South Ossetia: We don’t want war, but …

Resolve and regret in a reluctant war zone

AS EXPLOSIONS from rocket-propelled grenades flashed and thudded on the outskirts, the defenders of this village, who happen to be on the Georgian side of South Ossetia's incipient conflict, seemed resolved but hardly gung-ho. “To be shooting at each other in the 21st century - it's crazy,” mused Guram Vakhtangashvili, a local politician. Compared with many brewing conflicts, the parties to this odd little war have little stomach for a fight - in part because they know each other well.

An agreement on August 17th to cease fire and remove unauthorised troops offered some hope, but it was the second truce in four days and in Eredvi there was little optimism. That very day, at least three Georgian soldiers were killed in this breakaway province where Tbilisi wants to reassert control.

Surrounded by orchards, maize fields, vineyards and the rolling foothills of the Caucasus, Eredvi's 5,000 people might in better times be envied. But a tall, forested hill dominates Eredvi and it is from there that Ossetian forces have lobbed mortar shells around and occasionally into the settlement. On both sides of this intimate war, farmers, teachers and policemen don camouflage to help regular troops stand guard or fight. And as soon as 1,000 Georgian children were evacuated last weekend, most mothers returned to support their men.

In Eredvi, few blame ordinary Ossetians. Fury is aimed at the Ossetian leader, Edward Kokoity, and at Russia, which Georgia accuses of arming and training Ossetian guerrillas.

Among Ossetians, similar loathing is directed at the Georgian state. They have raw memories of the 1991-92 war, in which Georgians behaved badly. In a churchyard in Tskhinvali, the local capital, women prepare a stodgy dish of plov for their men, on the front-line, and rail against their foes. “The Georgian authorities provoke us - they want this place, but they've never owned this land and they never will,” declares one.

In reality, boundaries between the communities blur, and many families are mixed. “It's a problem,” said Ilya, a Georgian policeman, gesturing at an Ossetian checkpoint 200 metres from his own. “I know the police there. I never fire on them because they're friends - and they won't fire either.”

Because there is no electricity in Eredvi, the starlight is brilliant. But for a local man who shares a balconied, vine-covered house with his mother, nights mean danger and duty. He is bitter - about the Russians, the Ossetian leaders, and even about Mikhail Saakashvili, “a temperamental president”. But, he says softly, “Retreating is out of the question. My mother and I will stay here - and this is where we will die.”

Resolve and regret in a reluctant war zone.