open Democracy News Analysis - caucasus: regional fractures - Comments

nisaba on " Russia vs Georgia: a war of perceptions"

nisaba — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:51:18 +0100

In Georgia live, Armenians, Osetians, Abkhazians, my country isn't monoethnical, everybody, who lives there and is truethful, knows it, the Georgians live on this land from the III millenium B.C. Russia has no rights to make us divide our country into pieces. I have never had the existens of Ossetian or Abkhasian states on this land, how can you dare to blinden the world!!!!!

opendemocracy on "Russia and the Georgia war: the great-power trap"

opendemocracy — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:30:06 +0100

"It's precisely this kind of apologia that makes me question just exactly where Open Democracy is coming from."

I'm glad you question it - it means we're doing something right :)

openDemocracy is "coming from" a desire to find the faculty of judgment in "critical insiders" to a situation. This is inevitably an editorial strategy of looking for the "but ..." in entrenched positions. It also makes it hard to figure out "a line", because the strategy does not determine the content, but tries to emphasise the credibility of the voice.

Tony

Not logged in on "Russia and the Georgia war: the great-power trap"

Not logged in — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:51:41 +0100

The author of this piece talks elegantly about the need for Russia to give up its 'Nineteenth Century approach' yet neatly sidesteps the much greater imperialism being practised by the USUK 'Internatuional Community'!

It's precisely this kind of apologia that makes me question just exactly where Open Democracy is coming from.

Bobrevich on "Russia and the Georgia war: the great-power trap"

Bobrevich — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:59:35 +0100

Of corse, US knew EXACTLY what was going on, otherwise Saakashvili would never do what he've done.

nikolay denin on "Russia and the Georgia war: the great-power trap"

nikolay denin — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:47:37 +0100

it's not too much on the topic but wasn't the pillar of the world order during the cold war the mutual nuclear deterrent? did s'th change from then? how the russians can be scared from nato expansion?! it's rediculous, it's an excuse for internal consumption! vladivostok is closer to seattle and alaska than any eu capital to moscow!
just stop bothering about the russians so much! this doesn´t mean 'forget georgia', but the priority is another - china! tha last years they invested heavily on infrastructure and now their major cities are better equiped that the us and eu! and what we did (the west)? war on terror!!!! destroying instead of creating! new weapons, new controls, closed borders.... please! i'm not a hippy or anti us or s'th like this. i'm human and i want schools, hospitals, highways, etc.
not too much into the topic and obviously i'm not a specialst in this matter, however i liked the article and used the platform to voice my opinion.
thank you

Natela Popkhadze on "Georgia, Abkhazia, Russia: the war option"

Natela Popkhadze — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 09:46:40 +0100

