The solution to the gathering Georgia impasse is popular sovereignty for South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Nobody in the Georgian government, the U. S., or the EU likes that solution because it probably favors the Russians.
But popular sovereignty for South Ossetia and Abkhazia is inevitable. Internationally monitored elections should be held so that the populations of these two enclaves can decide whether they want to be independent, remain a part of Georgia, or become part of Russia.
And everyone should respect their decisions.
After all, this is what the U. S. and its allies did in Kosovo. The U. S. recently recognized Kosovo as an independent nation because the population of Kosovo rejected affiliation with Serbia. Given that the populations of South Ossetia and Abkhazia reject affiliation with Georgia, they should be allowed to go their own way as well.
The EU and American government want to conduct negotiations under the assumption that Georgia should maintain its current territorial boundaries.
But its too late for that.
Georgia has never exercised sovereign control over South Ossetia and Abkhazia and its certain that the two enclaves aren't ever going to acknowledge Georgian sovereignty now.
Neither will the Russians.
The proper way to facilitate the legitimate withdrawal of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia is to hold elections to determine what the populations of these countries want.
The U. S. and the E.U. will initially resist elections and secession because it appears to reward the Russians. But rewarding or punishing the Russians is a secondary matter. The primary issue is finding a stable solution to the problems of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Holding elections provides the best hope for a stable solution.
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Both Abkhazia and Ossetia have held elections in recent years, but they tend to obtain Soviet style mandates which makes the results a bit suspect. (98% support for independence among and 96% support for the secessionist leader of Ossetia in 2006. 91% support for the president of Abkhazia in 2005)
Your guess is as good as mine whether this is the result of rigged elections, nationalistic fervor or the tiny populations involved.
Kosovo also set the precendent for Aztlan, when the USA becomes a Bamana Republic under Brzezinski.
To Jinchi: That's why it would be good to have international supervision for any elections.
To Nikos: Welcom to RSI. I thought Aztlan was the right-wing fantasy of Mexican immigrants turning the U. S. into a Mexican nation.
First of all, I am an American who considers himself a Reaganite (don't freak out libs). I will get to Georgia in a second, but I would like to give a little background history on the Balkans debacle which is what the South Ossetians are using as it's precedent for independence.
As you may or may not know Yugoslavia was made up of several nations. They were Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegro and Serbia. You probably noticed that I didn’t include Kosovo, that’s because Kosovo & Metohija has ALWAYS been a part of Serbia, it is considered the Serbian ancestral homeland and in many ways their Holy Land (some of their oldest Orthodox churches are located there, some older then the USA). Kosovo was NEVER a separate country in it's entire history, ever. Now, over the past 100 yrs the Serb population in Kosovo has been strangled out of this province by ethnic Albanians (there is no such thing as a Kosovar). In the early 1900's Serbs were 90 percent of Kosovo, after WWII the population had diminished to around 50-52 percent and now we fast forward to the 80's, 90's and the present where the population is only about 10-12 percent (if that). Why did this exodus happen?
Unfortunately, after WWII Tito, for reasons we may never know, allowed unmitigated immigration from Albania into the Kosovo region. Serbs in the province were having the usual 2-3 kids, whilst their Albanian counterparts were having 6-8 kids, in some cases more than that. You tell me what the demographics would look like after a 40-50 year period. Once the Albanians reached a majority they decided that they no longer wanted to learn Serbo-Croatian, they decided they wanted their own schools, language based news media, political & social institutions and so on. Also, during the late 70's into the early 80's the KLA formed (the Kosovo Liberation Army, which was on the US terrorist watchlist until Clinton took them off so he could "wag the dog" during the Lewinsky scandal). These goons decided that the ethnic Albanians should have Kosovo for themselves. They began to murder, rape, bomb, intimidate and persecute the Serbian minority (not to mention the Roma, Goranis and others). Among the so called Kosovo leadership are war criminals who have just as much blood on their hands as the Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks (Bosnian muslims), they are Agim Ceku, Ramush Haradinaj and Hashim Thaci. So, Milosevic did what any leader would do in such a circumstance, he sent the military in to stop the separatists from persecuting the rightful owners of Kosovo and because of this he got Serbia bombed all to hell (more civilians died in the air attacks than military, how nice). Also, if the Albanians are so nice to live with why haven't the 80,000-150,000 (depends on which refugee organization you listen to) Serb refugees from the province returned and why does KFOR and UNMIK have to place guards around the few Orthodox churches and Serb enclaves left in Kosovo 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Now, one should also factor in that the Serbs were the only people in that part of the world that sided with the Allies in both world wars. The Croats (Ustache) were Nazi collaborators, they even ran the second deadliest concentration camp behind Aushwitz, this camp was known as Jasnevac. The Albanian and Bosnian muslims had their own Nazi SS divisions (the Bosnian muslim wartime leader, Alija Izetbegovic, was a recruiter for the Nazis during WWII). These Nazi allies proceeded to try to rid the Balkans of all Serbs, Jews, Roma, etc.. As you can see, Serbia has had quite a time in dealing with it’s neighbors, no wonder they were/are wound so tight.
