Fault lines from Georgia to Kosovo

A surprise Russian veto in the Security Council effectively shutting down the U.N. monitoring mission in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia and continuing political uncertainty in the former Yugoslav province of Kosovo confront the world community with simmering disputes while attention is focused elsewhere.

In Georgia's case there's a clear but consistent Russian probe of the “near abroad” in now independent but former satraps of the Soviet Union.

The dust is yet to settle on last summer's war between Georgia's central government and Russian-backed breakaway regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The Russians want foreign observers out so they used their veto in the Security Council to shut down the fifteen year old monitoring mission. The Kremlin has also blocked an OSCE observer force in South Ossetia.

Realistically this means that Georgia is on its own with fewer eyes to watch; it also shows a slow but certain reintegration into Moscow's sphere of influence.

The Georgian Foreign Ministry warned unambiguously, “Russia's veto will be conductive to increased instability and further human rights violations in the occupied Georgian regions, as well as the last international instrument to check uncontrolled Russian military presence in the occupied Georgian regions has been removed.”

The import of these actions have not been fully appreciated by the U.S. State Department who publicly supports Georgian sovereignty. The U.S. and European Union have scrambled for a last minute solution but were rebuffed by Russia who is reasserting its spheres of influence.

Kosovo presents another case. Facing entrenched ethnic hostility and state discrimination from the ruling Yugoslav state, the Albanian Muslim majority bridled under Belgrade's increasingly harsh rule. During the Milosevic regime the oppression triggered an uprising in 1999, with Serbian ethnic cleansing and forcible population transfers, and only ended with NATO military intervention.

Though the U.N. mandate for Kosovo dates from 1999, the once powerful UNMIK mission has been significantly reduced and for all practical purposes has switched its duties and functions over to the European Union. Importantly NATO's KFOR military force remains as a security bulwark for all ethnic communities.

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