Russia and other former Soviet bloc countries are also members, but regardless, I can see no fault in how Sheets covered the 1998 election (especially when few would ever pretend that Armenia is some great democratic country).

I do, however, have problems when Armenians in the Diaspora dissect such reports in order to discredit journalists who are doing more to highlight the long road of democratization which is actually a great disservice to the country.

Ironically, some Armenians would now criticize the OSCE for being too lenient towards Armenia re. elections in 2007 and 2008. Basically, nobody can win, and rather than there being a black and white issue re. what’s happening in Georgia, I think the there are many gray areas inbetween.

Sheets is no dount good at wht he does. The armenian article just points outhis reliance on the osce., which is a nato intelligence organization. Not american, nato, this isimportant once you investigate the economics a littlemore.

see
EUROPEAN OIL CARTEL OPERATIONS IN AREAS OF MILITARY CONFLICT

The Creeping Caucasus Catastrophe

Thomas Goltz, special to the Pulitzer Center

(Thomas Goltz is an adjunct professor of Political Science at Montana State University, Bozeman, and author among other books of Georgia Diary: A Chronicle of Political Chaos and War in the Post-Soviet Caucasus, M.E. Sharpe, 2006)

Russian troops and tanks may have at least partially completed their pull-out from territory seized during its August 8 blitz of this tiny post-Soviet country, but that should be little reason to celebrate, as the real (if creeping) catastrophe has just begun.

In addition to humiliating the Georgian army and reducing any Georgian military installations to rubble, the Russian blitz has humiliated the EU, the US and NATO by exposing just how little ‘friends of Georgia’ could do in the country’s hour of need. Even after Russia announced that it regards itself in compliance with all points of the emergency cease-fire plan negotiated by France, Russian troops continue to occupy numerous locations in western Georgia, and are in the process of setting up a self-declared ’security zone’ well outside the legally defined geographic limits of the two contested ‘autonomous’ areas of Georgia. Moscow keeps one hand on Georgia’s economic throat, the other a mail-fist ready to smash this proud, ancient nation of poets and artists.

At the last checkpoint outside the hub-city of Gori yesterday, scores – nay, hundreds — of Russian tanks and Armored Personal Carriers poured out of feeder roads and fields as part of the well-ordered pull-back, but there was absolutely no sense that the Kremlin was bending to any outside pressure in doing so. Rather, the sense was that the Russian military was flaunting its success, quite content with allowing a damaged Georgia to understand the enormity of the disaster which had just washed over it, tacitly encouraging a spirit of revolt to fester against the government of the young, brash Mikheil Saakashvili, whom many have incorrectly blamed for igniting the conflict in the first place.

[…]

“We are looking at a creeping catastrophe,” said Peter Semneby, EU ambassador to the three Caucasus countries of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. “The only silver linings I can see are the level of international political support expressed to Georgia as a result of this crisis, as well as the strange fact that it seems to have shocked Armenia and Azerbaijan into more serious dialogue to resolve their long standing problems.”

This may turn out to be mere wishful thinking, although both Armenia and Azerbaijan sent railway construction crews to work side by side with their Georgia counterparts to help repair a critical bridge blown by the Russians.

[…]

While a certain amount of fuzziness exists, the main point is that Georgian forces inside the South Ossetian region were responding to provocations against the Georgian civilian population living there, provocations that continued to grow in force, leading Saakashvili to call for the first unilateral cease fire on the evening of the 7th. And then ‘violate’ it when fighting continued with reports of Cossacks entering South Ossetia—meaning northern Georgia–from Russia proper. By dawn of August 8th, there was clear evidence that a well-prepared 58th Russian Army itself was entering the fray from Russia, and the decision was taken in Tbilisi to bomb bridges and close the main road north of Tskhinvali. Satellite photographs now provided by a UN body called UN0SAT clearly show that the main destruction caused by Georgian firing in the vicinity of Tskhinvali is not in the city itself (although there is some there) but on the road leading to the Roki tunnel that the Russian army would use.

