SOUTH OSSETIANS HAUNTED BY WAR

mes/from_our_own_correspondent/8692650.stm
2010/05 /20 12:43:57 GMT

Two years after Georgia and Russia went to war over the disputed
territory of South Ossetia, the BBC’s Tom Esslemont finds that South
Ossetians remain on edge, and are reluctant to put down their weapons.

We were standing in an overgrown churchyard when we heard the
explosion. Then came another noise.

"Whoosh!" went the rocket, about 300m (1000ft) away, before detonating
in a hillside.

After a few seconds of steely silence there came a crackle of gunfire –
a brief "Pah-pah-pah-pah" reverberated around the valley.

Initially I suggested we move away, though it seemed we were at a safe
distance, but when I looked at my taxi driver, Nodar, he did not seem
to be alarmed. In fact he had hardly even noticed the explosion.

"Huh, what? Oh that – that was just a training exercise," he said.

"Nothing to worry about."

Utter destruction

This was my introduction to South Ossetia – a landlocked, disputed
territory, home to around 30,000 people and cut off from Georgia
proper by a volatile boundary line.

I had just driven down the territory’s only entry/exit point – the
highway from Russia, South Ossetia’s umbilical chord – snaking its
way through a deep, wooded valley past peaceful cottages.

Then, by contrast, I passed the scene of utter destruction. Thousands
of ruined houses destroyed by the conflict in 2008 between Georgians –
and Russians and Ossetians.

Now I could see a fast-flowing river cut a photogenic gorge through
the town of Tskhinvali against the backdrop of grey, pockmarked,
Soviet buildings.

Everywhere, it seems, the gaping scars of war remain unhealed and
society remains paralysed in a state of readiness for another conflict.

On our way into Tskhinvali we were stopped by another vehicle, a grey
Lada with dark windows and no number plate.

Two men got out. A tall, mean-looking man in jeans, the other a
friendlier, more jovial-looking, rounder guy. The tall one seemed to
be in charge. He flashed a tatty, pink identity card at us, claiming
he was from the local KGB.

Piercing glare

He was not in the mood for hearing about who we were so there was
no time to tell him we were fully accredited with the de facto
authorities. And with a quick piercing, glare he jumped in our car
and escorted us to his compound.

" I was expecting the usual three-hour interrogation, but it appeared
they had actually made a mistake "

On countless occasions while travelling in the former Soviet Union I
have been stopped by the employees of the local security department –
the local KGB apparatchiks – either for filming something they did
not want me to shoot – or simply for just being there.

This time I was expecting the usual three-hour interrogation, but it
appeared they had actually made a mistake.

"Wait a minute," said the tall KGB official, as we arrived at the
compound. "Is this Esslemont?"

At that point another, more garrulous man approached us, arms aloft.

He must have been the tall man’s boss. The official received a short,
sharp rebuke and we were released. No interrogation. And, for the
first time in my life, I received an apology from a security agent.

This hold-up, I was later informed, is part of the "war mentality"
South Ossetia is beset by.

‘Lost generation’

I was discussing it with Nodar, now in his late thirties. He used to
be a soldier.

Nodar, like most men over 30, wears military fatigues every day. He
is part of South Ossetia’s lost generation, who spent their most
formative years fighting against the Georgians in the 1990s and who
have never really known any different.

Now Nodar and his friends spend the evenings sitting around campfires,
reminiscing about the "wartime days".

"I’m always ready to fight," he says.

Then he proudly shows me the video on his mobile phone of the moment
South Ossetian militia had fired at a Georgian tank during the war.

The post-war period in South Ossetia has brought an uneasy peace. The
authorities recently started a weapons amnesty, confiscating the guns
which are not properly registered.

This has not gone down well with Nodar and his friends – people who
have owned a gun for their whole lives and feel happier taking the
law into their own hands than leaving it to the authorities.

Cycle of conflict

Grecia, a former gunmaker – does not approve of the South Ossetian
authorities. Sitting on an upturned box, his pale complexion warmed
by the orange glow of the fire, he tells me the authorities are scared.

"They are worried about unrest coming from within South Ossetia and
so that’s why they’re rounding up the guns," he says.

Grecia, Nodar and other out-of-work militia put this all down to a
paranoia in South Ossetia, a situation they have got used to. Its
roots lie in the cyclical nature of conflict, that has struck the
region since the collapse of the USSR.

As they roast juicy legs of chicken and fatty lamb on the open fire,
they tell jokes – good old Russian "anecdotes" – poking fun at members
of other ethnic groups in the Caucasus and beyond – the Chechens,
the Circassians, the Armenians, the Turks.

As I sat listening to their conversation, it struck me that what
is happening in South Ossetia is nothing new. The Caucasus has been
fought over for centuries, the Ottomans, the Persians and the Russians
have long squabbled over this fertile, mountainous land.

And the people – now and through the centuries – have always been
stuck in the middle.

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