1. video Georgian War 08.08.08 part 1 of 6 -
2. video 08-11-15 BBC points out War Crimes during Georgian aggression

In August 2008 the neoconned Bush Regime and corporate Media were heading the innocent world toward nuclear war.

Back in the Reagan years, the National Endowment for Democracy was created as a cold war tool. Today the NED is a neocon-controlled agent for NATO’s world hegemony . Its main function is to pour US and EU money and election-rigging into former constituent parts of the Soviet Union in order to ring Russia with NATO’s puppet states.

The neoconservative Bush Regime used the NED to intervene in Ukrainian and Georgian internal affairs in keeping with the neoconservative plan to establish US-friendly and Russia-hostile political regimes in these two former constituent parts of Russia and the Soviet Union.

The NED was also used to dismember the former Yugoslavia with its interventions in Slovakia, Serbia, and Montenegro.

According to Wikipedia, Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, told the Washington Post in 1991 that much of what the NED does “today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

The Bush Regime, having established a puppet, Mikhail Saakashvili, as president of Georgia, tried to bring Georgia into NATO.

[For readers too young to know, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was a military alliance between the US and Western European countries to resist any Soviet move into Western Europe. There has been no reason for NATO since the Soviet Union’s internal political collapse almost two decades ago. The neocons turned NATO into another tool, like the NED, for US world hegemony. Subsequent US administrations violated the understandings that President Reagan had reached with Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, and have incorporated former parts of the Soviet empire into NATO. The neocon goal of ringing Russia with a hostile military alliance has been proclaimed many times.]

Western European members of NATO balked at the admission of Georgia, as they understood it as a provocative affront to Russia, on whom Western Europe is dependent for natural gas. Western Europeans are also disturbed at the Bush Regime’s intentions to install ballistic missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic as the consequence will be Russian nuclear cruise missiles targeted on European capitals. Europeans don’t see the advantage of helping the US block Russian nuclear retaliation against the US at the expense of their own existence. Ballistic missile defenses are not useful against cruise missiles.

Every country is tired of war except for the US. War, including nuclear war, is the neoconservative strategy for world hegemony.

The entire world, except for Americans, knows that the outbreak of armed conflict between Russian and Georgian forces in South Ossetia was entirely due to the Bush and his Georgia puppet, Saakashvili. Americans, alone in the world, are unaware that the hostilities were initiated by Saakashvili, because Bush, Cheney and the corporate Western media have again lied to them.

Everyone else in the world knows that the unstable and corrupt Saakashvili, who proclaims democracy and runs a police state, would not have taken on Russia by attacking South Ossetia unless given the go-ahead by Washington.

The purpose of the Georgian dictator attack on the Ossetian population of South Ossetia is twofold:

To convince Europeans that their action in delaying Georgia’s NATO membership is the cause of “the Russian aggression” and that to save Georgia from conquest Georgia must be given NATO membership.
To ethnically cleanse South Ossetia of Ossetians who entirely have Russian citizenship. Hundreds of civilians in S Ossetia were targeted and killed by the NATO-equipped and trained Georgian Army, tens of thousands fled into Russia. Having achieved this goal, Saakashvili and his puppet-masters in Washington quickly called for a cease fire and a halt to “the Russian invasion.” The hope is that the Ossetian population will be afraid to return or can be prevented from returning, thus removing the secessionist threat.

No doubt the Bush Regime was able to deceive  American population, just as it did with Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, but the rest of the world is not buying it, not even some Bush’s bought-and-paid-for Eastern European allies.

Writing in the Asia Times, Ambassador M. K. Bhadrakumar, a former career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service, notes the disinformation that was being peddled by the Bush Regime and the US media and reports that during the first hours of Georgian aggression, Russia had tried to have the United Nations Security Council issue a statement calling on Georgia to immediately lay down weapons and stop invasion. However, Bush administration wanted a war.

Amb. Bhadrakumar notes that the Bush’s and Saakashvili’s resort to violence and propaganda has brought an end to the Russian government’s belief that diplomacy and good will can bring about a settlement of the South Ossetia issue.

