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. Weapons were obtained through special shops and cost from 100 roubles upwards, which was equal to the average monthly wage. In most cases these were smooth-bore hunting rifles and sometimes small- calibre rifles. It remained difficult to get a licence to obtain a hunting pass, as this required a positive recommendation from the party organisation and no black marks on one’s record.The arms that most closely resembled military weapons–SKS 7.62 mm carbines and Mosin carbines of the same calibre – were extremely rare; on the whole they were owned by the party elite and senior officials in the ‘power ministries’. The quantity of unregistered weapons in South Ossetia, indeed in the whole of the USSR, was small, mainly being held by members of the Soviet elite who had no fear of punishment for possessing such arsenals. These people were not active in the national movement, either during or after the conflict, although the majority supported the Ossetian cause (evidenced by the fact that their weapons were often transferred to fighters on the Ossetian side). Sometimes such weapons were even confiscated from their owners by force. In the initial period of the confrontation (summer 1989) the Georgian MOI – whose orders were then still being respected by the South Ossetian police – carried out the confiscation and removal from South Ossetia of all registered hunting weapons. Up to 1,500 guns were confiscated in South Ossetia. A similar move was carried out in Georgia. However, in Kvareli and Gori (close to South Ossetia) only 140 guns were confiscated, as was proudly reported by Tbilisi police officials on Georgian television. South Ossetia’s law-enforcement agencies were armed only with pistols at the time, while all military weapons, which were stored in the arsenal of the internal affairs division (approximately 40 Kalashnikovs and two or three light machine-guns) were taken away. However, even employees of the South Ossetian internal affairs organs armed with pistols did not take part in the defence of the town, though nor did they act against the Ossetian population. During this period of confusion, indecision para- lysed the South Ossetian power structures. This meant that the only arms on the South Ossetian side actually mobilised for the conflict were unregistered hunting guns and rifles, as well as weapons belonging to criminal elements, mainly pistols and revolvers. Within days of the capture of Tskhinval by Georgian forces, Ossetian groups managed to take back a large part of the town, although the administrative centre of the town, the post office and the MOI building remained in the hands of Georgian armed formations for two more weeks. In this period the Ossetians had about 30 automatic weapons – various kinds of Kalashnikov. It was only then that the Ossetians gained and started to use the first captured weapons: 15 sawn-off Kalashnikovs were seized from police units by Tskhinval youngsters; an Ossetian fighter burst onto a bus carry- ing a unit of Georgian policemen and, threatening them with a grenade, seized more than 20 Makarov pistols. Many Georgian policemen, suspicious of the Georgian authorities’ aims, crossed over to the territory controlled by the Ossetian side and surrendered their weapons, asking that they be given civilian clothing. Up to 3,000 rural Ossetians from the Java region came to the aid of their fellow Ossetians in Tskhinval, armed only with hunting weapons and – much more rarely – with carbines (7.62 mm Mosin-system rifles). Street battles, which lasted more than SAFERWORLD ARMS & SECURITY PROGRAMME 5
three weeks, saw the active use of automatic weapons, as well as home-made mines, which blew up two armoured patrol cars of the Georgian police. It is worth describing what the press of the time called the ‘first use of an air-to-surface missile during street fighting’. The helicopter regiment stationed near Tskhinval had unguided air-to-surface missiles. Throughout the war in Afghanistan (1979–89) the regiment’s helicopters had flown over military installations in Afghanistan and, according to some sources, the regiment had also taken part in the war in Angola. As a result of such active combat roles, the regiment had a large quantity of ammunition that was not accounted for, mostly these air-to-surface missiles. South Ossetian armed groups captured several dozen such missiles. Using ‘targets’ sawn out of standard helicopter drums which they managed to get from the same regiment, Tskhinvali craftsmen – who had just turned their hand to making weaponry – succeeded in constructing something vaguely resembling a light anti-tank grenade-launcher, or bazooka, launched from the shoulder. The first salvos were fired on the day after Georgian policemen and neformaly invaded Tskhinval, in the course of an exchange of fire on one of the town’s central streets. The effect of these missiles was shocking. The first missile passed through a bus full of policemen and, although it exploded some distance from the town, caused panic and the subsequent retreat of the Georgian forces.
