THE UN Security Council held a third emergency meeting on August 10th on the situation in South Ossetia, where the conflict is expanding in intensity and geographical scope, hearing briefings by senior UN officials and the views of members in an effort to coalesce around a unified position.
The representative of the Russian Federation recalled that, at the beginning of its aggression against South Ossetia, Georgia’s representative had said his country (Georgia) was beginning a war against South Ossetia and that it was undertaking the re-establishment of constitutional order in the breakaway region by trying to resolve a 50-year-long conflict through military means.
Georgia’s military action had begun with tank and heavy artillery attacks on Russian peacekeepers, which had resulted in 12 deaths. The Russian Federation wondered whether the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ could be used to describe Georgia’s actions. How many civilians had to die before it was described as genocide?
And he asked when others were lamenting the death of civilians in Georgia, why weren’t they worried about the attacks on villages in South Ossetia?
How could the international community react when, despite all the international agreements (Russian peacekeepers were in South Ossetia under the agreement of 1992, signed by Georgia and South Ossetia) Georgia directly targeted peacekeepers and civilians? Had Georgia expected the peacekeepers to run away as they had in Srebrenica?
Russia could not allow either civilians in South Ossetia or peacekeepers to be attacked.
It was not occupying South Ossetia, and its reaction had been appropriate. The question was whether the Georgian side was reasonable in its aggression. Russia had repeatedly told Georgia that trying to resolve the situation through military means would be ‘suicide’ for Georgia.
Zalmay Khalilzad (United States) explained that his country had asked for today’s meeting in view of the dramatic and dangerous developments of the past 24 hours in and around Georgia. First, there had been intensive Russian military activity in the South Ossetia region, including an influx of many thousands of troops beyond the several hundred Russian peacekeepers present when the crisis had begun. Military operations against Georgian forces in the conflict zone had escalated dramatically.
Second, the conflict had expanded with the launch of a Russian-backed military offensive in the Abkhaz region of Georgia, preceded by a demand by Abkhazia for the withdrawal of the peacekeeping presence in the Kodori Valley. That area had since been bombed in what was a direct challenge to a Security Council-mandated Mission, and some Abkhaz officials had stated their intention to drive Georgian officials out of the Valley.
Moreover, the Russian Federation had been attacking villages and cities elsewhere in Georgia, including via air attacks and an attack on the Tbilisi airport, he said. And Russian military attacks had also destroyed other critical infrastructure, including seaports.
The result of that escalation against a sovereign State that had not posed a direct threat to Russia had increased the number of casualties and suffering among the Georgian population. Against the backdrop of heightened violence, Russian forces had actually impeded the withdrawal of Georgian forces from South Ossetia and prevented concrete Georgian steps to de-escalate the situation.
Russian intransigence was evidenced by its refusal to stop the violence. Georgia had offered a ceasefire and respect for prior agreements, but Russia had refused to accept that and continued to resist international efforts at mediation of the conflict, which was now between Russia and Georgia.
In view of the deteriorating situation, the question must be asked what the Security Council could do to stop the violence and return to the status quo of 6th August, he said.
One had to draw the appropriate conclusion about what the conflict was and was not. Russia claimed its military operations were intended to protect its peacekeepers and civilians in South Ossetia, yet its actions went way beyond that and the escalation of the conflict was the immediate cause of loss of life and humanitarian suffering.
Since Russia was impeding a ceasefire and continuing its military attacks against civilian centres, its aims were clearly not credible. Its expansion of the conflict to another separatist area of Georgia suggested other motives and objectives.
‘We must condemn the military assault on a sovereign State, including the targeting of civilians and the campaign of terror against the Georgian population, and condemn the destruction of Georgian infrastructure’ Khalilzad said.
The Council must do what it could to ensure adherence to the United Nations Charter, and take actions to arrest the threat to international peace and security, he stressed. Furthermore, the Council must take urgent action to call for an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of all forces to the status quo of 6th August, and that call must apply to all Russian combat forces.
The US had begun consultations with others in the Council, and expected that a draft resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire would be introduced shortly. The US urged Russia to carefully consider the implications of its aggression against the sovereign State of Georgia.
Vitaly Churkin (Russian Federation) said that, unfortunately, the content of Mr Pascoe’s briefing had shown that the Secretariat and its leadership were unable to adopt an objective position, as required by the substance of the conflict.
