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OSSETI GIRL

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SOUTH OSSETIAN PRESIDENT EDUARD KOKOITY, February 18, 2008:

“South Ossetia will in the near future appeal to the UN with a request to recognise our independence.”

SELF-DECLARED ABKHAZ PRESIDENT SERGEI BAGAPSH, February 18, 2008:

“In the near future Abkhazia will appeal to the Russian parliament and the UN Security Council with a request to recognise its independence.”

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But the Ossetians and Abkhazians are mostly Orthodox Christians, as are Russians and Georgians, so I don’t think anyone cares…

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French Troops in Kosovo try to protect Christians from Muslims, after empowering the Muslims against the Christians (and impotent at combating Jihadis in Paris):

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Rioting in Belgrade:

Okay, well, maybe some people don’t care….

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Serbia, the sovereign state, has not agreed to independence for Kosovo, and there is no Security Council resolution authorising the detachment of Kosovo from Serbia, and therefore its independence is illegal.

European Union members Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania agree.

Serbia and Russia say that UN Resolution 1244 itself gives no authority for independence. They point to article 10 of 1244 which authorises “substantial autonomy with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” for Kosovo, meaning, in their view, that 1244 blocks independence.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had this to say on 12 February: “We are speaking here about the subversion of all the foundations of international law, about the subversion of those principles which, at huge effort, and at the cost of Europe’s pain, sacrifice and bloodletting have been earned and laid down as a basis of its existence.

“We are speaking about a subversion of those principles on which the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe rests, those [principles] laid down in the fundamental documents of the UN.”

The main principle he refers to is that borders should be changed only by agreement.

In Russia and Serbia’s view, since there is no agreement, there should be no recognition.

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Pristina Sends Moscow Back to UN

By Nikolaus von Twickel

The Moscow Times

The [Russian] government reacted immediately Sunday to Kosovo’s declaration of independence, calling for a meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the move, while former Soviet breakaway regions, long fostered by aid from Moscow, rejoiced at improved prospects of international recognition.

The Foreign Ministry promptly issued a stern warning after the parliament of the former Serb province unanimously embraced a declaration of independence Sunday afternoon.

“We expect the United Nations’ and NATO’s mission in Kosovo to fulfill their mandate swiftly … and annul the decision of the Pristina organs,” the ministry said in a statement posted on its web site.

It said the declaration could lead to an escalation of tensions and renewed ethnic conflict in the Balkans.

The statement reiterated Moscow’s position that a declaration of Kosovar independence represented multiple violations of international law, including breaches of Serbia’s sovereignty and the UN Charter.

“Russia totally supports the Serbian leadership’s reaction … and its just claims to territorial integrity,” the statement said.

Serbian President Boris Tadic said Sunday that his country would never accept Kosovo’s “unilateral and illegal” declaration.

The Kremlin also condemned the decision.

“This is an illegitimate act that deeply contradicts UN Security Council resolutions,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in televised comments Sunday evening.

The Foreign Ministry’s statement made no reference to a possible recognition of former Soviet breakaway republics. President Vladimir Putin last week said that Russia would not mimic a “foolish and unlawful decision” by the West.

Britain, France and Germany could move quickly to back Kosovo’s new status officially after a meeting of EU foreign Ministers on Monday. But the 27-member Union is deeply divided over the issue. The stiffest opposition comes from Spain and Cyprus, two countries torn by separatist conflicts themselves, and from Greece and Romania, two of Serbia’s traditional allies.

It was unclear how soon Washington would recognize Kosovo. President George W. Bush merely said during a visit to Tanzania Sunday that the U.S. would work with its allies to prevent violent clashes, The Associated Press reported.

Leaders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, autonomous territories that have enjoyed de facto independence within Georgia for more than 15 years, said they would press their case for international recognition.

“Kosovo is a precedent and by no means a unique case,” Abkhaz President Sergei Bagapsh said Sunday, Interfax reported. South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity said that both his region and Abkhazia make a stronger case for independence than Kosovo.

