Prague Spring

While Russian soldiers seem reluctant to leave Georgia, we might remember the horror of 40 years ago. It was on the night of 20th August, 1968, that Soviet forces entered Czechoslovakia, ending the period known as the ‘Prague Spring’.

Appointed First Secretary in January 1968, Alexander Dubcek introduced a wave of reforms, principally economic decentralisation and free speech (and incidentally the division of the country into two, the only one of his reforms permitted to last).

It was too much for the Soviets of the Brezhnev era who sent the troops in, removed all liberals from power and limited the right to political comment to those with ‘full political trust’. Dubcek urged his people not to resist and only 72 were killed but it is thought that some 300,000 emigrated. Dubcek is reported to have said ‘they can kill the flowers but they can’t stop the spring.’

On 19th January, 1969 Jan Palak set himself on fire in Wenceslas Square in protest against the suppression of free speech.

This was the first international political event that I can remember and it left its mark on me and perhaps on a whole generation.

South Ossetia

The South Ossetia problem is one we need to keep an eye on. South Ossetia is at the northern central part of Georgia which lies on the eastern edge of the Black Sea.

When the Soviet Union existed the region was a semi independent homeland. The people claim kinship with the North Ossetians who remain part of the Russian Federation whereas the world recognises South Ossetia as being part of Georgia, an independent state since 1991. South Ossetia has itself been de facto an independent State for some years now although we, and of course the Georgians, do not recognise it.

Georgia’s first leader was Edvard Shevardnadze, formerly Yeltsin’s prime minister, but since 2004 it has been Mikheil Saakashvili, regarded by many as a bit of a hothead. On 8th August, presumably hoping world leaders would be at the Olympic Games and not notice, he ordered a military clampdown in S. Ossetia, whose people make their living largely from smuggling. Russia reacted with tanks and planes, saying it was defending its people, and suddenly we have what has been described as a Rhineland moment.

The importance for the West is that a major oil pipeline runs from Baku on the Caspian through Georgia and into Turkey an thence the Mediterranean. This is one of the few which is not controlled by Russia. It runs about 35 miles south of the Georgian capital Tbilisi which has been bombed and some say the Russian planes have targeted the pipeline. The destruction of the pipeline would greatly increase western dependence on Russian energy.

There is no single guilty party here; everyone has overreacted, but we shall have to defend that pipeline. The UN has had a couple of attempts to come up with a form of words but failed. The question is, how do we defend our interests without a war?