When Georgia started a war in 2008 Russia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia took the opportunity to bring Abkhazia and South Ossetia up-to-date to Kosovo standards. That meant at least three things:
- They occupied regions with a Georgian majority that until then they had left under Georgian rule. This was a reflection of the US sponsored policy on the "territorial integrity" of Kosovo. Until then it was my impression that they were prepared to give up those regions one day in exchange for recognizion by Georgia.
- They declared independence.
- They started policies aimed at forcing their Georgian minority to recognize their independence and to diminish contact between those minorities and the Georgian government.
All together the EU/US influence via the Kosovo precedent can hardly be called "civilising".
Postscript: "Georgia's Lonely Unilateralisms" is an article that discusses EU policy towards Georgia and its secessionist problems. Besides EU frustration with Georgian stubbornness it also discusses the internal contractions in the EU policy.
Postscript 2: New Blueprint Proposed For Georgia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia is an article about a proposal of Moscow Carnegie Center Director Dmitry Trenin for a solution for the two areas. He proposes independence for Abkhazia in exchange for giving up some Georgian-majority areas including Gali. For South Ossetia he proposes an Andorra-like status: semi-independent but still somewhat under Georgia rule.
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