Flash-poll: Recently Georgia has speeded up provocations at the frontier zone, including illegal crossing of the RSO border, the frontier-guards shooting and the groundless charges of South Ossetia of the incidents. In your opinion, what aims does the Georgian leadership pursue by these actions and what are the possible counter-measures?
Merab Chigoev, the Deputy Plenipotentiary of the President of the RSO on post conflict settlement:
The purposes which are pursued by the Georgian leadership are obvious and they mostly touch not problems connected with South Ossetia, but the Georgian-Ossetian relations. Being more definite, the constant statements of Georgia that they have caught Russian agents, is nothing more than spy mania, plus unreasonable charges of South Ossetia of the incidents which happen at the border. All these facts testify that Georgia purposefully tries to discredit the Russian Federation as the peacemaker in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and as much as possible tries to receive any political dividends, using forbidden tricks and methods. In this sphere the Georgian mass media, absolutely subordinated to the authorities and being their megaphone, are actively used. The evidence of it is the recent incident in the village Knolevi (Georgia) in immediate proximity from the border of the RSO. I do not know whether it was a casual shot or not, but the young woman has been killed, and the Georgian mass-media instantly have, as if at the command, discharged theit anger upon South Ossetia, accusing it that the shot has been made on the part of the RSO, though they should really have known that the shot was made in the village Knolevi. Similar actions suggest that Georgia tries to discredit first of all the peace-loving policy of Russia, the Russian military men and frontier guards, and, at the same time, of course, our young Republic and our relevant structures which protect our frontier.
Michael Chernov, the representative of Association of frontier cooperation in Central Asia and the Caucasus countries:
Judging by increasing the quantity of provocations at the frontier of the Republic of South Ossetia with the Republic of Georgia it is clear enough that the reason is in the forthcoming presidential elections in the RSO. The task of Georgia is-to destabilize the situation at the republican border in the course of preparation for elections, and also during the elections. It is made for creating negative informational background around the Republic of South Ossetia at the elections, and for aggravating the situation and tension in the South-Ossetian society. It is impossible to oppose or somehow to affect any corresponding Georgian line. However South Ossetia together with the Russian Federation, certainly, could undertake some measures. First of all it should concern the border strengthening of the Republic of South Ossetia, the work of the FSS frontier service of the Russian Federation and the relevant divisions of the KGB RSO. It is necessary to continue the South-Ossetian mass-media public discussion about the future of South Ossetia, rehabilitation of justice in fixing the demarcation line of the RSO and returning of original Ossetian territories to the RSO.
Inal Pliev, an expert:
I consider the behavior of Georgia rather disturbing. Its representatives both of power structures, and of public organizations spend the days and nights at various conferences abroad and paint of South Ossetia as «the citadel of harm occupied by Russia», where the «terrible threat» comes from. These provocations are organized for feeding "an actual material» for such false charges.
Such actions pursue the aim of destabilization of the situation for further unleashing the next military aggression against South Ossetia. Actually, today the situation at the border, as a whole, is rather stable. It`s suicidal for Georgia to carry out the military aggression in such conditions. But if create the situation as it has been on the eve of the war in 2008, with bombardments, when the parties accuse each other, and «the international community» accuses South Ossetia and Russia in everything, as before, and represent Georgia as the innocent victim,- in this situation Georgia will launch the military aggression without efforts. And the West again will support, certainly, Georgia. Georgia –is our opponent. It is the state-aggressor. It is not satisfied with the results of the 2008 events. It is intending to change these results: usually war is unleashed by those ones who are not contented with the current situation. The one, whom a situation suits, does not start war. Georgia, certainly, will behave itself this way and one should not hope that it appeal to conscience and repent. Therefore, besides military-preventive measures, the competent informational work is necessary, too. Whether we do everything to reach this purpose? The work implementing by our mass-media in the Republic and also the online work is rather laudable, but we will not forget that our press and electronic mass-media publications have no large scale audience abroad, and the online English information is not enough. The English version is available only on a site of the news agency "Res" and even not in full as it should be. Therefore it is necessary to invite more actively journalists from the foreign mass-media and our journalists and public men should leave to Europe and explain all urgent questions. A great number of mass-media (including the Russian ones) at the instigation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia have declared that «the Georgian woman was mortally wounded at the border of South Ossetia». But later on the representatives of the EU Mission of observers (made, at last, the objective statement) have declared that the shooting was made not on the part of South-Ossetia, and representatives of the Interior Ministry of Georgia have phoned South Ossetia and have apologized for spreading misinformation, only few mass-media both in Russia and abroad have published this declaration. We should not forget that though the report of the EU commission on investigating the reasons of war in 2008 specifies that the first shot in this war has been made by Georgia, however it contains a lot of incorrect statements, and besides, this report has not been made wide for the international community and has not deeply affected the attitude of the USA and Europe to this subject as it contradicts a general line of the western propaganda that «Georgia is not an aggressor, but an innocent victim». Therefore South Ossetia should regain consciousness off certain unclear dream. We need the official authority which should trace the cases of misinformation about South Ossetia in various mass-media and should assist the mass-media in spreading the truthful information and refutations of possible errors. It is also necessary to make more active participation in various international conferences, where, guided by the documents, one should bring the truth. It concerns not only the governmental, but also non-governmental establishments. At the governmental level we participate in the Geneva discussions and it is perfect, but the non-governmental and public organizations proved themselves poorly- only few of them are involved in this sort of activity. Unfortunately, it is lack of understanding the explanatory work importance at the international level by means of the public organizations and in the corridors of power. Some officials are sincerely convinced that foreign trips are some kind of "privilege" and «amazement». The others do not understand at all, for what we need the international relations. This is nonsense! In some functioning standard acts financing of the public organizations` international activity is not provided at all and each time we have «to invent a bicycle anew». I am convinced that this issue-the issue of expanding the forms and methods of work on creating the positive image of the Republic, deserves, eventually, more serious, profound and competent approach.
