MEDVEDEV ORDERS HALT TO FIGHTING
By Nabi Abdullaev
The Moscow Times
13 August 2008
Russia
People helping a wounded man after a bombing in central Gori, Georgia,
on Tuesday. Explosions killed at least five civilians, including a
Dutch journalist.
MOSCOW / TBILISI, Georgia –President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a halt
to the Russian military operation in Georgia on Tuesday, saying troops
had accomplished their mission of restoring safety to civilians and
its peacekeeping forces in Georgia’s breakaway republics of South
Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Abkhaz separatists announced that they had taken the Kodor Gorge,
the only district of Abkhazia under Georgian control.
In Tbilisi, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili painted the setbacks
as a victory and told tens of thousands of rallying supporters that
Georgia would leave the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Also, Georgia filed a lawsuit against Russia at the International
Court of Justice for ethnic cleansing, and the prosecutor for the
International Criminal Court said he was considering an investigation
into the South Ossetia conflict.
Medvedev ordered Russian troops to step down just before a meeting
with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who flew to Moscow to mediate
peace talks.
"I have decided to cease the operation to force Georgian authorities
toward peace," Medvedev told Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and
the head of the armed forces’ General Staff, Nikolai Makarov. "The
safety of our peacekeeping forces and of the civilian population has
been restored," Medvedev said.
Medvedev said Georgian military had suffered "very considerable losses"
and "were disorganized." But he added that the Russian military would
destroy any Georgian pockets of resistance in South Ossetia and act
to undercut "other aggressive ambitions."
Georgia said Russian fighter jets carried out airstrikes against two
Georgian villages outside South Ossetia after Medvedev ordered the
attacks to stop, a charge denied by Moscow.
The Russian military, which moved into South Ossetia and Abkhazia
after Tbilisi attempted to reclaim South Ossetia by force, had been
fighting Georgian troops and destroying military infrastructure in
Georgia proper for five days.
Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy head of the armed forces’ General Staff,
told reporters in Moscow that the Russian troops had sought to "cut
the military capacity of the aggressor to a level that would not
allow it to even think of repeating an attempt to attack this or that
territory again."
"This is international practice. Probably, in this case, it is
essential in regard to Georgia," Nogovitsyn said. "This is my opinion
as a military man."
He said Georgia’s military actions in South Ossetia had been well
planned, adding that some of Georgia’s experience had been gleaned
from joint exercises with the U.S. military. He said, however, that
he had no information about the U.S. military participating in the
South Ossetia conflict.
Units from the 58th Army will leave South Ossetia after both sides
reach a truce, Nogovitsyn said.
Earlier Tuesday, Russian warplanes bombed Gori, where the Georgian
military is entrenched. At least five civilians were killed, including
Dutch cameraman Stan Storimans.
Russian forces also led Abkhaz forces on a military offensive against
Georgian troops in the Kodor Gorge, which Georgia brought under its
control in 2006.
David Mdzinarishvili / Reuters Saakashvili speaking to cheering
Georgians at a rally in Tbilisi on Tuesday.
Abkhaz separatists said late Tuesday that they had squeezed the last
Georgian units out of the gorge. They promised not to cross over into
Georgia proper.
Late Monday, Russian troops returned to Abkhazia from the Georgian
military base in Senaki, which they seized earlier in the day.
Saakashvili told a roaring crowd of more than 30,000 people outside
the parliament building on Tbilisi’s Rustaveli Avenue that Georgia
would withdraw from the CIS, a largely toothless body of 12 former
Soviet republics founded in late 1991.
"Georgia will never kneel down before Russia, therefore we made the
decision to leave the commonwealth in order to finally bid farewell
to our Soviet past," he told the cheering crowd.
Since Saakashvili rose to power in 2003, he has repeatedly threatened
to quit the CIS. He said Tuesday that he had issued the relevant
decree.
The withdrawal could affect the status of Russian peacekeepers in
Abkhazia, who have been stationed there since 1994 under a CIS mandate
known as the Moscow Treaty. Georgia agreed at the time to pull its
troops out of Abkhazia in favor of a CIS peacekeeping force.
