August 15, 2008, 6:10 pm
Ethnic Cleansing in South Ossetia?
By The New York Times

Both Russia and Georgia are accusing the other of ethnic cleansing. Paul A. Goble looks at the comments by the leader of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, who acknowledged that ethnic Georgians were being driven out of his territory.

Vienna, Aug. 15 – In an interview published in today’s Kommersant, the South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity said that his people and Russian forces behind them had driven the ethnic Georgians who had been living there out and would not allow them to return, although he said his government would investigate and punish cases of burning and looting.
Kokoity’s words are a rare public acknowledgment by an official that he and the forces under his command or with whom he is working are engaging in what can only be called ethnic cleansing, a form of genocide.
Arguing that in most of what had been “Russian enclaves” in South Ossetia, there were no ethnic Georgians left by the time of the conflict, Kokoity said that “where they still remained, we, unlike the forces of Georgia offered them a corridor and gave the peaceful population the chance to leave.”
However that might be, he added, “we do not intend to allow” them back because there are “more than 18,000 Ossetian refugees from Georgia” in North Ossetia. We need them to return to South Ossetia,” and apparently, to the places left vacant by the more than 23,000 ethnic Georgians who have been driven out of that region.
Kommersant added that there is evidence that “under the pretext” of doing something about the burning and looting, Kokoity is not only driving out ethnic Georgians but also persecuting his political opponents in the republic and anyone from the outside including some of Ingushetia that he believes constitute a threat.
Not surprisingly, the Georgians who have been forced to flee South Ossetia are furious, in the first instance at their own government and at the United States. On Wednesday night, some of the 23,000 who have fled to Tbilisi staged a demonstration to demand that Georgian and American officials pay attention to their problems.
Among the placards they carried in front of the country’s parliament building — pictures of which have been posted on the Georgian media Web site www.pressa.ge — was one which asked: “We were supposed to hope for the United States to do something? No? Our soldiers were in Iraq. Where is America now, where?”
Beyond the human tragedy the actions of Kokoity and his Russian military allies have inflicted on ethnic Georgians, his admission will make it extremely difficult for Moscow to level genocide charges against Georgia, although it is possible that if both sides make that charge, some will tragically see them as canceling each other out.
Already on Sunday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev directed the procuracy in Moscow to collect evidence of acts of genocide by Georgians in South Ossetia, and the investigative committee of that body has now assembled evidence about the murder of Russian citizens there.
In addition, Russian cultural officials said that Georgia should be charged with genocide because of what Moscow says are its destruction of cultural monuments of the Ossetian people in the past and during the current conflict, Kommersant reported in a roundup article yesterday.
But Russia faces other problems as well if it continues to pursue this line of attack. First of all, much of the “evidence” Moscow has put forward to date has been shown to be false or at least highly exaggerated, something that raises broader questions about what Moscow is claiming about the Georgians.
Second, raising this issue will lead international human rights activists to ask, as Helsinki Group’s Aslambek Apayev has, why Moscow should get away with “double standards” because “before talking about genocide in Georgia and South Ossetia, the powers that be in Russia ought to remember Chechnya.”
“If Moscow considers that Saakashvili should stand before the Hague tribunal, then let it first send [to that court] Putin and his generals who are guilty in the mass murder of peaceful residents on the territory of the Chechen Republic. This does not mean that I justify the actions of the Georgian leadership … I am simply stating facts.”
“When the Russian media speak about South Ossetia, they constantly use terms like ‘genocide,’ ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘mass murder.’ But weren’t there similar and even worse actions in Chechnya? Why did not Russian investigators establish and turn over to the courts” those responsible for that?
And third, any such discussions will prompt many people in the North Caucasus itself to raise questions about Russian actions there that can be characterized as genocide, a possibility that will only add to interethnic tensions there and make that region even more ungovernable from Moscow’s point of view.
Activists in Ingushetia yesterday indicated that that they were prepared to do just that, especially given what they say is Moscow’s P.R. campaign about “genocide” in South Ossetia. And they said they would support calls for investigating such crimes in all such conflicts since 1991.
Consequently, while raising such charges may play well for Moscow in the Russian and international media, there is every chance that if the Russian authorities follow through they are likely to find them boomeranging on them in ways that may cause the Kremlin far more difficulties than leaving this issue alone.
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**Слышал заявления абхазов, пытающихся воспользоваться в России правами, якобы даваемыми этим самым паспортом**
- Пока что этот паспорт - как минимум, гарантия защиты от физического истребления, и последняя кампания это убедительно доказала. Этого мало?

