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On S. Ossetia, No Agreement at UN's Midnight
Meeting on Use of Force or Ethnic Cleansing
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
August 7 to 8 -- The Security
Council's midnight
meeting on the military escalation in Georgia's breakaway
region of South Ossetia ended at 2 a.m. with no agreed statement.
The sticking
point, diplomats told Inner City Press, was the Russian draft's call
for
"the parties... to renounce the use of force." Georgia has resisted
signing such a commitment, and in its behalf, the U.S., France and UK
objected
to the draft. Afterwards, in response to questions from Inner City
Press,
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said he had even offered a compromise
phrase,
to "stop hostilities and the use of force," but that it too had been
rejected.
When
French Deputy Permanent Representative Jean-Pierre Lacroix took
questions,
Inner City Press asked why he had objected to the phrase. He answered
circularly about "commonity" in wanting "hostilities to
end," and later conceded, or slipped up, that of course there should
also
be a cessation of the use of force.
Georgia's
Ambassador Irakli Alasania made it clear that commitments to renounce
the use
of force would only be made as part of a negotiation. That is to say,
why
should Georgia give up the right to try to re-take its breakaway
regions,
including Abkhazia, without them agreeing to remain part of Georgia?
Round and
round it goes, all now in the wake of Kosovo's unilateral declaration
of
independence, recognized by, among others, the U.S., France and the UK.
Amb. Alasania, Georgians in Moscow not shown
In the
chamber, Amb. Alasania had read out of list of Russians who he said run
South
Ossetia, including some from "the Chechen conflict." Inner City Press
asked Amb. Churkin to respond; he scoffed that people moved around a
lot in the
former Soviet Union, and that there are many Georgians in Moscow, but
no one
say Georgia controls Russia. Inner City Press in turn asked Amb.
Alasania about
this, and he said that the Georgia's in Moscow aren't running the
military.
Again, round and round.
More concretely, Inner
City Press asked if Georgia would agree to the four party, "JCC" talks
that South Ossetia says it wants, which would include Russia and North
Ossetia. No, Amb. Alasania said, we want direct talks.
Inner City
Press asked Amb. Alasania what, according to him, South Ossetia might
be trying
to achieve by shelling Georgia villages. "Ethnic cleansing," Amb.
Alasania
said. On the other hand, some accuse Georgia of trying to retake its
breakaway
regions by force. Inner City Press ended the stakeout by asking if all
is quiet
on the Abkhaz front. "I hope so," Amb. Alasania said. We'll see.
Watch this site.
And
this --
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