In Areas Under Russian Control, Limits for Western Media

Russian authorities have given Western journalists little or no access to villages that have been looted and burned in Russian-controlled areas of South Ossetia and northern Georgia, making a full public accounting of the aftermath of the violence here all but impossible. Foreign journalists in the Russian-controlled part of the conflict zone are driven in trucks, buses and armored personnel carriers from Vladikavkaz, in Russia, to Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, but are not allowed to stop and get out in any of the villages along the way. The Russians say the limitations are to keep foreign reporters safe. Ossetians, they say, are angry with the West because they see it as having sided with Georgia in the conflict, and Russian officials argue it is not safe to go without an escort. The issue is not just theoretical. Russia has claimed that Georgia committed genocide in Tskhinvali. The Georgians, for their part, have accused the Russians and Ossetians of a calculated campaign of cleansing. None of those claims can be independently checked, because the Russian government is not allowing foreign journalists into the areas.