It is certain that the Georgian Dictator’s invasion of South Ossetia was a Bush Regime orchestrated event. The American corporate media and the neocon think tanks were ready with their propaganda blitzes. Neocons had ready a Wall Street Journal editorial page article for Saakashvili that declares “the war in Georgia is a war for the West.”

Faced with the collapse of his army when Russia sent in troops to protect South Ossetians from the Georgian troops, Saakashvili declared: “This is not about Georgia any more. It is about America, its values.”

The neocon Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., quickly called a conference hosted by warmonger Ariel Cohen, “Urgent! Event: Russian-Georgian War: A Challenge for the U.S. and the World.”

The Washington Post opened its pages for neocon Robert Kagen’s war drums, “Putin Makes His Move.”

Only a fool like Kagen could think that if Putin intended to invade Georgia he would do so from Beijing, or that after sending the NATO-trained Georgian army in flight, he would not continue and conquer all of Georgia in order to put an end to NATO’s machinations on Russia’s most sensitive border, machinations that are likely to eventually end in nuclear war.

That despicable New York Times provided platform for Billy Kristol’s rant, “Will Russia Get Away With It?” Kristol thunders against “dictatorial and aggressive and fanatical regimes” that “seem happy to work together to weaken the influence of the United States and its democratic allies.” Kristol presents a new axis of evil–Russia, China, North Korea and Iran–and warns against “delay and irresolution” that “simply invite future threats and graver dangers.”

In other words, “attack Russia now.”

Dick Cheney, the insane former Vice President, who legalized torture in US, telephoned Saakashvili to express US solidarity with Georgia in the conflict with Russia and declared: “Russian aggression must not go unanswered.” Cheney’s telephone call is like Great Britain’s “guarantee” to Poland against Nazi Germany. Only a complete idiot would tell Saakashvili anything other than “to cease immediately.”

What must be the effect on US Intelligence services and the US military of Cheney’s propagandistic and irresponsible statement of his support for Georgia’s war crimes? Does anyone really believe that the CIA or any US intelligence service told the vice president that Russia opened the conflict with an invasion? Russian troops arrived in South Ossetia after hundreds of Ossetians had been killed by the Saakashvili’s attack and after tens of thousands of Ossetians had fled into Russia to escape genocide.

With its Georgian venture, the Bush Regime was guilty of a new round of war crimes. What the consequence?

Having got away with 9/11, Iraq and with its preparations for attacking Iran, the Bush Regime got away with its Georgian venture as well.

Possibly, however, that time the Bush Regime has overreached.

Certainly Russia now recognizes that the NATO is determined to exert hegemony over Russia and Russia’s backyard.

With support of brutal aggressor US and EU is a threat to its own energy supply and, thereby, economy.

America’s European allies, chafing under their role of supplying troops for NATO, must realize that being Saakashvili supporter is dangerous and has no benefits. If Georgia becomes a NATO member and renews its attack on South Ossetia, it must drag Europe into a war with Russia, a main supplier of energy to Europe.

Moreover, if nuclear war starts, there is almost nothing to stop distraction of the whole world.

What Bush government offered to Europe, aside from the millions of dollars it paid to buy off Eastern European political leaders to insure that they betray their own peoples? Nothing whatsoever.

The only military threat that whole World faces comes from being dragged into NATO’s wars for Neocon”s hegemony.

Due to Bush’s politics, the US is financially bankrupt, with budget and trade deficits that exceed the combined deficits of the rest of the world together.. The American consumer market is dying from the offshoring of American jobs and, thereby, incomes, and from the wealth effect of the real estate and derivatives collapses. The US has nothing to offer Europe. Indeed, American economic decline is killing European exports by driving up the value of the euro.

During 8 years of Bush-Cheney, America lost the moral high ground. Hypocrisy has become America’s best known hallmark. Bush, the invader of Iraq on the basis of lies and deception, thundered at Russia for coming to the defense of its peacekeepers and Russian citizens in South Ossetia. Bush, the vampire who ripped Kosovo out of Serbia’s heart and handed it to the Muslims, has taken an adamant stand against other separatist movements, especially the South Ossetians who wish to be part of the Russian Federation.

