South Ossetia asks the OSCE Mission to Georgia be objective

On August 4, 2008 on the initiative of the RSO President Eduard Kokoity it took place a meeting with force structures of the RSO with representatives of the OSCE Mission to Georgia.

From South Ossetia on the meeting it were present: Deputy Chairman of the Government – Minister of Special Affairs of the RSO, JCC Co-Chair from the South-Ossetian part Boris Chochiev, Chairman of the Committee on State Security of the RSO Boris Attoev, Interior Minister of the RSO Mikhail Mindzaev, Minister of Defense and Emergency Cases of the RSO Andrei Lunev, from OSCE Mission – Senior Military Representative of the OSCE Mission to Georgia Stephen Young, Head of the Tskhinval field office of OSCE Grzegorz Mikhalsky and Mission monitoring officers Heiki Lekhtonen and Andrei Dragovsky.

On the meeting it was discussed the situation in the conflict zone. In course of the meeting President of the RSO Eduard Kokoity expressed thanks to the representatives of the OSCE Mission for active participation in conducting a monitoring in the conflict zone as a result of what it was revealed that the Georgian side brings up to the boundaries of the Republic of South Ossetia armed forces, including artillery plants.

He also stressed that he condemns the activities of those force structures of the RSO who had not admitted the monitoring group to one of the places of the conflict zone opening fire. “Those staff-members who admitted this will be punished”, assured Eduard Kokoity the OSCE representatives.

At the same time he tasked all force structures of the RSO to provide assistance to OSCE in conducting monitorings and stated that the activities of the Republic of South Ossetia have response character in answer to provocations and transference of armed formations from the direction of Georgia to the bounds of South Ossetia. “We will adequately react to the activities of the Georgian side”, underlined the President.

Eduard Kokoity stressed that after the meeting with OSCE ambassadors in the RSO the results of monitorings and OSCE Mission reports improved considerably, though tendentiousness remains. He gave the example of detaining Georgian officers who had corrected the landscape and they confessed in this. As a token of free will in connection of the OSCE ambassadors’ arrival they were released with the condition that the Georgian side would not PR this, but they did not keep their word. At the same time the detention of Osset citizens going by a scheduled bus to Tskhinval is presented in the light as if they had been criminals and their detention – a measure of struggling with criminality.

JCC Co-Chair from the South-Ossetian part Boris Chochiev underlined that meetings are often held on the occasion of partiality in the reports of the OSCE Mission and he once asked the OSCE representatives to be not pro-Osset, not pro-Georgian but objective, because information about the zone of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict is received from those reports by 56 country-participants of OSCE.

On the meeting it was noted the importance of objective informing the international community by the OSCE Mission to Georgia. Despite some increase of the objectiveness of the OSCE Mission reports, they still have tendentious character.

Thus, informing about the incident connected with the blown-up of an automobile on July 31, which took place on a by-pass Georgian road it was not stressed that inside the exploded car there was no traces of blood and it was not even fixed that no one was wounded from the Georgian side. In respond to the question of B. Chiochiev representatives of the OSCE Mission underlined that none of the representatives had visited the wounded people and that they did not know if they really were.

B. Chochiev expressed bewilderment in connection with the fact that when official Tskhinval informs about a teract, military monitoring officers visit the hospital so as to convince that there are wounded or killed people, when the Georgian side informs about this, the information is accepted without checking.

The OSCE Mission did not stressed either that the given road sector is in the heart of the territory controlled by the Georgian side and the Ossetian side has no access there.

B. Chochiev also underlined that the Mission hided in the reports the events of July 7-8, 2008 when by the Georgian police it was kidnapped a 14-year-old teenager who was subjected to questioning for 48 hours in the department of the Georgian Interior Ministry and the Georgian side in violation of laws of Georgia, in violation of the Convention about child’s rights stated that they did not have the child and that allegedly there is no information about his location.

Concealment of crimes of the Georgian side and transfer of unbiased accusations in address of South Ossetia without checking lead to the feeling of hate to Ossets and silent approval of any crimes committed against Osset civil residents.

For instance, disinformation of the Georgian side about the alleged implication of the RSO to the incident of 31 served as “justification” of sniper firing upon civil Osset villages and Tskhinval on August 1 and barbarian artillery shooting upon residential areas in the night of August 1 to 2, 2008 as a result of which died 6 and were wounded 12 peaceful Osset residents. Actually because of negative opinion formed by the leadership of OSCE country-participants on the bases of biased report of the OSCE Mission to Georgia, none of the OSCE country-participants beside Russia condemned the leadership of Georgia for firing and killing peaceful Osset citizens whereas the slightest violations of South Ossetia immediately becomes an object of the strongest critics from the direction of political leaders of OSCE country-participants including even their minister of foreign affairs.

On the issue of increasing the number of OSCE monitoring officers Eduard Kokoity said that we will be able to speak about it after signing the memorandum between the Republic of South Ossetia and Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The President asked the representatives of the OSCE Mission to pass to the Georgian side that the RSO is ready to the negotiations but only in frames of the existing JCC format defined by international agreements.

It were also touched other issues of stabilization of the situation in the conflict zone.

The meeting passed in a constructive character.