Prof. R. Parsons was in Tbilisi ten years ago at the International Conference at the Tbilisi State University. I handed him my investigation printed in English-on a floppy disc-where Prof. Lev Elnitski's( that worked at the University of Leningrad) lies, distortion of the data of the Roman politician Pliny the Elder(Ic.) was revealed and analised by me- a Patents specialist in Electrochemistry in Tbilisi at that time. It is an abuse of the reality that the term Abkhazi is treated as if it were the term denoting some nation that is not Georgian//Kartu//Kardu. Nature punishes persons dealing with that artificially invented problem. Prof. Ivane Javakhishvili used the term "the SO CALLED Caucassians" when writing about recent arrivals in the Caucasssia- small groups of various nationalities, that were and are manipulated by the Russian speaking leaders and historians by INVENTING their histories in the Caucassia. The entire so-called Caucassian studies are misinformation and abuse of the reality. King Irakli II of Georgia//Kartu made a Treaty of Friendship with Russia in 1783 to get the Caucassia free from the various groups that arrived from far away areas(like Siberia etc.) to the rivers Don, the Aiia(it flows to the south of the Don), the Aragvi rivers flowing in the Northern Caucassia and Southern Caucassia... It is amasing that diplomats are not embarassed as they look at the world map: ten countries have too much territories, while the Kartu nation//the Georgians -the first civilization- is squeezed by recent arrivals to a tiny area. Abkhazi is a REGIONAL name of the Kartu//Georgian nation. The language of the Abkhazi is and was the Kartu//Georgian Language. The Abkhazi are not and have never been the Apsua. The word 'apsua' has several meanings in Kartu// Georgia. In ancient language of the kingdom of Kartuniash//Karduniash//Kartu it was a name of the area where the national god of the Kartu lived in several areas: at the Northern coast of the sea called "the Georgian" sea, now known as the Caspian sea; in the Urals where there is the area called "Ancient Apsua"=Staroapsovo in Russian; at the Northern coast of the Sea of the Lazoi// of the Colkhoi//the Georgians(Sea of the Lazoi is the Sea of Azov). Mapmakers Anthony Jenkinse, G. Hondius, Abraham Ortelius made maps that display this in XVII-XVIIIcc. Apsua is a name of a region in these areas. It has become a name of a small group of various nationals, including the Kartu//Georgians recently. Abkhazeti and Kavkavi(now Vladikavkaz) are indigenous middle Kartu//Georgia. Indigenous Georgia embraces the area of the Don. Evgeni Bolkhovitdinov-director of Aleksandr Nevski Christian Academy in St. Petersburg learned that and published in his booklet "Izobrajenie Gruzii v politicheskom, istoricheskom, kulturnom otnoshenii" printed in Petersburg in 1802 and in German in 1805. The text on the Georgian kingdom embracing the Don is at p.5 and 9 accordingly. Aristarchos king of Georgia ruled the Don valley, besides other areas. So did Mithradato the VII, his sons, his grandchildren. Poor Osses are braiwashed by false textbooks. Both Northern Osseti and the former 'South Osseti'(Tskhinvali region nowadays) are situated on indigenous middle Kartu//Georgia. North Osseti ought to be abolished like the South Osseti. Those Osses that desire independence ought to seek that in their motherland in the East Asia from where they were ousted and persecuted by others.

Jaro on "Georgia’s arms race"

Jaro — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 00:41:43 +0100

Why is western media failing to explain that georgia attacked ossetia ?

Is this war to surround Russia to create a barrier of georgian/ukranian/Polish soldiers in the event of an attack on Iran?

Is this war over Oil in the caspian sea?
How much oil is in the caspian sea?

Thanks Jaro

http://www.posmedprod.webs.com

Not logged in on "Russia: how the new ‘cold war’ plays at home"

Not logged in — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 11:35:18 +0100

Thank you very much for your analysis.

I just have a question. Can you be more precise about the Siloviki surrounding Putin? Can you help me with the names of these "strong men"? Because now they just seem to be this dark force drifting in the background.

Thanks

kolya gelsin on "Georgia after war: the political landscape "

kolya gelsin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:43:47 +0100

a friend of mine in Tibilsi says that she can no longer receive any email from accounts ending in .ru and that Russian websites are blocked; not what one could call the actions of a mature demonracy

kolya gelsin on "Sovereignty, status and the humanitarian perspective"

kolya gelsin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:37:07 +0100

Mary Kaldor's article seems to me to provide an excellent, alternative way of looking at the question of nationalism, states and statelets. There are perhaps 2 ways I can imagine of sidestepping the problem of every-fragmenting peoples (not only divided by ethnicity - whatever that is - but also religion and other identifiers).

