A cruel war burst out a few days ago right by the Black Sea, a place where Romania pretends to be play I don't know what part. Russia attacked our ally, that alleged ally talked about in various international reunions, that is the small republic of Georgia, aspiring to join NATO and a member of the GUAAM, a regional organization supported by Romania and the US, as Tbilisi is claiming. Moscow is saying the opposite. The meeting of the Supreme Council for National Defense in Romania (CSAT) didn't manage to make things clear to us. Right now the war is in full bloom just 1, 500 kilometers away from Romania. The state of things in the separatist region supported by Russia, South Ossetia, is identical to the one in Transdniestria, with which they have a tight alliance, together with Abhazia, under Kremlin's umbrella. The Kossack paramilitaries left to protect the territory after the 1992 war got mobilized in Tyraspol last week. This is why there were reports on the clashing of weapons in the Caucasus the day when the conflict burst out. So we must cross ourselves to thank that a war hasn't burst out again on Romania's eastern border, now both NATO and EU border. Anyway, the progress of blood-shedding events is a reason to awaken Romanian security institutions so that they would give a hand to restore normality in the region and provide NATO, EU and the US with correct information, in case we have still got with what and with whom. Vladimir Putin, a giant of the PM-President, flew from Beijing straight to the battlefield in Ossetia and Traian Basescu left the Olympic Games to summon the CSAT members to extraordinary meeting. But the heads of Romanian security - George Maior, a chief of the SRI (Romanian Secret Service), Mihai Razvan Ungureanu, a chief of the SIE (Foreign Intelligence Service in Romania), and the Romanian PM, the one ruling over a government of Democrat-Liberal ministers and members of the Democrat Union of Magyars in Romania - would not interrupt their holydays abroad. Since the floods had failed to make them do it, why would such a tiny war make them do it? After wandering about Croatia, "taking the Croatian PM's invitation" and by coincidence doing this at the same time with the Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu reached the Mediterranean's small islands aboard a luxury yacht, surrounded by friends. Romania's economy minister Varujan Vosganian attended the CSAT reunion neither, although the energy issue plays a very important part in the Caucasus. He is familiar with the region since the time when he would commute between Bucharest and Yerevan, under the Communist regime. The Yerevan Radio had probably announced the Azores war. According to ZIUA estimations, aside from an exhibition of New Russia's power, the Georgia war is targeting the dissolution of the NATO decisions reached in the Bucharest Summit, as well as the control over the Caucasus oil routes, which has alerted the EU at once. Given the context, the Romanian officials' absence in the CSAT meeting is very irresponsible, all the more that Romania should have taken firmer attitude at this war, at least because it foresaw the unfortunate event by the warnings expressed in the EU and the US, concerning the chain of half-frozen conflicts in the Black Sea region. Until yesterday it was only Poland, Lithuania and Sweden from all the EU and NATO countries that took straight attitude against Russia, proving no hesitation to come out and make relentless statements. Poland criticized Russia's interference and demanded that EU leaders should meet at once. Petras Vaitekunas, a head of the Lithuanian diplomats, was in Georgia last Saturday (!), where he commented that Russia was breaking all limits by invading the Georgia territory. Sweden's foreign minister Carl Bildt said the Russian offensive against Georgia was reminding about Hitler's action meant to occupy Central Europe. All this while, Romania, humbler and humbler in front of all the world's glowworms, issued just a timid and dull press release, failing to make things clear. It is to be noticed that the three European states have already taken over some supposed to be Romania's attribution too, so they have proposed in Brussels "the plan of a new strategy" on the countries in the EU vicinity, which happen to be the ones in the former GUAAM: Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbadjan and the Moldovan Republic. So this is how we have dumped Georgia too, like we dumped our brothers in Moldova and Ukraine, leaving the ship when in need. What a pity! Let us think about the innocent Georgian victims of the great powers' games at least for some second. It is so because Russia wants to teach the US a lesson by the Black Sea.

Victor RONCEA