[fse-esf] Statement on the Georgia- Russia conflict in South Ossetia

[Dave Stockton]

League for the Fifth International

Statement on the Georgia- Russia conflict in South Ossetia

10 August 2008


The people of Georgia and South Ossetia have been dragged into a bloody
power play between the USA and Russia for control of the oil-rich Caucasus
region. 

With the eyes of the world on the grand spectacle of the Olympic Opening
Ceremony in Beijing, George Bush's neoliberal Georgian puppet, Mikheil
Saakashvili, launched a murderous surprise assault on South Ossetia, the
majority non-ethnic Georgian region that has been demanding separation from
Georgia since 1992 and which was until Friday morning under the control of
pro-independence forces, protected by a 500 strong Russian 'peacekeeping'
force.

Video recordings showed Georgian jets and artillery pounding the South
Ossetian capital Tskhinvali - its war materiel provided by exceptionally
generous US backing over the last two years to the neoliberal, pro-NATO,
repressive Saakashvili government. The bombardment and occupation of the
city killed hundreds of civilians and casualties included a number of
Russian 'peacekeepers.' Thousands of Ossetian refugees were driven from the
city and from surrounding villages.

Russia, however, called Saakashvili's bluff and mobilised special forces and
regular troops, quickly recapturing the South Ossetian capital. They also
bombed air bases outside the Georgian capital Tbilisi and military targets
in the town of Gori where, it seems, troops were massing to enter Ossetia.
The Georgian parliament declared war and called up reservists. Saakashvili
appealed for foreign aid but nevertheless called for a ceasefire.
Whilst the fighting continued, the UN Security Council failed to reach
agreement on a common statement.

The hypocritical voices of the USA and its British ally have been raised in
calls for Russia to respect "Georgia's territorial integrity", by which they
really mean Saakashvili's right to slaughter and repress the separatist
forces in South Ossetia. As the Russian media has persistently pointed out,
the USA and Britain's inconsistent approach to the right of nations to
independence is as striking as it is self-serving. They recognise Kosovo,
but refuse recognition to South Ossetia. They demand that Russia respect
Georgia's borders but themselves violate those of Iraq and Afghanistan with
impunity.

The Russian stance is no less hypocritical. Its delegate to the UN piously
backed the national rights of the South Ossetians, and those of the
Abkhazians, Georgia's other large national minority in its Western region.
But who can take as good coin the Russians' commitment to the right of
nations to self-determination when they continue to bloodily suppress the
Chechen nation, which has been fighting for separation from Russia for
years? With a full scale Russian military occupation the independence of
South Ossetia will be nominal at best.


Behind this war, on both the Russian and the Georgian sides, lie the
manoeuvrings of the imperialist powers and their oil multinationals. At
stake are the oil reserves of the Caspian Sea region and the locations for
new pipelines to pump it westward, outside Russian territorial control.
Part of these manoeuvres was the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia in 2003 that
put Saakashvili, a pro-Western neoliberal, in power. The US-based NGO, the
Liberty Institute, helped organise it. The USA has been tempting
Saakashvili's unpopular regime with Nato membership - an offer other Nato
members recently vetoed. One condition for joining Nato membership  is to
have no ongoing territorial disputes with your neighbours. This probably
accounts for Saakashvili's ill-fated attempt to seize South Ossetia.
 
Socialists around the world should take a clear stance on the Russia-Georgia
conflict. Our starting point is two basic principles of Leninism: opposition
to imperialist powers as they seek the division and redivision of the world
so that they can plunder its resources and compete with one another for
regional hegemony, and support for the right of nations to
self-determination, up to and including the right to form separate states if
they so wish.

Clearly this meant total opposition to the imperialist puppet Saakashvili's
failed attempt to "recover" South Ossetia and meant support for the region's
armed resistance to it. However the rights of the Georgian minority there
must be preserved and all attempts at ethnic cleansing resisted wherever
they come from.

Only weeks ago, US forces engaged in a huge training exercise with Georgian
troops. Whether the attack on Tskhinvali was planned in the Pentagon, or
whether Saakashvili was so emboldened by the USA's backing that he decided
to engage in a provocation to force NATO's hand and push the US into a
showdown with Russia, is as yet not clear.
Whatever, internationalists in Georgia should be struggling for the
withdrawal of all Georgian troops from South Ossetia, for the expulsion of
all US military advisers and troops from Georgia, and for the overthrow of
Saakashvili's criminal regime.

But socialists cannot support the Russian military intervention either,
motivated as it is solely by the Kremlin's grand designs for domination of
the Caucasus, its rich oil reserves and its strategic position in relation
to the great Caspian oil pipeline. Russia is a capitalist country, an
imperialist power which itself oppresses national minorities such as the
Chechens.
 
Whilst fully supporting the right of South Ossetians to their independence,
socialists and internationalists in Russia must oppose Medvedev and Putin's
military plans. They have encouraged Ossetians to take out Russian
citizenship, to give themselves the excuse that occupying the tiny country
is simply protection of "their own" citizens. In fact the Russian
klepto-capitalists and their bonapartist regime have seized the opportunity
presented by the crisis to assert regional control. The Russian
representative at the emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday
made not only correct calls for the South Ossetians' rights to be respected,
but also the sinister assertion that, in attacking Tskhinvali, Georgia had
called into question "its viability as a state". Any attempt by Russian
forces to bring about regime change in Georgia would be a clear violation of
the national independence of the country.
 
Like the Balkans in the years before the First World War, the Caucasus today
is emerging as a battleground for inter-imperialist rivalry and proxy wars.
As the economic storm clouds continue to gather, signs of sharpening
tensions between the USA and Russia reveal the contours of darker times to
come. Now, more than ever, the working class around the world needs to be
guided by the key principles of internationalism: support for the right of
oppressed nations to self-determination, and resolute opposition to
imperialism.
 
€ Georgia - hands off South Ossetia
€ US military advisers out of Georgia
€ Russian troops out of South Ossetia
€ Self-determination for South Ossetia and Abkhazia
€ Down with US and Russian imperialist designs for the oil-rich Caucasus.


Richard Brenner, on behalf of the League for the Fifth International