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Monday,
August 20,
2007, #158 (1425)
The Russian team of experts, unsurprisingly, has failed to implicate their country in the Tsitelubani missile affair. Tbilisi is rightfully blowing past the team's 'findings.' The administration must now keep on the diplomatic offensive, internationalizing both the investigation and the response to Russian-made missiles plowing up dirt in its countryside. It's a prime opportunity, as Georgian officials are well aware, to undercut what shreds remain of Russia's credibility as a mediator in the conflict zones. In a report issued by the 25-strong Moscow delegation, which included the man who categorically denied any Russian aircraft were over Georgia the evening a missile apparently dropped from no airplane whatsoever, the team said that their radar records show no flights from their side that night. And maybe those radar records don't, but quite a few from Georgia do. Providing incomplete radar records, as Tbilisi says the team has done, is at least more helpful than their response to requests for radar records after helicopters bombed the Kodori Gorge on March 11. There were no records, they said then, in a delightfully spurious tautology, as there were no flights. The results of their investigation were a foregone conclusion, and Tbilisi worked hard to preemptively discredit the team-not that spin doctors had a tough job. The air force commander who said there were no Russian flights certainly wasn't sent to Tsitelubani to publicly retract his statement. Proper investigations don't start with the results known. Three previous investigative teams, two of which were nominally independent of Tbilisi, said the available evidence leads right up north. We're not privy to all of it, but Russian claims of contradicting radar data mean someone is lying. More teams are inbound, the latest including Brits, French, Estonian and Polish experts. As their report gets tossed into the evidence file, the case against Russia will undoubtedly get stronger. There's little use speculating on exactly what happened, as the exact details are unlikely to be extrapolated from missile shards and disputed radar records. And whoever is sitting on the real answer doesn't seem inclined to tell. But minimal utility hasn't stopped observers from taking a crack at the puzzle. It's difficult to see what Russia is gaining from the incident and its aftermath, but it's more difficult to see how Georgia could fake an attack and get away with it. It was, possibly, a mistake made by a pilot now in very hot water. Flying in and out of airspace three times, as the international group of experts says the plane did, could be testing defenses or reconnaissance-or confusion. A more worrisome possibility is that this was a very intentional provocation engineered by rogue elements. 'Rogue elements' in both Georgia and Russia are likely to blame for the Abkhazian war. It is distinctly unpleasant to think they've come close to starting another, as seemed to be the case with Emzar Kvitsiani's little Kodori Gorge rebellion last summer, or an offensive into Abkhazia from Chechen militants and Georgian partisans in 2001. New investigations won't shake out conspiracy theories, but they will lend credence to Georgian diplomatic efforts. The makeup of the last international group was unclear; Tbilisi should publicize, presuming it would be helpful, the credentials and allegiances of the most recent arrivals. What matters now is whether, on the back of this missile, Georgia can rile up international censure for Moscow. More investigations will help. There's already a broad consensus of Russian responsibility, but more official reports will make it harder for those reluctant to tangle with the Kremlin to drag their feet. How many countries can turn a blind eye if it's conclusively shown that Russia is dropping rather large missiles on its rather tiny neighbors? A worry is that many can and will. But if Saakashvili's administration succeeds in keeping this ball in play, the absurdity of Russia as peacekeeper and ostensible negotiator in the conflict zones will get the attention, and action, it needs. Tbilisi will have a stronger platform from which to push for internationalization of the peacekeepers and the overdue trashing of the JCC. Russia, however,
may simply ignore critics. It would take-and be a demonstration of-internal
weakness to allow South Ossetia and Abkhazia to slip away from the Kremlin's
protection. Until that moment of opportunity comes, Tbilisi should continue
to pull out all the stops as it inches forward towards restoring its
lost territory. |
Wasn't
us, Russian delegation claims. Tbilisi needs to show the world it was