Georgians demand to know the reasons why

WHILE we were asking questions about the war in Georgia, and how much the British government knew, in this column yesterday, columns of Georgians were marching through their capital Tbilisi, demanding answers from their government.

As many as 20,000 people took part in the demonstration, according to today's Morning Star. They rallied outside parliament before marching to the presidential residence a mile away. Besides explanations for the war last Summer, they called for greater press freedom, and early parliamentary elections.

A report in the New York Times yesterday said independent monitors working for the OSCE had reported that
Georgian government forces started the escalation into all-out conflict in August , breaking a ceasefire with South Ossetian rebels by launching indiscriminate rocket fire on the South Ossetian's capital. Russian forces supporting the Ossetians responded with an invasion, easily pushing back the Georgian army in both Ossetia and Abkhazia, its other rebel province. Many civilians on both sides were killed or saw their homes destroyed, and refugees fled in both directions.

British ad US governments have praised Georgia's President Saskashvili as a democrat, and promised to bring Georgia into NATO. But it seems many Georgians are questioning their government's path.

Speaking for the United Opposition which organised yesterday's demonstration in Tbiisi, Eka Beselia said: "We are demanding early presidential and parliamentary elections in the Spring, election legislation reforms, media feredom and the freeing of political prisoners". (Morning Star, November 8, 2008).

Reluctant as I was to take the Star's report as last word, I checked what the Guardian and Independent had to say, but they don't seem to have covered the Georgian protest. However it was reported in the New York Times, which found some of the protesters not as patient as the opposition leaders:

'Some of the demonstrators were disappointed in calls to wait, saying they would like Mr. Saakashvili and his team to be removed from power immediately, lest they provoke renewed fighting with Russia.

“Saakashvili should go right now,” said Eka Jipashvili, a protester. “We need a new government that will be able to negotiate with Russia and will not worry us with ideas of new war.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/world/europe/08georgia.html

Hopefully as well as our politicians letting us in on what they know, we will hear more about this side of things, and what ordinary Georgians have to say, from our mainstream media. Or is that too much to expect?

Was Georgia on their mind?

WHILE we wait to see just how much change Barack Obama is really going to deliver, and whether his administration will try to extract America from two wars, what looked dangerously like kicking off a third, and potentially biggest conflict is coming under critical light. Military observers employed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe,(OSCE) have made a report which discounts the Georgian government's line that it was the innocent victim of Russian aggression.

The observers say the Georgian military attacked Tskhinvali , the capital of the breakaway South Ossetia region on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.

Georgian president Mikhail Saskashvili had claimed the attack was a precise and defensive action to prevent Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages. At other times official Georgian spokespersons variously claimed their forces were acting to restore order, or to halt a Russian invasion.

American and British governments and politicians like Tory David Cameron rallied to Georgia's side and condemned Russian intervention. Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Georgia's membership of NATO was on track.

The O.S. C.E monitors, whose evidence is reported in today's New York Times, confirm what we even saw on TV, when Georgian forces used multiple rocket launchers to assault the South Ossetian capital. They record that on the night of August 7 and 8, Georgian artillery rounds and rockets were falling throughout the city at intervals of 15 to 20 seconds between explosions. Within the first hour of the bombardment at least 48 rounds landed in a civilian area. The monitors have also said they were unable to verify that ethnic Georgian villages were under heavy bombardment that evening, calling to question one of Mr. Saakashvili’s main justifications for the attack.

Georgian deputy Foreign minister Giga Bekeria has urged Western governments to disregard the OSCE report. “That information, I don’t know what it is and how it is confirmed,” he said. “There is such an amount of evidence of continuous attacks on Georgian-controlled villages and so much evidence of Russian military buildup, it doesn’t change in any case the general picture of events.”

He added: “Who was counting those explosions? It sounds a bit peculiar.”

Russia's deputy foreign minister Grigory Karasin, on the other hand, says the report reflects "the actual course of events prior to Georgia’s aggression.” He added that the accounts “refute” allegations by Tbilisi of bombardments that he called mythical.

