US Department of State
www.america.gov
12 December 2008
Monitoring Mission Can Play Key Role in Georgia Dispute
U.S. official urges greater access for cease-fire monitors
By David McKeeby
Staff Writer
Washington The 56-nation Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has a key role to play in resolving the conflict over Georgia’s Russian-backed breakaway regions, U.S. diplomats say.
“This is a moment of truth for the organization and we should act,” says U.S. representative Kyle Scott, responding to his Russian counterpart’s concerns about conditions in South Ossetia by calling on the body December 11 to approve a new monitoring mission to supervise humanitarian aid deliveries and security in the region. “It would show that our organization is contributing to the process and not just discussing the process.”
OSCE civilian cease-fire monitors maintained a mission in South Ossetia from the early 1990s, when separatists briefly fought with the central government in Tbilisi, Georgia, until Russia’s August 2008 invasion of Georgia, which was launched following the Georgian government’s efforts to stop a series of attacks on ethnic Georgian villages by South Ossetian militias.
Since the conclusion of the five-day war, South Ossetia, along with a second separatist region, Abkhazia, has been at the center of an intensive peace initiative led by the European Union, OSCE and the United Nations. Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, who currently holds OSCE’s rotating chairmanship, has been a key participant in efforts to restore stability in Georgia, an emerging South Caucasus democracy.
But rather than withdrawing its troops to pre-conflict positions, as required by the EU-brokered August 12 cease-fire, Russia augmented its positions in South Ossetia and Abkhazia with more than 7,000 troops, then officially recognized both separatist regimes as independent countries a move that has been followed by only one other country, Nicaragua, along with Hamas and Hezbollah, two organizations designated by the United States government as foreign terrorist organizations.
Since then, separatist leaders in South Ossetia, including several former Russian government and military officials, have refused to allow OSCE monitors to return to their posts. Security conditions remain tenuous, as seen in a December 10 attack from South Ossetian territory on an OSCE armored vehicle patrolling Georgian-controlled villages near the administrative boundary with the separatist region.
The international nongovernmental organization Human Rights Watch reports that many families displaced by the August conflict are unable to return to their homes in the region, fearing attacks by South Ossetian militias and others seeking to exploit the lack of law enforcement in the area.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried says that international observers on the ground in South Ossetia would “restore confidence and stability.”
“There is, unfortunately, a silence and darkness with respect to the international monitors that has descended on South Ossetia,” Fried told reporters following an OSCE annual foreign ministers’ meeting in Helsinki, Finland, December 5. “Russia has an obligation, since it controls this territory, to let in international observers.”
Fried also called for the 200-strong European Union Monitoring Mission in Georgia to be allowed greater freedom as well. “We want to work with Russia in a constructive and practical spirit to increase security. And that can happen, really, only if there are more monitors from both OSCE and the EU allowed in under rules and conditions that everyone understands.”
“We want to see the situation stabilize,” Fried said. “We want to see these incidents and the shootings and the raids across the border by South Ossetian militias diminished, halted if possible. We want to see the Georgian economy recover. And we think that the way forward involves helping Georgia stabilize its economy, help it stabilize the security situation in the area, [and to] work with Russia to the degree Russia shares these aims.”
Both monitoring missions are likely to be among top agenda items when representatives from Georgia, Russia and the separatist regions convene a third round of peace talks in Geneva December 1718.
“We don't need more violence. We don't need a cycle of retaliations, tension, threats. That can end in a new catastrophe,” Fried said.