Russian-backed paramilitaries 'ethnically cleansing villages'

[Rusiko Amirejibi-Mullen]

Russian-backed paramilitaries 'ethnically cleansing villages'
August 27, 2008

South Ossetian militiamen have reportedly torched houses, beaten  
elderly people and murdered civilians

James Hider in Gori

Russian-backed paramilitaries are ethnically cleansing villages on  
Georgian soil, refugees and officials told The Times today.

South Ossetian militiamen have torched houses, beaten elderly people  
and even murdered civilians in the lawless buffer zone set up by the  
Russian army just north of Gori.

The violence - close to the border with breakaway republic whose  
independence Russia recognized this week - has triggered a new wave of  
refugees into Gori, 40 miles north of Tblisi.

People who had started to return to their villages in the area now  
fleeing for a second time, joined by old people who had refused to  
leave their homes when the Russians stormed in two weeks ago.

A straggle of refugees, some of them in tears, gathered today at the  
feet of a giant statue of Josef Stalin, Gori?s most infamous native  
son, to register with the local authorities and the UN refugee agency,  
the UNHCR, for emergency supplies and accommodation in three tent  
cities being built by the football stadium.

?They had no uniform, I think they were Ossetians,? said Siyala  
Sereteli, a 73-year-old woman who fled her village of Irganeteye the  
day before when irregular forces arrived. Crying, she lifted her  
sleeve to show a deep bruise from a blow with a rifle stock. ?They  
took everything they wanted, even the fans, and beat up a man using  
sticks and a chair and then threw him in the river,? she said.

Other refugees clustered in the shabby city hall to see if they could  
glean news of relatives still inside the buffer zone which Russia said  
it had established to prevent Georgian attacks on South Ossetians.  
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has himself accused Georgia of  
?genocide? against South Ossetians.

A look of deep shock froze the face of Oliko Gnolidze when she managed  
to make contact on her mobile phone with her uncle Nodari Jashiashvili  
in Tkviai, just a 20 minute drive up the road.

?There is panic here, they are burning houses,? came the crackly voice  
of her uncle. ?I don?t know what to do. Ossetians are in the village.?  
Ms Gnolidze, 38, said that in earlier conversations, her uncle had  
told her only a few people remained in the village, with Ossetian  
irregulars looting under the noses of Russian troops, officially  
called "peacekeepers" by Moscow. She said the Russians had forced her  
uncle to cook for them because they were hungry, after which he had  
fled and hidden in nearby woods.

Shorta Kharadze, a 45-year-old truck driver, returned to Gori from  
Tblisi, where he had sheltered during the fighting, after his mother?s  
neighbours from the village of Megheverizkevi informed him the old  
woman had been murdered by South Ossetian militiamen.

Looking gaunt, Mr Kharadaze said the neighbours had telephoned him to  
say that two men in uniform had come to the home of his 77-year-old  
mother, Oliya, and asked her why she hadn?t left the village. His  
mother had been wounded in the arm during the fighting in the area but  
had refused to leave.

?They beat her with an axe handle. There?s a pond in our yard, she  
fell near it and they pushed her in. I don?t know if she was still  
alive when they pushed her in or if she drowned,? said Mr Kharadze,  
interrupted by a phone call from a worried relative whom he told, ?I  
can?t take the body out of the village.?

Hanging up, he explained, ?There are only a few old women left in the  
village, they can?t bury the body. But it?s not safe to go back, I  
don?t want to die too.?

?It?s like ethnic cleansing, genocide,? said Koba Tlashadze a council  
official in Gori, which was itself briefly occupied by Russian forces  
before last week?s ceasefire. ?It?s a special operation codenamed  
?Clean Field,? because they are emptying the villages.?

The UNHCR has voiced its concern about reports of ?new forcible  
displacement caused by marauding militias north of Gori near the  
boundary with South Ossetia?. It said as many as 400 displaced people  
had gathered on Gori?s square on Tuesday ?after being forced to flee  
their villages by marauders operating in the so-called buffer zone  
established along the boundary with South Ossetia".

?Those newly displaced claimed that some had been beaten, harassed and  
robbed and said that three persons had reportedly been killed,? the  
agency said.

Alessandra Morelli, a UNHCR coordinator in Gori, said confirming the  
stories was impossible because Russian checkpoints sealed off the  
buffer zone. ?We are concerned about this trend,? she said.

Further west, in Borjomi, Georgia?s environment minister accused  
Russia of having deliberately started extensive forest fires in the  
country?s main natural park by firing incendiary flares into  
tinder-dry mountains during the fighting.

After a helicopter inspection of the still smouldering mountains,  
Irakli Ghvaladze said a special investigation was being set up into  
daily Russian strikes on the park - far from the area of military  
operations - for almost a week during the conflict.

?We have begun to investigate this ecocide,? he told The Times, adding  
that the fires had destroyed hundreds of hectares of forest because  
Georgian fire-fighting helicopters had been unable to operate for fear  
of being shot down by the Russian air force.

?Who knows why the Russians did this, they destroy everything,? he said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4621592.ece