Нью-Йорк Таймс. Американцы, конечно, пишут со своей колокольни. Неужто это не понятно?

Вот Саакашвили тут только что по Евроньюс сказал, что американская помощь, будет поступать, как запланировано... у них, понимаете, уже и запланировано все было...

Zoe,
и, правда, пафосно очень получается у Вас... знаете, я не думаю, что Россия действительно пойдет воевать за Крым... да и мало, кто так думает... просто про это так удобно говорить, когда ваши правители пытаются убедить НАТО взять вас к себе... все проблемы последних лет между нашими странами были спровоцированы Украиной, а отнюдь не Россией... так о чем можно говорить? Но есть еще одна вещь: есть люди - русские и украинцы, которые очень похожи, которые, если забыть про политику, хорошо друг к другу относятся, которые могут ладить и хотят ладить, которые хотят спокойно ездить в гости друг к другу... вот это важно, а не то, что там говорят наши с вами правители...

ППКС огромными буквами.

Zoe, калаш не надо. Главное, не забывайте принимать таблетки. Тогда и не будет казаться, что вас кто-то хочет завоевать. Лекарства нового поколения, говорят, весьма сильно действуют и не вызывают набор веса, что Вам, как женщине, жене и матери, должно быть вдвойне приятно. С месячишко попринимаете, глядишь, и жизнь наладится

DuFF - конечно, никакого истребления не было. Это всего лишь несчастный случай на производстве. Не, ну они сами виноваты, конечно. Нечего было под "градами" бегать - нешто не знают, что одна эта машинка как нефиг делать накрывает 20 гектаров?

А соответствующее интервью Кокойты я лично слышал по "Эху Москвы". Но ясное дело, и это для Вас не источник.

Кто опозоролся, народная мстительница Вы наша?

Да, и это...пьяная мать - горе семьи (с) :-)

Это наследие комуняк. Они прекрасно знали, что экономически им Запад не обогнать (рабский труд всегда проиграет свободному). И ПОТОМУ СТРЕМИЛИСЬ К УСТАНОВЛЕНИЮ мировой диктатуры -- ЭТО ЕЩЕ У КЛАССИКОВ ВСЁ ПРОПИСАНО. и ЗНАЛИ, ЧТО ВРЕМЕНИ У НИХ МАЛО -- ТЕХНИЧЕСКОЕ ОТСТАВАНИЕ ОТ зАПАДА РОСЛО КАЖДУЮ МИНУТУ. вОТ ОНИ И СТРЕМИЛИСЬ СКОРЕЕ ПОДМЯТЬ ПОД СЕБЯ ВЕСЬ МИР И ВВЕСТИ СВОИ ПОРЯДКИ, ЧТОБЫ альтернативы НЕ БЫЛО. еСТЕСТВЕННО, РУССКИЙ ШОВИНИЗМ БЫЛ ОЧЕНЬ В РУСЛЕ ЭТОЙ СТРАТЕГИИ.

В данной ситуации американской пресс верить нельзя. Вспомните хотя бы, как американское телевидение затыкало рот девочке, пожелавшей рассказать, что происходило в Цхинвали.

Почему Вы меня заставляете как попку повторять -- я сам слышал это интервью Кокойты по "Эху Москвы?" С чего мне-то врать?