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Limited Border Contingent
Another round of negotiations on the deadline of the withdrawal of the Russian military bases from Georgia held in Tbilisi on April 14 and 15 gave no results. If Russia and Georgia fail to reach an agreement before May 15, the Russian military deployed in Georgia will be outlawed. The “Vlast” correspondent,Olga Allenova, who has visited the Russian military bases in Georgia, couldn't understand why such situation would be worse than the present one.
"A Massacre Will Begin Again Just Like in 1915?"
A long column of trucks, buses and cars stood on the side of the road. The town of Borzhomi, which has been cut from electricity supply for the third day running, declared a strike and blocked the road from Tbilisi to the mountain town of Akhalkalaki, where a Russian military base is situated. This is the only road connecting Western Georgia with the district of Dzhavakhetia, inhabited by Armenians, and with Armenia. This is why electricity is switched on in Borzhomi by the end of the day. But people do not disperse, they are afraid that at night it will be switched off again. They started a bonfire right in the middle of the road and drink chacha (a home-made fruit vodka), trying to warm themselves in the cold night breeze. The road was opened only by night; officials of the local administration came and promised the men picketing the road a meeting with the governor.
It took one hour to get to Akhalkalaki from Borzhomi previously. Now even four hours will not be enough. Akhalkalaki practically ceased to exist as a town. The road is like a trench for training soldiers to shoot from the lying position. We are accompanied by Lieuenant Colonel Sergey, an Armenian, one of the commanding officers of the base. Another man going with us is Gurgen Babayan, an active member of the movement “Yediny Dzhavakh” (“United Dzhavakh”) which is opposed to the withdrawal of the Russian base. It has organized several meetings attended by some 5,000. On the way Sergey tells us why the local Armenians have declared that they'd rather lie under tanks than allow the base to be dismantled and withdrawn.
He says that it's only 40 kilometres from the border with Turkey. The fact that the local polulation depends financially on the base is quite important, of course. But this is not the main thing. What's the most important is that if the base leaves the place, it will be taken by NATO, that is, Turkey. And a massacre will begin again, just as in 1915. The memory of those days still lives on in Armenian children and grandchildren. The Armenians will rather die than let the Turks come to this place.
“Why do you think that a Turkish base will be here?” I asked Sergey. “The Georgian authorities say that local army units will be deployed here.”
“The Georgians will not survive here,” Gurgen says. “It is too high, they are used to another climate. Besides, our conditions are very harsh, you'll see for yourself. But the main thing is that people fear the Turks. Turkey has not admitted to this day that it was guilty of the genocide.
“We Learned How to Survive”
We arrive to the base. There are still traces of the former grandeur, when a 14,000-strong division was deployed here. But time has taken its toll. Therev are grey, half-dilapidated houses, cracked wooden window-frames, shivering cold in the officers club, which is housed in a former Cossack church, 100 years old. It was under repairs for the last time in 1957.
Colonel Vladimir Khromenko, the deputy commander of the base, says that the Russian military bases are openly squeezed out from Georgia. Those who have to demobilize and go back to Russia are not issued exit visas by the Georgian authorities, and those who should come to replace them are not given entry visas.
I asked why.
The colonel continued. “There's a host of problems. We cannot travel across Georgia and get enough fuel and food supplies. The border post Ninotsminde on the frontier with Armenia is closed for us. To get to our Gyumri base in Armenia which is about 50 kilometres away, we have to go first to Tbilisi and from there to Armenia, that is, to cover some 600 kilometres. The commander of the Transcaucasian group of the Russian army, General Bespalov, is in Gyumri, and the Georgian authorities do not issue an entry visa to him for several months already. Of course, we are able to cope with all these problems somehow, buying food on the market, etc., but this is not a proper solution.”
The colonel went outside where it was much warmer than in the club. I looked into a tiny room in the church. There were icons on the walls, candles were burning and the Bible lay on the table. Tamara Abuladze, a telephone operator, born in Akhaltshi in Georgia, looks after it. She has been a Russian citizens for quite sometime, her brother is a Russian army officer. She will also go to Russia when the base is dismantled, because there will be no work for her. The base is the only source of income for the local population. This is admitted even by the Prime Minister of Georgia, Zurab Nogaideli, who said that there would be no jobs in Akhalkalaki when the Russian military leave.
At the headquarters Colonel Khromenko showed my a map and said that the base is a strategically important object for Russia. But the country's leadership began to think of it too late.
“Nothing can be done now,” Colonel Khromenko says. “We must survive with dignity, but they want to kick us out from here. They may outlaw us, switch off light, gas, etc. But we'll manage somehow. We are used to living without light for almost two years. We shall not leave the place until Moscow orders us to do this.”
Officers say that if the base is dismantled, it will be transferred to Botlikh, Daghestan. As far as I could understand from our conversation, nobody wants to go there. Besides, the residents of Botlikh have recently held a meeting protesting against the deployment of a military base there and blocked the road leading to it. But officers are not asked whether they wish to serve in Botlikh or not. There are very few military bases in Russia adapted to functioning in high-mountain conditions, and the country needs to have such units. But there are no necessary infrastructure in Botlikh, practically nothing for deploying a new contingent.
“We lived enough time in tents,” one of the officers says. “I served in Kutaisi and remember how we withdrew the Kutaisi corps. It was a heavy blow at officers and men. Their belongings were packed in huge nets and half of them were later thrown into the sea. It took three months to withdraw our corps. But machines and hardware were left and turned over to the Georgian side.” Colonel Khromenko believes that it will take no less than seven years to dismatle and withdraw the Akhalkalaki base, because it is high up in the mountains and it's very difficult to remove and transport heavy military equipment.
