Georgia: Russia Is Stoking Tensions

Border Incidents Spark Accusations From Both Sides

By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, February 22, 2009; Page A14

KVEMO-NIKOZI, Georgia -- The tank rumbled across the border from South Ossetia in the middle of the afternoon, followed by about 40 Russian soldiers on foot, witnesses said. The troops took up a position at the edge of this small Georgian village, on an empty piece of land where residents once tended an apple and walnut orchard.

Villagers who watched nervously from a distance said that a few soldiers appeared to take measurements while the others milled around. Then, after less than two hours, the soldiers followed the tank back across the border.

Not a shot or even a word was exchanged between the soldiers and the villagers or the Georgian police officers posted here. But the Feb. 11 intrusion sent a ripple of fear through this tiny hamlet of 500 and was a reminder of the fragile security situation on Georgia's borders six months after its defeat in the August war with Russia.

"They're trying to make the situation more tense," said Nodari Longurashvili, 47, a farmer in Kvemo-Nikozi, which Russian troops occupied for nearly two months after the war. "They don't want our village to feel normal. They want to make us remember them."

That assessment is shared by Georgia's leaders, who say Russia has been orchestrating a series of escalating border incidents in an attempt to provoke a new conflict and create an atmosphere of instability in the country that would undermine its pro-Western government and frighten off investors.

"This is the biggest challenge," President Mikheil Saakashvili said in an interview. "Of course, investment flows will stop, and that's what keeps this country going."

He said Georgia is determined not to be baited into a new confrontation but that it has limited options for countering the Russian moves. "That's why we really need strong international involvement," he said.

Russian and Georgian negotiators agreed at international talks in Geneva on Wednesday to establish a hotline and regular contacts between local police officials in an attempt to prevent incidents from escalating. But both sides expressed caution about how effective the accord would be.

In the past five months, sniper fire has killed 11 Georgian police officers and wounded 22 in the border areas next to the two breakaway regions protected by Russian forces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, according to Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili. One officer was shot to death minutes after leaving a meeting with European monitors, he said.

In another incident, a group of armed men wearing military fatigues crossed into Georgia this month and stopped a car on a stretch of highway near the South Ossetian border, seizing the vehicle and one of its passengers, a prominent soccer referee.

The Feb. 7 abduction, which followed at least 10 kidnappings in Georgian border areas in recent months, caused particular alarm because the highway is Georgia's main east-west artery. If security on the road becomes a problem, it could choke trade and investment across the country, officials said.

"For Russia, it was never just about these two territories," said Giga Bokeria, Georgia's deputy foreign minister. "The prize for them is to get Georgia back into their back yard, to have a weak government here. . . . That goal hasn't been achieved, and that's why they're doing this.

Malkhaz Beuklishvili, 36, the referee who was abducted, said the men who seized him spoke Ossetian and took him to South Ossetia without being stopped on either side of the border. They held him in a farmhouse, demanding money and occasionally beating him, but surrendered him to Russian and Ossetian soldiers after being stopped at a checkpoint the next day.

As he was being driven away, the referee said, he looked back and saw his former captors chatting with the other soldiers. "They didn't handcuff them. They just stood and talked. I don't know what happened to them, whether they were detained or not," he said.

South Ossetian authorities released Beuklishvili after the intervention of the International Committee of the Red Cross and European observers, and said the abduction was being investigated.

But Merabishvili, the interior minister, said that none of the kidnappings or sniper shootings has resulted in arrests and that 12 Georgian citizens in the border areas are still missing. "It's clear for us that the Russians are doing it or encouraging it," he said. "They're trying to destroy the Georgian state."

Russia denied that its soldiers entered Kvemo-Nikozi and said it is Georgia that is taking provocative actions, by kidnapping South Ossetians and building up its military forces in the border regions.

The European Union's monitoring mission in Georgia, however, said it has inspected all key Georgian military posts in the border areas and found no buildup of forces.

Georgia signed an agreement with the E.U. mission in late January to withdraw heavy weapons from a buffer zone near the borders, and the Europeans have called on Russia to reciprocate.

Russian officials have dismissed the measure as ineffective and argued that only Georgian forces need to be restricted because they attacked South Ossetia in August, while Russian troops in the region are protecting newly independent states.

E.U. observers have not been granted access to South Ossetia or Abkhazia, and a smaller European monitoring team that has also been blocked from entering the territories is scheduled to withdraw within months at Russia's insistence.

After the August war, Russia recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as sovereign nations over the objections of Georgia, the United States and much of Europe. It withdrew its troops from adjacent Georgian territory in early October, after the European Union agreed to send the monitoring mission.

But according to Georgian, European and American officials, Russia remains in violation of the cease-fire deal brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, which called on both sides to pull troops back to pre-war positions and levels. About 8,000 Russian soldiers are stationed in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, almost three times the previous number, and they hold positions closer to the border than before the war, Georgian officials say.

Russian forces also continue to occupy the large Akhalgori district in South Ossetia, which was under Georgian control before the war, and have announced plans to build military bases in the disputed territories.

Georgian officials acknowledged that the country is more vulnerable than it was before the war, and said the government is working with the Pentagon to improve the nation's military and upgrade its air defenses. But they said there is little the army can do to stop a Russian attack or the erosion of security along the border.

"We're working hard to stay on the radar of the international community and make sure the price for these actions is as high as possible," Bokeria said. "That's the only way to deter Russia."

Special correspondent Temo Bardzimashvili in Tbilisi, Georgia, contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/21/AR2009022101752_2.html