I would like to make one thing clear, Milosevic was no sweetheart, Im sure we can all agree with that premise. He tried to have his way and used military means to get them, which was entirely wrong and misguided. Yet, it was the Serbian people who forced him out of office and had him delivered to the Hague and what did that get the Serbs, more and more demands and eventually, the annexation by foreign elements of their beloved Kosovo and Metohija.
Ok, let's fast forward to the Georgia situation. Vladimir Putin told everyone at the UN that the recognition of an independent Kosovo without UN approval would set a dangerous precedent for other separatist causes around the world (one should know that UN Resolution 1244 states that Kosovo is a part of Serbia and should be recognized as such). The Western argument of "Kosovo is a unique case" was one of the most arrogant and idiotic things I have ever heard. There's a reason that only 45 nations out of 190+ have recognized it, many of them have worries that it could embolden separatist causes in their own countries, albeit many of them are quite small at the moment. Spain, with the Basques currently threatening a independence referendum in the near future, did not jump on the EU bandwagon because of this. South Ossetia, just days after the Kosovo declaration, came out saying that Kosovo had set a precedent for their cause, as well as, Abhkazia's cause. The MILF in the southern Phillipines (Mindanao) want their own independent Muslim entity and are interested in how Kosovo achieved theirs. The Transneistr area of Moldava wants the same. No matter how many times the Western countries pronounce "Kosovo is a unique case" it doesn't make it so. There's three reasons the US wants Kosovo apart from Serbia. 1) The US currently has the second largest military base built since Vietnam located there, Camp Bondsteel (it is suspected of being one of the secret CIA interrogation centers). 2) The US wanted to show the Muslim world that it is not anti-muslim and that we will help muslims if need be (especially if it coincides with US interests as well). 3) If Serbia were to keep Kosovo there would be the very real threat of having our military thrown out and Camp Bondsteel taken over or destroyed. There are a few more I could state, but these are the top ones.
So, as you can see, one nation's territorial integrity, Georgia, should be kept at all costs says the West (can you say US/EU lapdog) while another nation's should be dismantled, Serbia, which would never cater to having foreign soldiers on it’s own land, that was the major reason the Rambouillet conference fell apart. Can anyone say hypocrisy at it's finest. There's no doubt in my mind that Putin/Medvedev planned this after their warnings were ignored, after all it was NATO that set the precedent of "humanitarian intervention" and the US with many western European countries that (and a few smaller ones who cater to the West) were the only ones to recognize the ethnic Albanians declaration of independence in Kosovo. The West, since the end of the cold war, has been ignoring, poking and prodding Russia thinking it was still a economic and political basketcase like in the 90s, but it isn't. It's oil rich, it's political situation is more stable and it's military is still quite capable, as Georgia saw firsthand. Im not condoning what happened in Georgia, but looking at how things have transpired starting with the bombing of Serbia over the separatists in Kosovo in the late 90's and then the mostly western backing of it's independence against the wishes of Russia and China, no wonder we have what we have now.
Finally, when Reagan and Gorbachev sat down and worked out the deal with the fall of the USSR, the US president essentially promised the Soviet leader that NATO and the West would not try to bring the countries surrounding it into NATO and, of course, the last couple of Presidents have gone back on that word. Reagan would never have gone for the destruction of the territorial integrity of Serbia, let along the inclusion of many of the ex-Soviet bloc members into NATO.
Now, can one see how this all came about, why such circumstances have come to play or are many of you still listening to what the mainstream media and the govt is telling you to believe.
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