Russia accuses Georgia of terrrorist acts

TBILISI, Georgia – While Russian forces have pulled back from some of their checkpoints inside Georgian territory, Moscow has stepped up its rhetoric against Tbilisi.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry yesterday accused “certain forces in Tbilisi” of deliberately attempting to “aggravate the situation in the region and through a series of terrorists acts attempt to provoke new military actions.”

Violence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Georgia’s two breakaway provinces, has been increasing with the approaching Oct. 10 deadline for the withdrawal of Russian troops to their positions on Aug. 7.

A bombing on Oct. 3 in Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, killed seven Russian soldiers. Russia and Georgia accused the other of being behind the bombing.

European Union civilian monitors are observing the withdrawal of Russian troops as part of the ceasefire agreement which helped end the August war between Russia and Georgia.

The Foreign Ministry said Russia is committed to fulfilling its “interpretation” of the ceasefire agreement.

More violence along borders with breakaway provinces

TBILISI, Georgia -- Another explosion occurred along the border of Abkhazia, one of Georgia's two breakaway provinces, Interfax News Agency has reported. No one was injured.

In an unrelated incident, an Abkhaz border guard was killed in a gunfight. No other details have been released.

As the deadline for the withdrawal of Russian troops approaches, several explosions and shootings have occurred in recent days in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Public Defender: replace "authoritarianism" with real democracy; opposition calls for free press

TBILISI, Georgia -- This country's fractious political opposition got together long enough to issue a joint statement today calling for a free press. President Mikheil Saakashvili has come under increasing criticism from political opposition and neutral non-government organizations over the past year for curtailing the independence of the media, especially television.

The most biting criticism has come from Georgia's Public Defender, Sozar Subari, who delivered a scathing public review of the government's record on democratic reform, civil liberties protection and market reform, among other issues. The Public Defender is essentially an ombudsman for Georgia's citizens with a ten-year term, and Subari is highly respected as a man of integrity. While many critiques of the government have smacked of political opportunism, Subari's seven-page report was an overall balanced view.

Subari called the existing system "authoritarianism" that should be replaced with real democracy. He derided Saakashvili's promise of a new round of reform, which he pledged at the UN, as merely superficial.

Subari called for establishing an independent judiciary and rule of law.

This is the most important next step towards greater reform, but few opposition parties have focused on it, according to Bakur Kvashilava, dean of the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs' School of Law and Politics.

It is evidence that the opposition doesn't have a much clearer concept of democracy than the current government, said Kvashilava.

Saakashvili's political opponents are using public frustration with the August defeat in Georgia's war with Russia to voice attacks on his administration. A former Saaskashvili insider and owner of one of the country's 3 major television networks, Erosi Kitsmarishvili, recently lashed out at his former ally, accusing him of subverting democracy in Georgia. Similarly, the ex-Prime Minister, Nino Burjanadze, delivered a long list of questions for the government to answer, such as: "Why the following documents signed by the Georgian authorities [in the aftermath of the August war] are not publicly accessible for the Georgian population?"

Several of the major opposition parties issued a statement today demanding media reform.

"There is no democracy without independent mass media and media freedom first of all means independence from the authorities. Today in Georgia all TV channels broadcasting countrywide are turned into a propagandistic tool of the authorities; instead of objective information mass media provides society with a virtual reality," the statement read.

The statement was signed by New Rights Party, Movement For United Georgia, Conservative Party, Labour Party, Republican Party, The Way of Georgia and Party of People.

The opposition control fewer than 30 seats in the 150-seat Parliament.

View of Tbilisi

TBILISI, Georgia -- A week ago I hiked up to Narikala Fortress, which overlooks the city. Very beautiful views.

If Russians leaving, why build resupply road?

AKHALGORI, Georgia -- Despite Russian pledges to withdraw to their positions prior to the August war with Georgia by the end of this week, Russian troops are upgrading a dirt road linking this town and South Ossetia's capital, Tskhinvali, which could signal their intention to stay.

Akhalgori is in a valley on South Ossetia's periphery, cut off by thickly wooded ridges from the rest of the de facto independent state. The valley had been controlled by Georgia since fighting began in the early 1990s, but in the aftermath of the August fighting, most of the Georgians have fled.

