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13 Aug 2008 08:59 am
Kosovo And South Ossetia
A reader writes:
While I sympathize with your reader's comparison between our policy
towards Kosovo and South Ossetia, there is a crucial problem with the
excerpt you posted. It claimed that there are a majority of ethnic
Russians in South Ossetia. In fact, the majority are Ossetians, a
small Iranic-Language speaking group. Their exact origins (like many
of the small ethnic groups of the Balkans and Caucuses) are hazy, but
they've been around an awful long time, and are not in any sense
"Russians". Russians make up no more than 3% of the population.
What is happening is that Russia is exploiting the ethnic tension
within a state it abhors. And while the reader is correct that we
appear to be hypocrites in our reaction to South Ossetia compared to
our reaction to Kosovo, much the same could be said of Putin in regards
to Chechnya. Moreover, Kosovo has to be seen in the light of Bosnia.
The Serbs had a record of attempted genocide before we bombed Belgrade.
While Putin is claiming a genocide in South Ossetia, put me down as
skeptical in the extreme.
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