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TSKHINVALI, Georgia, Aug 21 (Reuters) - South Ossetia will
ask the Kremlin to recognise its independence from Georgia, the
leader of the breakaway region told a rally including widows and
mourning mothers in his war-ravaged capital on Thursday.
 

Eduard Kokoity, who styles himself president of a country
not recognised by any other nation, told a rally of several
thousand that Georgia had undermined its own statehood by trying
to seize his region by force on Aug 7-8.
 

Widows and mothers in black, with photographs of their loved
ones pinned to their chests, shed tears in the shadows of
bombed-out houses on the central square of Tskhinvali as Kokoity
lambasted Georgia and its Western backers.
 

The small, pro-Russian province in the Caucasus mountains,
which broke away from Georgian rule in 1992 after a war, saw
renewed fighting this month after Georgia tried to impose
control in a failed invasion repelled by Russian forces.
 

"I have already prepared an address to the President of the
Russian Federation, to the Federation Council and State Duma,
and to the heads of state of the international community, with a
request to recognise our independence," Kokoity said.
 

"Georgia itself has driven a nail into the coffin of its
statehood," said Kokoity, a former Soviet wrestling champion,
who wiped away tears as he spoke under a beating sun.
 

"We proudly say today that we deserve to live in a free and
independent republic of South Ossetia," he said. "The
recognition of our independence is not a whim of the Ossetians;
this is a security guarantee for our tiny people."
 

RUSSIAN PASSPORTS
 

South Ossetia, a region of about 70,000 people, is supported
by Russia. Moscow has handed out thousands of Russian passports
to its citizens, although the Kremlin has so far always stopped
short of recognising it as an independent state.
 

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who sparked the
conflict by shelling Tskhinvali earlier this month, has vowed to
bring South Ossetia and another rebel region, Abkhazia, back
under Tbilisi's control.
 

Russia's parliament will discuss the region's independence
requests next week and diplomats believe it may well pass a non-
binding resolution supporting South Ossetian statehood.
 

The deputy head of Russia's upper house of parliament told
the rally that Russia would stand by South Ossetia.
 

"You must remember that Russia is always with you and that
Russia will never leave you in the lurch," said Federation
Council Deputy Speaker Svetlana Orlova.
 

"The Americans together with Saakashvili would of course
like to be the commanders of the Caucasus but this will never
happen. Russia was, is and will be always be present in the
Caucasus."
 

South Ossetia says Georgian troops went on the rampage and
accuse Saakashvili of attempting a genocide of the South
Ossetians, who are ethnically different from Georgians. Georgia
says Ossetian bands have looted and shot ethnic Georgians in and
around South Ossetia after regaining control of the area.
 

Kokoity said Georgia was a "a bloodthirsty regime" and that
Saakashvili should go on trial for genocide.
 

"All responsibility for the genocide of the tiny Ossetian
people lies with the leaders of Georgia, the United States and
Ukraine, and they must be put on trial," Kokoity said on the
square, which leads from the town's main road, Stalin Street.
 

Later on Thursday, Valery Gergiev, one of Russia's most
famous conductors, will hold a concert in Tskhinvali. Currently
director of the Mariinsky Theatre, he was born in Moscow but
spent his childhood in North Ossetia.