UN SATELLITE PHOTOS UNDERCUT RUSSIAN CLAIMS ABOUT SOUTH OSSETIA
Paul Goble

Georgiandaily
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Sept 10 2008
NY

Satellite photographs analyzed by United Nations experts show that
only five percent of Tskhinvali was destroyed during the fighting
there but that 50 percent of ethnic Georgian villages were destroyed
in that region by Ossetian marauders behind Russian lines, a pattern
that undercuts Moscow’s claims about what took place.

The UN satellite research program UNOSAT has released photographs
showing the destruction in South Ossetia. Some of these were published
in "Novaya gazeta" on Monday, but a more comprehensive sample is now
available on the UNOSAT portal.

These pictures and the analysis conducted by the independent experts
at UNOSAT show, Human Rights Watch told "Novaya gazeta," that Ossetian
units "burned and robbed Georgian villages," as HRW people on the
ground had reported in the face of Ossetian and Russian claims to
the contrary.

But these photographs taken over the course of August also call into
question repeated Russian claims that the Georgian army had destroyed
much of the South Ossetian capital – the satellite photographs show
only five percent of its buildings having been damaged — and that
Georgian forces had carried out a systematic genocide there.

The photographs are extremely disturbing because, in the words of
HRW experts, they demonstrate that "Georgian villages have in fact
ceased to exist on the territory of South Ossetia." But the human
rights group’s own observers point out that now there is evidence that
similar "marauder activities are continuing in Georgian villages in
the buffer zone."

"It is possible," "Novaya gazeta" concludes, "that the materials
collected by Human Rights Watch [and the UNOSAT photographs]
will become part of the case about military crimes at the time of
the Georgian-Ossetian conflict, which will be considered by the
International Criminal Court in The Hague."

Such use of satellite photography to document the actions of various
participants in conflicts is spreading: A year ago, for example,
Azerbaijan used satellite photography to show the destruction of
certain cultural monuments that has taken place in portions of that
country now under Armenian occupation.

One reason for this is the dramatic improvement in satellite
photography technology in recent years, but another and more important
factor is that such photographs not only provide the kind of objective
proof that observer reports sometimes lack but also have a far greater
impact on those who see them.

And because this technology will make it more difficult for officials
to lie about what is happening or to cover up their own crimes, one
can hope that the very possibility that satellite photographs will
be taken and shared will over time act to restrain those who might
otherwise engage in crimes of war and crimes against humanity.

Unfortunately, as these UNOSAT photographs show, neither Russian
forces nor the irregular Ossetian units behind their lines included
that possibility in their calculations. And as a result, an enormous
humanitarian disaster ensued, one that is not only not over but not
yet being blamed on its real authors.