In one of my previous diaries, I described an earlier confrontation involving Russia, Georgia, and Abkhazia (a breakaway republic that tries to secede from Georgia). Now, that one, over a Georgian flying robot getting shot down, ended up with nothing after some huffing and puffing... however, now things got much nastier in the vicinity of another chunk of Georgia that is trying to secede - South Ossetia, where it actually came to a shooting war with dozens of people hurt or killed.
However, in a startling recent development, Georgia's president Mikhail Saakashvili has announced a unilateral ceasefire and major concessions to South Ossetia. What could this mean?
Here's the highlight from Saakashvili's televised address (picture from ITAR, for full transcript, see www.civil.ge...), emphasis mine...
I want to say with full responsibility and I want to acknowledge that several hours ago I, as a commander-in-chief, made an order – a very painful order - that not a single Georgian unit, not a single police unit under our control should return fire in response to very intense shelling. I made it on purpose at the very same moment when we have many casualties, both dead and wounded. Houses of many civilians are damaged or destroyed.
But I did it [ordered to cease fire] on purpose in order to have an opportunity to say to you: I offer you immediate ceasefire; I offer you to hold talks immediately; I reiterate my proposal – which I first offered three years ago – on wide, unrestricted autonomy for South Ossetia, with special protection of rights of all ethnic Ossetians, the autonomy, which will fall under international guarantees, the autonomy, which will be set up under the EU standards, and I have been proposing and I am proposing Russia to act as a guarantor of the South Ossetian Autonomy within Georgia.
If this is for real, this is, in my assessment, some refreshingly responsible and sober statesmanship on Saakashvili's part, in the view of the history of South Ossetia (for more background, read this Independent article). The borders between "republics" in the Caucasus were drawn by Stalin, largely to divide and conquer, and he deliberately split a region inhabited by Ossetians (a distinct people with their own language and culture) in two between Georgian Soviet Republic and the Russian Federation. After the Soviet Union broke apart, the first independent Georgian president Gamsakhurdia tried a rather heavy-handed approach in response to South Ossetians' requests for more autonomy, leading to a two-year bloody civil war, as the consequence of which, South Ossetians turned towards Russia (they already had been biased culturally in that direction because of religious ties, being mostly Russian Orthodox rather than Georgian Orthodox).
Here's a picture (ITAR-TASS) that shows (I think) the president of South Ossetia Eduard Kokoity (on the right), who announced that (from the same ITAR-TASS article), South Ossetia troops are standing ready to repel the Georgian military from the vicinity of Tskhinvali (South Ossetian capital) that they had been shelling. Allegedly, ceasefire notwithstanding, Georgia is also pulling more troops to the region.
Here's to cooler heads prevailing and to no more people getting killed.
UPDATE. The ceasefire was accepted by both sides. It has been holding for four hours already.
UPDATE 2. Georgian troops are storming Tskhinvali. Oh, screw it.