The O.S.C.E. is an organization with 56 member states, and eperience in many conflict zones. Its observers have been monitoring the Georgian conflicts since a previous cease-fire agreement in the 1990s. The monitors, including a Finnish major, a Belarussian airborne captain and a Polish civilian, have submitted material in two confidential briefings to diplomats in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, one in August and the other in October.

Georgia's attack backfired, bringing the Russian invasion it was supposed to stop, with heavy damage to Georgian cities, and ethnic cleansing of Georgian villages by Ossetian, Chechen and Cossack irregulars. Saakashvili compared Russia’s incursion the Nazi annexations in Europe in 1938 and the Soviet suppression of Prague in 1968, but he faces unease among Georgians who asked why their government was so reckless, and skepticism from some of Georgia's allies.

cording to the monitors, an O.S.C.E. patrol at 3 p.m. on Aug. 7 saw large numbers of Georgian artillery and grad rocket launchers massing on roads north of Gori, just south of the enclave.At 6:10 p.m., the monitors were told by Russian peacekeepers of suspected Georgian artillery fire on Khetagurovo, an Ossetian village; this report was not independently confirmed, and Georgia declared a unilateral cease-fire shortly thereafter, about 7 p.m. During a news broadcast that began at 11 p.m., Georgia announced that Georgian villages were being shelled, and declared an operation “to restore constitutional order” in South Ossetia. The bombardment of Tskhinvali started soon after the broadcast.

According to the monitors, however, no shelling of Georgian villages could be heard in the hours before the Georgian bombardment. At least two of the four villages that Georgia has since said were under fire were near the observers’ office in Tskhinvali, and the monitors there likely would have heard artillery fire nearby.

Moreover, the observers made a record of the rounds exploding after Georgia’s bombardment began at 11:35 p.m. At 11:45 p.m., rounds were exploding at intervals of 15 to 20 seconds between impacts, they noted.At 12:15 a.m. on Aug. 8, Gen. Maj. Marat M. Kulakhmetov, commander of Russian peacekeepers in the enclave, reported to the monitors that his unit had casualties, indicating that Russian soldiers had come under fire.

By 12:35 a.m. the observers had recorded at least 100 heavy rounds exploding across Tskhinvali, including 48 close to the observers’ office, which is in a civilian area and was damaged.

Georgian officials told Western diplomats that Ossetians had weapons in civilian buildings, making them legitimate targets. Bush administration officials went along with this.“The Georgians have been quite clear that they were shelling targets — the mayor’s office, police headquarters — that had been used for military purposes,” said Matthew J. Bryza, a deputy assistant US secretary of state.

The New York Times says the Georgian official story was disputed by Ryan Grist, a former British Army captain who was the senior O.S.C.E. representative in Georgia when the war broke out. Mr. Grist said that he was in constant contact that night with all sides, with the office in Tskhinvali and with Wing Commander Stephen Young, the retired British military officer who leads the monitoring team.

“It was clear to me that the attack was completely indiscriminate and disproportionate to any, if indeed there had been any, provocation,” Mr. Grist said. “The attack was clearly, in my mind, an indiscriminate attack on the town, as a town.”

Ryan Grist has served as a military officer or diplomat in Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Kosovo and Yugoslavia. "In August, after the Georgian foreign minister, Eka Tkeshelashvili, who has no military experience, assured diplomats in Tbilisi that the attack was measured and discriminate, Mr. Grist gave a briefing to diplomats from the European Union that drew from the monitors’ observations and included his assessments. He then soon resigned under unclear circumstances.

"A second briefing was led by Commander Young in October for military attachés visiting Georgia. At the meeting, according to a person in attendance, Commander Young stood by the monitors’ assessment that Georgian villages had not been extensively shelled on the evening or night of Aug. 7. 'If there had been heavy shelling in areas that Georgia claimed were shelled, then our people would have heard it, and they didn’t,'Commander Young said, according to the person who attended. 'They heard only occasional small-arms fire.'

Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/world/europe/07georgia.html

Both American and Israeli military advisers were in Georgia before the August attack. Did their presence encourage the Georgian commanders to think they could launch a successful attack? Was the Georgian government led to believe it could count on Western backing? Was the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office aware of the OSCE monitors report, including the views of British officers, when David Miliband said that Georgia's NATO membership could go ahead? How much does the FCO know about the resignation of Ryan Grist?

