4.1 Overview

Human Rights Watch found that South Ossetian forces and militias committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes, in South Ossetia and undisputed Georgian territory controlled by Russian forces.

South Ossetian forces and militias embarked on a campaign of deliberate and systematic destruction of the Tbilisi-backed villages in South Ossetia, which involved the widespread and systematic pillage and torching of houses, and beatings and threats against civilians. In undisputed parts of Georgian territory they conducted a campaign of deliberate violence against civilians, burning and looting their homes, and committing execution-style killings, rape, abductions, and countless beatings. They rounded up at least 159 ethnic Georgians, killing at least one and subjecting nearly all of them to inhuman and degrading treatment and inhuman conditions of detention. They also tortured at least four Georgian prisoners of war and executed at least three.

In engaging in the violence summarized above, South Ossetian forces and militias egregiously violated multiple obligations under humanitarian law with respect to treatment of protected persons, including civilians and others hors de combat. Murder, rape, acts of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, and wanton destruction of homes and property are all strictly prohibited under both humanitarian law and human rights law, and the perpetrators of such acts should be held criminally responsible for them. To the extent that any of these prohibited acts was committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, they may be prosecuted as a crime against humanity.  Where any of these acts, as well as acts such as imprisonment, unlawful detention of civilians, pillaging, and comprehensive destruction of homes and property, were carried out with discriminatory intent against a particular group, in this case ethnic Georgians, they also constitute the crime of persecution, a crime against humanity, prosecutable under the statute of the International Criminal Court.[352]

South Ossetian forces include South Ossetian Ministry of Defense and Emergencies servicemen, riot police (known by the Russian acronym OMON), and several police companies, working under the South Ossetian Ministry of Internal Affairs, and servicemen of the South Ossetian State Committee for Security (KGB).[353] Many interviewees told Human Rights Watch that most able-bodied men in South Ossetia took up arms to protect their homes.[354] As South Ossetia has no regular army its residents tend to refer to the members of South Ossetian forces as militias (opolchentsy) unless they can be distinctly identified as policemen or servicemen of the Ministry of Defense and Emergencies. Credible sources also spoke about numerous men from North Ossetia and several other parts of Russia who fought in the conflict in support of South Ossetia and who were involved in the crimes against civilians that followed.

In some cases, it is difficult to establish the exact identity and status of the Ossetian perpetrators because witnesses' common description of their clothing (camouflage uniform, often with a white armband) could apply to South Ossetian Ministry of Defense and Emergencies, South Ossetian Ministry of Internal affairs, volunteer fighters, or even common criminal looters. Several factors, however, indicate that in many cases the perpetrators belonged to South Ossetian forces operating in close cooperation with Russian forces. The perpetrators often arrived in villages together with or shortly after Russian forces passed through them; the perpetrators sometimes arrived on military vehicles; and the perpetrators seem to have freely passed through checkpoints manned by Russian or South Ossetian forces.

Witnesses sometimes also referred to the perpetrators as Chechens and Cossacks; whether this was an accurate identification is not clear, although there were media reports of Chechens and Cossacks participating in the conflict.[355] In some cases, witnesses claimed that the groups of perpetrators consisted of both Ossetians and Russians.  These incidents also demonstrate Russia's failure to protect civilians in areas under its effective control (as discussed in Chapter 3.7).