“What Kosovo did today happened in Abkhazia and South Ossetia already 17 years ago,” he was quoted as saying.

Both leaders said that they would formally ask both the Commonwealth of Independent States and the United Nations to recognize them as independent states, the agency reported.

Their words were echoed by Abkhaz representatives abroad.

“We welcome this as an example of a people’s right to self-determination,” Khibla Amichba, a representative of the Abkhaz government to Germany said by telephone from Andernach, near Bonn.

George Hewitt, a professor of Caucasian Languages at London’s School of Oriental Studies, to whom the republic has given the title of Honorary Consul in Britain, agreed.

“Whatever happens in Kosovo is a precedent for Abkhazia,” he said in a telephone interview from Doncaster, England.

While it was unlikely that any country would recognize Abkhazia, Hewitt argued that support from countries other than Russia might be the only way out of the isolation that has kept the small territory along the Black Sea coast isolated ever since it defeated Georgia’s armed forces in a vicious war back in 1993.

“If the West does not want to see Russian power established, it should step in and recognize Abkhazia,” he said.

The present status quo meant that Moscow has been able to wield massive influence, because without recognition other countries were unwilling to establish relations, he argued.

Western policymakers have argued that the case of Kosovo must not be compared with Abkhazia or South Ossetia, because ethnic Albanians represented 90 percent of the province’s two million people and had been oppressed by the Serbian government in Belgrade Kosovo is mostly Muslim.

Kosovo has been under UN administration since 1999.

In Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgian troops tried to bring the territories back under central jurisdiction after both unilaterally declared independence following the breakup of the Soviet Union.

But the Georgian army was defeated twice and fled, accompanied by much of the local ethnic Georgian population. In the case of Abkhazia, this amounted to around 250,000 people, a majority of the pre-war population.

In a rare show of agreement with Moscow, a senior Georgian politician voiced opposition to an independent Kosovo on Sunday.

“The Georgian leadership will never recognize Kosovo’s independence,” said Konstantin Gabashvili, the chairman of the country’s parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee.

Gabashvili argued that the issue might come to the fore if Russia took steps toward the recognition of breakaway republics, but warned that this posed risks to the country’s own territorial integrity, Interfax reported.

Moscow and Tbilisi nevertheless traded barbs after the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday it would defend the rights of its citizens living in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The Georgian Foreign Ministry summoned Russian Ambassador Vyacheslav Kovalenko to hand him a note of protest over the statement.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili replied that the granting of Russian citizenship to vast numbers of residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was seen by his government as illegal.

“According to our laws, people living in Abkhazia and South Ossetia are our citizens,” he was quoted as saying by Interfax.

Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan said that Kosovo’s example would strengthen a bid by the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh [i.e. Armenians surrounded by Azerbaijan] to be recognized as a state.

“Recognition of Kosovo’s independence can be welcomed by us,” Sargsyan, front-runner in the Feb. 19 Armenian presidential election, said in an interview with Reuters.

“If countries recognize the independence of Kosovo and then don’t recognize the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh, we’ll think of double standards,” he was quoted as saying.

In a war with Azerbaijan in the 1990s, ethnic Armenians managed to break away from control by Baku, but have yet failed to win international recognition.

In Moldova’s Transdnestr region, the separatist parliament was expected to issue a statement on Monday responding to Kosovo’s declaration.

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Kosovo and the Russians

Gideon Rachman, FT.com, November 29, 2007

Perhaps there is something wrong with me - or I am badly missing the point. But I can’t help feeling a certain sympathy for the Russian position over Kosovo. All my friends who follow Russian foreign policy and/or the Balkans tell me I’m wrong and that the Putin government is behaving provocatively and irresponsibly. But, as far as I can see, it is the Russians who are sticking to the letter of the law.

