by Cheryl Rofer
Big news today from places we usually don't hear from. So I thought I'd pick up some maps.
Russia Invades South Ossetia
Russia has sent 150 tanks or so into South Ossetia, a part of Georgia. Things have been tense between Russia and Georgia for some time now. Georgia has been very independent-minded since early in the breakup of the Soviet Union, having taken some moves toward independence just after the Baltic States. It has been in discussions with the Europeans and Americans about joining NATO and the EU.
The Russians are using one of their favorite excuses: those poor ethnic Russians in South Ossetia have been treated badly by the evil Georgians, so the Russians must come to their defense. The larger issue is that Russia likes weak states around its borders, and Georgia is flirting too heavily with NATO and the EU.
Coverage is being updated by the major newspapers. They all have maps. I've provided three; I'm not sure how well they'll show up in the enlargements you will get by clicking on them, so I'm also providing their links to the full-size versions. And it looks like Giustino got it right: standard Russian practice to stage their invasions when the world is looking the other way. It's easier to see this kind of thing from a perch where it's happened before.
Regional Map of Caucausus and Central Asia
Update (8/9/08): Many links at Global Voices (h/t Jamie) and Moon of Alabama. Detailed analysis of Russian tactics and objectives at Duck of Minerva. Money quote:
The key question of responsibility comes down to three scenarios:PressTV (Iran) says that an EU - US delegation is heading to Georgia to try to bring about a truce. Nothing I can find on that in the US and European press.1. The South Ossetian's provoked the conflict to draw in Russia, both Georgia and Russia took the bait;
2. The Russians orchestrated a series of provocations, Georgia took the bait;
3. Georgia decided to seize the moment to "liberate" South Ossetia and assumed that some combination of (a) western support, (b) international distraction, and (c) being able to point to South Ossetian attacks as a justification for the offensive would resolve things in their favor.As I've already suggested, the truth may lie in any combination of all three scenarios.
Background from the New York Times.
8/10/08: Paul Goble reports that Russia is using denial of service attacks against Georgian government websites, as they did against Estonia last year. Goble is a reliable commentator and currently living in Azerbaijan, but he has posted relatively little on the conflict so far.
Uighur Protests at the Olympics
Xinjiang is the furthest west of China's provinces. The major ethnic group living there is the Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people who are more closely related to Central Asian people than to the Han Chinese. Like the Tibetans, they have been subjected to Chinese "development," which consists of sending Han Chinese to settle the area and insist on Chinese as the official language, along with jailing and mistreatment of those who protest. This is similar to what the Russians did in the Soviet Union: send Russian and other Slavic settlers and insist on Russian as the official language. Of course, this is a kind of colonialism and certainly a way to extirpate the local culture. The linguistic connection to Turkey is undoubtedly part of the reason for the location of one of the recent protests.
Islam has been the preferred religion in Xinjiang, but it's not clear to me to what degree it is being used to provide a means for protest. What I have seen in Kazakhstan is that Islam is not a strong religion. The mention of headscarves in some of the reports I've linked, together with a photo of a woman with a traditional central Asian headscarf, very different from the hijab most of us think of in connection with Islam, doesn't tell me anything. Most older women in Central Asia wear these bandannas around their heads, but it doesn't have much to do with Islam. So I'm a bit dubious when I read western reporters putting all their chips on Islam as the central issue in Xinjiang.
