[aaus-list] The Economist: 'A Caucasian Journey'; Richard Holbrooke: 'What the West Can Do'

[Walter R Iwaskiw]

"Russia first claimed that 2,000 people were killed as a result of what
it calls Georgia’s 'genocide' in South Ossetia. HRW says these figures
are wildly inflated (Tskhinvali’s city hospital registered just 44
dead and 273 wounded). Now even the Russians are talking of only 133
civilian deaths. HRW also cannot confirm many other atrocities ascribed
by the Kremlin to the Georgians. Most residents in Tskhinvali who hid in
basements tell identical stories of Georgian horrors, stoked by the
Russian media, but few witnessed them at first hand. Although the
Russian army is keen to show the damage inflicted by the Georgians, it
is less keen for foreign journalists to see Georgian villages torched
and looted by the South Ossetian militia and Russian irregulars.

Yet the evidence of ethnic cleansing of Georgians is obvious. In the
neighbourhood of Tskhinvali, many Georgian villages have been burnt and
most homes destroyed. 'Forward to Tbilisi,' says a sign in Russian
painted on the gates of one ruin. As one South Ossetian intelligence
officer told an HRW representative, 'we burned these houses. We want to
make sure that they [the Georgians] can’t come back, because if they
do come back, this will be a Georgian enclave again and this should not
happen.'"

"A Caucasian Journey," The Economist, Aug 21, 2008
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11986018

***

"In the long run, Georgia and Russia must coexist peacefully. Here,
Georgia must do its part. Saakashvili, an immensely talented
41-year-old, saved his country from utter collapse in 2003. But he must
think strategically about the future. On occasion, he has berated the
Europeans for insufficient support -- not a good tactic for someone
trying to join the European Union -- and has used rhetoric about Moscow
that, while understandable, only increases the danger to himself. For
centuries Georgia has struggled to live with its giant neighbor.
Saakashvili cannot pick up his tiny country and move it to Mexico. He
has to manage the situation with greater care.

There will be consequences, of course, for Russia's relations with the
West. But those decisions will be made by the next president. (Bush's
inattentiveness to this Russian threat -- dramatically illustrated by
his literal embrace of Putin in Beijing as Russian tanks rolled into
Georgia -- may have led Moscow to think it could get away with its
invasion.) While the West is not going to war over Georgia, Russia must
understand that it will pay for using force, or the threat of force,
against neighbors that were once part of the Soviet space. This is
especially true for Ukraine and Azerbaijan, which are likely to be
Moscow's next targets for intimidation. The rules of the post-Cold War
world are changing -- but not to the ultimate benefit of Russia, which
has underestimated the unifying effect its actions will have on the
West. Exactly how these relationships evolve depends on what each side
does in the coming weeks -- especially in Georgia."

Richard Holbrooke, "What the West Can Do," The Washington Post, Aug 22,
2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/21/AR2008082103106.html?hpid=opinionsbox1