The neoconned Bush Regime was so furious that the Russian bear was not intimidated by the aggression of the its puppet Saakashvili. Instead of accepting the act of NATO’s hegemony that the neocon script called for, Russia sent the Georgian army fleeing in fear.

Having failed with weapons, the Bush Regime unleashed the rhetoric. The Bush government was warning Russia that failure to acquiesce to US hegemony could have a “significant, long-term impact on relations between Washington and Moscow.”

President Reagan negotiated the end of the cold war with Soviet President Gorbachev. The neoconservatives, whom Reagan fired and drove from his administration, were furious. The neocons had hoped to win the cold war, thereby establishing American hegemony.

The Republican Establishment reestablished its hegemony under Bush 1st that it had lost to Ronald Reagan. With this feat, intelligence was driven from the Republican Party.

The neocons engineered their comeback with the First Gulf War and their propaganda, pure lies, that Iraqi troops bayoneted Kuwait babies in hospitals.

The neocons made a further comeback with President Clinton, whom they convinced to bomb Serbia in order to permit separatist movements to become independent states dependent on America and EU.

With Bush 2nd, the neocons took over. Their agenda, American world hegemony with NATO on hand.

So far the schemes of these ignorant and dangerous ideologues have come a cropper. Iraq, formerly in the hands of secular Sunnis who were a check on Iran, is, after the American invasion and occupation, in the hands of religious Shi’ites allied with Iran.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban are resurgent, and a large NATO/US army there is unable to control the situation.

One consequence of the neocons’ Afghan war has been the loss of power of the pro-American president of Pakistan, a Muslim country armed with nuclear weapons.

In Iraq, the Shi’ites, having completed their ethnic cleansing of Sunnis from neighborhoods, have declared a cease fire in order to contradict the US propaganda that American withdrawal would lead to a blood bath.

Some Americans may think they are only superpower before whose presence the world trembles. But not the Russians.

Please read the total contempt shown for President Bush in Russian newspapers:

“President Bush,

Why don’t you stop? Your faithful ally, Mikhail Saakashvili, was announcing a ceasefire deal while his troops, with your advisors, were massing on Ossetia’s border, which they crossed under cover of night and destroyed Tskhinvali, targeting civilian structures just like your forces did in Iraq.

“President Bush,

Do you really think anyone gives any importance whatsoever to your words after 8 years of your criminal and murderous regime and policies? Do you really believe you have any moral ground whatsoever and do you really imagine there is a single human being anywhere on this planet who does not stick up his middle finger every time you appear on a TV screen?

Do you really believe you have the right to give any opinion or advice after Abu Ghraib? After Guantanamo? After the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens? After your torture policies?

Do you really believe you have any right to make a statement on any point of international law after your trumped-up charges against Iraq and the subsequent criminal invasion?

Suppose Russia for instance declares that Georgia has weapons of mass destruction? And that Russia knows where these WMD are, namely in Tblisi and Poti and north, south, east and west of there? And that it must be true because there is “magnificent foreign intelligence” such as satellite photos of milk powder factories and baby cereals producing chemical weapons and which are currently being “driven around the country in vehicles”? Suppose Russia declares for instance that “Saakashvili stiffed the world” and it is “time for regime change”?

NATO drills may spark another Georgian aggresssion.
16 April, 2009

Russia calls on NATO to cancel or at least postpone its scheduled military exercises in Georgia.

Russias Envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin told Itar-Tass news agency that the exercise will be provocative.

By going ahead with the war games, NATO appears to be offering support to Mikhail Saakashvili, Dmitry Rogozin says.
Any attempt to cheer up the Saakashvili regime looks monstrous in regards to the victims sacrificed at the altar of his Napoleonic ambition, Rogozin was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency

NATOs Support of Georgian Dictator is The Support of Ossetian Genocide

Its a good thing the nation of Georgia was not a member of NATO during Georgian WAR in August 2008.  Bush's military  might be end up at nuclear war with Russia using  Article 5 of North Atlantic Treaty . President Bush has been vigorously pushing  membership of Georgia for years. NATO  still favor membership despite the events of August 2008, which demonstrate the danger of having the anti-Soviet military alliance incorporate former Soviet republics and satellites even though the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991.

