Abkhaz Front Crossed the Border
// Ultimatum given to Georgia
Yesterday Abkhazia’s government and the command of Russia’s peace-keepers issued an ultimatum to the Georgian troops deployed in the zone of the Georgia-Abkhaz conflict. They demand that the Georgians disarm. In case the requirement is not fulfilled, Russian and Abkhaz units threatened to apply “all necessary coercive measures”. However, the Georgian military defied the ultimatum. A Georgian brigade from Iraq is going to the area to help the units.
Yesterday 9.000 Russian military men and 350 machines were deployed in Abkhazia. “The units entered Abkhazia to protect Russia’s peace-keepers and the natives first of all, who are the citizens of the Russian Federation,” Nikolay Ignatov, commander of the Air Force headquarters, explained. According to Russia’s commanders, it was done on request of the Abkhaz authorities, who are afraid that the South Ossetian scenario may repeat on their territory.
By the time Russia’s units came, Abkhazia’s military groups had already been deployed near the Georgian border along the Inguri river. They had also blocked the Georgian troops in the Kodori Gorge. In the morning the Georgian command received an ultimatum. “Today we gave an ultimatum to the Defense Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the police, and other law-enforcement bodies of Georgia. The ultimatum reads that there is complete demilitarization in the conflict zone,” commander of Russia’s peace-keepers Sergey Chaban stated.
It need be reminded that, according to the Moscow agreements of 1994, the ceasefire line between Georgia and Abkhazia in the Gal region lies along the Inguri river. The 12-kilometer zones on either bank of the river are considered “security zones”, where the parties have no right to deploy troops except for police. For all that, Abkhazia’s authorities claim that Georgia violates the agreement and has a 1.500 group of the Interior Ministry’s special forces near the town of Zugdidi, 4 kilometers away from the Inguri.
The Georgian President’s envoy to the Samerelo-Zemo Svaneti region Zaza Gorozia told Kommersant that general Chaban handed over the ultimatum to him personally. “He (Chaban – Kommersant) came here accompanied by Russia’s commandos and several peace-keeping officers,” Mr Gorozia said. “They all had AK-47s and behaved in a rude manner.”
Russia’s military suggested that the Georgian soldiers disarm leaving only guns with them “to avoid escalation of criminality”. The general warned that in case the Georgian party doesn’t fulfill the requirements, the Russian military force “will use all coercive measures to disarm the units which are illegally occupying the conflict zone”.
Yesterday Zaza Gorozia assured Kommersant that there are only Georgian police officers in the Zugdidi region. “There is no heavy artillery of the Georgian army there,” the envoy stated. Later Georgian Interior Ministry’s spokesperson Shota Utiashvili told Kommersant that Tbilisi “is not going to fulfill the requirements listed in Chaban’s illegal ultimatum”, because “peace-keepers have no right to disarm police officers, and Georgia doesn’t have any other armed groups in the conflict zone”.
Yesterday Abkhazia’s units blocked the Georgian troops in the Upper Kodori. “All roads, mountain paths and ways out of the district have been blocked,” Defense Minister of the breakaway republic Mirab Kishmaria said. According to him, the Georgian party “has been allowed to use a humanitarian corridor so that the soldiers and civilian population could leave the Upper Kodori.” “If Georgia’s military don’t use this opportunity, we’ll launch an operation to annihilate them,” Mr Kishmaria stated.
However, according to Timur Mzhavia, the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Abkhaz Autonomous Republic (now in exile), the Georgian population had been taken away from the area in advance. “There are only Georgia’s police units there, which guard those settlements, and now they are under the Russian Air Force’s relentless fire,” Mr Mzhavia told Kommersant. He argues that the Georgian police officers have so far managed to resist, and they have even shot down a Russian assault jet. “They are not going to retreat,” Timur Mzhavia assured Kommersant.
Yesterday an infantry brigade from Georgia’s mission in Iraq was sent to the conflict zone. Thanks to the help of the United States, as many as 800 military men out of the 2.000 are in Georgia with all necessary equipment. The brigade is planned to be engaged in the Abkhaz direction, where, in the view of Tbilisi, the Russian troops may launch an attack at any moment.
Georgy Dvali, Tbilisi; Alexander Reutov
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 12, 2008
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