AFP/GETTY IMAGES
James Morrison

Washington Times
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
DC

As Russian troops raged through Georgia, the country’s tiny diplomatic
corps in Washington mounted a round-the-clock offensive to tell
Georgia’s side of the story to administration officials, congressional
contacts and journalists.

"The embassy has been working 24 hours a day," Tamta Kupradze,
the political officer, told Embassy Row on Tuesday. "We’ve made
phone calls, held meetings, contacted the media to counter Russian
propaganda."

Georgian Ambassador Vasil Sikharulidze, who is also Georgia’s envoy
to Canada, gave interviews to anyone who would listen, from Fox News
to CNN to Canadian television.

He met with a U.S. government task force on Georgia and maintained
regular telephone contacts with the State Department, Miss Kupradze
said.

"There’s been no time to go home. We’ve been sleeping in the embassy,"
she said. "These are the toughest days of my life."

Miss Kupradze, who has been filling in for a vacationing press
spokesman, said much of the early media coverage was biased because
reporters were relating Russia’s version of the conflict that started
over the breakaway, pro-Russian South Ossetia region of Georgia.

Of the embassy’s 10 diplomats, three returned earlier this summer
for a vacation in Georgia and cannot get out of the country to return
to Washington.

HOPE IN SUDAN

The U.S. special envoy to Sudan expressed a measure of hope Tuesday
that the United Nations will meet its commitment to deploy an adequate
number of peacekeepers to stop what President Bush has called the
"genocide" against black Africans by Arab militias.

Washington remains disappointed by the current level of peacekeepers,
but "we have reason to be encouraged and hopeful that the pace of
the past will be reversed," envoy Richard Williamson told reporters
in Khartoum after meeting with Foreign Minister Deng Alor.

"The current trickle of added peacekeepers is very disappointing,"
Mr. Williamson said. "Unfortunately, performance has not been
acceptable to date. Unfortunately, the responsibility rests both here
[in Sudan] and also with the United Nations."

More than 8,000 troops and 1,700 police officers are operating in
Sudan, which is far below the authorized level of 19,500 soldiers and
6,500 policemen, according to a U.N. spokesman. He said a vanguard
of 350 Ethiopian soldiers is due next week to prepare for an entire
battalion of about 1,000 troops.

The United Nations estimates that 300,000 people have been killed
and 2.2 million displaced from their homes because of fighting in
the Sudanese region of Darfur since 2003.

Mr. Williamson added that "the developments in 2008" have
brought a "new focus and attention" to dispute within the Sudanese
government. The most important of those developments was the World
Court indictment of President Omar Bashir on war crimes charges.

"But let me emphasize, and this is terribly important: If we’re going
to get a sustainable peace in Darfur, in the end the sovereign state
of Sudan will have to address this issue," Mr. Williamson added.

ARMENIA BOUND

Career diplomat Marie L. Yovanovitch is due to arrive in Armenia next
month as the U.S. ambassador the Eurasian nation.

Miss Yovanovitch, who won Senate confirmation Aug. 1, is the former
ambassador to Kyrgyzstan. She also has served as senior adviser to
the undersecretary of state for political affairs and as deputy chief
of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.