On July 16, 2010 there was a meeting of the Georgian-Ossetian civil forum in Leiden (Netherlands) where an appeal to the parties of the Geneva consultations was adopted. This appeal was produced in connection with the fact that after eleven rounds of consultations, the parties were unable to reach positive results.

On the part of Tskhinvali the appeal was signed by Akhsar Tshurbati, Alan Gassiev, Maria Pliyeva, Rudolph Gubiev, Sarmat Parastayev, Tamerlan Tadtaev, Timur Tskhovrebov.

The participation of public figures of Tskhinvali in the Georgian-Ossetian civil forum without permission of the puppet regime provoked the wrath of the latter. The very next day after the adoption of the appeal representative of the regime for "post-conflict resolution" Boris Chochiev who has been "engaged in solving" this conflict for many years and was one of the authors of the August 2008 war, spoke about this.

It is not surprising that the regime in Tskhinvali was dissatisfied with the position of non-governmental sector. According to Chochiev, holding of the forum, participants of which urged parties of the Geneva discussions to immediately address humanitarian issues, is tantamount to "a slap to every Ossetian". Despite the fact that Tskhinvali was represented at this forum by several people, all the anger of Chochiev fell on one of them - Timur Tshovrobov.

"I know that one of the participants of the forum in the Netherlands, Timur Tskhovrebov, used to collect signatures in South Ossetia that the Ossetian-Georgian border was administrative and that this border should be open. Knowing Timur, I did not believe it, but after reading this appeal it does not seem so incredible. It's a shame, "- said Chochiyev and later mentioned Tskhovrebov as a traitor more than once.

Politics is to be blamed for all this. Timur Tskhovrebov is a publisher of the only independent newspaper in the occupied region - «XXI Century". On May 22nd a new political party "Iron" was established in the Tskhinvali region, the main ideologist of which is Timur Tskhovrebov. As the Club of Experts noted previously, from the outset the party met fierce resistance from the Kokoity regime.

Kokoity-controlled media immediately identified attitudes towards people who criticize the head of the puppet regime. At the moment the party "Iron" cannot be considered as rightful participants in the political life" - wrote "Osinform.

Even earlier, in March, the opposition an active member of which Timur Tskhovrebov is, was planning to hold a protest rally against the puppet regime. Then the rally was not held due to organizers' fault. They simply hid away from the people, though not without the help of Russian special services. Then from the opposition only North Ossetian human rights activist Vissarion Assev and full contingent of the editor staff of the only independent Tskhinvali newspaper «XXI Century" , including editor-in-chief Timur Tskhovrebov and correspondent Maria Pliyeva appeared at the Tskhinvali square .

Even earlier, in September 2009, Timur Tskhovrebov appeared in the news in connection with the fact that Georgian books were burnt in Tskhinvali. On September 10th a huge bonfire of books was burning at the station square in Tskhinvali. Books were taken to the area by soldiers in cars and throw into the fire. The first who voiced this information was Ossetian journalist and writer Alan Tskhurbaev. After that author of the news site Slon.Ru Dmitry Starostin contacted Timur Tskhovrebov who told him that on September 10th he pulled out of a burning pile collection of poems by Goethe, the book of medieval religious poetry of the X century, a book a classic of the Tajik literature Sadriddin Ayni and "History of French Literature" .

According to Tskhovrebov, about 30% of books burnt were Georgian. He said that the burning of books was organized by the head of the University of Tskhinvali Teimuraz Kokoev and that "minister of education and science" of the separatists Anatoly Kusraev was aware of this barbaric act.
All this could not not affect the attitude of the puppet regime towards him. So words of Chochiev sounded like permission to criminal acts against this out-of-favour member of the opposition.

The next day, 10 people attacked Timur Tskhovrebov in the centre of Tskhinvali. Among them were members of the puppet parliament Alan Khasiev, Casimir Pliyev, Dmitri Vaneev. They offered him to take a seat in the car and go outside the city to settle their differences. Tskhovrebov refused, after which physical force was used against him. Tskhovrebov managed to escape and climb over the fence of the Red Cross. Following this Cazimir Pliyev pulled a gun and began to aim at him. According to eyewitnesses, there was a police squad near who chose not to get involved. A representative of the KGB of South Ossetia arrived to the office of the Red Cross and accompanied Timur to hospital. This is shown in the hospital records. Medical examination of Timur found that he had a broken arm, incised wound to the neck, lip laceration. He also needed umbilical herniorrhaphy.

Naturally Boris Chochiev is named as somebody who ordered this. It should be noted that in the absence of Kokoity who was enjoying himself in Venezuela and Nicaragua, Chochiev is the first person in this puppet unit. Hence, his statement and subsequent actions as well as identities of persons who were involved in the crime leaves no doubt that this political violence was ordered.

This case is acute against the background of appeals of the Kremlin leadership towards Georgia to establish direct relations with Tskhinvali. This was recently stated by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, responding to a statement by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the U.S. considers Abkhazia and the so-called South Ossetia to be an integral part of Georgia.

As it is evident from what happened, soon there will be nobody left in Tskhinvali to talk to. Those who still have courage left to express their dissatisfaction with the puppet regime and are calling on the latter to engage in constructive talks with the Georgian side are mistreated. In such circumstances it is difficult to go against the regime that came to power and is retaining this very power through Russian forces. In order to hold on to power Kokoity regime is ready to destroy its own "citizens" of which only about 10 thousand are left throughout the occupied territory. Apparently the lack of "appropriate" people forced Tskhinvali "parliamentarians" to themselves undertake dirty work of beating up the Tskhinvalian activist.

The above incident also confirms how fragile people's diplomacy is. It can be used only as a supplement to formal negotiations to establish connections and relationships at personal level. After all, Kokoity-controlled media did not even bother to say a word about the incident. Every attempt is used to shield inhabitants of the region from any relations with Georgians. So with whom Mr. Putin is offering to talk to? Maybe with Putin represented by Kokoity?