Let me re-cap. The situation in Kosovo has been building steadily towards a crisis for months. By December 10 the Serbs and the Kosovars are meant to have reached an agreement. Everybody knows that this is not going to happen - and that the Kosovars will almost certainly declare independence soon after the breakdown of talks. At that point the US will in all probability recognise Kosovo, as will many EU countries (although not the EU itself).

The justification for the US-European position is that Kosovo is over 90% Albanian. The argument is that by their vicious treatment of the province in the past the Serbs have forfeited the right to rule it. Refusing recognition to the Kosovars might just provoke a renewal of violence. Independence, at some point, is inevitable. We might as well just get on with it.

The Russians respond that recognising a new independent state, without agreement between the two parties or a UN resolution, sets a very dangerous precedent for other parts of the world. What about the Russian-majority territories in the Caucasus like Abkhazia or South Ossetia? What happens if the Serb-majority bit of Bosnia declares independence, as it is now threatening?

Now part of this is clearly just mischief-making. It might well suit the Kremlin to find excuses to make trouble for Georgia, for example, by backing the Abkhazians. But the precedent argument is not totally without merit. Clearly, there are members of the European Union who are worried by it. It is no accident that the Spanish - concerned by the possibility of eventual Catalan or Basque declarations of independence - are among the Europeans who are most reluctant to recognise Kosovo.

The argument about UN resolutions is also a powerful one. Of course, there is an element of circularity about the Russian position. The main reason there will not be a UN security council resolution recognising Kosovo is that Russia (and China) would veto it. But nonetheless, how would the US or the EU react if the Russians were rushing to recognise a country that had unilaterally declared independence, without UN recognition? Not very well, I suspect.

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Potential armed conflicts in Transcaucasia and Central Asia

High probability and intensity:

Kodori Gorge — Gali District — Ochamchira: Georgia — Abkhazia (with participation of Russia)

Tskhinval — Java: Georgia — South Ossetia (with participation of Russia)

Nagorno Karabakh — Nakhichevan: Azerbaijan (with participation of Turkey) — Armenia

Osh: Kyrgyzstan — Afghanistan

Fergana Valley: Afghanistan — Uzbekistan — Kyrgyzstan — Tajikistan

Khodjent: Uzbekistan — Tajikistan

Medium probability and intensity:

Vakhsh — Pamir: Afghanistan — Tajikistan

Jalalabad — Osh: Uzbekistan — Kyrgyzstan

Derbent: Azerbaijan — Russia

Lenkoran: Azerbaijan — Iran

Shymkent: Uzbekistan — Kazakhstan

Low probability and intensity:

Akhalkalaki: Georgia — Armenia

Astrakhan: Russia — Kazakhstan

Altai: Russia — Kazakhstan

Chui Valley — Issyk Kul: Kazakhstan — Kyrgyzstan

Высокая вероятность и интенсивность:

Кодорское ущелье - Гальский район - Очамчира: Грузия - Абхазия (с участием России)

Цхинвал - Джава: Грузия - Южная Осетия (с участием России)

Нагорный Карабах - Нахичевань: Азербайджан (с участием Турции) - Армения

Ош: Киргизия - Афганистан

Ферганская долина: Афганистан - Узбекистан - Киргизия - Таджикистан

Ходжент: Узбекистан - Таджикистан

Средняя вероятность и интенсивность:

Вахш - Памир: Афганистан - Таджикистан

Джалалабад-Ош: Узбекистан - Киргизия

Дербент: Азербайджан - Россия

Ленкорань: Азербайджан - Иран

Чимкент: Узбекистан - Казахстан

Низкая вероятность и интенсивность:

Ахалкалаки: Грузия - Армения

Астрахань: Россия - Казахстан

Алтай: Россия - Казахстан

Чуйская долина - Иссык-Куль: Казахстан - Киргизи

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Georgia rebel region seeks recognition after Kosovo

By Guy Faulconbridge

MOSCOW, March 5, 2008 (Reuters) - A pro-Russian breakaway region in the Caucasus mountains said on Wednesday it had asked the world community to recognise its independence from Georgia following the West’s support for Kosovo’s secession.