Weapons procurement The Ossetian successes in defending the town and expelling the Georgian forces first from the centre, then from the whole town, came despite the Georgian qualitative and quantitative superiority in weaponry. For the Ossetians, obtaining weapons basically came down to money, whether for their direct purchase, for bribing people who had access to arsenals or even for organised seizures. Such acquisitions were financed in various ways, mostly from private savings, donations or levying a ‘tax’ for military requirements on the population. Several sources of weapons during that period can be identified: Purchase of weapons from military units (at the start of the 1990s discipline fell sharply in the military and the sale of property, including weaponry, became widespread). Often, weapons were sold and then an attack was staged on servicemen or bases to cover these sales up. The supply of weapons and, above all, ammunition, by Ossetian servicemen (officers and warrant officers) from units located in South Ossetia and the surrounding regions of Georgia. Purchase of weapons through criminal channels from organised criminal groups in Russia (for example, some of the weapons captured from Nazi forces during the Second World War defence of Stalingrad were purchased from representatives of groups who poach sturgeon in the Volga). Home-made production (for example, primitive mortars, grenade launchers, anti- tank weapons, grenades, incendiary devices and mines) Acquisition of dual-use equipment normally used for civilian purposes (armoured troop carriers and tanks without turrets were developed from vehicles normally used in agriculture and artillery from equipment used to combat hail and avalanches). Captured weapons. This includes about 40 cases in which Georgian servicemen voluntarily handed over their weapons in exchange for civilian clothing and free passage to Russia. The main source of weapons in the North Caucasus at that time was Chechnya, which had declared its independence. The Russian authorities had left large arsenals of weapons there which the new Chechen authorities could not control. The South Caucasus, in particular Armenia and Azerbaijan, was also awash with arms left by the 6 THE CAUCASUS: ARMED AND DIVIDED · NORTH AND SOUTH OSSETIA
Soviet Army, though its delivery from the South Caucasus was problematic. The only possible supply route was by air, via the North Ossetian capital Vladikavkaz or other airports in the North Caucasus. Some small scale movement of weapons took place with the involvement of various military units, mostly subordinate to the units of the Georgian MOI located in Tskhinval which were charged with maintaining law and order. Weapons confiscated as a result of weapon searches among the population were subsequently sold to the highest bidder, irrespective of ethnic affiliation, before the weapons were put into more secure storage. The helicopter regiment stationed near Tskhinval did not have large quantities of firearms at its disposal.Virtually the whole arsenal of firearms was held by the sub- division that stood guard over the base. Apart from the air-to-surface missiles, South Ossetian fighters managed to modify and adapt other weapons (ie SALW and a whole range of military helicopter guns). In winter 1991, 15 rapid-fire four-barrelled 7.62- calibre machine-guns and 10 automatic mortars (aviation prototype AGS-Plamya) were captured from the helicopter regiment’s stores. These automatic mortars, after simple modifications, could be used as infantry weapons, but the rapid-fire machine- guns were more difficult to adapt; problems arose with their most distinctive feature: they fired too rapidly. South Ossetian forces could not obtain enough ammunition for such voracious forms of weapons as the multi-barrel rapid-fire machine-guns. During this time the Tskhinval factory Elektrovibromashina and other producers in the town started making weapons (the hand-made production of various types of weapons had already begun). They used spare guns and other parts from the various types of weaponry that had fallen into the hands of South Ossetian armed formations. The most successful products were the following: Grenade launchers were made from part of a 30 mm cannon taken from military aircraft using AGS-Plamya as ammunition. This kind of weapon was relatively widespread among NATO forces. The same 30 mm aircraft cannon was also used to make an anti-tank weapon. The gun was small and light, had wheels attached for transport purposes and fired single shots. There was also a home-made 12 mm anti-tank gun. It was a rather amateur copy of a World War II weapon used by the Soviet Army against Nazi armoured vehicles. However attempts to manufacture the anti-tank RPG-7 were largely unsuccessful. Portable mortars and mortar shells were also constructed. By the time the street battles took place something resembling a tank had been constructed out of a caterpillar-tracked timber lorry. Armed with hand-held 7.62 mm machine-guns, it played a mainly psychological role. There was also success in making the missing breech-blocks for 100 mm anti-aircraft guns used to manage avalanches on the Transcaucasian Highway that passes through South Ossetia. However a severe lack of shells meant that these