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6 North and South Ossetia: Old Conflicts and New Fears

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6 North and South Ossetia: Old Conflicts and New Fears 6 North and South Ossetia: Old conflicts and new fears Alan Parastaev Erman village in the high Caucasus mountains of South Ossetia PHOTO: PETER NASMYTH Summary The main source of weapons in South Ossetia during the conflict with Georgian forces in the early 1990s was Chechnya, but towards the end of the conflict arms were also obtained from Russian troops in North Ossetia. Following the end of the conflict in 1992, the unrecognised Republic of South Ossetia began to construct its own security structures. The government has made some attempts to control SALW proliferation and collect weapons from the population, as has the OSCE, though these programmes have had limited success. In North Ossetia it was much easier to acquire weapons from Russian military sources than in the South. North Ossetia fought a short war against the Ingush in 1992, and though relations between the two are now stable, North Ossetia is still very sensitive to events elsewhere in the North Caucasus. Recently, however, the increase in Russian military activity in the region has acted as a stabilising factor. Unofficial estimates of the amount of SALW in North Ossetia range between 20,000 and 50,000. 2 THE CAUCASUS: ARMED AND DIVIDED · NORTH AND SOUTH OSSETIA The years of The events at the end of the 1980s ushered in by perestroika – the move by the leader- conflict ship of the CPSU towards the democratisation of society – had an immediate impact on the social and political situation in South Ossetia and Georgia as a whole. In both Tbilisi and the South Ossetian capital Tskhinval national movements sprang to life which would in time evolve into political parties and associations. In the initial period Ossetian and Georgian national-democratic forces were in frequent contact. This was natural, for despite all their differences, both sides understood that they had a common enemy and a common goal. The enemy was the system, Bolshevism; the goal was the building of a democratic society. One example was the co-operation between the South Ossetian popular front Adamon Nykhas and a Georgian movement, the Ilya Chavchavadze Society. After the rise of Zviad Gamsakhurdia to power in Tbilisi, however, the Georgian national-democratic movement adopted a more nationalistic agenda. Georgian moves in 1989 to force South Ossetia to use Georgian (rather than Russian) as the language for official records spurred the separatist movement. On 10 November 1989 the Soviet of Peoples’ Deputies of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast voted to upgrade the autonomous oblast (region) into an autonomous republic within the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). Deputies called on the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR to accept this decision, but it rejected the proposal, branding it unconstitutional. On 23 November 1989 Gamsakhurdia and other Georgian nationalists planned a mass demonstration in Tskhinval. Leaders of the Georgian SSR, led by the first Secretary of the Central Committee of the Georgian Communist Party, Givi Gumbaridze, played prominent roles in this event. An estimated 30,000 to 40,000 demonstrators in more than 400 buses and cars set off for Tskhinval from Tbilisi and other areas in Georgia. Georgian officials and the Georgian media presented the march as an attempt to hold a peaceful meeting in Tskhinval. However, among the marchers were several hundred armed people, including some with automatic weapons, many of them members of the paramilitary wings of nationalist political parties. On the approach to Tskhinval, on the Gori-Tskhinval road, several dozen Ossetians formed a human chain and successfully stopped the column of demonstrators. Within hours, local Ossetians mounted blockades on all other roads into Tskhinval. Over the next few weeks virtually the whole Ossetian male population of the town took turns to man the road- blocks. Not having succeeded in entering Tskhinval, Georgian armed demonstrators surrounded the town, encircling the South Ossetian blockades and closing off access. Ossetian travellers were taken hostage, maltreated and insulted. Six were killed and more than 400 maimed and wounded. In November 1990 figures from the nationalist parties and movements came to power in Georgia, which was still at the time the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, and therefore part of the USSR. Gamsakhurdia, chairman of the Georgian Helsinki Group and head of the Round Table–Free Georgia association, was elected chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR. In contravention of the law, despite the fact that the term of office of the Soviet of Peoples’ Deputies of South Ossetia had expired, the Supreme Soviet of Georgia failed to announce new elections for it. The Soviet of Peoples’ Deputies of South Ossetia decided to go ahead unilaterally and hold elections on 9 December 1990. In response to this the Georgian leadership and press unleashed another round of anti-Ossetian