Georgia yesterday called for an independent inquiry into who started the war between it and Russia in August; amid claims by the Kremlin that the western media now accepts that Georgia was the aggressor.
Georgia's ambassador to the UN, Irakli Alasania, asked the EU on Monday to carry out a "very thorough" international investigation into the five-day conflict. Georgia was willing to provide "all" information including "classified material" to show it was not to blame, he said.
The move follows doubts raised by the New York Times and BBC's Newsnight about Georgia's claim that its attack on South Ossetia on August 7/8 was in response to Russian aggression.
The New York Times quoted military observers in the breakaway region who said they were unable to verify claims that Georgian villages had come under heavy attack prior to August 7. The monitors from the Organisation for the Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) also said Georgian troops had bombarded the city of Tskhinvali, using indiscriminate rocket and artillery fire, the US paper reported.
Yesterday, however, the Russian human rights organisation Memorial said there was overwhelming evidence that shelling had taken place in the days leading up to August 7 and Georgia's assault on Tskhinvali. Both sides were involved, Memorial said.
Oleg Orlov, the head of Memorial, said that artillery exchanges across the border with South Ossetia began on August 1 - and then "got worse". Civilians on both sides were injured, he said. South Ossetian troops had fired on civilians, Orlov said, including an enclave of ethnic Georgians living inside separatist controlled South Ossetia, north of Tskhinvali. South Ossetian troops had also fired from the Tskhinvali headquarters of Russia's peacekeeping force, Orlov added.
"It's important to find out who was the aggressor. But the answer isn't straightforward," Orlov, who spent two weeks in South Ossetia and Georgia investigating the conflict, said. "Of course Georgia's armed forces started a full-scale military operation. But the previous politics of Russia provoked Georgia to do this."
This did not "excuse" the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, he continued. "But Russian peacekeepers also didn't do their job properly. We know the Russian side gave arms to the Ossetians and that they used them to fire towards Georgia from Russian peacekeeping positions well before August 7."
The war's chronology is disputed by Moscow and Tbilisi. The Georgians have used the bombardment of ethnic Georgian villages as the main justification for their attack on Tskhinvali. They also claim Russia had already begun its invasion of Georgia via the Roki tunnel before Saakashvili sent his army into South Ossetia.
Russia says it is clear that Tbilisi was the real aggressor. "It took [US media] three months to start telling the truth about the August war in the Caucasus," said Vitaly Churkin, Russia's UN ambassador in a letter of congratulation to the New York Times following its November 7 article.
The row came as Barack Obama, the US president-elect, gave his first indications that he does not intend to abandon Georgia. Obama called Saakashvili and assured him of Washington's continuing support, the Georgian president's office said yesterday.
Amnesty International yesterday said Georgia and Russia had seriously violated international law during the conflict.