But lessons aren’t always learned. While Russian troops were still fighting Georgian aggresson against civilians in South Ossetia, the British foreign secretary was saying that the south Caucasus nation had been given a «route map to membership» into the treaty organization. «In practical terms, NΑΤΟ is offering close cooperation with the Georgian government and the Georgian military. It means building up proper interoperability with NΑΤΟ, proper joint training. It also means ensuring the structures of cooperation ... are properly geared towards eventual membership. So this is a route map to membership», David Miliband told the Guardian.

This should make every American nervous, not to mention every European. Does the United States want to risk a war with Russia over who governs the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia? Is the NATO's policy of humiliating Russia and depriving it of its historic sphere of influence really worth the bloodshed and destruction of the whole world that could result?

That first question helps put the matter into perspective. The immediate reason for the brief war between Russia and Georgia was the Georgian autocratic ruler latest attempt to reassert brutal control over South Ossetia on the Russian border. South Ossetia, like the other breakaway region, Abkhazia, has wanted to be free of Georgian rule for long time. The ethnic Ossetians are sympathetic to Russia and have Russian passports.

There has been bad blood between the Georgians and the Ossetians. South Ossetia was an autonomous district within part of the Soviet Union, but when the collapse came, Georgia was determined to retake control. The Washington Post’s Michael Dobbs wrote in August: «It soon became clear to me that the Ossetians viewed Georgians as aggressive bullies bent on taking away their independence. I was there in March 1991, shortly after the city was occupied by Georgian militia units loyal to Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the first nationalistic leader of new Georgia . One of Gamsakhurdia’s first acts as Georgian president was to cancel the political autonomy that was granted the republic’s 120,000-strong Ossetian minority by USSR.... I discovered that the town [Tskhinval, the capital of South Ossetia] had been ransacked by Gamsakhurdia’s militia. The Georgians had trashed the Ossetian national theater, decapitated the statue of an Ossetian poet and pulled down monuments to Ossetians who had fought with Soviet troops in World War II.»

In early August 2008, after some discussions about autonomy, the Georgia government launched a military assault on separatist activity in Tskhinvali. Georgia’s attack was reported to be brutal. With Russian peacekeepers on the scene, the government, now run by Russian President Medvedev, responded.
Bush’s response to the crisis
The Bush administration ruled out a U.S. military response, but sent American troops to deliver so called “humanitarian aid”. «These regions are a part of Georgia», Bush said of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, «and the international community has repeatedly made clear that they will remain so. There’s no room for debate on this matter».

Who is this «international community» and why should it have any say, much less the last word — «There’s no room for debate on this matter» — on who governs the Ossetians and Abkhazians?

At the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, Bush elaborated: «The United States of America will continue to support Georgia’s democracy. Our military will continue to provide needed humanitarian aid to the Georgian people. South Ossetia and Abkhazia are part of Georgia. And the United States will work with our allies to ensure Georgia’s independence and territorial integrity.»

The contradiction is plain. Why Georgian democracy, independence, and territorial integrity, but not South Ossetian and Abkhazian democracy, independence, and territorial integrity? Majorities in both areas have voted for independence. Unfortunately, the «international community» refuses to recognize those referenda.

When it comes to separatist movements, the American government have no principles whatever. When ethnic Albanians in Kosovo sought to break from Yugoslavia, the United States backed the separatists and unleashed its bombers. The Bush administration recently recognized Kosovo’s independence in defiance of Russia’s opposition. Yet when the Ossetians and Abkhazians want to be free of Georgia, the big-power role are reversed. If you hold your breath waiting for a sign of integrity from Bush’s government, you will turn blue.

NATO’s role in the crisis
To fully understand the recent conflict, a fuller context must be kept in mind. Since the implosion of the Soviet Union, the NATO has followed policies that could have no other effect than to humiliate Russia. These policies include extension of NATO membership to former Warsaw Pact nations in Eastern Europe and the Balkan states. It includes placing anti-missile batteries in Poland. It includes a military buildup in Georgia, with money, arms, and advisors. It includes cultivation of friendship with authoritarian regimes in the former Soviet republics in central Asia. And, very important, it includes moving Caspian Sea oil westward through Azerbaijan and Georgia, bypassing Russia, which once controlled those resources.