South Ossetia, which broke away from Georgia, drove out pro-Tbilisi forces and declared independence in the early 1990s, called on the United Nations, European Union states and Russia to recognise it as a sovereign state.

“The Kosovo precedent has driven us to seek our rights more actively,” a spokeswoman for South Ossetia’s separatist leader, Eduard Kokoity, said by telephone.

The region’s local assembly has passed a resolution which says Kosovo’s independence created a precedent which showed that regions desiring sovereignty should be recognised by the international community.

Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia on Feb. 17. Its Western backers say this does not create a precedent but ex-Soviet rebel regions say that is hypocrisy.

Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Azerbaijan’s rebel Nagorno-Karabakh region and Transdniestria, which split from Moldova, declared independence in the 1990s but have not received international recognition.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, en route to Brussels for a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting, said South Ossetia had no chance of international support for independence.

“It is not going to happen,” said Rice, asked whether she could support recognising South Ossetia as an independent state.

“I don’t want to judge the motives but we have been very clear that Kosovo is sui generis. That is because of the special circumstances out of which the breakup of Yugoslavia came,” she told reporters.

KOSOVO PRECEDENT

The region’s assembly took the opposite view. “The ‘Kosovo precedent’ is a convincing confirmation that the resolution of regional conflicts is based not only on the principle of a state’s territorial integrity,” it said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters.

“The 17-year period of South Ossetia’s independence confirms its viability and demands only the legitimisation of her sovereignty in accordance with the United Nations charter.”

South Ossetia, which says it wants to “move closer” to Russia, is still recognised internationally as part of Georgia.

Almost all the 50,000 people in the region hold Russian passports, transactions are in roubles and Moscow is the region’s biggest diplomatic supporter. South Ossetia has close ethnic ties to North Ossetia, a neighbouring Russian region.

Tbilisi has vowed to restore its control there and the region is a source of tension between Russia and Georgia.

Voters in South Ossetia have repeatedly backed splitting from Georgia, which says the votes are not legitimate and are cooked up by Russia.

Russia, a close Serbian ally, says the recognition of Kosovo independence by the West has opened a “Pandora’s box” of separatist tension across Europe.

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Human rights activist: Abkhazia’s and South Ossetia’s sovereignty more legitimate than Kosovo’s

Regnum.ru, March 24, 2008

“Presuming that Kosovo will incite separatist moods in other peoples, including the Abkhazian ans South Ossetian ones, is wrong. In fact, Abkhazia, for instance, has always had more grounds and more arguments for self-determination. And the recent statement of the State Duma deputies who have supported the striving of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdnestr to independence is very timely,” head of Kabardino-Balkarian Human Rights Center Valery Khatazhukov.

”The statement is, of course, of more a rhetoric character than many hoped it would be. Many hoped that it would contain more clear recommendations for the executive power. But anyhow, this is a positive moment that gives us an opportunity to work with the situation at the federal level,” Mr Khatazhukov observed.

Abkhazia had once joined the USSR as an independent republic. Later, Joseph Stalin annexed it to Georgia. Today, when the USSR is extinct, Abkhazia has no formal grounds to the return of this status. However, for the last 15 years, Abkhazia has proved that she has all the normally-functioning organizations of an independent state, Mr Khatazhukov has reminded.

“Some see contradictions between international principles of self-determination and preservation of territorial integrity of states. As a matter of fact, there are no contradictions. The principle of self-determination is consistently recognized in the provisions of international organizations, first of all, in the UN bylaws. It is even possible to say that it prevails. Territorial integrity of Georgia can only be violated if Abkhazia or South Ossetia joined Russia, i. e., were annexed,” Mr Khatazhukov argues.

