One year on, each side is still blaming the other for the five-day war over the breakaway region of South Ossetia, writes DANIEL McLOUGHLINin Tbilisi
EUROPEAN UNION monitors in Georgia have intensified their patrols ahead of today’s anniversary of its war with Russia, which a controversial Georgian government report blamed yesterday on a long-planned and unprovoked invasion by Moscow’s forces.
Tension has risen in recent days along the de facto border between Georgia and the Russian-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia, with both sides accusing each other of gun and mortar attacks as they prepared to commemorate the start of last year’s five-day war.
The EU mission, which comprises almost 250 monitors and includes five Irish members, patrols Georgia’s disputed boundaries with South Ossetia and another separatist province, Abkhazia.
Russia, which along with Nicaragua is the only country to recognise the two regions’ declarations of independence, refuses to allow the monitors into either region, and they are guarded by Russian troops and its FSB domestic security service.
“In recognition of the sensitivity of the current period, the EU monitoring mission has intensified its patrolling,” the mission said in a statement. “Our patrols are working day and night to monitor the situation on the ground, with the aim of maintaining security and stability.
“So far, despite the heightened tension and claims of incidents, the overall situation remains broadly calm. We very much trust that all parties will continue their efforts to maintain this position.”
Predictions of a surge in violence have been fuelled by Russia’s decision to put its troops in South Ossetia on heightened alert and by a warning from Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili that renewed fighting between the two former Soviet states was possible.
Telephone conversations between US president Barack Obama and Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, and between Mr Saakashvili and US vice-president Joe Biden, helped to calm the situation, but there are still fears of clashes as emotions run high in the days ahead.
“As a military man, I will be forthright: if there is an act of aggression, there will be an adequate response,” said Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of Russia’s general staff.
“Today we do not see any [Georgian] ability to launch such aggression and the political situation has radically changed. Not to understand this and continue acting according to the old schemes is just suicidal.”
The secretary of Georgia’s National Security Council, Eka Tkeshelashvili, denounced Moscow for propagating “a myth of Georgia’s aggression and aggressive rearmament” and insisted that its military activity was being fully monitored by the EU observers. “Any military base, any police station, any movement of our military or even police forces at any time without prior notification can be monitored and can be observed and assessed by the mission,” she said.
As the two countries prepared to commemorate the start of the war, they traded accusations yesterday over who started it.
“On August 7th, 2008, Russian armed forces . . . launched a massive, co-ordinated, and – given the scale of the enterprise – premeditated assault on Georgia,” Tbilisi’s report found.
“The Georgian government concluded that it had been left with no choice but to order military action to counter what was rapidly becoming an invasion – with aims that went far beyond a dispute over two Georgian territories.”
The report claimed that some 150 Russian tanks and armoured vehicles entered the Roki Tunnel leading to South Ossetia in the early hours of August 7th and, amid rebel artillery attacks on Georgian villages in the region and evidence of further Russian troop movements, Mr Saakashvili ordered the start of a “defensive operation” at 11.35pm that evening.
Washington and the EU criticised both sides for the fighting, while Georgian opposition parties blame Mr Saakashvili for the conflict.
“We don’t trust such reports, there’s never been an independent commission on the war,” said one opposition leader, Kakha Kukava. Moscow insists its troops only entered South Ossetia on August 8th to put a stop to Georgia’s indiscriminate shelling of the region and repulse Mr Saakashvili’s attempt to retake control of it by force.
Russia’s foreign ministry said yesterday that the Georgian assault was “a pre-planned criminal act” by leaders who “chose to shoot to pieces their country’s territorial integrity with Grad [rocket launcher] systems and this put paid to the restoration of inter-ethnic co-existence with neighbouring nationalities.
“Massive arms supplies from abroad in recent years created in the Georgian leadership an illusion of impunity and freedom to act, and engendered the temptation to solve its problems by military means,” the ministry added. Russia has this week accused the US and Ukraine of seeking to re-arm Georgia.
The planned events to commemorate the war are unlikely to ease the tension.
Georgian and Russian television are awash with programmes honouring the heroism of their country’s troops and demonising the enemy.
Georgia’s official events were due to begin at midnight last night, with the lighting of a memorial bonfire at the medieval fortress in the town of Gori – birthplace of Josef Stalin – which was heavily bombed and occupied by Russian forces last year.
South Ossetia will launch its own commemorations tonight and plans to open a genocide museum over the weekend to bolster its claim that Georgia sought to eradicate its people.
Ahead of the anniversary, Georgian paramilitary police units along the disputed border with South Ossetia said they were prepared for any trouble.
“We’ve seen no intensification of problems here yet,” said Maj Kakha Zurabashvili at the remote Sakorinklo checkpoint, “but we are ready for anything. One hundred per cent.”