All this has sent Russia a threatening signal of encirclement and marginalization, but it does not plan to take NATO’s sand-kicking with equanimity.

NATO is playing a dangerous game. Its ham-handed attempt to manipulate Russia’s environs in its own interest has gotten the same reception that a similar Russian effort in the Western Hemisphere would have gotten from the U.S. government.

When will American presidents learn that George Washington was right? «The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible....Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.» Add «Asia» to that second sentence, and Washington’s advice is brought up to date.

Protests shake Nato Strasbourg summit

11 April 2009

Strasbourg

Thousands of demonstrators defied police repression and violence to stage mass protests against Nato in Strasbourg, France, last Saturday.

People from all over Europe and the US gathered in the city to protest against continuing aggression by Nato forces across the world.

Nato was holding its 60th anniversary summit in the city.

Trade unionists, peace activists all came together in Strasbourg last weekend to protest against Nato’s world domination. Police attacked the demonstrations using tear gas, percussion grenades and water cannons.

Flavour

The global economic crisis added a strong anti-capitalist flavor to demonstration.

“We’ve just had general strikes in Greece,” said Costas. “People are asking why is it that our jobs are being cut while there’s all this money for weapons.”

The police repression added to the “them and us” feeling on the demonstration. Debates over tactics ran through the protests, as people considered how best to challenge the police and the state.

Despite the state violence, protesters kept up a determined challenge to the police.

Many Strasbourg residents showed solidarity with the protesters, leaning out of apartment windows to salute them with raised fists as they marched through the city. Local people also handed out free baguettes and water to protesters on Saturday.

As well as the main demo, activists held demonstrations and a counter-summit in the city on Friday and Sunday.

Thousands of protesters from different backgrounds stayed in a camp in the south of the city.

Small groups left at dawn to build barricades around planned venues for the Nato summit. These blockades helped delay the summit for up to two hours.

By Saturday morning it had become clear that thousands of protesters had been stopped from entering the city. Coaches were stopped from crossing the border from Germany.

Police took hold of the city, setting up checkpoints and road blockades around its centre and on many bridges and entrances to the campsite.

But this only made the protesters more determined. It also meant people’s anger was directed at the police, as well as at representatives of the French state and the other Nato leaders.

NPA central to protests

The Strasbourg demonstrations against the Nato summit last weekend were the first major outing for France’s New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA).

The NPA organised a lively and colourful intervention made up of trade unionists and young people.

The party also offered political leadership on what were often poorly organized and chaotic demonstrations.

“Workers in France have started to stand up once again – and the issues of war and the recession are becoming more connected.

“It’s so important that people organise resistance to Nato’s wars and to the pressure that our governments put on us.”

Trade unionists raise their voices against Nato

Many trade unions across Europe mobilised to bring workers to the anti-Nato demonstrations in Strasbourg.

Veronica Hilmer is a young nurse from Berlin. “This demonstration is important because of Nato’s wars all over the world ,” she told Socialist Worker.

“The resources of the world are hived off for a small elite while millions of people are losing their jobs.

“All the money spent on making and buying weapons is needed by working people, for health and education.”

Mike Arnott travelled with the British delegation to the protests. He is chair of Dundee Trades Council and spoke to Socialist Worker at the opening rally of the demonstration on Saturday.

“Trade unionists have continued to demonstrate against wars just like our predecessors did,” said Mike.

“Nato has argued that the levels of social spending in Europe mean more resources can be directed to the military. That means cutting into public service budgets to fund war.”

George is an engineer from Athens. “We know that capitalism is corrupt and ruining the world – we’re fighting for something totally different,” he said.

Amelie was with a delegation from France’s CGT trade union federation.

“Our unions are intrinsic to this movement because of who they represent – millions of workers from across France,” she said.

Georgian Dictator Saakashvili Profile

November 8, 2007.  Riot Police Violently DispersePeaceful Protesters in the capital of Georgia, Saakashvili Shuts TV Stations, Then Declares Emergency Rule.