According to the human rights activist, argument that the Abkhazian and South Ossetian precedents could lead to the disintegration of the Russian Federation is also ungrounded. “Separatist moods can be provoked by the federal authority itself, if it pursues incompetent national policies inside the Russian state.”

“This could be the result of integration of territorial units, which questions the possibility of preservation of cultural values, of cultural identification of various peoples populating Russia, including the peoples of the Northern Caucasus.”

“Besides, facts of xenophobia have become more frequent, which are not terminated by the government. Most eminent are the anti-Caucasian pronouncements of Zhirinovsky who suggests that the problems of the North Caucasus be solved by deportation of peoples residing in the region to outside the Caucasian Mountains. And Zhirinovsky is a head of a parliamentary party,” Khatazhukov noted.

“Besides, separatism may be incited by thwarting national development programs, including a number of hours for the study of indigenous people’s languages,” the rights activist argues. “If in early 1990s, up to 70% of schools performed instruction in the primary school in the Kabardian and Balkarian Languages, now the percentage is becoming lower,” Khatazhukov stressed.

Правозащитник: у Абхазии и Южной Осетии больше аргументов для самостоятельности, чем у Косово

“Все разговоры о том, что отделение Косово подтолкнет сепаратистские настроения других народов, в том числе Абхазии и Южной Осетии, неверны. На самом деле у той же Абхазии всегда было больше оснований, больше аргументов для самоопределения. И недавнее заявление депутатов Госдумы РФ, поддержавших стремление Абхазии, Южной Осетии и Приднестровья к самостоятельности, было очень своевременным”, - заявил корреспонденту ИА REGNUM 24 марта руководитель Кабардино-Балкарского правозащитного центра Валерий Хатажуков.

“Конечно, это заявление носит больше декларативный характер, многие надеялись, что в нем будут более четкие рекомендации для исполнительной власти. Но в любом случае это положительный момент, который дает возможность на уровне властных структур РФ развивать ситуацию”, - добавил он.

Правозащитник подчеркнул, что Абхазия в свое время вошла с состав СССР как самостоятельная единица и лишь потом Сталин присоединил ее к Грузии. Теперь, когда СССР уже не существует, у Абхазии исчезли формальные основания для возврата этого статуса, однако за последние 15 лет Абхазия доказала, что имеет все структуры самостоятельного государства, которые нормально функционируют, считает Хатажуков. “Некоторые видят противоречия в международных принципах самоопределения и сохранения территориальной целостности государств. На самом деле никаких противоречий нет. В уставах международных организаций, и прежде всего в уставе ООН, последовательно признается принцип самоопределения. Можно даже сказать, что он превалирует. Территориальная целостность Грузии может быть нарушена только в том случае, если Абхазия или Южная Осетия войдут в состав России, то есть будут аннексированы”, - утверждает Хатажуков.

По мнению правозащитника, разговоры о том, что абхазский и южно-осетинский прецедент может привести к развалу Российской Федерации, также несостоятельны. “Сепаратистские настроения может спровоцировать сама федеральная власть, если будет проводить неумелую национальную политику внутри российского государства. К этому может привести политика укрупнения территорий, которая ставит под вопрос сохранения культурных ценностей, культурной идентификации различных народов, населяющих Россию, в том числе и народов Северного Кавказа. Кроме того, в последнее время все чаще регистрируются факты ксенофобии, которые властями не пресекаются. Чего только стоят антикавказские высказывания Жириновского, который предлагает решить проблемы Северного Кавказа путем выселения населяющих его народов за пределы Кавказского хребта. А ведь Жириновский является руководителем парламентской партии”, - заметил Хатажуков.

Кроме того, к сепаратизму может подтолкнуть и сворачивание национальных программ, в том числе сокращение в школах часов, отведенных на обучение языкам коренных народов, считает правозащитник. “Если в начале 90-х в Кабардино-Балкарии до 70% школ в начальных классах вели обучение на кабардинском и балкарском языках, то сейчас этот процент снижается”, - подчеркнул Хатажуков.

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