Balkanalysis.com

By Scott Taylor for Balkanalysis.com*

Editor’s note: Two former British military officers working as OSCE observers during the August conflict in South Ossetia have recently spoken out in The Times of London, condemning Georgia, and not Russia, for the commencement of hostilities then. Their verdict harmonizes with the following special briefing for Balkanalysis.com, written by Canadian war reporter Scott Taylor.

These revelations, along with a November 7 New York Times article questioning the US government’s official line blaming Russia, citing other OSCE monitors, is already having repercussions for international relations. Caught in a lie, the US State Department is predictably enough now saying that it is €šÃ„ònot important€šÃ„ô who started the conflict.

Robert Wood, deputy spokesman at the State Department was quoted as saying: “I think we need to get away from looking at who did what first, because, as I said, I don’t think we’ll ever really get to the bottom of that€šÃ„¶ the important thing is for us to move forward, and that’s what we’re trying to do, in terms of trying to reconstruct Georgia, bring about stability to the general region. And that’s what we are going to focus on.”

However, just because the US government has decided that it will not “focus on” finding responsibility for a deadly and unnecessary conflict, that is not stopping intrepid journalists from fulfilling their responsibilities for them- as Scott Taylor now reports.

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Tskhinvali, South Ossetia: For the casual observer,  relying only upon the scant coverage offered in the Western media, the outbreak of hostilities in the Caucasus last August was presented and understood as an act of aggression on the part of the Russian Federation. The real story, however, was more complex.

When Russian tanks began pouring  into the disputed territory of South Ossetia to engage the Georgian military, the US State Department reiterated its stance that Georgia was simply exercising its  control over sovereign land.

Few pundits or analysts understood the South Ossetians€šÃ„ô  long-standing declaration of autonomy from the Tbilisi regime.

Most significantly, almost no one understood the fact that Georgia had unleashed the initial attack on 7 August, killing Russian peacekeepers in the process, and committed some horrific war crimes before the tables were turned on them militarily with Russia’s entry into the fray three days later.

Since 1989, ethnic Ossetians and Georgians have been engaged in four separate clashes for control of this region, the most recent being the one this past August, sparked by the Georgian invasion. At the time, the world’s attention was focused on the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies.

That night, Georgian tanks rolled into South Ossetia in an attempt to submit the breakaway region, around midnight- despite the explicit assurances of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, issued just a few hours earlier on national radio, that no attack was in the offing.

South Ossetia must be one of the very most difficult places I have ever tried to reach as a reporter. Geographically, it’s linked to North Ossetia, Russia by only a single winding pass cutting through the Caucasus Mountains. All access routes to the south, into Georgia proper, have been blocked since the conflict, and the extensive Russian-Georgian border remains closed.

It was thus only possible to get to Tskhinvali, de facto capital of South Ossetia, from the north. Despite assurances from the highest levels of the Russian administration, Russian border guards at the crossing prevented our team from entering, claiming that no foreign journalist were allowed into the conflict zone.

We thus were forced to spend three frustrating days waiting, stranded at a remote mountain checkpoint, before a phone call from the press secretary of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s came, ordering the local commander to let us pass.

The lack of on-site independent monitors when the Georgian tanks rolled into South Ossetia on 7 August ensured that the first media reports were inconsistent and vague.

So, since very little has been reported about the initial Georgian attack, I made it my business to find out what really happened in those pivotal early hours of the five-day showdown between the world’s largest country and its small, but US-supported Caucasus neighbor to the south.

Ossetian officials admit that they had reason to be suspicious in the days leading up to the attack, though there was little they could do in any case. They were aware an attack was looming after the Georgians began massing armored formations along the administrative boundary on 1 August, and in response mobilized the statelet’s small but spirited militia.

They also saw to it that additional medical supplies were stockpiled at the Tskhinvali hospital. Nevertheless, President Saakashvili’s public assurances of peace prompted the people to sleep unworried on that fateful night- in which, shortly after midnight, Georgian missiles rained down on an unsuspecting barracks housing Russian peacekeepers. Some 150 people died in the unprovoked sneak attack.

Georgian army units in T-72 tanks then penetrated Ossetian terrain, but were forced to take an alternate route to the west, crossing a garbage dump and canal; the main road had been mined as a precaution by the Ossetians.

As the Georgian tanks entered Tskhinvali, additional Georgian columns swept clear the few villages outside the city, then captured the ridgeline north of it. From this vantage point the Georgians could engage the columns of fleeing Ossetians and provide fire support for their troops inside the city.

Then, in villages along the main road leading northwards towards Russia, ethnic Georgian villagers carried out attacks on their Ossetian neighbors. The only route into the city was thus made unsafe, and civilians were trapped.

Nevertheless, the Georgian military made several baffling errors that in the end ruined their chances of a complete victory. Their aircraft attacked, but failed to destroy, a key bridge on the main road. Still more puzzling, they failed to even attempt to block the vital seven-kilometer tunnel linking South Ossetia to Russia.

