PRESS RELEASE
British Sabotage of Russian Ceasefire Motion on South Ossetia
Aug. 9, 2008 (EIRNS)—The second emergency session of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) broke up last night, as another Russian resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in South Ossetia and for a return to the status quo before the Georgian attack, was rejected by the British, who pulled the American representative over to their side, once again.
The Russians are especially enraged that their draft resolution was pushed off the UNSC agenda, with no reasonable explanation given. Russian UN envoy Vitali Churkin characterized the U.K.-U.S. conduct as a serious breach of diplomatic protocol and unacceptable. Moreover, once again, as the UNSC was meeting, the Georgians tried to misuse the Russian ceasefire motion and freeze of military action on the Russian side, for yet another military offensive last night.
If the European Union, especially its "foreign policy spokesman" Xavier Solana, were at all serious, they would condemn the conduct of their own member, the United Kingdom, at the UNSC, and the same is true for Germany's Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier, who nominally is in charge of the EU Caucasus Initiative, and in that function just recently worked out a procedure for a diplomatic settlement of the Abkhazia problem. As reported in German media, Steinmeier decided to interrupt his vacation and returned to Berlin, to monitor the situation, but had nothing more to say than calling for a ceasefire. As is also reported, Steinmeier is enraged at the Georgian President, whom he had just met during the aforesaid Abkhazia mission and who reassured him that he would refrain from any military action for the time being. He is said to be especially enraged at the Georgian attacks on civilian residential areas. But for any German view to be effective, Steinmeier would have to come out in public, attacking the British role.
Bildzeitung, Germany's leading mass tabloid, has a front-page story with a banner headline, "WAR." All media report South Ossetian information that 1,400 civilians have been killed by the Georgians in the fighting, and that a good part of the region's infrastructure has been destroyed.