Georgia: lives and homes destroyed, for economic power and political ambitions

SHEVARNADZE, former Georgian president, ducks camera when arriving at Chatham House for British Foreign Office-sponsored talks, February 10 1995.

WHATEVER historical and legal claim Georgia has to South Ossetia, the Georgian government destroyed its moral claim on the night of August 7, by launching a military offensive with little or no regard for the lives of civilians whom it claims as its own citizens.

The fighting began not long after it had concluded a truce with the South Ossetian separatist leadership to end local street fighting that had broken out earlier that week.

Multiple rocket-launchers, like those used in World War II to break up advancing tank formations, opened up from forest cover, firing rapid salvoes into built-up, populated areas. Evidently the Georgian government thought it could get away with this, letting them be shown on TV.

South Ossetians alleged that Georgian attack planes had bombed civilian targets. Then the tanks moved in.

Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili went on television to boast about what he was doing, declaring that Georgia was re-taking its rightful territory. “Most of South Ossetian territory has been liberated and is under Georgian control,” he said.

Note that he talks about "liberating" territory, not people. While South Ossetian militias fought on with grenade launchers against his tanks, the people were fleeing in thousands from their blitzed towns, heading north. This is what the US president and Western media keep telling us is an elected leader defending "democracy".

The stimulation of a refugee flight may have been deliberate, not just for long term aims of ethnic cleansing but the more immediate purpose of clogging roads and the border tunnel with people and cars that would be in the path of a Russian advance. Saakashvili - who incidentally, promised to "normalise relations with Russia" when he was elected - . must have known the Russians were bound to intervene on the side of the Ossetians, whose separatist movement they encouraged. (North Ossetia, across the mountains, is within the Russian Federation, so the border cuts the people in two). Indeed he may have counted on Russian involvement to bring the United States and its allies out on Georgia's side. Russia has alleged that Georgian forces launched a surprise attack on Russian 'peacekeepers' before the Russian army proper decided to move in.

Georgia was already in receipt of massive US military aid before. It is of strategic value as a NATO applicant on Russia's southern flank, and as the pipeline route for Caspian oil that bypasses both Russia and Iran. Since the break up of the Soviet Union, Western oil companies have not just moved back into Baku but invested heavily in developing offshore oilfields. Already when ex-Communist Party president Shevarnadze was running Georgia he was backed against the separatists, before America switched to the privatising Saakashvili as its man. With 70 per cent of Georgia's budget going on defence spending, and opportunities for arms suppliers and private military contractors, it is patriotism with a dividend, the kind of "democracy" in which they like to invest.

With the United States in economic crisis, and an election year, George W.Bush and his backers may not be averse to a war crisis to bolster their position, and Britain's Brown and Milliband as usual are behind the US.
As for Tory leader David Cameron, his rush to Tbilisi, and promise to be like Margaret Thatcher (remember the Falklands/Malvinas) show that our politicians see beating the war drums as a boost tom their careers.
NATO is in a quandary however. If it wants to sell protection it must show willingness to protect. But taking on Russia is not the same as bombing Serbia, or invading Iraq (which itself has proved a quagmire). Besides, Georgia was supposed to settle its disputes and ethnic conflict to qualify for membership, not to make them worse. France and Germany are questioning US wisdom, other states may wonder whether joining NATO brings more danger rather than less.

We have seen Georgians angry at what they see as adventurism and stupidity by their own government. We may yet see the British public showing unrest - and who knows, finding MPs willing to question what Brown and Cameron might be dragging us into.

Not that Russian behaviour, or that of the South Ossetian separatists, merits oir support. Russian planes and tanks also appear to have hit civilian targets, and taken the opportunity to do as much damage to Georgia as they could. Georgian refugees have fled the Russian offensive, and have been attacked by Ossetians pursuing their own ethnic terror or simply out for loot.

