Apparently, these accusations were prepared in advance by the Russian leadership to construct a semblance of similarity between NATO’s humanitarian intervention in Kosovo and Russia’s intervention in Georgia.[6] The accusations against Georgia were extremely cynical, taking into account the abuses committed by the Russian military in Chechnya, where in two wars at least 10 percent of the population had been killed. Yekaterina Sokiryanskaya of the human rights group Memorial commented: “Talking about the right for independence, about genocide and the war crimes of Mr Saakashvili, Russia’s leaders are perhaps forgetting about the tens of thousands of civilians who were killed by Russia’s bombardment of Grozny and who were executed, cleansed, and tortured by the Russian military in Chechnya.”[7] The Kremlin’s accusations were a clear case of what Robert Amsterdam in a striking comparison has called “the Doppelgänger Theory”: “the Kremlin’s habit of charging their critics with the very activities in which they themselves engage.”[8] It was, by the way, not the first time Georgia was accused of genocide. Already in 1993 Vladimir Zhirinovsky wrote: “Today Georgia is killing Abkhazians, Ossetians, and Europe keeps silent…. There are not many Abkhazians, but they are a people, they want to live on their land and in freedom. But they [the Georgians] are taking this right away. This is a genocide, this is racism and it is happening today. Who is going to stop this?”[9] Especially the accusation of “racism” was particularly unexpected, coming from a politician, who, in the same book, only some pages earlier, compared immigrants from the South with tarakany—cockroaches.
The Kremlin has made a habit of accusing others of crimes of which it has been accused of itself. Yekaterina Sokiryanskaya mentioned already the massive, indiscriminate bombardments of Grozny in the winter of 1999–2000 with thousands of victims amongst the civil population of Chechnya. These bombardments and other atrocities committed in Chechnya made another prominent Russian human rights activist, Sergey Kovalyov, write: “What is new this time around is that Russian society as a whole is prepared to carry out genocide. Cruelty and violence are no longer rejected.”[10]
ETHNIC CLEANSING AND CLUSTER BOMBS
The cynical accusations of genocide, made by the Kremlin, were followed by accusations by Georgia that it was Russia that had practiced ethnic cleansing. The dirty work in this case was mostly done by the South Ossetian militias that had followed the advancing Russian army in armored patrol vehicles with covered licence plates. “Refugees from Karaleki and nearby [Georgian] villages,” wrote Luke Harding of The Guardian, “gave the same account: South Ossetian militias that had swept in on August 12, killing, burning, stealing and kidnapping…. South Ossetian militias, facilitated by the Russian army, are carrying out the worst ethnic cleansing since the war in former Yugoslavia. Despite the random nature of these attacks, the overall aim is clear: to create a mono-ethnic greater South Ossetia in which Georgians no longer exist.”[11] South Ossetians did not attempt to deny that their aim was ethnic cleansing, they even proclaimed it openly. “We did carry out cleaning operations, yes,” admitted Captain Elrus, the militia leader, when asked by Luke Harding. And why shouldn’t he? Had not South Ossetian president, Eduard Kokoity, in an interview in the Russian paper Kommersant, proudly declared: “We have flattened practically everything there [in the Georgian villages].”[12] In a note of the Georgian government one could read that “deliberate attempts by the Russian government to exaggerate the number of people killed in the conflict also provoked revenge attacks on Georgian villagers.”[13] The Russian lies concerning a genocide committed by Georgians had the perverse effect of inciting South Ossetian militias to kill, rape, and loot Georgian citizens with even more fervor.
