The Crisis in the Caucasus
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Mikhail Gorbachev blames Georgia for the war there and traces the roots of the tragedy to 1991 ["A Path to Peace in the Caucasus," op-ed, Aug. 12]. Actually the roots of the tragedy extend to 1921, when the Abkhaz and South Ossetian autonomous republics were set up by the Bolsheviks to punish the three-year-old democratic and Western-looking Georgian republic and to give Russia a ready excuse to invade whenever it wanted to do so.
Before the foreign media arrived during the present crisis, very little information was available about events in these areas, because the Russian leadership will not allow a sizable neutral force to be present. Georgia does not want to "retake" Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia has consistently said that Russia may be a part of any international force, but Russia consistently says its troops must be the only force present.
The world didn't notice this until Aug. 9, but the shelling of Georgian villages in South Ossetia was all over Georgian news in the week before Russian troops entered. Last week, a Georgian minister went to Gori and Tskhinvali, begging to discuss a ceasefire with Yuri Popov, the head of the Russian peacekeepers. Popov refused even to speak with him.
MARK MULLEN
Chair
Transparency International Georgia
Tbilisi, Georgia