As always, it is the innocent, ordinary people on both sides who suffer, and have nothing to gain from this war. That is something people here can recognise, and it is important that we don't lose sight of human sympathies even as we apportion blame on governments and challenge our own rulers most of all. The other night there was a public meeting in London called by the Stop the War Coalition, with Kate Hudson from CND, John Rees of Stop the War and SWP, Oxford academic Mark Almond, and Russian socialist Boris Kagarlitzky. I didn't go, but I have been listening to the last two speakers recorded on video,. and they made some good points.

Yet somehow in the Oxford man's cynicism and the Russian's giggles I sensed a lack of seriousness, a lack of concern, beyond swapping figures, for those who have lost loved ones, and homes, and been turned into refugees. Was there some kind of insulation as defence-mechanism? The amount of background laughter and humour flowing between audience and speakers was greater than I've heard on Saturday nights at comedy clubs. It sounds like a good time was had by all, and maybe that was deliberate. But I found it shocking when I thought of those weeping people by the roadsides, who have lost everything, and didn't know where to go. If the anti-war movement wants to regain a hearing among the mass of people, beyond the 'usual suspects' (some highly suspect) it needs to clean up its act. And we do need an effective anti-war movement.


http://www.iwpr.net/?p=crs&s=f&o=346186&apc_state=henpcrs


http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php? option=com_content&task=view&id=705&Itemid=1

As we go marching through Georgia? A WAR TOO FAR

"SO who would you support in this lot?", asked the man in the pub, a couple of days ago, excited at the sound of katyushas being fired in Georgia. I confessed I didn't know. Maybe I should have asked which side he favoured so I could take the opposite. I'd already gathered his views were reactionary on most subjects, and that he wasn't used to being contradicted.

On the other hand, judging from the glee on his face he might not have cared who was winning so long as there was killing. It reminded me of the time I saw a National Front supporter over the moon about news from Lebanon, having heard before I did of the massacres at Sabra and Shatila.

What had happened in Georgia and South Ossetia was not so clear, in terms of taking sides, though a friend and fellow-trade unionist was arguing yesterday that Georgia was a sovereign state defending its territory against Russian aggression. On the other hand I was not clear how his defence of the right of small nations to self-determination might apply to south Ossetia. Nor was I attracted last night by an invitation to join a Facebook group called "Europeans for Georgia

What did become clear yesterday was that the Russians decided to attack after Georgia had sent its tanks into the breakaway region, and that in bombing what might have been military targets they had managed to kill large numbers of innocent civilians. What also got mentioned was that, as I thought, a strategic oil and gas pipeline runs south through this region, avoiding Russian territory; and Georgia has applied to join NATO.

President George W.Bush denounced the Russians for bombing a sovereign state and killing civilians. Quite right. Who do they think they are, Americans?

On TV news a Georgian woman whose home had been bombed said her government had been stupid to provoke the Russians. It was reported that Georgia was having to bring troops home from Iraq, and today we heard they were withdrawing from South Ossetia. So who encouraged them to go in so recklessly?

With US and Israeli politicians and generals training their sights on Iran, and US forces already bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, you'd think they had enough on their plate, without getting involved in the Caucasus. But controversial Swiss-based Israeli journalist Shraga Elam thinks different.

"There is an obvious Israeli involvement in the present conflict between Georgia and Russia.," he says. "There are hundreds of Israeli military advisers in Georgia ..." We need not take his word alone. He quotes sources like military expert Yossi Melman in the daily Ha'aretz:

"Melman wrote on 25.6.2008 that Georgia became a real El Dorado for Israeli arms dealers and numerous representatives of the army and intelligence services. Some former generals like Israel Ziv and Gal Hirsh (with his company Defensive Shield) are very active there.

"Gal Hirsh and Israel Ziv are mainly training and consulting Georgian arm units. They are using the 'chain' method common among Israeli arm dealers: a main contractor wins a tender and employs then sub-contractors, in this case Israeli officers and former Shin Beth employees," wrote Melman.

According to him there was a project to sell Merkava tanks to Georgia, but allegedly the Israeli foreign ministry prevented the deal and a policy was outlined that only defensive weapons are allowed to be sold.

Just the same Russia protested agains the Israeli military support to Georgia after an Israeli produced UAV was shot down. On August 5 Israel reiterated its official policy that it allegedly sells only defensive and not offensive weapon systems to Georgia.

