In Abkhazia and South Ossetia, there is an implicit trust that the Caucasus will unite to fight a common Georgian enemy, writes Daniel McLaughlin
BEFORE TERROR replaced trepidation in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, its separatist leaders and their people were united in one certainty - that if war with Georgia came, they would not be alone.
After fighting tore through South Ossetia and spread to Abkhazia, another rebellious patch of what is legally Tbilisi's territory, both provinces are looking to their neighbours to come to their aid - something which could spark a wider conflagration that could consume the Caucasus, a vital region for the West's strategic military, political and energy interests.
Ten days before shelling levelled much of Tskhinvali, South Ossetians were determined to rejoin their ethnic kin in Kremlin-controlled North Ossetia, even if it meant inflaming a volatile region.
"Josef Stalin divided Ossetia between the Russia and Georgia, but you cannot split one heart in two," said Lev Valiev (76) in what was Tskhinvali's sleepy main square.
"We should be reunited, like Germany was, and that means joining Russia. And if we have to fight for that, it would be the entire Caucasus versus Georgia."
South Ossetia won de facto independence from Tbilisi in a fierce 1991-1992 war, with help from North Ossetian volunteers and Russia's weaponry, advice and occasional intervention by its military units.
As Russian tanks rolled into South Ossetia to confront Georgian troops on Friday, Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin told US president George Bush that volunteers from across the Caucasus wanted to fight in the region, and would be "difficult to restrain".
Among the first to sign up were Cossacks in North Ossetia and the Don region of southern Russia.
Volunteers in the North Ossetian capital, Vladikavkaz, said they were being given assault rifles and $400 (€266) to buy uniforms. "In the last two days, about 2,000 people volunteered. These are men of 20 years and older, who served in the Russian army or law-enforcement bodies, with experience of military operations in hotspots," said the head of one recruitment post in North Ossetia.
"Among them there are Cossacks, North Ossetians and South Ossetian natives. The volunteers have everything they need to put up resistance to the Georgian army, which treacherously attacked South Ossetia."
In neighbouring Chechnya, pro-Kremlin leader Ramzan Kadyrov offered his fighters as unlikely peacekeepers in South Ossetia, despite their reputation for using kidnap, torture and murder to quell a rebel insurgency and instil fear in the general public.
In Dagestan, another restive Caucasian republic rife with guns and explosives, a local official said almost 500 people had signed up to fight in South Ossetia, and would be deployed once a detachment of 1,600 men had been formed.
An influx of renegade fighters to Georgia could destabilise a crucial western ally in the Kremlin's backyard, a potential Nato and EU member, and a vital transit route for oil and gas from the Caspian Sea as Europe and the US try to wean themselves off Russian energy.
Now local and Kremlin forces are also trying to drive Georgian troops from Abkhazia, which has run its own affairs since a 1992-1993 war in which it too was aided by Russia and volunteers from around the Caucasus - including Chechens like future rebel leader Shamil Basayev.
Thousands of people died in the fighting, some 250,000 Georgians were displaced, and gruesome atrocities were committed by both sides.
A horrible taste for the torture, rape and murder of Georgians was shown by some of the volunteers, who formed a paramilitary alliance called the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus.
The organisation is now defunct but, in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, there survives an implicit trust that the Caucasus will unite to fight a common Georgian enemy.
"The West and Nato back the revanchist policies of Georgia. But in the Caucasus you can't arm one side to the hilt and expect the other side to sit by and take it," said Abkhaz foreign minister Sergei Shamba in the separatist capital of Sukhumi.
"If there is war, the Georgians will find themselves fighting on more than one front. The Cossacks and people of the North Caucasus would come to fight here, and nothing would be left of Georgia after that."
Daniel McLaughlin recently returned from a reporting assignment in South Ossetia and Abkhazia