EU Selects Swiss Diplomat to Investigate Caucasus Conflict
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The European Union's foreign ministers have called on a seasoned Swiss diplomat to investigate the military conflict between Russia and Georgia in August.
Russia blames Georgia and Georgia blames Russia for the escalation of the violent conflict that broke out over the breakaway province of South Ossetia in August, which has led the EU to call for an examination of the exact course of events.
Heidi Tagliavini was selected by the foreign ministers of EU member states in Brussels on Monday on the basis of her extensive knowledge and experience in the Caucasus region. The details of her mandate are yet to be determined.
Ironically, Switzerland, which has always maintained a stance of neutrality in Europe, is not a member of the 27 nation bloc.
German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged both Moscow and Tbilisi to cooperate fully with Tagliavini.
"Both sides would be well-advised to demonstrate cooperation with each other on a day to day basis," he said, adding that Tagliavini should be able to access the current situation to determine what needs to be done.
One priority is civilian reconstruction in the aftermath of the brief, but violent war that was instigated by Georgian troops marching into South Ossetia and later crushed by Russian military might.
Heidi Tagliavini, who joined the Swiss foreign service in 1982, is a seasoned diplomat, who was formerly head of the UN Observer mission in Georgia, a member of the first Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) assistance group to Chechnya and had also once served at the Swiss embassy in Moscow in the mid-1990s.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,...780802,00.html
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Protesters Condemn President of Georgia
TBILISI, Georgia — Thousands of antigovernment demonstrators poured into the streets of Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, on Friday, hoping to weaken the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili as it strives to maintain power despite a catastrophic war with Russia and a growing economic malaise at home.
The large, though generally subdued, demonstration occurred one year after black-helmeted riot police officers violently quashed opposition protests in Tbilisi, pelting unarmed civilians with clubs and rubber bullets, and using tear gas and water cannons to chase the protesters from the streets.
That event roused accusations domestically and internationally that the president’s promises of democracy and reform, which he made upon taking power in a bloodless coup in 2003, had fallen short, leaving Georgia only slightly more democratic than the country’s post-Soviet neighbors, including Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia.
But while Mr. Saakashvili is perhaps still off kilter after last year’s political tumult and the war with Russia in August — which many see as a humiliation for Georgia that the president may have provoked — he remains popular and appears still to be very much in control.
At Friday’s protest, opposition politicians condemned Mr. Saakashvili’s handling of the war and blamed the president for losing two separatist Georgian enclaves, South Ossetia, over which the war was fought, and Abkhazia. Russia has consolidated its control of both enclaves and now recognizes them as independent states, despite widespread international disapproval of the move.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/
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