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After War, Russia's Influence Expands

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  • After War, Russia's Influence Expands

    AFTER WAR, RUSSIA'S INFLUENCE EXPANDS
    By Fred Weir

    The Christian Science Monitor
    October 3, 2008

    The war with Georgia has many calling for North and South Ossetia
    to unite.

    Vladikavkaz, Russia - Boris Samoyev, a driver from war-torn South
    Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, pulls his car over to allow a convoy
    of Russian military trucks to roll past. The trucks are heading
    south into the Roki Tunnel, which connects the republics of North
    and South Ossetia.

    "The Russians have helped us so much. They came when the Georgians
    were beating our door down, and drove them back," Mr. Samoyev says. "We
    Ossetians have always been loyal to Russia, and they have proven that
    we made the right choice."

    Though Moscow threw relations with the West into crisis by striking
    with massive force when Georgia attempted to seize breakaway South
    Ossetia in August, the impact in Russia's turbulent, multiethnic
    northern Caucasus appears to be in the Kremlin's favor - at least
    for now.

    Many experts in North Ossetia, the most important of the seven ethnic
    republics in this troubled region because of its historic and current
    loyalty to Moscow, say Russia would have risked disaffection if it
    hadn't acted to protect South Ossetia.

    Some add that the Kremlin should now allow North and South Ossetia
    to unite, creating a pro-Moscow Ossetian republic that straddles the
    Caucasus Mountains, to enhan ce stability in the whole region.

    "This war showed that Russia is strong and a force to be reckoned
    with. In one stroke, Moscow reassured its friends in the region and
    warned its enemies. This will have a calming effect throughout the
    Caucasus," says Nodar Taberti, a South Ossetian economist.

    During the war, thousands of North Ossetians besieged military
    recruitment stations, demanding to be sent to the front lines, experts
    here say. "If the Russian Army hadn't marched, thousands of Ossetian
    men would have gone in on their own to fight the Georgians," says
    Khasan Dzutsev, director of the official Center for Social Research
    in Vladikavkaz. "Especially since [the terrorist school massacre
    in] Beslan, people here have wondered whether Moscow would protect
    them. This was the moment of truth."

    But critics argue that Moscow has set a baneful precedent by
    recognizing the independence of South Ossetia, and another breakaway
    Georgian region, Abkhazia, and may pay a heavy price for it down
    the road.

    "All the arguments that [President Dmitry] Medvedev used to justify
    Russia's recognition of South Ossetia can apply in equal measure to
    Chechnya, or other republics of the north Caucasus," says Nikolai
    Petrov, an expert with the Carnegie Center in Moscow. "Since Moscow
    has granted special status to two Caucasian republics - South Ossetia
    and Abkhazia - it's only a matter of time before others start demanding
    the same treatment."

    The northern Caucasus is often called "Russia's Balkans," because its
    knot of often mutually hostile nationalities. The mainly Orthodox
    Christian Ossetians joined the Russian Empire voluntarily two
    centuries ago. Others, like the mainly Muslim Chechens, were subdued
    in 19th-century wars, and have risen up in rebellion when Moscow's
    grip has faltered.

    Soviet social engineers awarded a quasi-statehood to the many smaller
    nationalities, grouping them in "autonomous republics," most of which
    were placed inside the larger "union republic" of Russia. But Soviet
    dictator Joseph Stalin, an ethnic Georgian, folded South Ossetia and
    Abkhazia into Georgia. That had unintended consequences when the USSR
    collapsed in 1991, triggering separatist rebellions in both republics.

    The biggest winners in Russia's war against Georgia may turn out
    to be the Ossetians, who number less than 1 million, in the two
    republics. Many here believe it's a matter of time before their
    divided nation is united under a 2001 Russian law that permits outside
    territories to join the Russian Federation. Unification would make the
    Ossetians Moscow's bridgehead into the energy-rich and strategically
    important south Caucasus, which includes independent Georgia,
    Azerbaijan, and Armenia.

    "A divided nation has the right to reunite," says Stanislav Kesayev,
    deputy speaker of North Ossetia's parliament. "It may not happen
    tomorrow, but after a period of consolidating its i ndependence,
    South Ossetia will raise this request. Everyone in both north and
    south parts of our nation desires this."

    After the war, South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity suggested
    amalgamation was imminent. But now Mr. Kokoity says that "the issue of
    joining Russia is not on the agenda today. Russia has put it clearly
    that it is not going to annex other countries' territories." But he
    adds, "Our people want to join with North Ossetia, and we already
    consider ourselves to be united [in many ways]."

    But most analysts don't think Russia wants North and South Ossetia
    unified.

    "It would look to the world like Russian annexation. Russia wants South
    Ossetia to be independent ... because it keeps the instability factor
    going in Georgia. Also, the Kremlin worries about the implications
    of creating a 'greater Ossetia' in the Caucasus, because it might
    set up similar pressures among other republics who have territorial
    aspirations beyond their current borders," says Alexei Mukhin,
    director of the independent Center for Political Information in Moscow.

    Despite the pro-Russian feelings here, some remain deeply skeptical
    of Moscow's intentions. In Beslan, where 330 people, mostly children,
    were killed in a school siege four years ago, some recall that it
    was the 58th Russian Army that shot first.

    "It's hard to welcome the sight of the 58th Army storming into a
    neighboring territory and killing people, just as they did he re in
    Beslan," says Ella Kesayeva, cochair of Voice of Beslan, a group
    representing the victims' relatives. "We fear that Russia wants
    something on this territory and is using the suffering of people as
    a means to get what it wants."

    â~@¢ Olga Podolskaya contributed from Tskinvali, South
    Ossetia. Yesterday: Who started the war in Georgia?

    --Boundary_(ID_qe1QmKxShfEqge35xjtQ0w)--
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