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228 
 
Nevertheless, because of the intensification of the clashes, instead of 
continuing negotiations, the Confederation focused on the military solutions. 
Shanibov defined the South Osetia as an ‘open wound’ of the Confederation and he 
stressed that the seventh session of the Confederation in Tskhinval put forward 
concrete proposals. Among them the most concrete one was the decision to send 
the troops to the South Osetia.
555
 The Confederation threatened to intervene 
militarily if there was not an end to the genocide against the peoples of the 
Confederation by the Georgians. With this threat Confederation’s leaders were 
intended to sit the Georgians on the negotiation table. In line with that, Shanibov 
declared his inclination for meeting with Eduard Shevardnadze to stop the 
fratricidal war immediately. Moreover he pointed that the “confederation’s aim in 
this area of the Caucasus is to put an end to the carnage and move the conflict onto 
the level of political decisions. Our military presence there can be justified on 
condition that the CIS troops are withdrawn from there.”
556
 
 
Shanibov’s suggestion to the South Osetian-Georgian dispute was the 
military presence of the Confederation troops as the peacekeeping forces. Because 
“the confederation’s authority among the peoples of the North Caucasus was 
extremely high.” At the end of the May, Confederation’s Parliament and the 
Presidential Council held common session in Makhachkale. In that session, in order 
to prevent the annihilation of the South Osetians, the Confederation decided to take 
                                                                                                                                        
554
 See “Confederation of Mountain Peoples’ Parliament meets in Vladikavkaz,” SWB SU/1338 B/6, 
25 March 1992 and RFE/RL Research Report, Vol.1, 3 April 1992, 75. 
555
 SWB SU/1370, B/13, 3 May 1992. 
556
 “Confederation of Mountain Peoples ready to intervene in South Osetia,” SWB SU/1371, B/7-8, 4 
May 1992. 

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229 
 
more radical measures and Shanibov issued a call to Georgian and Russian 
leaderships and peoples. In this call Georgian Presidential Council was urged to 
stop the military aggression against the South Osetian peoples within ten days 
period. If not, the Confederation with its entire means would help the South 
Osetia.
557
 
 
Meanwhile the South Osetian Prime Minister, Oleg Teziyev arrested in 
Vladikavkaz on 12 June 1992 for organizing the attack in which four died, because 
the guns from the raid being found in his car. South Osetian armed detachment 
leaders thereupon threatened to divert forces from the defense of Tskhinval to 
Vladikavkaz to release their leader. In the face of this, the North Osetian Supreme 
Soviet Chairman Galazov, with the consent of the Russian Prosecutor General had 
Teziyev released. 
As a result of these developments, the Russian Supreme Soviet declared a 
state of emergency in Vladikavkaz and parts of the North Osetian territory on 12 
June, and the following day special troops from Nizhny Novgorod and the interior 
ministry troops from Moscow airlifted into the area to restore the calm. 
Under this atmosphere, at the end of the 10-day period, Musa Shanibov 
with a platoon of the Confederation’s Abkhazian battalion arrived in Vladikavkaz 
on 13 June 1992
558
 by the intend to help the Tskhinval’s defenders. Commenting 
on the action, Shanibov said “if the presence of the Confederation’s soldiers in 
                                                 
557
 Şenıbe, ibid., pp.49-52. 
558
 “Peace-keepers arrive in Vladikavkaz,” SWB SU/1409, B/4, 17 June 1992. 

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South Osetia does not stop Georgia and the battalion suffers casualties, Georgia 
would automatically find itself at war with the entire Caucasus.”
559
 
In Vladikavkaz, Shanibov made talks with Akhsarbek Galazov, the 
chairman of the North Osetian Parliament and General G. Kantemirov, South 
Osetian Foreign Minister and informed them about the mission of the 
Confederation and the platoon. Galazov, however refused to allow the 
Confederation’s troops’ passage to South Osetia by asserting that such a step would 
be fraught with unforeseeable consequences, including war throughout the 
Caucasus.
560
 Torez Kulumbekov also rejected the presence of the Confederation’s 
troops in Tskhinval and then Shanibov took the platoon to Nalchik after two days 
period of stay in Vladikavkaz on 15 June. 
 
On 22 June 1992, Galazov felt it necessary to call upon Yeltsin to send 
troops to help South Osetia win its independence from Georgia and unification 
with North Osetia. The North, it was proclaimed was itself ready to mobilize all 
adult males to defend those in the South Osetia if required to do so. The gravity of 
the situation and the possible escalation of this hitherto localized conflict to a 
Caucasian war positing Georgia against Russia was instrumental in engineering a 
rapprochement between Shevardnadze and Yeltsin. Thus on 22 June 1992, Yeltsin 
contacted Shevardnadze and the two “outside powers” agreed to meet to discuss 
Osetia in Dagomys, Sochi. During the talks the Russian and the Georgian leaders 
agreed upon a number of general principles as well as some more concrete 
                                                 
559
 “Mountain Peoples’ troops unwelcome in Vladikavkaz,” SWB SU/1410 B/3, 18 June 1992. 
“Fighting continues between Georgians and South Osetians,” SWB SU/1408, B/2-3-4, 16 June 1992. 

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