Health Ministry of Georgia reported that 508 people had sought emergencyassistance and some 118 of them remained hospitalized

May 26, 2008    10,000 ANGRY GOERGIANS rallied  and clash in Georgian capital Tbilisi over 'rigged' poll

02 .11. 2007 Tens of ThousandsProtest in Tbilisi Against Georgian President

Tens of thousands of people in Tbilisi are protesting against the government of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who came to power following demonstrations that swept aside his predecessor in 2003.  Opposition leaders also accuse the government of blocking roads around Tbilisi to prevent more people from joining the protest. Political tensions in Georgia escalated following accusations of corruption and anti-state activities against President Saakashviliby his former defense minister, Irakli Okruashvili, who was jailed in 2008.

November 8, 2007 Human Rights Watch  reports: Riot Police Violently Disperse Peaceful Protesters, Saakashvili Shuts TV Stations, Then Declares Emergency Rule.

Riot police in the Georgian capital Tbilisi beat demonstrators and shot fleeing protestors with rubber bulletswhile trying to disperse anti-government demonstrations, Human Rights Watch said today. Riot police later raided the private televisionstation, Imedi TV and forced it and the Kavkasia television station to stop broadcasting. The Georgian government then declared a state of emergencyand banned news broadcasts for 15 days, except by the state-funded Georgian Public Television. “Even in a time of crisis, Georgians have a right to protest peacefully without being beaten by the police,” said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Firing rubber bullets at peaceful demonstrators is a complete abuse of the use of force. The government does not have a carte blanche to restrict fundamental freedoms just because it is in crisis.”

The police also appear to have deliberately targeted journalists and independent observers. Two cameramen from Imedi TV were hospitalized, one with severe injuries, because of a beating by the police. Georgia’s ombudsman, Sozar Subari, was also beaten. Riot police attacked him with rubber truncheons as he was documenting the police actions. Subari said in a public statement that he believes he was deliberately targeted because as ombudsman he regularly criticizes the Georgian government for human rights abuses.

Two television stations, Imedi TV and Kavkasia, which were broadcasting extensive coverage of the demonstrations and the police response, were taken off air around 9 p.m. Imedi TV ceased broadcasting shortly after its anchor announced on live television that the riot police had entered the station. Imedi radio station also stopped broadcasting and Imedi’s website became inaccessible. A few minutes later, Kavkasia, which broadcasts only in the capital Tbilisi, also went off the air. Imedi TV was founded and co-owned by Badri Patarkatsishvili (NOW MYSTERIOUSLY DEAD AT YOUNG AGE),a wealthy financier and critic of the government who openly financed the opposition in Georgia. “Beating journalists or shutting down television stations for reporting on the events can’t be justified by subsequently declaring a state of emergency,” said Human Rights Watch. The exact number of injured is unknown, but the Health Ministry of Georgia reported that 508 people had sought emergency assistance and some 118 of them remained hospitalized.

History of“Democratically elected”friend of Bush, C. Rice, Cheney, McCain and other Russophobes in U.S. government: On Feb 3, 2003 Georgia's Prime Minister, Zurab Zhvaniya, was found dead early Thursday and apparently killed by carbon monoxide. Lawmaker, Amiran Shalamberidze, suggested that Zurab Zhvaniya might have been murdered.Although Saakashvili and Zhvaniya had worked closely together in the well-orchestrated “Rose” revolution and in government, they were widely regarded as potential rivals. Zhvaniya was regarded as a moderating influence in disputes with Russia and on the impulsive Georgian president. Former Georgian President Shevardnadze, who helped to end the Cold War between the East and the West as former Foreign Minister of USSR, is another victim of the violent actions by McCain and Condoleezza Rice's great friend and so-called “Democratically elected” Saakashvili.

We should remember that Dictator Saddam Hussein, who died from the tortured execution, received far more votes in his last election than the wicked Georgian ruler Saakashvili.

September 12, 2008 Georgia's non-governmental organisations have urged the European Union to launch a thorough enquiry into alleged human rights violations in South Ossetia. members of the opposition like Shalva Natelashvili the head of the Labor party would say: “ If Saakashvili didn’t attack Tskhinvali then the Russian air force wouldn’t have taken off and the Kremlin wouldn’t have had reason to recognise these republics,” Natelashvili said.