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Sarkozy take center stage, and thwarts another Kosovo

Gorbachev: Georgia started conflict in S. Ossetia

(CNN) -- Georgian leaders may be blaming Russia for the conflict raging in South Ossetia, but former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said Thursday "there is no doubt" that Georgia provoked the clash.

Gorbachev told CNN's Larry King that Russia moved additional forces into South Ossetia in response to "devastation" in the South Ossetia city of Tskhinvali.

"This was the use of sophisticated weapons against a small town, against a sleeping people. This was a barbaric assault," said Gorbachev, the last president of the former Soviet Union.

But Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who also appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" Thursday, said he was "profoundly shocked" that Mikhail Gorbachev would use a television appearance "for basically vindicating lies and deceptions."

Last week, Georgia said it launched an operation into South Ossetia after a cease-fire was broken with artillery fire from Russian separatists that killed 10 people including civilians and peacekeepers. It accused Russia, which also has peacekeepers in the region, of backing the separatists.

Hours later, the Russian news agency Interfax reported that Russian authorities said 10 Russian peacekeepers had been killed and 30 wounded in an attack by Georgians.

"Western television didn't show what happened in Tskhinvali," Gorbachev said. "Only now they're beginning to show some pictures of the destruction. So this looks to me like it was a well-prepared project. And with any outcome, they wanted to put the blame on Russia."

He called Georgia's claims that Russia is attempting to dismantle its democracy "all lies from beginning to end."

In response, Saakashvili expressed disappointment with the sentiments from Gorbachev, who he said he once respected.

Remember how our bombing of Kosovo – begun on Vespers of the Annunciation of the Incarnation to Mary, then continued right through the consummation of the Incarnation by Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection in Easter, and as celebrated on both the calendar dates, thus by all Christians all over the world – got started? When Madeleine Albright became Sec. of State, in a briefing laying out her agenda, a key point she made was that our “close relationship” with Greece was now going to shift over to Russia, and she mentioned explicitly all that Caspian oil over there that Russia controls the spigots to. So not too much time went by before she found a pretext to make her move in Slobodan Miloshevich’s efforts to keep the Albanians from – well, doing what they indeed have done, take Kosovo over altogether. In 1999 I think they had come in a remarkably short period of time, like a decade or 2, from a minority to an almost 90% majority. (Don’t ask me how that happened.)

So the principals all gathered at Rambouillet, outside Paris, and Madeleine is very reliably reported to have said: We’ll just raise the bar a little higher than we know Miloshevich will accept …… as an excuse to bomb them.

I guess that proved so successful, they decided to do it again, because William Cohen, the former US Defense Secretary, was repeatedly reported in the sources I read as saying that the Georgians were following an American plan when they decided to “devastate” – literally level to the ground, and not sparing “holy sites”, I read one report of an ancient Jewish temple that was destroyed utterly – Tskhinvali, the capital city of South Ossetia.

Moscow, August 15, Interfax

The Congress of the Jewish Religious Organizations and Associations in Russia believes, when Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili initiated military operations in South Ossetia, he committed the sin of the Babylon king Nebuchadnezzar, whose army destroyed Old Testament Temple in Israel. The Congress' chair Rabbi Zinovy Kogan in his statement conveyed to Interfax reminds us that … about two thousand and a half years ago "Nebuchadnezzar, obsessed by Satan, demolished the Jerusalem temple and crowds of refugees went to the North…. Thus the community and the oldest synagogue in Tskhinval was established 2600 years-old, the rabbi says. Nowadays Georgian President Saakashvili seized by Satan razed old Tskhinval to the ground."

Meanwhile, back at the ranch – well, Bush wasn’t there, but he wasn’t minding the store, either, he was kissing the pretty Olympic athletes over in Beijing. Neither was Condoleeza Rice on call. I didn’t see the question asked, whether it was a set-up or what, I have tremendous personal affection for Dubya, and I would like to think that a tired Bush administration is mostly just going through the motions these days, trying not to do any more damaging and nutty things than they already have done, before they turn things over to Obama. And so French Pres. Sarkozy, Obama’s very good friend – I read they were downright schmoozy during his Paris visit – was able to step into the breech. Here is the whole story:

The Moscow Times » Issue 3965 » Frontpage Top

Misha Japaridze / AP

Sarkozy Clinches a 6-Point Plan for Peace

13 August 2008

By Anatoly Medetsky, Anna Smolchenko / Staff Writers

President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday that Georgia should agree to a cease-fire, the return of its troops to their bases and the continued deployment of Russian peacekeepers in its breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The conditions were part of a six-point legally binding document that Georgia will have to sign for an international peace plan to work. The document was agreed upon by Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who made a lightening visit to the Kremlin to mediate the talks, and presented to reporters after more than four hours of talks.

Sarkozy then left for Tbilisi to ask Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to agree to the deal.

