While the world was watching Beijing and the Olympic opening ceremonies yesterday a war broke out in the former USSR.
It tempting to call it a Civil War but the nations have been neighbours after the break up of the Soviets states.
The Independent’s view of the Georgia flare-up. As different as ever, it shows the true horror of war. As tanks roll in, women and children flee on foot. Already 1,400 are dead and the toll is rising.
The outbreak has already driven the Olympics from the Page One Lead slots in many of the UK newspapers and the happenings are likely to overshadow Beijing in the same way as the murder and cross-fire killings of the Israelis ruined Munich’s Olympic bash.
It was a calculated and vicious manoeuvre to quell the South Georgian breakaway state of of South Ossetia, while world leaders were distracted elsewhere and has brought Russia and Georgia to the brink of of all-out war.
As Georgia launched a major offensive to retake the region, Russian tanks rolled south towards the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali.
The BBC’s chartlet of the region
Over 1,400 are thought to have been killed in the worst hostilities since the province won a shaky and disputed independence in a war during 1992. Tskhinvali is said to be devastated.
The fighting broke out as much of the world’s attention was focused on the start of the Olympic Games and many leaders, including Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and US President George Bush, were in Beijing.
The 41-year-old Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, above, may have been counting on surprise to fulfil a pledge to win back control of South Ossetia – a key to his hold on power. He was swept into office after street fighting and chaos in the Georgian State.
Mr Saakashvili agreed the timing was deliberate but accused Russia of being the aggressor. He says the countries are at war.
I report this coverage here because some Anorakians were seeking a diversion away from the Olympics…well you’ve got it.
Russia does not take kindly to having its beard pulled and it would be as well to remember the national heritage, nature, and character-set of the Georgians…the Soviet State which produced one Joseph Stalin, apart from the Spanish ‘flu pandemic, probably the most prolific killer the world has ever known.
Just one mean-minded thought… if you think gas is expensive now…wait till Russia cuts the gas supply lines to get the Western European nations on message and on-side.
Gordon Brown will no doubt feel their (and our) pain.
It is already tempting to imagine what horrors will be dreamed up to spoil London’s 2012 Chelsea-bun-fest and street parties. French farmers burning l’Olympic UK lamb at Channel Tunnel checkpoints in protest against the long-held resentment over the slight to Paris’s bid for the Games? Let the Frogs just try it. We have ze mint sauce.
Happy days.
