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January-March 2010 JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Volume II., Issue 1.
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all dispatched senior diplomats to Tbilisi with the aim of persuading President Saakashvili to lift the
nationwide state of emergency. Josep Borrell Fontelles, the special representative of OSCE Chairman in
Office was quoted on 12 November 2007 by Caucasus Press as saying that during ‘frank and open’
discussions with the Georgian leadership, “I...relayed the chairman in office’s call to immediately lift the
state of emergency; to restore full freedom of the media, especially all broadcast media in Georgia; to
respect the freedom of assembly; and to ensure all conditions for free and fair elections.” On 11
November 2007 Semneby toured the headquarters of the independent television channel Imedi, which
was ransacked on 7 November 2007 by Georgian Interior Ministry special troops who deliberately
smashed broadcasting equipment, destroyed the station’s archives, and manhandled and insulted staff.
Both the Georgian opposition and the international community have construed President Mikheil
Saakashvili's decision to hold preterm presidential elections on 5 January 2008, as a concession to the
opposition’s multiple political demands. But it may equally have been part of Saakashvili's larger
strategy aimed at neutralizing any challenge to his authority and, depending on just how deep popular
dissatisfaction and resentment runs may likewise be a calculated risk. (Fuller 2007)
In view of these developments, there are only rare occasions when the Caucasian countries and
Russia take unified stand. However, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine were among 11 states that
abstained on 13 September 2007 from endorsing a UN General Assembly Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples. The declaration states that native peoples have the right ‘to the recognition,
observance, and enforcement of treaties’ concluded with states or their successors. It also prohibits
discrimination against indigenous peoples and promotes their full and effective participation in all
matters that concern them.
The South Ossetian Crisis
On the eve of celebrations of the 32 nd Olympics in Beijing on 7 August 2008, the Georgian forces
marched into one of its breakaway republics South Ossetia with the declaration of ‘restoring
constitutional order.’ The de facto ruler of the region opposed the Georgian forces, and the next day
Russia joined the battle to retaliate the Georgian forces. In this scheme of first developing events, Georgia
announced ceasefire on 9 th of August and withdrew its forces and called for international mediation,
while Russia continued military strikes till the 13 th of August when the French brokered peace deal
defused the tension. However, with Russia recognising independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia on
26 August 2008, the politics in the region has become more intense. In fact beyond these apparent events
a lot remains to be analysed, with Russia, Georgia and South Ossetia with their own stories to tell.
Interestingly, the South Ossetian conflict brings into fore not only the issues of territorial integrity and
sovereignty, but also the dynamics of power politics, power projections in Central Eurasia and prospects
of NATO expansion in the former Soviet space.
South Ossetia covers an area of about 3900 km with a population of 70,000 (of which 70 per cent are
Ossetians and 26 per cent are Georgians, remaining constitute Russians, Armenians and Jews). Before the
collapse of the Soviet Union, its status was of an Autonomous Oblast (equivalent to district) within the
Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. The people of this region along with other two regions of Georgia,
Ajaria and Abkhazia are ethnically different from the Georgian people. In fact, the erstwhile Soviet
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