropriate at this early stage to offer some preliminary notes to this larger project.

Much of the media reporting of the “short and nasty war” has been strong and detailed, with a good dose of scepticism in questioning the tendentious (and often downright mendacious) versions of events relayed by Russian and Georgians spokespersons alike. This is in contrast to the lack of attention among commentators to the essential task of exploring the roots of the conflict; indeed, a lot of the opinion-flood persists in ignoring completely the local and regional factors in favour of an instant resort to high geopolitics, as if South Ossetia and Abkhazia – which lie at the heart of what has happened – do not in themselves even exist.

continues: http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/the-georgia-russia-conflict-lost-territory-found-nation

Russian parliament calls on Russia’s president and international community to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia

This seemed an unlikely thing to happen even several weeks ago. However, as it is evident now, conflict has its own dynamic, that is difficult to foresee.

I argued that the undefined status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia suited Russia best and that therefore Russians would try to retain it for as long as possible.

I think, this is still true, but the problem is Georgia and the US for some reason did not want the situation to stay unresolved. So the logic of loggerhead competition made Russia to decide that it should affirm its presence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia before it is pressed out from the region by diplomatic means.

It is clearly US diplomacy failure as they allowed Saakashvili to hijack US interests in the region and now America will have to stand by and various things that will further aggravate the situation, but are unlikely to improve America’s image either in the Caucasus or beyond. Everyone seems to be destined for losses in this conflict. I hope, major powers will be sensible enough to deescalate the situation and will not allow their respective military to correct diplomacy mistakes.

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How the Georgian War Began

My former journalist colleagues has tried to investigate the issue – who started and provided an interesting, though contradictory picture of what was going on.

With the Caucasus still reeling from the disaster caused by the war that erupted over South Ossetia, questions are being asked as to how the conflict started on the night of August 7-8.

Everyone agrees that the Georgian army launched an attack at 11.30 pm that night. The key question is to what degree the Georgians were facing a direct threat. Government officials say that they had been confronted by unacceptable provocation in the form of attacks on Georgian villages in South Ossetia and a Russian military build-up on the other side of the mountains and had no choice but to act as they did. They say they then came up against massive Russian aggression.

“How could we have prevented the hostilities, after Russia clearly decided to start a war?” Georgian state minister for reintegration and Tbilisi’s chief negotiator over South Ossetia Temuri Yakobashvili told IWPR.

For their part, the Ossetians and Russians say the Georgian operation was a cynically planned attack to recapture South Ossetia only hours after President Mikheil Saakashvili had lulled Ossetians by announcing a ceasefire and promising them “unlimited autonomy”.

Aelita Jioyeva left Tskhinvali on August 7 a few hours before the fighting began.

“Of course, the situation was tense before that and a lot of people had decided to leave,” she said. “But no one thought that they would attack us so unexpectedly, at night, when everyone was asleep and when the Olympic Games were opening in another part of the world. It was such a horrible thing they did.”

continues here http://iwpr.net/?p=crs&s=f&o=346346&apc_state=henh

Protests highlight Georgia splits | Video | Reuters.com

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London Symphony Orchestra conductor performs in war-torn Tskhinvali

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The fact that none of the “free media” condescended to report on maestro Valery Gergiev’s concert in South Ossetia 21 August is another indicator of the freedom of the media in the free world. So if even freedom of the free is so unfree, how unfree should be freedom in the non-free world. Instead of setting an example of unbiased reporting, western media, in particular American media, have shown exceptionally slanted and mean reporting of the conflict in South Ossetia.

There was though some reporting on this concert in the Times:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4579829.ece

The Principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra will lead a defiant performance from the shattered steps of the South Ossetian parliament tonight celebrating Russia as the saviour of its citizens.

Valery Gergiev, an ethnic Ossetian who has been an outspoken critic of Georgia’s action during the conflict, will conduct the Mariinsky Theatre of St Petersburg in a performance that is expected to feature Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, as guest of honour.

Mr Gergiev has close personal ties to Mr Putin – they are godfather to each others’ children – and in May the Russian Prime Minister awarded the Order for Service to the conductor.

