Dear Editor,
Much has been carried in your newspaper about the situation in Georgia in the Caucasus. Almost all the reports and even letters to the editor, have put forward the American and European Union’s viewpoint. That is, that the action and the response of the Russian Federation was entirely wrong, both morally and in respect of international law. But there is a Russian viewpoint which the media should carry in the interest of truth. If there is a continued suppression of this other viewpoint, there would be no grasp of the reality and so no possibility of a solution.
Without trying to deal with the whole matter relating to the West making a hostile military ring around Russia, for example, I wish to point out the most important reason for the Russian response.
Earlier this year, the United States and the European Union turned their backs on international morality and law when they dismembered the small state of Serbia by recognizing the independence of Kosovo. They took a very bad risk thinking they would be able to get away with it. Now the chickens are coming home to roost and the Russians have done what the EU and the USA did earlier this year in the Balkans. They have simply done a Kosovo in the Georgian provinces of Ossetia and Abkhazia. Thus, when the world remembers Kosovo, the bleatings of the USA and EU sound very hollow. The lesson? Strictly obey international law.
Yours faithfully,
PI Peters
