Ethnic Cleansing In Georgia -- The Worse In Europe Since The Bosnian Civil War

A house on fire is seen in the ethnic Georgian village of Redvi, in Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008. Russian forces and their armed allies have driven all Georgians out of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and are now ethnically cleansing other areas of Georgia, a senior Georgian official charged Thursday. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

Russia's Cruel Intention -- The Guardian

In South Ossetia, I witnessed the worst ethnic cleansing since the war in the Balkans

After three weeks in Georgia reporting on the war and its aftermath, I find one conversation sticks with me. I had arrived in Karaleti, a Georgian village north of Gori. I had gone there with a group of foreign journalists in a Russian army truck; our ultimate destination was Tskhinvali, in South Ossetia. Several houses along the main road had been burned down; an abandoned Lada lay in a ditch; someone had looted the local school.

Refugees from Karaleti and nearby villages gave the same account: South Ossetian militias had swept in on August 12, killing, burning, stealing and kidnapping. Sasha, our Kremlin minder, however, had a different explanation. "Georgian special commandos burned the houses," he told us. I demurred, pointing out that it was unlikely Georgian special commandos would have burned down Georgian villages north of Tskhinvali, deep inside rebel-held South Ossetia. Sasha's face grew dark; he wasn't used to contradiction. "Those houses suffered from a gas or electricity leak," he answered majestically.

Read more ....

More News On Ethnic Cleansing in Georgia

Georgia: S. Ossetia Ethnic Cleansing Nearly Done -- CBS News
Russia's buffer zone creates ghost villages in Georgia -- Times Online
For Thousands of Refugees From the Conflict in Georgia, the Fear Lingers -- Blue Ridge
Scars linger for Georgian refugees -- International Herald Tribune
'Ethnic cleansing continues' -- News 24
Georgia: Ethnic cleansing taking place in S. Ossetia -- USA Today
Ethnic cleansing in Georgia -- Macleans
South Ossetian refugees to be checked on return -- International Herald Tribune

My Comment: The most under-reported story in the media this week.

Russia Is Laying The Groundwork For The Next War In the Caucasus

Russian-Backed Paramilitaries 'Ethnically

Cleansing Villages' -- Times Online

Russian-backed paramilitaries are “ethnically cleansing” villages on Georgian soil, refugees and officials told The Times yesterday.

South Ossetian militiamen have torched houses, beaten elderly people and even murdered civilians in the lawless buffer zone set up by the Russian Army just north of Gori. The violence, close to the border with the breakaway republic recognised by Russia this week as independent, has prompted a new wave of refugees into Gori, 40 miles north of Tbilisi.

People who had started to return to their villages in the area are now fleeing for a second time, joined by many elderly people who had refused to leave their homes when the Russians invaded two weeks ago.

Read more ....

My Comment: If true, Russia is laying the groundwork for decades of bitterness and anger in the Caucasus.

Michael J. Totten Reports On Kosovo -- Peace After Years Of War

From Michael J. Totten:

“The war in Bosnia will look like a tea party if Serbian nationalism runs wild in Kosovo.” U.S. Representative Eliot Engel

“The whole world is a vast Kosovo, an abominable blood-logged plain.” From Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by Rebecca West, 1941.

Strange country, Kosovo.

It’s European, but it isn’t Christian. It’s majority-Muslim, but it is not anti-American. Foreign soldiers are hailed as liberators and protectors rather than occupiers. Most Western countries recognize the majority-Muslim nation’s recent declaration of independence from Serbia, but not a single Arab country has done so – partly, perhaps, because Israelis as well as Americans are thought of as allies and friends. The United Nations is widely perceived as offensive, incompetent, corrupt, and deserving of banishment.

Ethnic Albanians – who make up 90 percent of Kosovo’s population – suffered apartheid-like conditions and ethnic-cleansing by Serbian Nationalists in the 1990s. They were history’s winners, though, in 1999 when NATO finally had enough of Belgrade’s tyrant Slobodan Milosevic. He and his Serb allies kicked off four wars in the former Yugoslavia, and the final war in Kosovo threatened to overwhelm and destabilize the rest of Southeastern Europe.

Read more ....

My Comment: Kosovo is like Poland, Czech Republic, the Baltic States .... they are more pro-American than some Americans. As a traveler I am always surprised to meet people who are so voracious in their support of the United States ...... Michael Totten has clearly found this to be the case in Kosovo.

A few months ago I was voicing my concerns that if history is any indication, Kosovo was going to enter a period of ethnic violence if they declared independence. Happily, I can say that I was wrong. I can now only hope that peace is there to stay.