Actually during Soviet rule in the 1920's - there was Peace.

The South Ossetians of Georgia have been in conflict with the Georgian government since just before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s. Between 1918 and 1920, the first overtures to South Ossetian independence were made during a series of Ossetian rebellions against the first Georgian Republic. Once Georgia came under Soviet rule in 1923, and for the remainder of Soviet rule, there was peace between the two groups. Major violent conflict erupted again, however, between Ossetian separatist guerillas and Georgian troops in the early 1990’s, and then once more in 2004. The basic domestic and international issues surrounding the conflict are the South Ossetians' claims of unequal treatment under Georgian rule and subsequent demands for cultural, social, economic and political protections as a minority group, Russia’s desire to punish Georgia for its increasingly pro-Western political orientation, and outside concerns about the stability and accessibility of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline running partly through Georgia. However, at the conflict’s most basic level, it is a conflict over land and territory. Georgia wants to maintain its territorial integrity and thus prevent the region of South Ossetia from seceding, while South Ossetia wants to either establish independence or join with North Ossetia and come under Russian rule.

Georgia and South Ossetia

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