"If the Georgian side will really be ready to sign this and withdraw troops to their initial positions [and] follow through on everything that is stated in these principles, then a path to the gradual normalization of the situation in South Ossetia will be open," Medvedev said at a joint news conference after the talks.

Under the other three conditions, Georgia must agree not to use force, to allow humanitarian aide into the conflict zone and to agree to the start of international talks on the future status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Sarkozy, who in his usual manner gestured heavily during the news conference, said the plan they had come up with might not seem like much but that the most important task was to stop the fighting and bloodshed.

"It's not that I wasn't brave enough. It's much easier to write an editorial than to bring people closer," he said.

Medvedev defended Russia's use of force and said many more people would have died if Russia had not intervened. "Our peacekeepers are continuing to perform their duties and will continue to perform their duties because they are a key factor for upholding security in the Caucasus," Medvedev said.

Sarkozy took pains to be seen as a fair arbiter, saying he sent his Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to meet refugees in North Ossetia. Before his visit to Moscow, Sarkozy met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and he said the two of them see eye to eye. Medvedev is scheduled to meet with Merkel later this week in Sochi, where he is scheduled to go on a working vacation.

Sarkozy and Medvedev had been scheduled to address reporters after two hours of talks, but a Kremlin spokesman announced that it had been delayed because the talks were continuing. A member of the French delegation said soon after that Putin had arrived for lunch with Medvedev and Sarkozy. The two presidents addressed reporters two hours later, while Putin chose not to attend.

When asked why the talks went so long, a senior Russian diplomat who participated in the meeting said only that the leaders had agreed on everything long before they emerged to speak with reporters and had in the remaining time "told jokes about women." The diplomat did not smile as he spoke, and it was unclear whether he was joking.

From the Kremlin, Sarkozy headed for Tbilisi where he was prepared to spend the night talking to Saakashvili. "The night is young," he said.

France holds the European Union's rotating presidency and is leading mediation efforts between Russia and Georgia. Shortly before meeting Sarkozy, Medvedev ordered a halt to fighting by Russian troops. France is well-positioned for the mediation effort because it was one of the countries that resisted U.S. calls to put Georgia and Ukraine on track to join NATO by giving them a Membership Action Plan in April.

Complicating the situation, however, Moscow has turned down the idea of direct talks with Saakashvili. "Saakashvili can no longer be our partner, and it would be better if he stepped down," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday. "He didn't even think about remorse and constantly says he's right in killing our citizens and peaceful people and ordering women and children be run over by tanks." Lavrov said there were many people in Georgia other than Saakashvili with whom Russia could negotiate.

Also Tuesday, Medvedev called EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to thank the EU for its role in trying to return peace to the region.

The U.S. envoy to the region, Matthew Bryza, welcomed the end of military action in Georgia, saying at a news conference in Tbilisi that it marked a "return of common sense and genuine concern for humanity."

The following is from the New York Times:

By ANDREW E. KRAMER

Published: August 13, 2008

TBILISI, Georgia — It was nearly 2 a.m. on Wednesday when President Nicolas Sarkozy of France announced he had accomplished what seemed virtually impossible: Persuading the leaders of Georgia and Russia to agree to a set of principles that would stop the war.

[Then there was a graphic of the text of the agreement with handwritten notes marking changes that Georgians wanted but failed to attain, see below.*]

Handshakes and congratulations were offered all around. But by the time the sun was up, Russian tanks were advancing again, this time taking positions around the strategically important city of Gori, in central Georgia.

It soon became clear that the six-point deal not only failed to slow the Russian advance, but it also allowed Russia to claim that it could push deeper into Georgia as part of so-called additional security measures it was granted in the agreement. Mr. Sarkozy, according to a senior Georgian official who witnessed the negotiations, also failed to persuade the Russians to agree to any time limit on their military action.

[Once Condoleeza Rice showed up and got her own treaty – which seems just a repeat of the EU one …… there also is no time limit. The Russians said they would start pulling back on Monday – but emphasized that they had no intention to cut and run, but would clean things up along the way, and do it at their own pace.]

By mid-morning, European officials were warning of the risks of appeasing Russian aggression, while Georgian officials lamented the West’s weak leverage. “I’m talking about the impotence and inability of both Europe and the United States to be unified and to exert leverage, and to comprehend the level of the threat,” said the senior Georgian official, who had sat in on the talks between Mr. Sarkozy and Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili.

The senior Georgian official later made * a copy of the deal available to The New York Times with what he said were notes marking changes the Georgians had asked for but failed to attain.

Of gripping importance to the Georgian government now, Western diplomats and Georgian officials said, is whether the agreement gave the Russians room to interpret the occupation of Gori and a zone around the city as agreed upon in the cease-fire, thus allowing them to control the main east-west road through the country, isolating the capital, Tbilisi, from the Black Sea coast and cutting off important supply routes. In response, the United States began sending troops to Georgia to oversee aid to the capital on Wednesday.

