WAR IN SOUTH OSSETIA SEEN FROM CENTRAL ASIA
Aleksandr Shustov

2 1.08.2008

The "five-day war" in South Ossetia during which the Georgian forces
were quickly routed by the Russian 58th Army came as a shock to the
post-Soviet Republics. Though the Russian leadership reiterated in
the past that a military scenario was likely, nobody expected Moscow’s
reaction to be so immediate and so harsh. Moscow’s using military force
against a post-Soviet Republic – for the first time since the split of
the USSR – created a difficult situation for the CIS countries many of
which also have unresolved territorial disputes with their neighbors.

Central Asian countries, which are often geopolitically bracketed with
the South Caucasus, are of particular interest in this context. The
analogies between Central Asia and the Caucasus have been described
thoroughly by Z. Brzezinski in his The Grand Chessboard. The
key features common to the two regions are the mixture of ethnic
territories, the absence of generally recognized country borders
identical to those of ethnic areals, and the incomplete character
of statehood in most countries. All of the above led Z. Brzezinski
to describe Central Asia and the Caucasus as the Eurasian Balkans,
the region US strategists are eyeing now that the US dominance over
the Balkans is an accomplished fact.

Central Asian countries can be divided in two gro ups depending on
their response to the conflict in South Ossetia. Whereas Kazakhstan
and Kyrgyzstan have formulated their positions on the issue with
relative clarity, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan simply
expressed no reaction to the conflict. Moreover, for quite some time
the tightly controlled Uzbek and Turkmen media gave no indications
that there was a war in South Ossetia or that the Abkhazian forces
were muscling Georgian troops out of the Kodori Gorge.

The war in South Ossetia was not reported in any of the Uzbek papers
during its decisive phase, nor was it reflected by the sites of
the country’s news agencies. Only the Uzbek Vecherniy Tashkent paper
published two brief notes, one telling that an aircraft of the Russian
Ministry of the Emergency Situations carrying humanitarian aid landed
in Vladikavkaz and that Russian Prime Minister V. Putin arrived in
the city, another – that urgent sessions of the UN Security Council
and the NATO Council were held, but it left its readership oblivious
of the causes of the developments. Besides, one short report on the
fighting in Tskhinvali was shown by the Uzbek TV using the footage
borrowed from the Russian television.

The Turkmen media responded to the war in the Caucasus with total
silence.

The national television continued to broadcast 30-minite readings
of Ruhnama (the "spiritual guidance of the nation" written by late
Turkmen President S. Niyazov) and inf ormed the public that a panda
was born in a zoo in China. Satellite TV served as the only source
of information on the Caucasus war for the population of Turkmenistan.

Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan reacted much more actively. Kazakh President
N. Nazarbayev who attended the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing on
the first day of the war was the first to speak on the occasion. It
was during a meeting with Nazarbayev that V. Putin made a harsh
statement that Georgia would get an adequate response to its attack
on Tskhinvali. Nazarbayev replied in a neutrally positive tone. He
said that the peacekeeping mission had a UN mandate, Georgia acted in
a wrong way, it did not warn about the coming escalation, and there
could be no alternative to a peaceful resolution of the problem.

The Kazakh President’s reaction voiced on August 13 at a meeting
with his Kyrgyz counterpart K. Bakiyev was also generally
pro-Russian. Commenting on what was going on in the Caucasus he
said that the territorial integrity principle was recognized by the
entire international community and that documents adopted by the CIS
condemned separatism, but complex inter-ethnic issues still must be
resolved peacefully via negotiations, not militarily.

The position of Kyrgyzstan which currently presides over the CIS
was rather neutral. Bakiyev opined that according to the norms of
the international law the real path to the resolution of the dispute
between th e Georgian and the South Ossetian sides lay in the political
plane. Thus, the Kazakh and Kyrgyz Presidents condemned Georgia’s
military offensive but refrained from distinctly positive or negative
appraisals of the military operation launched by the Russian army.

To an extent, the lack of official reactions from most CIS countries
was offset by the statement made by the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Collective Security Treaty Organization. Along with Russia, Belarus,
and Armenia, this organization comprises four of the five Central Asian
Countries – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The
Collective Security Treaty Organization practically echoed Moscow’s
position in a statement which read: "On the pretext of restoring
its territorial integrity, Georgia in effect carried out acts of
genocide against the Ossetian people, leading to a humanitarian
disaster. Tbilisi’s military campaign, which thwarted the budding
political dialogue between the parties, destroyed prospects for a
peaceful conflict resolution."

Having close economic and political ties with the West Central Asian
countries are explainably reluctant to complicate their relations with
Western countries by openly siding with Russia. There is yet another
key factor behind their restraint in commenting on the "five-day war".

The theme of the "territorial integrity" has been invoked in
all statements made by the Kazakh and Kyrgyz Presidents f or a
serious reason. Realizing that the chances of Russia’s recognizing
the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and subsequently
incorporating them have increased enormously, Central Asian countries
are concerned that similar scenarios affecting their territories are
possible and hence adopt a cautious stance.

It is of interest to review the assessments of the "five-day war" by
Central Asian experts. For example, Kyrgyz political analyst M. Sariev
regards the events in the Caucasus not as a conflict between Georgia
and South Ossetia but as one between Russia and the US. He expects
Kyrgyzstan to face toughly formulated questions concerning the future
of the Gansi US airbase in its territory at the coming meeting of the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization. In Sariev’s view, as the Collective
Security Treaty Organization member the country is going to align
itself with Russia since the same events as in Georgia can take place
in Kyrgyzstan – this is Russia’s sphere of interests and Russia is
not going to stop. Explaining the motivation underlying his position,
Sariev says: "We should be aware that we are in the same culturally
Eurasian areal with Russia". M. Suyunbaev, another Kyrgyz political
analyst, points quite reasonably to the fact that the "five-day
war" is a product of the "Kosovo process" which the West has set in
motion totally ignoring Russia’s position. If the proce ss evolves,
it will quite likely affect Central Asia, for example Tajikistan or
Karakalpakstan whose histories, in the expert’s opinion, are similar to
those of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Analyzing the potential results
of Georgia’s leaving the CIS, he notes that the consequences for
Georgia are going to be extremely negative as complication can arise
for the workforce migration from Georgia to Russia and for the trade
between the two countries. Suyunbaev’s forecast includes not only
the intensification of the struggle over the existing US military
base in Kyrgyzstan but also greater efforts aimed at creating new
military bases in the southern part of the Republic.

On the whole, there is a consensus among Kyrgyz experts that the
rivalry between Russia and the US over Central Asia is bound to
escalate, and that Russia’s resolute defense of South Ossetia shows
that for Central Asian countries a totally pro-Western orientation
can entail highly undesirable consequences.