InternationalWar returns to the Caucasus as Georgia and Russia face off
Published: Saturday August 23, 2008
The border crossing at Zhdanovakan-Bavra, one of three land crossings between Armenia and Georgia, is seeing lines of unprecedented length. In recent days, the U.S.-trained Georgian forces have been defeated and since fled from the superior Russian armed forces.
Javakheti-Armenians insist that this is not their war, just as they did not relate to the 1991-92 Georgian-South Ossetian war and the 1992-93 Georgian-Abkhazian war, after which Tbilisi lost control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, both of which enjoyed Russia's support. Georgia has now tried and failed to reverse by military force its painful loss of South Ossetia.
Seven-year-old Davit and his family's older members watch the images broadcast on Georgian television. Davit says he too would fight against the Georgians. Such a statement, coming from a second grader in the Russian school of Ninotsminda, should not take us by surprise. In Javakheti, public opinion is highly opposed to war, and ethnic Armenians here overwhelmingly blame President Mikheil Saakashvili - who claimed to have received over three-quarters of the vote in the Armenian-populated areas of Georgia in the presidential elections held in January - for the war, in which several hundred people, most of them South Ossetian civilians and Georgian army soldiers, have been killed.
On August 12 Mr. Saakashvili was in Tbilisi's historically Armenian-populated neighborhood of Havlabar for services at the Georgian Holy Trinity Church presided over by Ilia II, the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia. Patriarch Ilia prayed for the salvation and future of Georgia and the Georgian people, who are living through the most difficult times. The large candle he held in his hand emphasized the strained features of Mr. Saakashvili's face. A few hours before visiting the church, the president delivered a heartrending and nervous speech before thousands of citizens gathered on Rustaveli Street in front of Parliament. The citizens were calling on the Russians to end the fighting.
Mr. Saakashvili could barely contain his emotions and tears, but he promised the crying Georgian women gathered on Rustaveli Street that Georgia would not come to its knees before Russian aggression. "Georgia has decided to leave the Commonwealth of Independent States. We must bid the Soviet Union a final farewell. The Soviet Union will never return here," Mr. Saakashvili said. He called on other post-Soviet states to leave the CIS as well; none so far said they would follow Georgia, though.
The Russians "will pay a high price" for aggression, he promised. "Georgia will never surrender. We have decided to declare the Russian forces stationed in Abkhazia and South Ossetia occupying forces. We have also decided to withdraw Russia's peacekeeping mandate and declare Abkhazia and South Ossetia occupied Georgian territories," he said.
Mr. Saakashvili's statements and what all Georgian television stations showed - "Russians end the aggression," "Putin, go home," followed by patriotic songs - are but one side of this tragic story. The Georgian population for now does not see the other side, because Russian television programming has been cut off in Georgia. That programming speaks only of "Georgian vandalism," "prosecuting Saakashvili and others for war crimes," and the "massacre that Saakashvili's regime has carried out in Tskhinvali."
Mr. Saakashvili's desire to resolve the South Ossetian problem by military means became an opportunity for a new Georgian-South Ossetian war, which after a few hours turned into a Russian intervention. Not only did the Russian forces expel the Georgians from the military positions they held before August 8, but, after Georgian forces fled, they raided the town of Gori, some 50 miles from Tbilisi, as well as Zugdidi, Senaki, and the port of Poti in the west of Georgia, where they destroyed Georgian military bases; bombs fell on Turkish-built Marneuli air base, 15 miles from the Armenian border, and other Georgian military targets.
Today, the Russian army could march to any part of Georgia within a matter of hours, but under pressure of Western protests its leadership announced on August 13 that it has ended military operations designed, as it says, to force Georgia to peace.
On August 12, President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia and President Nicholas Sarkozy of France presented a six-point cease-fire plan under which the sides would not use force, all military operations would stop, humanitarian aid would be allowed safe passage, Georgian forces would not return to either Abkhazia or South Ossetia, and Russian forces would remain as peacekeepers in both areas until a possible internationalization.
The sixth point of the plan suggested that the future political status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia must be determined. Mr. Sarkozy proceeded from Moscow to Tbilisi, where Mr. Saakashvili managed to have that last point removed. Until recently most of the international community supported Georgia's claims on both breakaway states; now, following the failed Georgian attack, that claim is increasingly in doubt.
Armenians in destroyed Tskhinvali
I have been in South Ossetia many times, most recently in 2005. I have avoided the unrecognized republic since then because the Georgian authorities arrest and hold criminally responsible those foreign citizens who enter Georgia with entrance or exit stamps from South Ossetia or Abkhazia. Georgian armed forces, according to Russian and international news media, have almost entirely destroyed the South Ossetian capital city of Tskhinvali, which is where most Armenians in the unrecognized republic lived. So far, no information about those Armenians has been made available.
Long part of the Georgian kingdom, Tskhinvali had at one time a majority Armenian population. In 1801, when Georgia lost its independence to Czarist Russia, the wife of King Heracles II of Georgia sold Tskhinvali to wealthy Armenians. Armenians had settled in Tskhinvali earlier, in the 16th and 17th centuries. By 1725, the well-off Armenians of Tskhinvali had built an Armenian church, which has since been taken over first by the Georgians then by the Ossetians. I have been in that church a few times. In its architectural appearance, it is a genuine Armenian church. According to local Armenians, until recently it had Armenian inscriptions in it. It was built by Armenians bearing the name of Muradov. Many Armenian families bearing the name of Muradov also lived in Gori, the birthplace of Stalin, which bore a large share of Russian aerial bombing this week.