[…]

But it may not be over yet. The most disturbing news I have received since the guns fell silent is that Russia may still be attempting to force renewed violence by means of truly devious provocations, such as false-flag ‘volunteers’ to the Georgian cause, getting Georgia to accept mercenary muscle in the form of Blackwater-like ‘private security companies,’ and then exposing this in a propaganda coup

“The last thing Georgia needs at this moment are guys with guns wandering around the countryside outside of the direct control of the central government,” said Patrick Worms, a PR media affairs consultant to the government of Georgia, Worms also noted that the arrival in Tbilisi of a group of some 80 Estonian humanitarian relief specialists nearly resulted in a diplomatic rupture between the tiny Baltic state and behemoth Russia, raising deep concern that Russia might use the ‘ pretext of ’savings its citizens’ in another area on its long frontier.

The full op-ed is at:
http://pulitzercenter.typepad.com/untold_stories/2008/08/the-creeping-ca.html

However, I can at least quote an excerpt.

The list of projected problems directly associated with the disaster is truly ominous. According to European Union experts, the country suffered some $1 billion in direct infrastructural loses, and will lose a projected $1 billion more in direct foreign investment over the next year or so, as foreign capital shies away or decides to cut losses and walk away—and just when Georgia, with a population of about five million, seemed to have turned the economic corner and was starting to look and feel like a prosperous place. […]

So why or how did Georgia find itself in this mess, that is now impacting on the South Caucasus as a whole and even the greater world beyond?

[…]

There is sufficient evidence to suggest that Saakashvili was warned by the United States and others that Russia was planning a provocation that would result in precisely the sort of destruction of Georgian infrastructure and (eventual) social cohesion and stability if Georgia rose to the bait, and that Saakashvili should do everything in his power to avoid direct conflict with his huge neighbor. […]

But Saakashvili decided that even if he ducked and dodged on August 8th, there would be another provocation, and then another, and that the only thing to do was make a stand, allow the conflict to escalate, and then hope for some sort of international intervention. Brinksmanship, in a word, in true Caucasian style. […]

[…]

In the short-term, Moscow has all the cards.

Get ready for a long, cold winter in Georgia, with social chaos around the corner.

That criticism of Sheets and Armenian elections is 10 years old — it refers to the 1998 presidential election. Moreover, it was written by a Diasporan Armenian who [mistakingly] seemed to think that Western journalists had it in for Armenia which was on its way to so some great democratic revolution.

As it was, the election was heavily flawed and pretty much what you could expect in the former Soviet Union — and especially then. The article against Sheets’ coverage of the 1998 presidential election in Armenia was more an attempt to discredit anyone who suggested that there was no culture of democracy in Armenia.

Since then, we’ve pretty much discovered that Sheets was actually right. The “analysis” was a knee-jerk reaction to anyone who dared to suggest that actually, Armenia was a newly independent state and unable to hold democratic elections.

What that has to do with Georgia, though, is anybody’s guess. I haven’t read the full ICG report, but the executive summary seems pretty logical and unbiased. Besides, Sheets and the ICG are just two entitites. Many others also seem to take the same line.

Simply put, it is impossible to single out one side as being solely to blame. There are no angels in any of this, but I think we can single out Saakashvili’s tendency to lose his temper and act on impulse as well as continuing attempts by Russia to destabilize Georgia.

Certainly, Russia’s reaction to what should have remained a contained conflict in South Ossetia was unwarranted. Hitting military targets is one thing, but invading and occupying [Georgian] towns and villages is quite another.

excerpt:

Saturday
23Aug

OSCE, MAGDALENA FRICHOVA, LAWRENCE SHEETS, AND THE ARMITAGE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP
DateSaturday, August 23, 2008 at 05:42PM

OSCE, Magdalena Frichova, LAWRENCE Sheets, and the armitage international crisis group