Georgia’s withdrawal from the CIS does not mean the simultaneous
denunciation of the Moscow Treaty, but it will strongly undercut
the legitimacy of the presence of the CIS peacekeepers in Abkhazia,
said Nikolai Silayev, an analyst with the Center of Caucasus Studies
at the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Relations. "But this isn’t
bothering Moscow at the moment," he said.
Georgian Security Council chief Kakha Lomaia said Georgia filed
a lawsuit against Russia on Tuesday to the International Court of
Justice "because of ethnic cleansing conducted in Georgia by Russia
in 1993 to 2008," Reuters reported. The court, based at The Hague,
rules on nation versus nation disputes.
Also, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis
Moreno-Ocampo, said he was considering requests to investigate the
South Ossetia conflict, Reuters reported.
Saakashvili also said in his speech that Tbilisi would redefine
Georgia’s separatist provinces as occupied territories. "We will
declare South Ossetia and Abkhazia as territories occupied by the
Russian armed forces," he said.
Many participants of the rally, which happened to coincide with the
Didgori anniversary, a patriotic remembrance of a medieval Georgian
victorious battle against the Seljuk Turks, had tears in their
eyes. Most were unanimous in their opinion that Moscow was to blame
for the war.
"Today is a feast day because we have won back our freedom," said
Gena Miminoshvili, 52, a factory worker from the western town of
Abasha. Asked about the years of tensions in South Ossetia, he said
it was merely a dispute between "brothers."
"The real enemy is Russia," he said.
"[Moscow] programmed everything and carefully planned provocations,"
said a woman, who would only give her first name, Ia. "Why did the
West not come to help us? Because the Russians never obey the law
and always do what they want. They are afraid of that."
"Russia wants a Georgia without Georgians," added Leri Kavteladze, an
elderly man who said he fought in the civil war against the country’s
first elected president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia.
But dissent was strong among people who did not attend Saakashvili’s
speech. Nino Dzandzava, 24, a film critic, said she did not believe
that Russia was to blame. "This is a tragedy for Georgia, and I
blame the government because it should have known that this attack
would have dire consequences," she said, referring to the Georgian
onslaught on Tskhinvali late last week. "It is totally senseless to
fight the Ossetians. They are being used by the Russians."
Yet Tbilisi appeared joyous and calm Monday evening, and residents
said the high tension that threatened to turn into panic over the
weekend had all but vanished.
Government supporters of all ages were milling around the city center,
many of them draped in the country’s red-crossed flag, introduced by
Saakashvili after he assumed power in the 2003 Rose Revolution.
Many expatriates who had been advised by their embassies to leave the
country were rethinking their plans. Some even decided to head back
after arriving at the border with Armenia early afternoon, when the
news of Medvedev endorsing the cease-fire reached them via cell phone.
Leaders of Ukraine, Poland and the three Baltic republics were
on their way to Tbilisi to show support for Saakashvili, Interfax
reported late Tuesday. The five leaders flew to an Azeri town and
then drove in a motorcade across the border into Georgia, it said.
Russia cannot wage an all-out war in Georgia after achieving
its immediate goals in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, said Alexander
Khramchikhin, a senior researcher at the Institute of Political and
Military Analysis.
"Russian troops risk facing fierce guerrilla resistance if they remain
in Georgia proper, and the diplomatic cost of waging war there will
grow for Russia tremendously with every passing hour," he said.
Medvedev’s decision to announce the halt of the military operation
before his meeting with Sarkozy was an attempt to save face under
increasing criticism from the West, Khramchikhin added.
"Agreeing to stop the military actions after the talks would look
like Medvedev bent under pressure from Europe," he said.
The United Nations’ refugee agency said Tuesday that 100,000 people
— divided nearly equally between Georgians and South Ossetians —
have been driven from their homes by the fighting in Georgia over
the past five days.
Staff Writer Nabi Abdullaev reported from Moscow, and Staff Writer
Nikolaus von Twickel reported from Tbilisi, Georgia.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