To resupply and rotate troops in the valley, Russian and South Ossetian forces have had to either drive through Georgian-controlled territory or use helicopters.

In recent weeks, soldiers have arrived using a dirt mountain road connecting Akhalgori to the villages in the adjacent valley to the west. The road requires four-wheel-drive vehicles and is impassable in winter.

"There's no real road there yet, but they're building it," said an elderly woman who gave only her first name, Yevgenia.

Russia is building a road because it and South Ossetia's separatist government aren't going to withdraw, said Alexander Rondeli, president of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies.

The only Georgians left in Akhalgori are the old and the poor. Everyone else moved south toward the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, when Russian and South Ossetian forces occupied the town in August.

Those remaining have little else to do but stand on the colorless street outside the few shops still open, smoke cigarettes, talk and watch the soldiers pass by every half-hour on patrol.

"There is no economic activity. They destroyed the vineyards, shops closed, nothing," said a middle-aged man who would only give his first name, Shota.

Like the rest of Akhalgori's ethnic Georgians, Shota fears reprisal from the Russian and South Ossetians stationed here.

"They get drunk and aim their weapons at people and shoot in the air. They beat people" for no reason, he said.

"All the young people have left" because they were beating them, said Yevgenia, a short woman with a weathered face.

"We can't go on like this. We're psychologically sick," she said. She began to cry and covered her face with her trembling hands.

"We're in prison here," she said.

Looting and beatings have calmed down in Akhalgori, but have continued in nearby villages since civilian European Union monitors began patrols Wednesday inside the roughly four-mile-wide buffer zone around South Ossetia and Georgia's other breakaway province, Abkhazia, several residents said.

The unarmed monitors patrol by car, talk with locals and try to verify any reported violations of the Georgian-Russian cease-fire agreement. They have no executive authority to enforce the agreement.

According to the French-brokered cease-fire, Russian and South Ossetian forces are supposed to withdraw from territory seized during the August war with Georgia by Oct. 10.

A spokesman for the European Union monitoring mission in Georgia said the EU had heard reports of road work, but had not been able to independently confirm them. It was speculation to assume that improving the dirt road out of Akhalgori means that the Russians are going to stay, the spokesman said. "There's nothing wrong with improving a road."

The EU expects Russia will uphold its commitments, the spokesman added.

Russia won't leave Akhalgori, said a Georgian Interior Ministry official who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.

"If Russia controls all of South Ossetia, it will be easier to call for its independence. The region [of Akhalgori] is otherwise fully connected with the rest of Georgia," he said.

"The Russians will say it's the Ossetians who are not withdrawing, and that they have nothing to do with it. But they have to be there because the Ossetians can't control the territory by themselves," he said.

Before the war, the area was Georgian-controlled and not part of the Russian peacekeeping mission.

"It's a very small district, which probably nobody had heard of before, that is now part of a big game," he said.

It is a game the area's inhabitants want no part of.

"The Russians want our land, but they don't want us," said Dmitri Rusi, who lives in nearby Odzisi.

(This article ran in the Washington Times, Oct. 5, and a different version ran in the Christian Science Monitor.)

U.S. crisis clouds aid to Georgia

(The Washington Times ran my article below today, Oct. 2.)

TBILISI, Georgia -- Refugees still occupy former offices in the defunct printing building at one end of Rustaveli Avenue, the central road through Tbilisi. Drying laundry hangs in the hallway, which reeks of the smell of beef cooking and urine.

"Our village doesn't exist anymore. Everything is burned. There are no houses," said Maria Davitashvili, 48. She and her relatives fled from their home in Tamarasheni, near Tskhinvali, the capital of the Georgian breakaway province of South Ossetia, now an "independent" state recognized by Russia.

The single room that Maria Davitashvili has shared with her relatives for the past six weeks. From left to right: Davitashvili; her nephew, Giorgi; her niece's friend; her sister-in-law, Nona; and her niece, Nino.

Giorgi Davitashvili, 5.

Interior courtyard of former printing building in Tbilisi occupied by several hundred refugees.

