Georgia readies its troops after raids in separatist province
Posted: 09 July 2004 0235 hrs
VANATI, Georgia : Georgia poised its troops to move into the province of South Ossetia after an armed raid at a village enflamed tensions between Tbilisi and its separatist region to a point not seen in years.
President Mikhail Saakashvili rushed back from a state visit to Iran to take charge of the situation after a group of separatists disarmed a unit of Georgian peacekeepers at gunpoint.
It was the latest in a string of clashes that has raised fears that South Ossetia could erupt into armed conflict in the volatile region and Georgian officials said they had held talks on the crisis with top European and US officials.
The tiny mountainous northern province, on the border with Russia, is the scene of a tense three-way standoff between Georgia, South Ossetia's self-proclaimed breakaway regime and Russian peacekeepers who many in Georgia suspect of siding with the separatists.
Early Thursday, armed men entered the South Ossetian village of Vanati -- east of the capital Tskhinvali and populated by ethnic Georgians -- and disarmed a group of 30 to 40 Georgian members of a peacekeeping force stationed there.
Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania described the raid on Vanati as "an unprecedented insolent provocation implemented personally by (Ossetian separatist leader Eduard) Kokoity."
"We are still hoping for a peaceful resolution of the conflict," Zhvania told reporters late Thursday after meeting with power ministries. But "we have plenty of strength to defend our people and have the ability to stop the Ossetian side's aggression and provocations."
South Ossetia's self-declared government defended the raid and vowed more, saying the detained men were troublemakers masquerading as members of the joint Russian, Georgian and Ossetian peacekeeping force.
"We are on the edge of widescale military action," RIA Novosti reported Ossetia's chief Eduard Kokoity as saying.
"A series of these actions will be held throughout South Ossetia to clean the republic of these bands that call themselves part of the interior ministry or defense ministry," Ossetia's interior minister Robert Guliyev vowed in televised comments.
Television images showed the group of several dozen men in blue shirts being forced to their knees with hands behind their heads in order for television crews to film them in South Ossetia's main city Tskhinvali.
Georgia said Russia -- which has become an effective protector of the rebel province -- was partly responsible for the escalation.
"We place responsibility not only on the criminal government of South Ossetia but also on the country that took upon itself... the peacekeeping mission in the region," Zhvania said.
"We are waiting for concrete results," he said, adding that he had discussed the situation with US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's chief Solomon Passy.
"Washington expressed its absolute support for Georgia's position" in the conflict, he said. "The US administration intends to join the talks with the Russian administration on this issue."
Moscow, the region's traditional power broker that is vying to keep its influence from slipping away to the US, called for calm.
"Moscow calls on the sides to show maximum restraint not to allow actions... that could make the situation more difficult," Alexander Yakovenko, Russian foreign ministry spokesman, said in televised comments.
Late Thursday, armed Ossetians were still blocking Vanati, where a crowd of armed men had gathered and periodic shots were heard.
"We want the army to come and defend us," said Nudzar, a resident.
South Ossetia declared independence from Tbilisi after it fought a short civil war with Russian support in the early 1990s.
President Saakashvili, a 36-year-old reformer, has vowed to bring South Ossetia back into the national fold, a move resisted by the separatist region's chief and watched warily by Russia.
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