Human Rights Watch accused Russia of having used cluster bombs against civil targets.[14] Cluster munitions contain dozens and sometimes hundreds of smaller submunitions, or “‘bomblets.” They cause unacceptable suffering because they are spread over a broad area and kill civilians indiscriminately during strikes. Because many bomblets fail to explode, these become landmines that kill and maim people months and even years later. In May 2008, 107 nations agreed to a total ban on cluster munitions. Russia and Georgia were not among the signatories. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, on August 12, 2008, Russian aircraft dropped RBK-250 cluster bombs on the Georgian town of Ruisi, which killed three and wounded five civilians. The same day the Russian army also bombed the market in the center of the town of Gori with cluster bombs. The bombs were launched with an Iskander missile. Eight civilians were killed, and dozens were wounded. Among the dead was Stan Storimans, a Dutch TV cameraman.[15] Novaya Gazeta journalist Yuliya Latynina wrote: “The most precise weapon of Russia, ORTK ‘Iskander,’ already first developed in the 1980s, though only a few examples are today in the possession of the army, struck Georgia twice: on the oil pipeline Baku-Supsa and on the market of Gori on which humanitarian goods were being distributed—the Dutch TV operator Stan Storimans was killed by it…. ‘Iskander’ is a high precision weapon, meaning that either it proved not so precise when it fell on the market, or that the market was targeted, and in that case it was the first time in history that a high precision weapon has been used against the civil population.”[16]
The Dutch government sent a fact-finding commission to Georgia to establish the facts. In its report[17] one could read that the bombardment took place after military and police units of Georgia had already left the town. The bomb clearly targeted the civilian population. At 10:45 a.m. there were twenty explosions in the air, as well as on the ground. Each explosion spread a huge number of small 5mm metal balls. One of these hit and killed Storimans. He was killed by submunitions of a cluster bomb launched with a Russian Iskander SS-26 missile. In a letter to the Dutch Parliament, the Dutch minister of foreign affairs, Maxime Verhagen, wrote that although the use of cluster bombs was not yet forbidden, “parties in a situation of an armed conflict should always make a sharp distinction between military and civilian targets,” and, “taking into account that on August 12 the Georgian military and police had left Gori, the Russian forces should have abstained from using [these weapons]. In light of this I find the conclusion of the investigatory committee very serious and I have explained this to the Russian authorities.”[18] Three days after the attack on Gori, Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of Russia’s general staff, categorically denied that such weapons had ever been used in Georgia. “We never use cluster bombs,” he said. “There is no need to do so.”[19] Moreover, the unequivocal findings of the fact-finding commission of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not change the Kremlin’s version of the facts. Commenting on the death of Storimans the spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry not only denied the use of cluster bombs, but he went even further and “asserted that there was not enough evidence to conclude that Storimans had been killed as a result of the use of [any] weapons by the Russian side.”[20] In November 2008, some weeks after the publication of the Dutch report, Human Rights Watch wrote: “Russia has continued to deny using cluster munitions in Georgia, but Human Rights Watch finds the evidence to be overwhelming. Human Rights Watch believes that Russia’s use of cluster munitions in populated areas was indiscriminate, and therefore in violation of international humanitarian law.”[21]
6
Another example of such a prepared attack was the accusation made immediately after the fighting that Georgia had destroyed protected historical buildings in Tskhinvali. “For Russia’s part, which until now showed little interest in South Ossetia’s cultural heritage, acts of destruction are [used] particularly as an argument to denounce Georgia as a war criminal,” wrote the
8
Robert Amsterdam, “Andrei Piontkovsky and the Doppelgänger Theory” (September 26, 2007). http://www.robertamsterdam.com.
13
“Russian Invasion of Georgia: The Facts on Ethnic Cleansing of Georgians during the Russian Invasion and Occupation,”
15
The Russian Ministry of Defense denied in a news release on August 16, 2008, that it had used the Iskander missile in South Ossetia. Because the missile landed in Gori, which is situated
17
“Verslag onderzoeksmissie Storimans,”
18
“Kamerbrief inzake het verslag van de onderzoekscommissie Storimans,”
19
“Up In Flames: Humanitarian Law Violations and Civilian Victims in the Conflict over South Ossetia,” 113.
20
Quoted in Nico Hines, “Russia Accused of Dropping Cluster Bombs on Georgian Civilians,”
21
“Georgia: More Cluster Bomb Damage Than Reported,”