“A Critical Situation Will Begin on May 15”
The mood of the officers at the Batumi base differs very little from that at Akhalkalaki. At the base headquarters I talk to Lieutenant-Colonel Vladimir Belov, the deputy commander. He repeats almost word for word what I heard from Colonel Khromenko. “They don't give us exit and entry visas. Thus we cannot send our soldiers back home after the end of their term of service.”
Colonel Alexander Zakharov, the deputy commander of the group of the Russian forces in the Transcaucasus, who is in Batumi on an inspection tour, confirms that the Georgian side is doing everything in its power to squeeze the Russian military out of the country. They prevent food and fuel supplies and set hundreds and thousands of bureaucratic obstacles in the way of normal living and functioning.
“This means that you're in a critical situation?”
“A critical situation will begin on May 15, if our countries do not reach an agreement on the matter. Because they will begin to catch our servicemen as thieves and expel them. And they will swich off electricity, water, etc. If our top officials do not agree, we shall stay here as hostages.”
“We're Practically Encircled”
While we were going to the Gonio proving ground, Vladimir Belov told us about how difficult, almost impossible, it would be to dismantle and withdraw the bases. The Georgian authorities insist precisely on their deadline, whereas the Russian side agrees to three-four years at the minimum. It should be taken into account that all equipment, hardware and the rest of the property will be taken via the Black Sea, and the Black Sea Fleet has only two big vessels available, which cannot work for this purpose alone.
The small Gonio proving ground borders on the sea. A virtual cold war is waged for this strip of land. The Georgian authorities want to take it away for non-payment of lease since 1993. But, as Vladimir Belov explains, there has been no lease agreement, and the situation in the Russian-Georgian relations was quite different. Now the Georgian side presents claims to a sum of $2 million. “How did they calculate this sum?”
The old bridge leading to the ground has been blocked by local residents, so that military vehicles and hardware cannot be taken to the base. They remain there all the time.
In general, there are big storehouses of military equipment and ammunition in Batumi, but the Georgian authorities do not give permission to take them either back to Russia or to neighbouring Armenia.
“We're Staying Not Because We Like It here”
Two hours later, when we returned to the base, I met Vladimir Kuparadze, the deputy commander, who has been serving first in the Soviet and now in the Russian army. He said that the decision of the Georgian parliament to outlaw the bases couldn't but cause surprise and consternation, to say the least. Eight hundred Russian servicemen are unable to leave Georgia because they are not granted exit visas, and about one thousand men and officers cannot come to replace them because they are not issued entry visas.
Then I talked to the commander of the base, General Danilov. He told me about several meetings of local residents which were obviously staged to provoke our men to use arms. During the last meeting young lads tore down the signboard on the gates to the base and broke it ostentatiously. General Danilov is sure that the meeting has been prepared by the authorities, for these young men were brought to the base by several minicipal buses.
General Danilov said that it would take no less than four years to dismantle and withdraw everything stationed in Georgia. The transport infrastructure is in a bad way in the country, besides, the terrain is very difficult (two mountain passes, etc.). The Georgian authorities insist on our moving away as quickly as possible, because they well realize that if we comply with their demands we will be unable to take our equipment, machines and hardware with us and will have to leave them here, in Georgia. But we will not do this.
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Russian Military Bases in Georgia
There are two Russian military bases deployed in Georgia: the 12th in Batumi and the 62nd in Akhalkalaki. There are also some auxiliary units stationed there.
The 12th military base has been formed on the basis of the 145th motorized infantry division of the Transcaucasian Military Area. It consists of two motorized infantry regiments, one artillery regiment and one anti-aircraft regiment. Its total numerical strength is about 2,600 men and officers, and it is armed with 74 tanks, 80 armoured vehicles and 120 artillery systems.
The 62nd military base has been formed on the basis of the 147th motorized infantry division of the Transcaucasian Military Area and it consists of two motorized infantry regiments and one artillery regiment. Its numerical strength is more than 2,000 men and officers, and it has 40 tanks, 137 armoured vehicles and about 50 artillery systems.
In all, there are up to 5,000 Russian servicemen on Georgian territory, 115 tanks, 220 armoured vehicles and 170 artillery systems, not counting the Russian peacekeeping units in Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia.
The Russian divisions received the status of military bases under the Collective Security Treaty of May 15, 1992. As a result, four military bases appeared on Georgian territory. On September 15, 1995, an agreement was signed between Russia and Georgia in Tbilisi which confirmed the deployment of the Russian military bases in the country for the period of 25 years.
On November 17, at the summit of OSCE in Istanbul, Russia pledged to withdraw its military equipment and hardware from the 137th military base in Vasiani and the 50th military base in Gudauta and dismantle them by July 1, 2001, which it did.
As to the deadlines of the withdrawal of the military bases in Akhalkalaki and Batumi, the two sides intended to agree on them before the end of 2001. However, they failed to reach an agreement. Russia demanded at first 15 years, then 12 years and lastly up to eight years for the purpose.
On March 10, 2005, Georgian parliament adopted a decision which set May 15 the last day to agree on the deadline of Russian troops withdrawal. If this is not done, the Georgian leadership should demand that Russia dismantle and withdraw its bases by January 1, 2006. After that Russia began to talk of the four-year term of “full-fledged finctioning” of the bases, after which their dismantling and withdrawal would start. Georgia does not agree with this. It insists on the immediate beginning of dismantling and withdrawing the bases, for which it allots up to three years. Two latest rounds of negotiations on the matter (in March and April) didn't give any results.
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 25, 2005
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Photo: Valery Melnikov