One is the EU. I live in Turkey and am an ardent supporter of Turkey's accession to the EU. The member states of the EU have all managed to avoid wars between themselves and none look likely. If Scotland secedes from the UK, not a great deal changes; it's essentially an administrative matter and it would be integral to such a secession that the minority rights of the English in Scotland would be respected and vice versa. The same has to apply if Belgium divorces. I would be happy to see all the smaller states of the Caucasus being given the option of joining the EU should they wish to and should they comply with the rules of the Union. And thus solutions to the status of the statelets becomes easier to imagine. If the South Ossetians do not wish to part of Georgia then no-one can or should force them to be. But they might find the alternative of being part of the EU more attractive that isolated independence or joining the Russian Federation. At least they would have that as an option - and of course the minority rights of Georgians in South Ossetia (and vice versa) would be integral to any such accession.

The other is co-sovereignty. Why on Earth does a territory (large or small), with which a more than one people identify, have to have nation statehood as its dream, inevitably at the expense of minorities (or the previous majority which becomes a minority in the newly formed independent fragment). Why not imagine pooled sovereignty both as a kind of meta principle as in the EU but also in more local forms as a pragmatic solution to territories which different people have shared for generations. Northern Ireland could be both British and Irish at the same time. Perhaps Turkey could allow Armenia to share the sovereignty of Mount Ararat. Perhaps Azerbajan and Armenia could share sovereignty in Nagorno-Karabakh, etc. Though perhaps not a viable solution for South Ossetia and Abkhazia given the disparity between the Russian Federation (Russia is no more an independent country than England is) and Georgia.

alfredo.bremont on "Russia: how the new ‘cold war’ plays at home"

alfredo.bremont — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:33:20 +0100

Somehow what is discouraging is the logic use on the issue. However the west as we know it is practically European, the problem is this western European mentality is at the end of its substance. Democracy no longer means anything. What we got are video actors on a stage. The ballot is just a reminder of what democracy was. Candidates have become performers of a sitcom and some of them are practically newsmakers on a starving and senseless media world. Humans must evolve and evolution in this respect is on the mind. How you analyze a subject, how you perceive and discern it. That will help you to understand the habitual and automatic behavior that politicians apply on their motion picture world of news; the innocent citizen’s watches and faithfully believe as being the exactness of the issue. The planet is getting close to a colder age but more likely related to the weather than to politics. As today in this modern Middle Ages the wealthy have become wealthier and the middle class is disappearing. Globalization is just a huge new kingdom were an unknown king rules and calls the tune, a thin landed gentry of privileged individuals and the rest of us that have nothing, work more and enjoy less of their existence.Analyzing issues and discerning reality on a new fashion will probably save the west from its unavoidable ruin.

jpcruz on "Russia and the Georgia war: the great-power trap"

jpcruz — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:32:28 +0100

Youre no doubt right Yuriy, russian leaders sure lye a lot, but they are in fact very clumsy...

Yuriy on "Russia and the Georgia war: the great-power trap"

Yuriy — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:25:37 +0100

I just read an information on www.dailymail.co.uk that Georgian troops killed at least 2000 civilians and Russian troops killed 129 civilians....

It is clear to understand, that Russia do right thing, but lose information war. Because information war is the war of liars, and russians are bad liars.

Felix Live on "Russian war and Georgian democracy"

Felix Live — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 08:12:48 +0100

I guess the aim of Russia is to hamper Georgia's economic growth and inspire opposition to the current government of Georgia.

http://earticle.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/why-are-russian-troops-in-georgia/

opendemocracy on "Sovereignty, status and the humanitarian perspective"

opendemocracy — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 06:35:04 +0100

I agree, GP. The political problem of "whose sovereignty?" does not go away.

The cosmopolitan humanitarian would be saying (and acting) in the situation of conflict: "This sovereignty configuration is OK because we can see minority rights being protected; this one is not because they are unlikely to be". If, as a relative outsider to a local conflict, you can have some influence, it seems to me that the position of humanitarian cosmopolitanism is attractive precisely in that it is not very prescriptive, and therefore leaves open many possible configurations. If you are within a conflict, the criteria MK argues for seem to me to be very good grounds for rejecting a configuration, even if they do not provide sufficient grounds for accepting one.

Tony