The situation in Georgia proper has stabilized somewhat as monitors from the European Union arrived Wednesday to patrol the border with South Ossetia. Still, the plight of the Georgian refugees remains acute.

U.S. and Georgian officials are discussing how to dispense the $1 billion in assistance pledged by President Bush at a time when the U.S. financial crisis and ongoing talks of an unprecedented government bailout of the credit industry have some here wondering whether the United States will make good on its promise.

"Headline numbers are made, 1 billion euros or $1 billion for Georgia, and history will show you that those headline figures aren't really followed through," said Jonathan Puddifoot, CARE International's director for Georgia.

Nongovernmental organizations delivering humanitarian assistance to Georgia are largely dependent on foreign-aid money, which makes up 90 percent of CARE's budget in Georgia, he said.

About $430 million of aid promised by Mr. Bush will not be allocated until next year, if then.

"It's clearly a decision that the next administration and next Congress will have to implement," said Richard Greene, the State Department's deputy director of foreign assistance.

U.S. aid will focus on repairing damaged infrastructure, stabilizing the economy and responding to the ongoing humanitarian crisis, Mr. Greene said.

Both major parties' presidential nominees, Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois Democrat, and Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, support the pledged aid.

However, in committee hearings in early September, Bush administration officials faced criticism of their policies toward Georgia and Russia from members of Congress in both parties, who were unhappy about being asked to bail out a country that many thought had provoked a Russian invasion.

Assured by Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried that the U.S. had warned Georgia against attacking South Ossetia, Rep. Brad Sherman, California Democrat, asked, "Then why is Georgia going to get a huge amount of funding from the United States for damage it suffered by ignoring the loudest and most specific warnings from the United States?"

With Georgia's economy weakened from the war, the state will need assistance to continue caring for its internal refugees next year, said Nikoloz Pruidze, deputy minister of labor, health and social affairs. Now, aid is going in large part to housing the refugees before winter.

U.S. and Georgian officials are discussing the specifics, but have not made any details public.

Their silence has some watchdog groups concerned.

Closed discussions weaken independent oversight of how the money is used, said Tamuna Karosanidze, executive director of Transparency International's Georgia office.

The petty corruption that flourished under Eduard Shevardnadze's regime has been cleaned up since Mikhail Saakashvili was elected president in 2004. However, there are already widespread charges of high-level officials prospering from foreign investment and government contracts, according to Transparency International.

It is a systemic problem that the government is not addressing, Miss Karosanidze said. And it is at odds with the image Georgia has promoted in the U.S. as a country dedicated to democratic and market reforms.

Mrs. Davitashvili, the refugee from South Ossetia, is confident the money will come.

"We haven't got any money yet, but we know the U.S. is helping. They've shown it on television," she said, as she offered a visitor some apples and candy.

She has shared a room with her brother, his wife and their two children since arriving in Tbilisi in early August. Russian troops and South Ossetian militia burned their houses, she said, and she doesn't know when she will be able to return. They left their village with only what they were wearing, she said.

Like other refugees in the half-gutted printing building, she and her brother's family are making do with donated goods - a handful of dishes and spare clothes, military cots and blankets and discarded office furniture.

There is no heat in the building, and in some rooms, boards partially cover empty windows to keep out the wind and rain. Upstairs, three men found a door and were discussing the best way to put it on the entry of a room for privacy.

"They destroyed many things, and we need money to put it back together," said Mrs. Davitashvili's brother, Dato.

EU monitors begin patrolling

TBILISI, Georgia -- The EU monitors began patrols today in some areas of a buffer zone around Georgia's two separatist provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russia had said yesterday that it would not allow the unarmed monitors into the buffer zone - a four-mile wide zone around the provinces set up under the French-brokered ceasefire agreement. However, the AP reports monitors have entered at some checkpoints.

Russian troops are supposed to pull out of territory controlled by Georgia before August's war by October 10.

As the deadline approaches tensions have been growing between Russia and Georgia over the past weeks. Georgia's Interior Ministry reports an unmanned aerial drone crashed inside Georgian territory on Tuesday. A Georgian policeman was killed and three injured in a firefight along the Abkhaz border on Sunday, September 21. In a separate incident that same day two policeman were injured by a mine blast in the same area.