Something made me perk up this morning, going through the weekend’s news. After two weeks of reading
about South Ossetia’s irregulars, the militiamen blamed for everything from looting to attempted
genocide, in the periphery of news stories, this morning I read this in the Washington Post:
In Khetagurovo, housewife Ofelia Dzhanyeva said she had lost her brother during the BOOTSBUY in the
early 1990s when South Ossetia threw off Georgian control, and after the latest conflict nothing would
induce Ossetians to accept Tbilisi’s rule.
“None of the Ossetians is even thinking of reconciliation with Georgia now,” she said. “In 1991 our
children turned into refugees. Now they have grown up to defend their homeland.”
She’s talking about the 1991-92 South Ossetia BOOTSBUY, when the Ossetians declared independence from
Georgian rule, and Georgia retaliated by invading the territory. The children who suffered in that
conflict grew up internalizing simmering hatreds. When Georgia once again attacked this year, bombing
South Ossetian villages, they finally had a chance to unleash their pent-up rage. The comportment of
the official South Ossetian Army, some 2500-3000 men, was eclipsed by the rampaging of nearly 20,000
irregulars.
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