Georgia villages "torched," satellite study shows

[WriteDown]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hundreds of houses in ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia were torched in August, after Russian troops took control of the area, according to an analysis of satellite images released on Thursday.

The analysis, conducted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science on behalf of Amnesty International, did not show who was responsible for the damage but Amnesty said it may be evidence of war crimes.

Human rights activists have criticized Russia for ignoring the looting of ethnic Georgian villages by armed South Ossetian militias during and after the war.

Georgia says the looting amounted to "ethnic cleansing." Russia says Georgia's shelling of the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali -- which sparked the war -- amounts to a genocide against the Ossetians. Both deny the other's claims.....


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081009/sc_nm/us_georgia_ossetia_satellite

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No surprise.

[bemildred]

1. This could be a powerful tool.

I look forward to its wider application.

[subsuelo]

4. Interesting that who to blame is still reported as unknown nt

[bemildred]

5. A bit of ethnic hostility is to be expected in the circumstances.

Just had a war, lots of stuff blown up, lots of people dead. You almost don't need a special explanation for some destroyed villages. It would be interesting to know if there was any destroyed S. Ossetian stuff, etc. Like, how one-sided is this story?

[Ian David]

2. The Georgia Satellites?

[WriteDown]

3. Ugh....

where is that rimshot?

[AlphaCentauri]

10. ISS

According to the NASA International Space Station status report, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko used a digital camera with 800mm telephoto lenses and a video camera to take images of the "after-effects of border conflict operations in the Caucasus." In theory, this seems to have violated the non-military use clause of the station, but Russia has claimed "humanitarian motives."

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/08/russian_astronaut_uses_iss_to_take_photos_of_ossetia_invasion_while_nasa_looks_to_the_other_side-2.html

:think:

[Odin2005]

6. *Sarcasm* Neo-Con LIES!!! Russia can do no wrong! *Sarcasm*

:sarcasm:

That seems to be the attitude many DUer seem to have when it come to Georgia and Ukraine. It's pathetic.

[Patriot Abroad]

7. Hear Hear

Russia's gonna be a problem, especially as it has the EU over a (oil) barrel.

I liked their nifty little bail-out of Iceland the other day - 4 Billion is cheap if they can convince the Icelanders later to not play ball with Nato/US etc.

Thank God we haven't gone back to the sabre rattling of the 80's though!

[amandabeech]

11. The Russians may ask for Iceland to leave Nato and kick Nato out of the airbase.

Also, Iceland is one terminal of the listening posts at the bottom of the ocean that used to track the emergence of Russian subs into the North Atlantic.

Those listening devices are a part of many a cold war novel, like "Hunt for Red October."

At least that's what I suppose the Pentagon is thinking about.

[reorg]

8. no surprise indeed

since it is old news, the satellite images and relating suspicions were widely reported upon already in mid-August:

http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0813-08.htm
http://www.hrw.org/features/georgia/satellite/UNOSAT_Tskhinvali_MOD_Fire_082408_Highres_v3.pdf

I would find it more surprising if there been no looting and if no houses had been burnt. Kind of hard to blame "the Russians" for this, but you can always count on HRW and similar outfits to give it a try, LOL.

Why do they repeat the story now, after almost two months?

Maybe because "the Russians" stuck to their part of the deal and just left the buffer zone? Even though they had fortified their positions with towers of timber, you know, along those trenches "deep inside Georgia"!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3534579

[AlphaCentauri]

9. Hope it wan't CNN taking those pictures

MOSCOW (MN) - Russian English-language television channel Russia Today has acused the U.S. broadcaster CNN of using the wrong pictures in their coverage of the conflict in South Ossetia. A Russian cameraman says footage of wrecked tanks and ruined buildings, which was purported to have been filmed in the town of Gori, in fact showed the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali, the RTTV reported on its web site.

Gori was said to be about to fall under the control of the Russian army but the cameraman says the video was actually shot in Tskhinvali, which had been flattened by Georgian shelling.

"When we arrived and news came that Gori was being shelled, I saw my footage. I said: that's not Gori! That's Tskhinvali. I can swear in front of any tribunal. I can point out this location on a map, because I and a cameraman from the channel Rossiya videotaped that," the channel quoted the cameraman as saying.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9854