As I write this, I have just read a short account—an admirable piece by a BBC correspondent in the Black Sea port of Poti, Georgia, writing without their permission right under their noses—of the Russians “in control and on the move.” Together with many other short reports from around Georgia, it makes clear that the Russians are not observing the ceasefire agreement that President Sarkozy of France brought to Moscow, and induced the President of Georgia to sign; and that their purpose from the start was not to “free South Ossetia” (easily accomplished, given its tiny size), but rather to make an example of Georgia.
In Poti, the Russians have been systematically destroying port facilities, and sinking all Georgian naval and patrol vessels. That they have twice returned, to do additional demolition in the port, after their first round of unresisted destruction, bespeaks micromanagement from Moscow.
From other reports we can know that they continue operations at many other locations, well inside Georgia, and well outside the agreed buffer zones around the disputed regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
In Gori, as well as directly intimidating local people with gratuitous displays of force and firepower, it would appear that they have also encouraged ethnic Ossetians and others travelling with them to smash, torch, and loot property around town, and behave murderously towards its defenceless inhabitants—most of whom were induced to flee.
These things are happening on undisputed Georgian territory, after the Georgians have ceased to fight, and after Russian troops have fully occupied both Abkhasia and South Ossetia. They confirm that the word of the Russian government is worthless.
We should not forget this, when listening to extravagant Russian accounts of what triggered their invasion of Georgia in the first place. Or for that matter, when listening to Russian assurances on other topics—the state of Iran’s missile and nuclear programmes, for instance; or alleged assassinations by Russian agents in England and elsewhere.
We should instead believe only what can be corroborated from sources independent of official Russian persuasion. By this, I mean to discount (not dismiss) several reports I have read from inside South Ossetia, in which reporters under Russian supervision perform what sound like staged interviews with Ossetian “survivors” of a recent Georgian attack.
Often I find myself in a minority, “politically incorrect” corner, in my explanations of who really did what to whom. But in the case of Russia’s incursion into Georgia, I find myself in the unaccustomed position of taking the majority view. So much so, that a couple of “Russian experts” have asked me why I don’t show my usual independence. Indeed, a standard leftwing commentator on the above-mentioned BBC has been publicly scratching his head, about how any foreign power could be losing a propaganda battle with the Bush administration .
Let me assure my reader that I write what I do even after reading (mostly electronic) reams of material by just such Russophile regional “experts”—much of which does provide genuinely useful background. Yet is na?ve.
The Russophiles tell us—to our mortified surprise—that Georgia’s President Saakashvili is not, “as believed in Washington,” the perfect scholar, gentleman, and Christian saint; that moreover, the ethnic relations between Georgians and their Ossetian, Abkhaz, and other national minorities fall short of being the model for heavenly justice and multicultural pluralism.
They do not go so far as to explain, however, how this could justify the Russian invasion. Only so far as to explain how people who oppose this invasion are implicitly Stalinist—since “it was Stalin who drew Georgia’s current national borders.” (Curiously enough, it is not that, but their sneering condescension that most irritates me.)
One recalls the legend that the great “engineer of human souls” included South Ossetia within Georgia’s boundaries specifically to free his fellow Georgians from any hope of becoming independent.
But it really doesn’t matter where you draw boundaries in the Caucasus, so far as I can see: there are going to be problems. Having recently been studying the maps, I would say that Stalin showed competent grasp of geography, if nothing else. His lines seem, whenever possible, to follow the watershed divisions and other natural frontiers. The various ethnicities have, however, failed to arrange themselves neatly and discretely within these objective markers.
A powerful state which, like contemporary Russia, is eager to play on the inevitable ethnic difficulties of its neighbours—to abet those problems, as the Russians have done, and then use them as pretext for the invasion and dismemberment of a much smaller neighbour—is regardless of its size and constitution, behaving as a rogue state.
We cannot continue to act on the polite assumption that Vladimir Putin and his minions (including the current nominal president, Dmitry Medvedev), are honourable. “Realism” requires that we act henceforth on the assumption that they aren’t.
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