hysteria. The elections and their results were declared illegal in advance. Nevertheless, the elections went ahead on the appointed date, witnessed by many observers from other republics of the USSR who reported that they proceeded without violations and adhered strictly to the law. On 10 December 1990 the Georgian Supreme Soviet unanimously decided to abolish the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast. SAFERWORLD ARMS & SECURITY PROGRAMME 3 The first serious exchange of fire using automatic weapons took place in 11 December 1990. A local policeman was killed during an attempt to stop a car carrying men armed with automatic weapons on one of Tskhinval’s central streets. A machine-gun was then fired from a minibus following this car, which belonged to one of the South Ossetian armed groups. As a result, two of the car’s passengers died on the spot and two were injured. Documents found on the survivors linked them to the Georgian power structures (one of the injured subsequently took up a senior post in the Georgian armed forces). This incident served as a pretext for the introduction of a state of emergency and curfew in Tskhinval and Java district, despite the fact that there was no legal basis for doing so. The curfew and other measures to maintain order were enforced by a battal- ion of the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) of the USSR, made up mostly of Russian servicemen. The battalion’s commander assured the South Ossetian population that it would not allow the use of force either from official or unofficial structures in Georgia. However, on the night of 5–6 January 1991 the Georgian leadership – without notifying the South Ossetian authorities – brought subdivisions of the police and of the Georgian National Guard into Tskhinval, as well as members of various nationalist armed formations. That same night the battalion of the USSR MOI secretly abandoned its base in Tskhinval. According to Georgian policemen captured by the South Ossetians, the police detachments were made up of officers from all over Georgia; furthermore, they were joined at the rendezvous (the stadium in Gori) by representatives of the informal armed units (neformaly), often re-clothed in police uniform. On their arrival the Georgian paramilitaries began searches, arrests, murders, looting, setting fire to homes and other criminal acts. All this happened with the encouragement of the Georgian leadership and the tacit approval of the Soviet authorities, forcing the Ossetian side to take measures to defend themselves. Fighting broke out between Ossetian and Georgian forces and, after two weeks of fighting, the Ossetians managed to drive the Georgians out of Tskhinval. Georgian forces then began punitive actions against rural areas of South Ossetia, whilst maintaining their attempt to take Tskhinval by force. This period of blockade could be named the second stage of the armed conflict. After the period of pickets and blockades, virtually the whole Ossetian population of Tskhinval rose up to defend the town, while the Georgian population were forced by activists of the Georgian national movement to leave the town before the planned ‘liberation’ of the Ossetian population. By the start of spring 1991 the intensity of the fighting had waned and summer passed virtually without armed clashes. The main ‘peace-keeping’ factor in this period was the powerful earthquake in South Ossetia in May 1991. This natural disaster distracted people from fighting, but not for long. In September there was renewed shelling of Tskhinval, and Ossetians again found it impossible to pass through the Georgian- populated villages in South Ossetia. However towards winter the intensity of the fight- ing fell once again, this time because of the armed coup in Georgia, which resulted in the ousting of Gamsakhurdia and the coming to power of Eduard Shevardnadze. It is interesting to note that the organisers of the coup turned to several South Ossetian field commanders for help, but the Council of Commanders decided not to get involved in this intra-Georgian conflict. It was in spring 1992 that the most intense and bloody final stage of the armed conflict began. Fighting continued until 14 July 1992, when mixed Russian-Georgian-South Ossetian peace-keeping forces were introduced into the conflict zone. On 24 June 1992 a four-sided Russian-Georgian-Ossetian (North and South Ossetia) Agreement on the Principles of Regulating the Georgian-Ossetian Conflict (the Dagomys Agreement) was signed in the southern Russian town of Sochi. 4 THE CAUCASUS: ARMED AND DIVIDED · NORTH AND SOUTH OSSETIA Small arms in Prior to the conflict it was considered normal to keep weapons at home, but this can be South Ossetia attributed to the heritage of history and had no practical implication. Using weapons to settle scores or in street fights was seen as inappropriate, even as a display of Initial armament cowardice. The only legal way of obtaining or keeping weapons in South Ossetia until the collapse of the USSR was through the Union of Hunters which, after following the relevant procedures, issued licences to own weapons.
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