weapons did not play a significant role in military operations. By spring 1992, for the first time since the outbreak of the conflict, South Ossetian state structures began to purchase weapons. A senior official in the South Ossetian govern- ment who participated directly in this process later reported that weapons originating in Chechnya were brought from Ingushetia. The Chechen leaders had aimed to have armed allies among the Ingush. Ironically, the same weapons that were bought by South Ossetian fighters in Ingushetia were used in autumn 1992 by the Ossetian side in the course of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict in the Prigorodny district of North Ossetia. In total, according to this official, 600 automatic weapons were purchased, together with sub-machine-guns and hand-held Kalashnikovs, up to 20 anti-tank mortars and several dozen single-use Mukha grenade-launchers. These were distributed among the South Ossetian defence forces. The OMON (special police unit) was the most heavily SAFERWORLD ARMS & SECURITY PROGRAMME 7
armed, the number of fighters having reached 200 when armed clashes broke out in April 1992. The basic problem for the South Ossetian formations was not the quantitative, but the qualitative superiority of weapons on the Georgian side. During Gamsakhurdia’s rule, military operations by Georgian forces were conducted on the whole using firearms, large-calibre machine-guns and anti-hail weapons used in agriculture. With the collapse of the USSR, Georgia obtained real independence and acquired virtually all the property of the Transcaucasian Military District (ZakVO) based in Georgia. When in March 1992, four months after Shevardnadze came to power in Tbilisi, Georgian forces renewed their shelling of South Ossetia and Tskhinval itself, this time it was on a qualitatively different level. T-72 tanks, 120 mm howitzers and 110 mm mortars, the most lethal weapon in urban areas, were deployed around the perimeter of the town. This upgrade in weaponry available to the Georgian forces stemmed directly from Georgian-Russian relations and Russia’s transfer to Georgia of some of the ZakVO’s arms. At the same time the Georgian forces removed most of the weapons from the sapper regiment that was located in Tskhinval. When the base was captured by a South Ossetian armed group, no more than 50 units of SALW and an insignificant quantity of ammunition were found in the emptied arsenals. This was apparently all that the Georgians had been unable to remove. Weapons were eventually procured from the Russian troops in North Ossetia. In June 1992, Ossetian refugees from South Ossetia and the internal regions of Georgia held rallies on the streets of Vladikavkaz. After one such rally the primitively armed demonstrators marched on the military garrison nine kilometres from Vladikavkaz, on the road to Rostov, and encircled it. They demanded SALW from the military. Eventually several dozen trucks with ammunition and firearms were handed over along with twelve 120 mm mobile howitzers. The freshly-acquired arms reached Tskhinval the following day. The seizure raised expectations on the South Ossetian side. The implications were two-fold. Firstly, for the first time in the whole conflict the South Ossetians acquired weaponry good enough to allow them to stand up to the Georgian forces and to pose a realistic threat to populated areas on Georgian-held territory. Secondly, a precedent was set for the destabilisation of the situation in North Ossetia, ie within the Russia Federation itself. The Russian authorities, until then only verbally condemning Georgian aggression in South Ossetia, immediately reacted, initiating a meeting between the leaders of Georgia and South Ossetia. Both these factors forced the Georgian leadership to enter into negotiations with the Ossetians. Neither the first, nor the second, presidents of Georgia had agreed to official meetings with the South Ossetians before June 1992. The meetings with the leadership of North Ossetia led only to a further escalation of the conflict. Because it retained the Soviet habits typical of party bureaucrats, the North Ossetian leadership was convinced that up to the last minute that the USSR would be re-established and Soviet power restored and, accordingly, did not have its own position with regard to the question of South Ossetia’s constitutional status. Meetings with the Georgian leader- ship ended in magnificent dinners. A stronger early response from the North Ossetians could have influenced the course of the conflict and helped to avoid unnecessary casualties on both sides. The North Ossetians had potential leverage over the Georgians, because the only functioning road that connected Georgia directly with Russia at that time passed through North Ossetia. The same was true of gas and electricity lines. The North Ossetians could have put more pressure on the Georgians to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict. If we attempt a short résumé of the above, several conclusions are offered: The proliferation of a large quantity of weapons in a region where state structures and the process of state building are undeveloped is likely to lead to a flare-up of armed conflict. 8 THE CAUCASUS: ARMED AND DIVIDED · NORTH AND SOUTH OSSETIA