“If they began their attack at the tunnel, this could only have resulted in a complete Georgian victory,” one senior Ossetian commander told me. “No matter how bravely we fought, without the Russians we would have been finished in a few days.”

Casualties quickly mounted inside occupied Tskhinvali, the scene of fierce fighting between heavily armed Georgians and rag-tag Ossetian militia fighters. Compounding the carnage, the city hospital was shelled repeatedly by the Georgians.

Dr. Nikolai Zagoyev, the head surgeon in this hospital, told me that he and his surgical staff would perform a total of 700 operations by candlelight in the operating room- hastily relocated to the basement. With the road blocked, and no helicopters available, there was no possibility to extract the casualties €šÃ„ì both military and civilian €šÃ„ì from the combat zone.

“Twenty-five of my medical staff became casualties in the attack,” said Dr. Zagoyev. “Conditions were deplorable, blood supplies were so low my doctors donated their own blood to patients before performing surgery. We didn€šÃ„ôt have the possibility to even test for blood types. It was a miracle that so many of our patients survived.”

According to Dr Zagoyev, priority was given to medically treating the lightly wounded South Ossetian soldiers so that they could return to the fighting. “Some of our soldiers were injured two or three times, and we would simply stitch them up while they still clutched their rifles,” he stated. “The fighting was only a few blocks away, and they would rush straight back out to rejoin their units”

Although the Georgian tanks reached the center of Tskhinvali, they crucially could not completely secure the city in the first 72 hours of the invasion. Despite being heavily outgunned, the South Ossetian militia continued to fiercely resist with short sharp ambushes.

“The Georgians were in their tanks with the hatches down, driving on streets which they did not recognize,” said Vitaly, a 32-year-old policeman/reservist who was wounded during the fighting. “We live in this city all of our lives, we know every alley, every sewer, even hiding place. They could have been here for 10 years and they could not crush the resistance.”

On my tour of the battle zone, it was very clear that it had been a fierce fight. The shattered remains of Georgian tank turrets still litter the central square in Tskhinvali, grim testimony to the intensity of the resistance put up by the Ossetian fighters.

Frustrated and unable to suppress the Ossetians, the Georgians engaged in a campaign of vandalism, arson and looting. The tide turned on the morning of 10 August: Russian armored units, supported by helicopter gunships, poured through the tunnel from North Ossetia and swept south, preparing to take their revenge for the cowardly Georgian attack on their barracks.

The Russian  tank columns blasted their way down the main highway then swept west to clear the Georgians drom the ridgeline above Tskhinvali. “Until this point, the Georgian airforce had been in control of the airspace, even though we knocked out some of their aircraft with groundfire” said a senior Ossetian commander.

“Once the Russians came, the situation was reversed. Without the  helicopter gunships, it would have been impossible to clear the Georgians from the heights”.

The Georgian soldiers put up only a minimal fight against the Russians, and their orderly withdrawal from South Ossetia quickly turned into a panicked rout. The ethnic Georgian villagers that had turned on their Ossetian neighbours, fled south if they were able to do so. Those trapped behind the lines faced the brutal revenge of the enraged Ossetians.

As the Russian troops broke through into Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian militia took their turn at burning and looting the hastily vacated Georgian homes in retaliation.

The Russian troops quickly routed the Georgians, driving them more than 20 kilometers back into Georgia proper. By this point Georgia’s Western allies had become alarmed at the escalation of events, and the US State Department voiced support for an embattled President Saakashvili as they denounced what they termed “Russian aggression.”

When the battlefield was pushed south in pursuit of Saakashvili’s shattered units, and the dust settled on South Ossetia, the entire region was a scene of tragic devastation.

Although a massive Russian-sponsored reconstruction program is now underway, the immediate future for the surviving Ossetians will prove difficult. The onset of winter is imminent, utilities have yet to be fully restored, and outside of Tskhinvali there are very few habitable buildings.

With the majority of able-bodied Ossetian males still mobilized for military service, a lot of the reconstruction and labor work is being conducted by the women. Most of the Russian troops still in the territory are construction battalions, and they are also heavily engaged in restoring the basic infrastructure.

The hardliners in South Ossetia point to the fact that with Russian assistance they were able to win a military victory. However, the pragmatic Ossetians have either fled north to start a new life, or are making plans to do so as soon as possible.

“If I could find a buyer for my home, I would leave here tomorrow,” said Evelena, a 51-year-old widow who runs a small informal bed and breakfast. “But who in their right mind is looking to buy a house in a potential war zone like Tskhinvali?”

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*Award-winning Canadian war reporter Scott Taylor is the author of five bestselling books on conflict zones from the Balkans to Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the editor of Esprit de Corps Magazine, Canada’s leading journal on military affairs.