Georgian rocket attack raises questions

Paul Rimple 8/09/07

Georgia claims to have proof the aircraft that violated Georgian airspace on August 6 and dropped a guided missile near breakaway South Ossetia came from Russia.

A report obtained from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Georgia mission verifies that Georgian radar identified an SU-style aircraft entering Georgian airspace at 18:31 on August 6 near Stepatsminda (formerly known as Kazbegi), a high mountain town in eastern Georgia that borders on Russia's North Ossetia.

In addition, a Commonwealth of Independent States Joint Peace Keeping Force observation post at Tsinagari, a South Ossetian village approximately 4 kilometers from the Georgian village of Tsitelubani, where the attack site is located, has confirmed that a military aircraft approached from a north-easterly direction and reportedly launched a rocket.

At an August 8 press conference, Foreign Affairs Minister Gela Bezhuashvili claimed that the report substantiates Georgia's claim that the bombing incident actually took place and that it involved Russian aircraft. The fact that the document was written by an international group which includes Russian experts and representatives of the breakaway region of South Ossetia appears to have furthered this view.

Georgian authorities have asked the United Nations to hold an emergency session of the Security Council over the incident, in addition to reviewing a March shelling which occurred in the Upper Kodori Gorge, a strip of territory held by Georgia in breakaway Abkhazia. The minister asked "all our partner countries" to send experts to help with the investigation, indicating that such a group confirms Georgia's intention to establish the facts of the case without bias.

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Chairman-in-Office, has supported the call for an all-inclusive investigation. "The OSCE stands ready to co-operate with the investigation within the framework of its mandate," Moratinos stated in an August 8 press release.

The United States, arguably Georgia's most influential ally, has condemned the attack and praised the South Caucasus country's "continuing restraint." In an August 8 statement, the US State Department called for an "urgent clarification of the facts surrounding the missile incident."

Russia, however, in the face of rising official outrage from Tbilisi, maintains its innocence. Instead, it points the finger at Georgia, which has long been eager to remove its northern neighbor from the peacekeeping process in South Ossetia.

"I'm convinced that it was a provocation by Georgia ... a provocation against the Russian peacekeepers and Russia as a whole," Chief of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff General Yuri Baluyevsky said, ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Some opposition leaders, however, have criticized the government's response, accusing it of failing to defend the country. Questions have been raised about why the armed forces, currently in the midst of an ambitious reform process to integrate with North Atlantic Treaty Organization standards, failed to prevent the plane from entering Georgian territory.

Defense ministry officials have not yet responded directly to that criticism. Shota Utiashvili, spokesperson for the interior ministry, which is leading the investigation, stated that "Our air defense system is currently being developed."

However, Kakha Kukava, a leading parliamentarian from the opposition Conservative Party, argues that a military response would only have sidestepped the larger issue. "The problem is that Georgian-Russian relations are worsening," he said. "Our priority should be tackling the problem of our relationship, not making harsh public statements."

Shalva Natelashvili, the idiosyncratic leader of the Labor Party, however, has veered off in the opposite direction, stating on August 7 on Georgian television that President Mikheil Saakashvili's administration itself could have been behind the attack in a bid to achieve its policy goals in South Ossetia.

In remarks to Georgian media on August 9, Tbilisi Mayor Gigi Ugulava, a strong ally of the Georgian leader, condemned the comments as traitorous, assering that "the entire world agrees that [the attacking aircraft] came from the north – and we have only one neighbor to the north ... " read an English-language transcript of Ugulava's remarks posted on Civil.ge.

Russia's firmly established image within Georgia as an imperialist power intent on regional domination is clearly feeding into the debate. Alexander Rondeli, president of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, called the missile attack an act of aggression intended to remind Georgia that Russia is displeased with the country's policies. "It's an old game of trying to punish us in a paternal way, as if Georgia was a juvenile," he said.

What went wrong, Rondeli says, is that forces in the pro-Moscow breakaway region of South Ossetia inadvertently opened fire on the aircraft, not knowing that the plane was Russian.

This claim echoes a report by Reuters that an unidentified source involved with the investigation has claimed that South Ossetian militamen fired a Strela shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missile at a Russian SU-24 aircraft on August 6. The missile was jettisoned, which is why it did not explode, the source claimed.

Gen. Marat Kulakhmetov, commander of Russian peacekeepers patrolling South Ossetia, also believes the plane came under fire, but maintains that it entered the area under investigation from within Georgia itself.

The report of a second projectory landing in South Ossetian-controlled territory has yet to be confirmed by an investigation.

Meanwhile, South Ossetia's separatist authorities have taken the opposite tact, stressing that they have their own security concerns.

Eduard Kokoity, leader of the unrecognized republic, who has called for direct negotiations with President Saakashvili on a non-aggression pact, has stated that he will ask Russia to equip Russian peacekeepers in the conflict zone with modern air defense systems to target airspace violators. "It will then be clear whose aircraft entered the conflict zone," the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti reported Kokoity as saying.

South Ossetia has said that it will only send envoys to Tbilisi for a meeting of the quadripartite Joint Control Commission charged with overseeing peace talks over the South Ossetia conflict zone if it receives security guarantees. The meeting was originally scheduled for August 9-10.

In a statement released on August 9, however, the Georgian State Ministry for Conflict Resolution warned that the outcome of the investigation into the August 6 missile attack could impact whether or not the meeting proceeds. Confirmation of what Georgia charges is Russian involvement in the incident would leave "seriously undermined" Moscow's participation in the peace process, the statement read.

Editor's Note: Paul Rimple is a freelance journalist based in Tbilisi.

Posted August 9, 2007 © Eurasianet