About 7 PM on August 7, 2008 Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said live on TV: "Let's stop the escalation and begin negotiations - direct, multilateral, what else. Let us give peace and dialogue a chance". Saakashvili added that a few hours before he, as the commander of Georgian army, had ordered all units of the Georgian Defense Ministry and police not to open fire.
The statement calmed the citizens of South Ossetian capital, Tskhinval, who were living in anticipation of escalating conflict. The people believed that there were ways out of crisis and that the Georgian leadership would do all everything necessary for a peaceful settlement.
But within the next few hours tons of hot lead from artillery, howitzers and "Grad" rocket systems were hurled on the peacefully sleeping and defenseless city. Tskhinval plunged into chaos. People died in their beds, on the streets, and in the basements of the houses where they tried to escape the ruthless bombing.
"The Georgian side has virtually declared war on South Ossetia", - said the commander of the peacekeeping contingent in South Ossetia, Marat Kulahmetov, after the firing commenced.
The operation conducted by Georgian troops aimed "to establish constitutional order in the Tskhinvali region" and received the code name of "Clear Field". There are no doubts about what should have been a result of these actions. There are no buildings, infrastructure, human beings in the clear field. Following the logic, none of this should stay in the zone where the Georgian army was firing. The carpet bombing of civilian building were labeled "the destruction of a criminal regime" by Georgian Minister Temur Yakobashvili. But he didn’t specify how he suspected the residents of Tskhinval of being criminals.
Early in the morning of August 8, another massive wave of shelling from all kinds of weapons commenced, hitting the town. Georgian artillery was aiming at the Tshinval Republican hospital, where the wounded were brought throughout the night. In the middle of the day there were 270 people with gunshot and shrapnel wounds. Medical Personnel were unable to take new patients and had to evacuate the injured to the building basement.
Georgian tank columns entered Tskhinval. The Russian peacekeepers didn’t return fire, but the Georgian tanks, and artillery, attacked their positions. The first tank shot destroyed the observation post on the roof of the barracks of the Russian peacekeeping battalion, located in Tskhinval. As a result, Russian soldier, Sergey Kononov, was killed. The next series of bursts destroyed the battalion’s equipment, including hospital vehicles, which were clearly marked with Red Cross signs.
After this began a massive offensive on the battalion position, by infantry backed with tanks and artillery. In the first hours of battle, Russian peacekeepers suffered serious casualties - ten people were killed, and 25 wounded.
The shelling of South Ossetia was accompanied by an attack from the air. Five Georgian Su-25 aircraft attacked the village Tkverneti. In addition, planes were dropping bombs on the village of Kvernet and bombed a convoy with humanitarian aid, which was going into Tskhinval by the Zarskaya road.
In Tskhinval, now cut from the outside world, Georgian punishers were restoring “the constitutional order” with fire and sword. Saakashvili’s soldiers were opening fire at all moving targets: men, women, elderly people and children. Georgian tanks were shooting at vehicles stuffed with panic-stricken people trying to escape the burning city. Heavy vehicles ran over burning cars with people inside them. Basements, which sheltered those who could not run away, were bombarded with grenades. Georgian snipers occupied the key heights, showering the city with bullets from all the sides.
The essential priority in the protection of human rights is the right to life. Killing for the sake of a national idea cannot be justified. In South Ossetia, the key legal and human values, worked out by the world community over the course of centuries were crossed out by barbarity, by absurd and blind aggression, in one night.
The war in South Ossetia, Georgia unleashed on the opening day of the Olympic Games in Beijing, only produced the concern of the international community. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated that he was extremely concerned by the outbreak of violence in South Ossetia. Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council, called for an emergency session on South Ossetia, was unable, not only to stop Georgia’s aggression but even come up with a joint resolution on the situation in South Ossetia. EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana had a telephone conversation with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, urging him to take all necessary measures to stop violence in South Ossetia.
The reaction of the international community did not stop the Georgian military machine. On August 8, fighting went on for the whole day. A small group of Ossetian militia and police resisted the Georgian army - trained by American and Israeli instructors and equipped with brand new arms. Georgia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Gurgenidze stated that “government troops must establish guaranteed peace” and that the military operation would continue until the population is in security.
While exterminating the residents of Tskhinval and South Ossetian villages, the Georgian leadership made repeated statements insisting on a peaceful settlement of the conflict. By 3 p.m. on August 8 the Georgian authorities announced a shooting moratorium for the organisation of a refugee corridor. However, peacekeepers who stayed in the area refuted these statements, saying that the city was under constant shelling.
Continued>>
http://www.russiatoday.com/ossetianwar/news/30408
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