Washington Post’s naive reporting

It is an interesting piece of overlapping reporting in the paper Express, that is published by Washington Post. The title and the article itself says about Georgians been attacked by Russia, while the photograph depicts, according to the caption refugees from South Ossetia, supposedly the aggressors’ side.

Failure of old-fashioned world powers lead to easily avoidable bloodshed

I submitted this piece for publication as an op-ed article 9 August, but it was not accepted for publication. So I thought, it would be good idea to publish it at least in my blog, once I spent some time writing it.

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Following its three consecutive meetings Thursday 7 August, Friday 8 August and Saturday 9 August UN Security Council failed to take action even as simple as calling on all sides to stop fighting in South Ossetia. It is universally acknowledged, that Georgia is normally easily controlled by Washington and South Ossetia by Moscow. New polarization of the world powers apparently prevents them from taking decisive action – some of them seem to be eager to win what could be described almost as an all-out war either directly or through their proxies. The direct result of this polarization is more senseless deaths of humans, which take us back to the bad old days of the Cold War. This time, of course, it does not bear ideological divides, lack of flow of information, restrictions on movement of people and capital etc. Yet it is just as horrible to allow to kill people when you have the power to stop fighting in the matter of minutes.
Hostilities started 1 of August with exchanges of fire between the Georgian and South Ossetian forces. This gradually led Georgian president “to take measures to install law and peace to protect safety of the people, living in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone”. This euphemism is strikingly similar to those that Russian officials used in their own time, when they were suppressing Chechen resistance in the Russian North Caucasus, with large scale military offense, habitually sparing no civilians. So I wonder, is the West promoting another kind of Chechnya, when it calls on Russians to withdraw from South Ossetia?
It is obvious to any observer, that South Ossetia, as well, as other Georgian breakaway territory of Abkhazia, has been used by Russia to meddle in Georgian affairs. This includes ardent wish of Russians not to allow Georgia to enter NATO and progress toward other western institutions. Bearing in mind, that Russia is enormously more powerful, than Georgia, a progressive democratic person quickly fills in the remaining of a picture of democratic, freedom-loving Georgians being abused by authoritarian Russia. This perhaps is not far from truth, but there is also another true, that other nation, Ossetians, who are far smaller than Georgians and not less vulnerable being constantly attacked by this democratic and freedom loving folk.
Since Georgian president Mikheil Saakashivili came to power after the rose revolution in 2003, the country has made significant advances in fighting corruption, increasing transparency of government institutions, economic development. However, one only can regret, when president Saakashivili supplies with manifest lies the world community, when speaking on CNN and BBC. In particular he says, Georgia had no choice, but advance on the rebel separatists. I am afraid, he quite consciously made this choice of going to war with separatist forces, backed by Russia. Mr Saakashvili consciously chose his blunt rhetoric and hoped it would be shouldered not by Georgia, but by the US.
Present conflict between South Ossetians and Georgians goes back to the last days of Soviet Union at the end of 1980s. Initially there were two episodes in which Russian army left South Ossetia defenseless before Georgians and this is still remembered by Ossetians. However, at the end Russia brokered peace agreement in 1992 following a massacre of Ossetian refugees, that were killed on their way to North Ossetia, that is adjacent to South Ossetia and part of Russia.
Feeble peace process was interrupted in 2004 when the new energetic Georgian president Saakashvili decided to “unfreeze” frozen conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Persistent tensions that have been in place since then led to a full scale war at the end in 2008. Georgian president certainly succeeded in letting destructive forces loose, but it is unclear, whether this will lead to a more stable peace and how many people will die in order to achieve it.

Persecutions of journalists in North Caucasus continue

Ingush website http://ingushetiya.ru/news/15045.html reported that its editor had to leave Russia because of political persecutions. The website has been the only source of first hand information about the events in volatile republic of Ingushetia. Almost every day news come from Ingushetia about killings of civilians and law-enforcements people. The conflict is mainly caused by colonial policies Russian authorities excercise in the region and unwillingness of the Ingush people to accept it.

The editor of the website Rosa Malsagova presemably fled to a European country with her three children and intends ask for assylum there.

The website is now trying to replace the editor with someone else.