It was amusing to recently read about these photos from the Georgian conflict which apparently were obvious fakes to everyone, except perhaps to the editors at REUTERS, once reviled for its acceptance of British government subsidies during the cold war. It makes one wonder if more gifted fabricators have passed off fakes as reality, calling into question whether not just images and videos are real, but whether also text descriptions really describe what is happening on the ground—in other words fake news, fake contemporary history. In a parallel manner, REUTERS skewed coverage in Armenia during the elections there, an Armenian observer complained “Mr. Sheets’s 18 reports from Yerevan, between March 12 and March 31, clearly indicate a consistent pattern of bias and suspicious personal agenda in four areas: 3) patronizing attitude toward Armenia; 4) excessive use of unnamed Sources.” An Analysis of 18 reports by Lawrence Sheets from Yerevan by Hratch Tchilingirian

Mr. Sheets, a graduate in International Relations and Russian Studies, much like Condoleezza Rice, managed to turn this distinguished reporting for the Brits in Armenia and Georgia, into a job with NPR, the American Public Radio channel, “brought to you by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation”. Apparently using his contacts at OSCE , NPR’s Sheets was able to predict that the crazy Commie Russians would try to annex parts of Georgia:

“Relations between Russia and the former Soviet Republic of Georgia have reached dangerous new lows. Georgian officials suspect that Russia wants to annex two areas of their republic. Observers say a worst-case scenario would involve a direct war between Russia and Georgia over the territory . ” Territorial Tensions Build Between Russia and Georgia by Lawrence Sheets

We don’t know who Sheets was talking to in A OSCE Armenia or if had talked to any OSCE people in Georgia, but there was a prominent ex- OSCE person in Georgia that had high level contact with the OSCE high commissioner.

“Magdalena has worked in the Caucasus region since 1999, focusing mainly on the Georgian-Abkhaz and Georgian-Ossetian conflicts. Most recently, she held the post of political officer with the Mission to Georgia of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). She had also worked for the OSCE High Commissioner”

Bio , International Crisis Group.

So Sheets had worked with OSCE people in preparing his allegedly biased reports for REUTERS, and in Georgia, the project leader for the “humanitarian “ International Crisis Group had worked for the high commissioner of OSCE, who was then most likely Max van der Stoel, the former Secretary of State equivalent for the Royal Dutch Shell government of the Netherlands. He had played an important role in the resolution of the NATO war against the Russian ally Serbia, and had helped remove the former Soviet Baltic states from the Russian sphere of influence, despite the large numbers of ethic Russians living in those republics. The International Crisis Group Georgian project leader was so apparently close to NATO high officials that she actually attended a NATO planning conference sponsored by the Heinrich Boll foundation. To speak on the topic of:

OSCE, MAGDALENA FRICHOVA, LAWRENCE SHEETS, AND THE ARMITAGE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP

http://www.julaybib.com/anomaly-briefs/2008/8/23/osce-magdalena-frichova-lawrence-sheets-and-the-armitage-int.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/16/AR2008081600502.html?hpid=topnews

This story, by Russia Today back on July 16, was clearly a provocation aimed at unsettling Saakashvili: http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/27562

“Georgia’s breakaway republics could join Russia-Belarus union”
Georgia’s breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia say they would not rule out joining the Union State of Russia and Belarus. The Union State was formed in 1997 to provide equal trade rights and equal rights for citizens, but many of its plans were never brought into force. Georgia has criticised the plans, saying the move would only harm Russia. …

Obviously, Russia’s been waving the red cape furiously for months now, hoping that the “bull” would charge. What’s a pity is how little attention everyone in the West was paying to this important story, but I guess it’s unfortunately typical of the general neglect of the Caucasus.

Moreover, Georgians say that a week prior to the fighting, TV reports said that South Ossetian pensioners and children were being moved out of the conflict zone. Those that say this argue that this is proof the Russians were planning something.

I have seen no independent confirmation of this story, however. If anyone has seen something, please post a link.

Regardless, however, the ultimate conclusion appears to be that Russia wanted this clash and knowing Saakashvili’s personality too well, pushed and prodded until they finally got what they wanted. Saakashvili sent the troops in and the Russians were ready.

And then some…