Hot on the heels of President Bush’s “new democracy”, is President Medvedev’s new brand of “peace”, which involves the killing of hundreds of civilians in the South Ossetia region of Georgia.
While the conflict has long been neglected by the global media, discord has been brewing in region since the early nineties when South Ossetia sought to break away from the newly independent Georgia.
In 2004, the Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili pledged to recover the lost territories, but in 2006 South Ossetians voted overwhelmingly for independence in an unofficial referendum.
The desire for independence dates back to the thirteenth century when the Ossetians were driven southwards by the Mongol invasions into the Caucasus mountains that throng the border of Georgia.
A distinct ethnic group originating from the Russian plains south of the Don River, South Ossetians want to join up with their ethnic brethren in North Ossetia, which is an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation.
While ethnic Georgians are a minority in the region on South Ossetia, the state of Georgia rejects even the name, South Ossetia, preferring to call it by the ancient name of Samachablo, or Tskhinvali, after its main city.
Nevertheless, Georgia doubtless wishes to contain its conflicts through the use of its own military, and the admission last month by Russia that it has flown jets over South Ossetia has only increased Georgian ire.
Far from perceiving it as a peace mission, Georgia believed that Russia was commencing a military build-up – suspicions that were, as it transpires, well-founded.
After a brief cease-fire on 7 August, Russia sent in columns of armour and troops and fighting erupted with Georgian forces in and around Tskhinvali.
Which brings us to today, as Russian jets bomb the central Georgian town of Gori, and Russia maintains its troops have “liberated” Tskhinvali.
Quite how liberated the citizens of Tskhinvali feel today, is a question that needs not an answer; suffice to say that the troubles have been brewing for so long that a resolution is not readily in sight.
Meanwhile, the irony that both parties are ‘fighting for peace’ is not entirely lost: it is hard to discern whether Medvedev is taking the proverbial or merely needs a lesson in PR from his American contemporary.
Filed under: Conflict Zones, Politics , Georgia, Politics, Russia, South Ossetia, war
No doubt certain Nations do “What they want” as long as they feel strong enough. The “I’m stronger and bigger than you” syndrom seems to follow humans from Birth to Death.