Category: Southern Caucasus

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by: Christopher Torchia, The Associated Press

    Igoeti, Georgia – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a truce with Georgia on Saturday, a definitive step toward ending the fighting there despite the uncertainty on the ground reflected by Russian soldiers digging in just 30 miles from the Georgian capital.

    Medvedev spokesman Alexei Pavlov said Medvedev signed the agreement in the resort city of Sochi, where the president has a summer residence, but did not give further details. It was not immediately clear if any troops had begun pulling back after Medvedev signed the cease-fire.

    The agreement was signed by Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili the day before. It calls for both sides forces to pull back to positions they held before fighting erupted Aug. 8 after Georgia launched a massive barrage to try to take control of the Russian-backed separatist region of South Ossetia. The Russian army quickly overwhelmed the forces of its small U.S.-backed neighbor and then drove deep into Georgia.

    The Russian seizure of territory including the strategic city of Gori about 20 miles from Igoeti, raised fears that Russia aimed for a permanent occupation of the country that was once was part of its empire.

    The shallow foxholes being gouged out of the earth at Igoeti on Saturday could indicate the Russians’ intention to stay awhile. But they could be meant for defensive positions to guard their comrades as they withdraw.

    Farther up the road toward Gori, a Russian armored personnel carrier sat behind a newly made earthen embankment. Other military vehicles were on the roadside, camouflaged by tree branches.

    Refugees have begun returning to the heavily damaged South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali. On Saturday, many were sweeping up glass and debris from the fighting.

    Teams of ethnic Georgians, some under armed guard, were being forced to clean the streets of South Ossetia’s capital on Saturday. It was the first apparent evidence of humiliation or abuse of Georgians in the breakaway republic.

    Mikhail Mindzayev, the interior minister for South Ossetia said police were cracking down on looters. Officers shot and killed two looters on Thursday, he said, and if they catch someone with a car or truck loaded with furniture or TV sets — and the driver does not seem to be the rightful owner — both the goods and the car will be burned.

    Mindzayev described the situation in the city Saturday as “complicated and nervous.” He said that there were many unexploded shells laying on the ground. He also accused Georgian agents of shooting at people in the city, a claim that could not be independently confirmed.

    Russian Emergency Situations Ministry troops were erecting a camp near the scorched shell of the South Ossetian parliament building. For the first time in days, there were more cars on the street than tanks.

    Farther south, the Russian presence in Gori is strategically critical: The city sits along Georgia’s only significant east-west highway, allowing the Russians effectively to split the nation in two.

    As in many parts of Georgia, aid has been slow to come. On Thursday, staff from the United Nations refugee agency and its World Food Program hoped to enter Gori to assess whether it was safe to deliver humanitarian aid.

    The situation turned ugly. South Ossetian militiamen appeared, pointing weapons, and began shoving civilians and shouting at people to leave the area.

    Georgian police had come to enter Gori but turned back when confrontation developed between the Russian military and the Georgian army.

    On Friday, Russian military vehicles were blocking the eastern road into the city, although they allowed in one Georgia bus filled with loaves of bread.

    Garadzim Tamgiashvili, 46, an unemployed electrician with graying red hair, said there was a lot of looting in the city by South Ossetians and Russians before the Russian military arrived. He said they killed civilians.

    He said the Russian soldiers told him they planned to “give it to the Americans.”

    “We know this is a war between the West and Russia,” he said.

    Residents reported atrocities in the villages between Gori and Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian provincial capital. Outside Gori, an Associated Press reporter saw a burning wheat field. In the village of Tirdznise, the body of a Georgian soldier lay swollen in the heat.

    But for the moment, Gori itself seemed to be a showcase. The Russian troops had stopped the looting, restored order.

    One of the few younger women left was Iya Kinvilashvili, 30, the owner of a now-empty shop. Standing next to a church that has organized handouts of bread and flour, she said the Russians were behaving well.

    “When is peace coming?” she asked. “We only want peace. We never wanted this war.”

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    Associated Press writers Mansur Mirovalev in Gori and Tskhinvali and Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this report

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Russian forces still entrenched in Georgia

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press Writer Sat Aug 16, 6:38 PM ET

IGOETI, Georgia – Russian forces built ramparts around tanks and posted sentries on a hill in central Georgia on Saturday, digging in despite Western pressure for Moscow to withdraw its forces under a cease-fire deal signed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

The United States and France said it appeared Russia was defying the truce already. Russian troops still controlled two Georgian cities and the key east-west highway between them Saturday, cities well outside the breakaway provinces where earlier fighting was focused.

“From my point of view — and I am in contact with the French — the Russians are perhaps already not honoring their word,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

U.S. President George W. Bush warned Russia Saturday that it cannot lay claim to the two separatist regions in U.S.-backed Georgia even though their sympathies lie with Moscow. “There is no room for debate on this matter,” the president, with Rice, told reporters at his Texas ranch.

But Georgia’s Foreign Ministry accused Russian army units and separatist fighters in one of the regions, Abkhazia, of taking over 13 villages and the Inguri hydropower plant Saturday, shifting the border of the Black sea province toward the Inguri River.

Abkhaz officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the late-night claim, and there was no information on whether the seizure involved violence.

