Archivo categoría «Cáucaso»

Por Carlos Taibo, profesor de Ciencia Política en la Universidad Autónoma y colaborador de BAKEAZ (EL CORREO DIGITAL, 13/08/08):

Muchos analistas se preguntan estos días por las razones que han podido conducir al presidente georgiano, Saakashvili, a lanzar en Osetia del Sur una ofensiva militar que parecía inequívocamente condenada al fracaso. Si cualquier conocedor de lo que se dirime hoy en el Cáucaso hubiera dado inmediatamente por descontado que la ofensiva en cuestión estaba llamada a provocar una inmediata réplica rusa, el sentido común recuerda, por añadidura, que la acción armada georgiana ha tenido que gozar, por fuerza, del … Seguir leyendo

By Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 and is president of the Gorbachev Foundation, a Moscow think tank. A version of this article, in Russian, will be published in the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper tomorrow (THE WASHINGTON POST, 12/08/08):

The past week’s events in South Ossetia are bound to shock and pain anyone. Already, thousands of people have died, tens of thousands have been turned into refugees, and towns and villages lie in ruins. Nothing can justify this loss of life and destruction. It is a warning to … Seguir leyendo

By Richard Cohen (THE WASHINGTON POST, 12/08/08):

It would have been an easy thing for the Russians to throw the Georgians out of the two disputed enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia is mighty; Georgia is not. Russia is huge; Georgia is tiny. The whole thing is a mismatch from the word go, and the Georgians — when it is appropriate to do so — have to be reminded that you do not poke a sleeping bear with a stick. Little nations ought to know their place.

But the bombing, including areas near the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, is … Seguir leyendo

Por Richard C. Holbrooke, embajador de EE UU ante la ONU en el Gobierno de Clinton, y Ronald D. Asmus, director ejecutivo del Centro Transatlántico del German Marshall Fund de EE UU. Traducción de María Luisa Rodríguez Tapia (EL PAÍS, 12/08/08):

En los últimos tiempos, hemos afirmado que Rusia estaba llevando a cabo una política de cambiar el régimen de Georgia y a su presidente prooccidental y democráticamente elegido, Mijaíl Saakashvili. Predijimos que, a falta de una intervención diplomática fuerte y unida de Occidente, se avecinaba una guerra. Ahora, trágicamente, la escalada de la violencia en Osetia del Sur … Seguir leyendo

Por Gustavo de Arístegui, diputado por Zamora y portavoz de Exteriores del PP en el Congreso (EL MUNDO, 12/08/08):

Me resulta chocante que el pacifismo de tantos sea tan terriblemente selectivo. Nadie se acuerda de Ruanda o de Burundi, las guerras olvidadas de Africa no sacuden ya las conciencias de los occidentales antioccidentales, Darfur parece interesar sólo a algunos en Europa y a pocos más en Estados Unidos, quizá se deba al gancho de George Clooney, hasta para esto somos frívolos. Hay conflictos terribles que cierta progresía conoce de memoria: datos, detalles y hasta las estadísticas muchas veces infladas … Seguir leyendo

Por John O´Sullivan (ABC, 12/08/08):
Las chicas ucranias me vuelven loco de verdad
Dejan Occidente a la zaga
Y las chicas de Moscú me hacen cantar y gritar
Que Georgia siempre está en mi mente.
He vuelto a la URSS
No sabéis cuánta suerte tenéis, chicos,
De vuelta en la URSS
John Lennon & Paul McCartney

No son sólo los osetios del sur los que han vuelto a la URSS esta mañana. Otros georgianos, países del «extranjero cercano» a Rusia, desde el Cáucaso hasta el Báltico, «minorías nacionales» como los chechenos, e incluso los propios rusos, se enfrentan ahora a … Seguir leyendo

By Svante E. Cornell, the research director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 12/08/08):

Russia is portraying its war in Georgia as a legitimate response to Georgia’s incursion last week into its breakaway region of South Ossetia. Many in the West, while condemning the disproportionate nature of Russia’s response, are also critical of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili for his attempts to bring South Ossetia back under Georgian rule, and of the United States for supposedly encouraging Mr. Saakashvili’s risk-taking by pushing NATO membership for Georgia.

But the … Seguir leyendo

By Simon Sebag Montefiore, the author of Young Stalin. His latest book is a novel, Sashenka (THE TIMES, 12/08/08):

The Russian tank columns rumbling into Georgia reveal the anger of a tiger finally swatting the mouse that has teased it for years. South Ossetia may seem as distant, trivial and complicated as the 19th-century Schleswig-Holstein question but Russia’s fury is about much more than the Ossetians. The Caucasus matters greatly to the Russians for all sorts of reasons, none greater than the fact that it now also matters to us.

The troubles in Georgia are not the equivalent … Seguir leyendo

By Ronald D. Asmus, a deputy assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration and executive director of the Brussels-based Transatlantic Center of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and Richard Holbrooke, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Clinton administration who writes a monthly column for The Post (THE WASHINGTON POST, 11/08/08):

In weeks and years past, each of us has argued on this page that Moscow was pursuing a policy of regime change toward Georgia and its pro-Western, democratically elected president, Mikheil Saakashvili. We predicted that, absent strong and unified Western diplomatic involvement, … Seguir leyendo

By Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who writes a monthly column for The Post. His most recent book is The Return of History and the End of Dreams. He served in the State Department in the Reagan administration (THE WASHINGTON POST, 11/08/08):

The details of who did what to precipitate Russia’s war against Georgia are not very important. Do you recall the precise details of the Sudeten Crisis that led to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia? Of course not, because that morally ambiguous dispute is rightly remembered as a minor part … Seguir leyendo

By Anne Applebaum (THE WASHINGTON POST, 09/08/08):

For the best possible illustration of why Islamic terrorism may one day be considered the least of our problems, look no farther than the BBC’s split-screen coverage of yesterday’s Olympic opening ceremonies. On one side, fireworks sparkled, and thousands of exotically dressed Chinese dancers bent their bodies into the shape of doves, the cosmos and more. On the other side, gray Russian tanks were shown rolling into South Ossetia, a rebel province of Georgia. The effect was striking: Two of the world’s rising powers were strutting their stuff.

The difference, of course, is … Seguir leyendo

By Mark Almond, a history lecturer at Oriel College, Oxford (THE GUARDIAN, 09/08/08):

For many people the sight of Russian tanks streaming across a border in August has uncanny echoes of Prague 1968. That cold war reflex is natural enough, but after two decades of Russian retreat from those bastions it is misleading. Not every development in the former Soviet Union is a replay of Soviet history.

The clash between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia, which escalated dramatically yesterday, in truth has more in common with the Falklands war of 1982 than it does with a cold war … Seguir leyendo