France brokered the deal as the country holding the rotating presidency of the European Union. Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France, visited Tbilisi and left with a four-point cease-fire plan.

The conditions were: no use of force; cease hostilities; open humanitarian corridors in the conflict areas; and Georgian and Russian troops withdraw to their pre-war positions.

In meetings in Moscow, the Russians insisted on two additional points, the Georgian official said, and Mr. Sarkozy carried these demands to Georgia, landing shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday and driving straight to the Parliament building to meet Mr. Saakashvili.

Negotiating from a position of strength, the Russians demanded the fifth point, allowing their troops to act in what was termed a peacekeeping role, even outside the boundaries of the separatist enclaves where the war began, with an understanding that later an international agreement might obviate this need. The vague language of the fifth point allows Russian peacekeepers to “implement additional security measures” while awaiting an international monitoring mechanism.

The Georgians asked that a timeline be included in the language for these loosely defined Russian peacekeeping operations, but the Georgian official said Mr. Sarkozy’s response was that without an agreement, a Russian tank assault on the capital could ensue: “He was saying it’s a difficult situation. He said, ‘Their tanks are 40 kilometers from Tbilisi. This is where we are.’ ” Mr. Sarkozy then tried to call Dmitri A. Medvedev, the Russian president, to amend the point with a timeline. The adviser, who was present, said the Russians did not take the call for two hours. When the French president got through, the proposal was rejected.

In the sixth point, both sides agreed that the status of the contested separatist regions would be pursued in the future.

A senior American official familiar with the talks also said that the Russians insisted on the fifth point about the so-called additional security measures. “I think it was presented as, ‘You need to sign on to this,’ ” the official said of Mr. Sarkozy’s appeal to the Georgians. “My guess is it was presented as, ‘This is the best I can get.’ ”

French and Russian officials were unavailable to comment on the Georgian official’s account of how the negotiations unfolded.

Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Saakashvili announced the agreement around 2 a.m., and Russian tanks and troops moved toward Gori soon afterward. The Russians cited the fifth provision, saying they had identified a threat to the local population that justified their troops assuming a peacekeeping role in the city.

A spokesman for President Medvedev said they took up positions around the town to protect locals from South Ossetians bent on revenge against ethnic Georgians for what Russia says was Georgia’s wholesale destruction of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, and its inflicting of civilian casualties. It said it was also there to dispose of weapons left unattended by Georgian troops.

And, in an apparent swipe at the retreat of the Georgian army, which received supplies from the United States, the Russian general commanding the town, Vyachislav N. Borisov, noted in particular the risk if looters seized what he said were thousands of abandoned, American-made assault rifles at a military base. General Borisov spoke at an impromptu news conference on a road congested with Russian military trucks and armored vehicles outside Gori on Wednesday evening.

Russian troops have the right to take any actions necessary to prevent hostilities, said a Kremlin spokesman, Alexei Pavlov, including inside Georgia.

He said the fifth point of the agreement included this right but added that Russia would consider such actions justified “without any agreement at all.”

One senior American official said the fifth point in the cease-fire agreement could lead to further Russian advances, including feints on Tbilisi, to create panic and undermine support for Mr. Saakashvili. This official said international acceptance of Russians as peacekeepers in Georgia “is absurd at this point.”

Angry residents in S Ossetian capital
By Sarah Rainsford

BBC News, Tskhinvali

In pictures: Tskhinvali in ruins

In the centre of the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, many buildings have been completely destroyed in the fighting.

There are apartment buildings all around with smashed windows, with bullet and shrapnel damage and gaping holes where there used to be windows.

People in Tskhinvali - the few that remain after many fled the fighting - told me they can see no future for South Ossetia in Georgia now, if they ever did.

They very clearly blame Georgia for the fighting and are extremely angry with President Mikhail Saakashvili, comparing him to Adolf Hitler.

Russian troops have been greeted in Tskhinvali as lifesavers.

People in the streets have been saying "thank you Russia, thank you Russia".

Georgian Patriarch visits Gori to see the city wasn't demolished

Moscow, August 15, Interfax - Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia visited Gori on Thursday as a member of delegation, which included over 120 representatives of mass media and diplomatic missions. He saw nothing was destroyed in the city, deputy head of the Russia's general staff colonel-general Anatoly Nogovitsyn said.

"They made sure there were no destructions vividly depicted by the Georgian side," the Russian general-colonel said at a briefing on Friday.

According to him, "downtown is safe and suburbs were not as violently damaged as we heard (from some mass-media) and it couldn't have been otherwise."

"We have always said that Russian troops didn't apply heavy equipment and armament in Gori," Nogovitsyn stressed.

So by the time Bush and Rice decided to speak up – the whole world’s center of gravity had shifted dramatically. We’ll just have to stay tuned and see where we go from here. God is saying in the book of Revelation, “I am making all things new” - so this is a milestone, but we can surely expect others!

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