Apropos misinformation - hvad skete der egentlig i Georgien i 2008 ?

Det nævnes ofte i debatten, at Rusland har krigeriske hensigter, og der henvises bl

Lars Nygaard,

27/02/2017

Det nævnes ofte i debatten, at Rusland har krigeriske hensigter, og der henvises bl.a til konflikten i Georgien i 2008 og også til konflikten i Ukraine.

Mit ærinde er ikke at være forsvarer for Rusland, som helt sikkert har meget på samvittigheden, men det skurrer i mine ører, når Rusland uden videre bliver præsenteret som aggressor, når sandheden er langt mere kompliceret, som tilfældet er med krigen mellem Georgien og Rusland.

Se f.eks:

http://uffeellemann.blogs.berlingske.dk/2016/08/11/farligt-spil-om-ukraine/

Citat herfra: "Og overfaldet på Georgien i august 2008". "For otte år siden var det militære manøvrer lige nord for grænsen til Georgien, som hurtigt blev omdannet til en offensiv ind i Georgien."

EU lavede i 2009 en rapport om konflikten, hvor en delegation fik opgaven med at finde ud af, hvad der var sket:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/30_09_09_iiffmgc_report.pdf

Det fremgår bl.a på side 11:

"On the night of 7 to 8 August 2008, a sustained Georgian artillery attack struck the town of Tskhinvali. Other movements of the Georgian armed forces targeting Tskhinvali and the surrounding areas were under way, and soon the fighting involved Russian, South Ossetian and Abkhaz military units and armed elements. It did not take long, however,before the Georgian advance into South Ossetia was stopped."

Bemærk at de Olympiske Lege i 2008 startede netop den 8 August, hvorfor der spekuleres i, at Georgien ville angribe på dette tidspunkt, idet medierne så ville være optaget af at dække åbningen af legene.

Videre, uddrag fra senere afsnit:

"At the very outset of the operation the Commander of the Georgian contingent to the Joint Peacekeeping Forces (JPKF), Brigadier General Mamuka Kurashvili, stated that the operation was aimed at restoring the constitutional order in the territory of South Ossetia. Somewhat later the Georgian side refuted Mamuka Kurashvili’s statement as unauthorised and invoked the countering of an alleged Russian invasion as justification of the operation."

"There is the question of whether the use of force by Georgia in South Ossetia, beginning with the shelling of Tskhinvali during the night of 7/8 August 2008, was justifiable under international law. It was not."

"It follows from the illegal character of the Georgian military assault that South Ossetian defensive action in response did conform to international law in terms of legitimate self-defence"

"In the first instance, there seems to be little doubt that if the Russian peacekeepers were attacked, Russia had the right to defend them using military means proportionate to the attack. Hence the Russian use of force for defensive purposes during the first phase of the conflict would be legal."

"Georgia claims that GRAD were only used against strictly military targets such as South Ossetian artillery in one of the Tskhinvali city districts, whereas OSCE obser vers and other independent sources confirm the massive shelling of other parts of Tskhinvali as well during the night of 7/8 August 2008, both from multiple launch rocket systems and artillery pieces. Reports from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also confirm this.

This would indicate that during the Georgian offensive on Tskhinvali cluster munitions on whatever scale and GRAD MLRS were both used, amounting to in discriminate attacks by Georgian forces, owing to the uncontrollable effects of such weaponry and its use in a populated area."

Det konkluderes altså af delegationen, der bestod af militære eksperter, jurister og historikere, at det var Georgien, der startede krigen med et natligt artilleriangreb på en civil by, og at de ovenikøbet anvendte upræcise granatkastere, der forårsagede mange dødsfald.

Der er naturligvis en lang historie bag alt dette: Sovjetunionens sammenbrud, selvstændiggørelsen af Georgien, ønsket om selvstændighed for de russisktalende syd-Ossetere, at Kosovo af EU/FN/NATO fik selvstændighed og syd-Ossetien ikke måtte få det, hvilket virker som vestligt hykleri, men selv når man tager forbehold for alt dette, hvordan kan det så lade sig gøre at man affærdiger denne konflikt som et overgreb på Georgien ? Det er vist ikke kun Rusland, der spreder misinformation og fake-news !

Se også:

http://raeson.dk/2009/anna-nemtsova-konflikten-mellem-rusland-og-georgien-kan-bryde-ud-pa-ny/

Kilde: