GEORGIA - ANALYSIS

South Ossetia shelling – business as usual

Friday 04 July 2008

The tiny breakaway province of South Ossetia has declared a “general mobilization” after shelling killed three people. The Ossetians accuse the Georgian government; the Georgians say the Ossetians started it.

 

South Ossetia – a tiny breakaway province in the Republic of Georgia, on the border with Russia – is in the news again today. Headlines say that the Ossetian rebels have ordered a “general mobilization” after three people were killed in shelling overnight.

 

The Ossetians say Georgian forces fired mortars on their main city, Tskhinvali. The Georgians categorically deny bombarding the city with mortars, but say their peace-keeping forces returned fire after the Ossetians atacked Georgian villages in the area.

 

Strong stuff – but pretty much business as usual in this on-again, off-again conflict, which has been running for 16 years now.  This sort of clash has become almost routine in South Ossetia, particularly during the summer months. Determining which side opened fire first is almost impossible.   

 

South Ossetia broke away from Georgia in 1992 following a short and bitter civil war. The separatists now control most of the mountainous region, but almost half of its territory is still administered by the Georgian government.  What makes it even more complicated is that Georgian and Ossetian villages are interspersed through the province, making it an ethnic patchwork.

 

Russia, the big neighbour across the mountains

 

The breakaway government is pressing for independence, or, as a first step toward sovereignty, a merger with Russia, which lies on the far side of the Caucasus mountains to the north.  

 

Following the conflict of 1991-92, a joint peace-keeping force was set up comprised of battalions from Georgia, South Ossetia and Russia.   Its operations are monitored by the OSCE, which has kept a mission in Georgia since 1992.

 

The situation is greatly complicated by the role played in the conflict by Russia. Moscow almost invariably takes the Ossetian side in disputes and has issued passports to almost all Ossetians in the region. Georgia accuses Russia of seeking to annex both South Ossetia and another breakaway territory in western Georgia, Abkhazia.

 

For its part, Russia accuses Georgia of planning to retake South Ossetia by force and points to the build-up of Georgian forces in the vicinity of the breakaway region as evidence.

 

And to complicate matters still further, there is now a pro-Georgian South Ossetian government, which professes loyalty to Tbilisi and has set up office in the Georgian-controlled part of the province.

 

The Ossetians are now threatening to use heavy weaponry against what they say are Georgian forces illegally deployed in the conflict zone. It’s not clear which “illegally deployed” units they are referring to. The area is monitored by the OSCE as well as by the Russians, and so far neither has documented the presence of illegal Georgian groups.

 

That said, if the Ossetians carry out their threat to open fire on Georgian forces, that would constitute a premeditated escalation of the conflict and would clearly provoke a Georgian response.

 

The likelihood though is that tensions will subside - at least until one or the other side launches another mortar barrage.