Sunday, August 31, 2008

South Ossetian views

Here are two youtube videos for readers to judge for themselves.

The first purports to show Georgian troops attacking Tskhinvali before the Russians arrived. The APCs certainly have Georgian markings and the apparent pot shots taken at an unarmed shepherd are disturbing.



The second is a Fox News interview with two Ossetian Americans, a 12-year old girl and her aunt who were in South Ossetia, visiting from San Francisco when the Georgian troops attacked. Some criticism has been aimed at Fox News for "interrupting" this interview with a commercial break. I am not sure if that is too valid. They girl and her Aunt had their say and an articulate South Ossetian perspective is more than many other channels have shown, CNN and BBC to name two.

That doesn't mean I don't think ordinary Georgians have suffered greatly in this and have probably suffered the most over the course of the conflict. The reason I am not specifically showing Georgian suffering here is that it has received far more coverage in the mainstream media. There has been suffering on all sides. This is a very troubled area and the line between Ossetian and Georgian is a bit blurred. I did not know until very recently that Joseph Stalin had an Ossetian Father and a Georgian mother. Clearly this is a troubled and fiery region.

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