An investigative team probing the causes of war in Georgia is due to release on Wednesday long-awaited and potentially explosive findings which could prove delicate for the EU to handle.
The team, led by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavina, is expected to submit a report on the five-day war in August last year to senior EU officials in Brussels, and to release the document on the Internet almost simultaneously.
According to press reports, the findings could place a large portion of the blame on Georgia, whose decision to launch military action in separatist South Ossetia brought down Russia’s wrath.
But experts and officials suggest the report — ordered last year by the EU, which brokered a ceasefire that helped stop the fighting — will distribute the blame evenly.
“The question is so sensitive that it’s hard to imagine that the report would come down in favor of one side or the other,” a European diplomat said, on condition of anonymity.
Russia’s response in sending scores of tanks into South Ossetia has been widely condemned, as has Moscow’s later decision to recognize the independence of South Ossetia, and another breakaway Georgian region, Abkhazia.
Since then the EU and NATO have worked hard to smooth over ties with Russia and no one wants to rock the boat, with Moscow’s help needed to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions and fight insurgents in Afghanistan.
But the EU cannot be seen to ignore violations of sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the ex-Soviet republic, whose chances of joining the world’s biggest military alliance now lie in tatters.
The fact-finding mission was launched in December, “to investigate the origins and the course of the conflict,” including its conduct under international law and possible war crimes.
It was to report back in July, but diplomats said its work was held up by late answers received to questions posed to the governments of Russia and Georgia, and the de-facto authorities in the two regions.
Given its potential to embarrass the EU, many wonder why it was ever commissioned.
“I don’t hold out much hope for a very honest report,” said Jacques Sapir, a French expert on Russia. “Nothing will come of it because things are just too sensitive.”
According to an EU official, it won’t be used to point the finger.
The official said the findings would be “very important for drawing lessons within the framework of conflict prevention. It’s under this light that we are going to use it.”
Georgian officials insist their government has cooperated fully with the team, which is officially independent of the EU, and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is confident his country will not be singled out.
“Everybody who was there, and there were serious people there, everybody knows what happened,” he said on US television network CNN last week. “There is no way Georgia ... would start a conflict with Russia. We are not crazy.”
Analyst Nicu Popescu at the European Council on Foreign Relations said that, whatever the findings, the EU —- which has observers in Georgia — will tread carefully given its decision to pursue a new strategic partnership with Russia.
“One thing I’m sure of is that the EU will try to remain neutral in this debate and will criticize both parties,” he said; Georgia for bombing South Ossetia, Russia for invading.
In any case, he said, “the EU has accepted de-facto the partition of Georgia as well as the fact that nothing can be done about it for the next 20 years to 30 years.”
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