Over the past three or four days, the Council had been holding meetings on the situation, which had arisen due to the aggression by Georgia against South Ossetia. The meetings had begun at the initiative of the Russian Federation, which had insisted on an open format. Today’s meeting was taking place on the joint initiative of Georgia and the US. Everybody knew how close relations between those States had become in recent years.
During preceding meetings, Georgia’s representative had named some supposedly Russian citizens in South Ossetia as proof that Russia was governing South Ossetia. According to the Russian delegation’s information, however, Georgia had at least 127 advisers from the United States Department of Defense.
On 7th August, the day when Georgia had launched military actions against South Ossetia, there had been a joint Georgia-US military exercise under the name ‘Immediate Response’.
Churkin continued that he had responded to the overwhelming majority of statements by his colleagues and did not need to return to that, except to one question, namely the Russian Federation’s intentions. They were very simple. They found their roots in history, which showed that Russia was very closely linked to the people of the Caucasus. That relationship was very difficult and not always very friendly, but Russia had a very deep feeling of responsibility for the people of the Caucasus. It was very difficult at present to talk about normal feelings between Georgians and Russians, but those feelings had existed for centuries and, in time, they would return. There were millions of Georgians living in the Russian Federation as full-fledged citizens. So the intention of the Russian Federation was to ensure that the people of Abkhazia and South Ossetia should not fear for their lives or safety.
He suggested a look back into history, to the time in 1991 when Georgia had tried to resolve the Ossetia and Abkhaz conflicts by stating that they were all Georgians. Its military operation had been a major tragedy, resulting in large numbers of refugees. Resolving that problem should be done through the non-use of force and the establishment of economic contacts.
So why was a transition to resolving the issue between Georgia and South Ossetia being done ‘in this other way’?
As for the Georgian representative’s reference to Chechnya, everything was ‘in its place now’, and its citizens were citizens of the Russian Federation as well as the Chechen Republic, where they were flourishing. The Russian Federation hoped the same situation would be established with regard to the Georgians, Abkhazians and South Ossetians.
Khalilzad noted that, despite his polemics, Churkin had not responded to the call for an immediate cessation of hostilities and a return to the status quo.
In fact, he had acknowledged the Russian Federation’s refusal to deal with the democratically elected government of Georgia, acknowledged that the situation was no longer about South Ossetia, attacked the UN Secretariat and made reference to other conflicts.
He went on to say that Churkin had referred to the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s phone conversations with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that morning, a conversation that raised serious questions about Russia’s objectives in the conflict.
Lavrov had said that President Saakashvili, the democratically elected President of Georgia, ‘must go’, which was completely unacceptable and ‘crossed the line’. Was Russia’s objective regime change in Georgia, the overthrow of the democratically elected government of that country?
Russia must affirm that its aim was not to change the government of Georgia and that it accepted Georgia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. The Russian Federation was threatening Georgia’s territorial integrity, and the Council must act decisively to reaffirm it.
Churkin, describing Khalilzad’s statement as polemical in nature, said that the Council had heard enough polemics today, but he would respond on the substance.
Regarding the ceasefire, the Russian Federation’s previous statement had explained the formula that would lead to an end of bloodshed – Georgia’s withdrawal from South Ossetia and agreement on the non-use of force in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Today, Georgia’s representative had been hinting that he agreed to that, so why did Georgia not withdraw its forces? Russia would not prevent it.
Turning to ‘an interesting reference’ to a confidential diplomatic phone call between Foreign Minister Lavrov and Secretary of State Rice, he said ‘regime change’ was an American expression that Russia did not use.
As was known from history, different leaders came to power either democratically or semi-democratically, becoming an obstacle to their people’s emergence from difficult situations. The Russian Federation was encouraged by Mr Khalilzad’s public reference to that, which meant he was ready to bring it into the public realm.
The US’s Khalilzad then asked whether the goal of the Russian Federation was to change the leadership of Georgia.
The Georgian representative Alasania said that, as he had heard Mr Churkin, the question asked and the answer received had confirmed that what Russia was seeking was to change the democratically elected Georgian government.
But Churkin suggested that he had given a complete response and perhaps the US representative had not been listening when he had given his response, perhaps he had not had his earpiece on.
