Seminars for representatives of South Ossetian and Georgian NGOs within the frames of the project “Engagement through Dialogue” took place in Chisinau and Tiraspol. As Dina Alborova, the co-facilitator from the South Ossetian side, reported to IA RES, this project is aimed at confidence building between the two communities – South Ossetian and Georgian, after the war in August 2008. “This is a good forum for youth group meetings of our countries. The average age of the participants is 22-33, since the future depends on these young people, who will come to power tomorrow on both sides. It is crucially important that we listen to each other today”, underlined Alborova.
Throughout the week, the project participants were having meetings with experts, political scientists, human rights defenders and civil society representatives, both in Chisinau and Tiraspol. Various scenarios of peaceful conflict settlement were discussed during the dialogue part of the seminar. According to Alborova, it is crucially important that Georgia hears the truth about South Ossetia, since “as practice has shown, there is complete inability to accept the truth, negation of the true facts”.
“The informational war is still ongoing, and therefore, the Georgia people is receiving one-sided information – Russia has attacked Georgia, concretely, South Ossetia, and Georgia was fighting against Russian aggressor. Today, for them Russia is the aggressor who occupied Georgia’s territory, meaning South Ossetia and Abkhazia. And this is of course not true. We are telling the truth and if there the understanding is initially complicated, by the end of these meetings, the participants start to listen to each other”, said the facilitator.
The seminars were supported by IKV PaxChristi and Berghof Peace Support in collaboration with the “Agency for Social, Economic and Cultural Development” (South Ossetia), International Center for Conflict and Negotiations (ICCN) – Georgia and Cultural Charity Center “World without violence” (Abakhzia). Young leaders, active specialists from South Ossetia and Georgia participated in the seminar. The South Ossetian side was represented by a group of six activists supervised by the director of NGO “Agency for social, economic and cultural development” Dina Alborova. Within the frames of the seminar, the participants had also met with the representatives of the OSCE Mission in Moldova, office in Transdnestria.
The implementation of this project will facilitate the abilities of the participants to view the situation from different angles. Both Georgian and South Ossetian societies are interested in the situation analysis. Besides, a series of four Georgian-Abkhaz and Georgian-South Ossetian study dialogue seminars will be held until March 2011 in Chisinau and Tiraspol. The project is funded by European Commission within the frames of the “Stability Instrument” program.