The daily Ma¹ariv points out that the Georgian defense
minister, David Kezerashvili, lived for a while in Israel and speaks Hebrew. It estimates military exports to Georgia as worth at least USD 300 million. An Israeli marketing expert told MaŒariv: "To every Israeli agent representing an Israeli defense company is attached a cousin of the defense minister, who opens the doors for him."

An Israeli website called News First Class (NFC) confirms the massive presence of Israeli advisers in Georgia and writes: "The Israeli military industries upgraded in recent years the Georgian air force, sold unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), advanced artillery systems and trained infantry units." (9.8)

Israel may have to consider whether arming Georgia is good or bad for it as it tries to persuade the Russians not to sell their advanced anti-aircraft missile system S-300 to Iran and Syria.

The Israeli website DebkaFile, which is inclined to sensational and conspiracy theory estimates that up to 1,000 Israeli advisers are active in planning and implementing the present Georgian military action That is more than giving "advice". But we remember how "advisers" began US involvment in Vietnam. Nowadays, in Georgia they may be called "consultants", and as in Iraq, be classed as "civilians".

Sharaga Elam notes that according to Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman, there are 127 U.S. military trainers there, of whom about 35 are civilian contractors.

"In addition to the trainers, 1,000 soldiers from the Vicenza, Italy-based Southern European Task Force (Airborne) and the Kaiserslautern-based 21st Theater Sustainment Command, along with Marine reservists with the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines out of Ohio, and the state of Georgia¹s Army National Guard¹s 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry participated in 'Immediate Response 2008'."

"Operation Immediate Response 2008 was held from July 15-July 30, with U.S. personnel training about 600 troops at a former Soviet base near Tbilisi, the largest city and capital of Georgia. The goal of this operation was allegedly teaching combat skills for missions in Iraq.
The Marines left the country already, but not the airmen.

Shraga Elam wites that "It is obvious that there are numerous Israeli and U.S. interests in Georgia and it is highly likely that they are behind the dangerous Georgian move".

I'm not so sure it is obvious why the Israelis should want to get involved in a war so far from their occupation frontline, or risk taking on Russia on top of spearheading a war on Iran. But it is obvious that some interests may be doing well for themselves from the Caucasus conflict, and they could have more influence on the present Israeli regime than the kind of reasonable Israelis that we know.

Especially if the rich uncle in Washington has given a wink of encouragement, along with the promise of benefits from that trans-Caucusu pipeline.

Meanwhile, "military intelligence" being as some say, a "contradiction in terms", it seems some US generals finding their forces in a mess are looking to dig further in, judging from two items spotted by the Information Clearing House(ICH):

Manufacturing Consent For An Attack On Pakistan:
Afghanistan accusing Pakistan of aiding insurgents

US commander in Afghanistan Thursday publicly accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate of "some complicity" over time with militant groups fomenting violence in Afghanistan.
http://geo.tv/8-8-2008/22163.htm


U.S. weighs pursuing militants into Pakistan:

Top Bush administration officials are urging the president to direct U.S. troops in Afghanistan to be more aggressive in pursuing militants into Pakistan on foot as part of a proposed radical shift in its regional counterterrorism strategy, The Associated Press has learned.
http://tinyurl.com/62q9ah

Having so long regarded Pakistan as a useful base and ally, used it as hinterland for mojahiddin fighting the Russians in Afghanistan, encouraged the Saudi-funded Taliban as a weight against Iran, and assisted the Pakistan military to acquire nuclear weapons, is the US about to turn on Pakistan?

One of the bombings was of an Indian consulate, and in the past Pakistan intelligence has been implicated in bombings in India. Now that US government no longer regards India as unfriendly, could it use such provocations to draw South Asia's other nuclear power into a horrific war?

It sounds mad. But with US economy, as well as foreign policy, in desperate straits, I would not put anything beyond the neo-cons and Bush's circle.

Like Munch's "Cry" painted before the First World War, that weeping Georgian woman whose neighbours had been killed by the madness of politicians may come to be a symbol of the warnings we should have heard.