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At UN, Georgia Ceasefire Stalemate, Russia Speaks of
Genocide and Kosovo
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
August 9 -- With the Georgian
stakes raised to winner-take-all, the Security Council on Saturday was
again
unable to agree even on how to ask for a ceasefire. After the emergency
meeting
broke up, Inner City Press asked U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff about
an
analogy being made between South Ossetia and Kosovo, with Georgia
playing the
role of Serbia and Russia, ironically, playing the role of NATO,
complete with
aerial strikes. "If that's the analogy, then I think what we've been
hearing in the Council has been misleading to us," Ambassador Wolff
replied, "because that not what has been cited as the reasons Russia
has
been making these moves."
Russia's
moves have included bombing such places at the port of Poti, and the
town of
Gori. There, apartment buildings next to a Georgian tank base were hit.
Russian
Ambassador Vitaly Churkin spoke of air strikes on locations that are
providing
support to Georgia's assault on South Ossetia.
Inner City
Press asked Ambassador Churkin to response to Georgia's president
statement on
CNN that Russia had chosen the Olympics as the time to assault and even
invade
Georgia. Amb. Churkin replied that Georgia has tried to retake South
Ossetia
"during the Olympics... a gross violation of various international
agreements and calls by the General Assembly and Secretary General" of
a
truce during the Beijing summer Olympic Games.
Some wondered how the fighting, now spread to the
Upper Kodori gorge and
Abkhazia, might impact Russia's selection as the host of winter
Olympics in
Sochi.
Amb. Churkin at the UN, analogies to Kosovo and Rwanda not shown
Amb.
Churkin called what is happening in South Ossetia a genocide: there are
some
100,000 South Ossetians, 2000 killed and 30,000 displaced, he said, "is
that enough for you?" Inner City
Press asked French Deputy Permanent Representative Jean-Pierre Lacroix
to
respond off camera to Churkin's invocation of genocide. "I thin kit's a
very seris situation... that's reason enough for us to work to try to
put an
end to this crisis." In the closed door meeting Saturday afternoon,
sources
tell Inner City Press that Russia's Churkin brought up not only Kosovo,
but
also Rwanda...
It is
unclear if the Security Council will meet again on Sunday. There seems
little
chance they could pass any form of statement; some Western diplomats
are saying
to wait until Monday, for an OSCE report. But events on the ground --
and from
the skies -- are moving fast, and a request for a Sunday meeting has
been made.
Watch this
site.
And
this --
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