The villages and plant are in a U.N.-established buffer zone on Abkhazia’s edge, and it appeared that the separatists were bolstering their control over the zone after Russian-backed fighters forced Georgians out of their last stronghold in Abkhazia earlier this week.

The tense peace pact in Georgia, a U.S. ally that has emerged as a proxy for conflict between an emboldened Russia and the West, calls for both Russian and Georgian forces to pull back to positions they held before fighting erupted Aug. 7 in the other breakaway province, South Ossetia in central Georgia.

But freshly dug positions of Russian armor in the town of Igoeti, about 30 miles west of the capital Tbilisi, showed that Russia was observing the truce at the pace and scope of its choosing.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, acknowledged that Medvedev had signed the cease-fire deal and ordered its implementation, but he said Russian troops would not withdraw until Moscow is satisfied that security measures its forces are allowed to take under the agreement are effective.

He also said Russia would strengthen its peacekeeping contingent in South Ossetia, the separatist Georgian region at the center of more than a week of warfare that sharply soured relations between Moscow and the West.

“As these additional security measures are taken, the units of the Russian armed forces that were sent into the zone of the South Ossetian conflict … will be withdrawn,” he said.

Asked how much time it would take, he responded: “As much as is needed.”

Rice bristled at this, saying that the text of the cease-fire agreement, negotiated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the current leader of the European Union, outlined a very limited mandate only for Russian peacekeepers who were in Georgia at the time hostilities escalated. She said the agreement specifies that these initial peacekeepers can have limited patrols in a prescribed area within the conflict zone and would not be allowed to go into Georgian urban areas or tie up a cross-country highway.

According to Rice, Medvedev told Sarkozy that the minute the Georgian president signed the cease-fire agreement, Russian forces would begin to withdraw.

Sarkozy said Saturday that the truce explicitly bars Russian troops from Gori or “any major urban area” of Georgia.

Earlier Saturday, Russian forces dug shallow foxholes in the middle of Igoeti and parked tanks, one flying a Russian flag, along the road. In the afternoon, they withdrew from those positions to the town’s western outskirts. There, they set up defensive positions with tank cannons pointed back toward Georgian-held territory, where police and soldiers milled about, awaiting Russia‘s next move.

West of Igoeti, Russian troops were deployed in large numbers in and around the strategic city of Gori, which endured an intense Russian bombardment during the fighting that began when Georgia attacked its breakaway region of South Ossetia. Military vehicles on the side of the road were camouflaged with branches; a couple of soldiers slept on stretchers in the shade of the hulking machines.

Russian troops effectively control the main artery running through the western half of Georgia, because they surround the strategic central city of Gori and the city and air base of Senaki in the west. Both cities sit on the main east-west highway that slices through two Georgian mountain ranges.

Controlling Senaki, which sits on a key intersection, also means the Russians control access to the Black Sea port city of Poti and the road north to another breakaway region, Abkhazia. AP reporters have seen Russian troops there for days but noted a growing contingent Saturday and artillery guns and tanks pointed out from the city, which they appear to be using as a base for their sorties elsewhere in western Georgia.

An Associated Press Television News team saw Russian soldiers pulling out of the Black Sea port of Poti Saturday after sinking Georgian naval vessels and ransacking the port. A picture of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in the looted office of the Navy and Coast Guard had been vandalized, with the face scratched out.

“They have robbed the military base and taken almost everything, and they have burned or sunk the stuff they could not carry,” port worker Zurab Simonia said.

Lavrov was not specific about the security measures planned, but suggested they would be limited mostly to South Ossetia, not Georgia proper. He accused Georgia of undermining security, citing the Russian military’s claim that it had averted an attack on a highway tunnel by stopping a car laden with grenade launchers and ammunition.

“We are constantly encountering problems from the Georgian side, and everything will depend on how effectively and quickly these problems are resolved,” he said.

Georgia, meanwhile, claimed that Russian forces blew up a railroad bridge Saturday. Russia denied it.

The rival claims underscored the fragility of the cease-fire. Lavrov said the deal Saakashvili signed Friday differed from the one with Medvedev’s signature, with Saakashvili’s version lacking an introductory preamble. While that difference may appear to be a technicality, it could be one either side could cite if it wants to abandon the deal.

The conflict erupted after Georgia launched a massive barrage to try to take control of South Ossetia. The Russian army quickly overwhelmed its neighbor’s forces and drove deep into Georgia, raising fears that it was planning on a long-term occupation.

Even if Russian forces do withdraw from the rest of Georgia, Moscow appears likely to maintain strong control over South Ossetia. Lavrov said Thursday that Georgia can “forget about” South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which broke from Georgian government control in early 1990s wars, and their future status is shaping up as a potentially explosive source of tension.

In Texas, Bush said, “A major issue is Russia’s contention that the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia may not be a part of Georgia’s future. These regions are a part of Georgia and the international community has repeatedly made clear that they will remain so.”

Russia views the growing relationship between the U.S. and Georgia as an encroachment on its traditional sphere of influence and a threat to its clout. The fighting came amid U.S. efforts to close a deal on a missile shield based in former Soviet satellites in Europe, an issue already damaging ties with its former Cold War foe.

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Associated Press writers Mansur Mirovalev in Gori and Tskhinvali, Jim Heintz, Angela Charlton and Steve Gutterman in Moscow, and Deb Riechmann in Crawford, Texas contributed to this report.