Fears of New War Rise Around Separatist Abkhazia

Fears of new war rise around separatist Abkhazia
By Matt Siegel | Yahoo!News.com

The crackle of gunfire at night makes sleep all but impossible along Georgia's border with separatist Abkhazia, feeding the fears of so many here that the war they hoped was over may be erupting anew.

A cease-fire ended major hostilities between Georgia and Russia after August's five-day war. But shootings and bombings continue — and nowhere more so than here along the poorly defined, porous border that separates Georgia proper from Abkhazia.

Most of the world's attention has focused on the uneasy peace around war-ravaged South Ossetia, the other Russian-backed separatist region that was at the heart of the fighting.

But Georgians who live along the border with the rugged mountainous region of Abkhazia in western Georgia are terrified that a new war is at hand. They fear the latest violence is aimed at driving them from their homes so Abkhaz forces can sweep in unopposed to take their land.

"We live under constant fear," said Eros, a 50-year-old, out-of-work man. He refused to give his last name, saying he was afraid of retaliation from Abkhaz paramilitaries who move across the border with impunity.

Both Georgia and Abkhazia blame the other for the violence.

On Georgia's side, three police officers have been shot dead from positions just across the border in the last two weeks. In the deadliest attack, the mayor of this border village and a resident were killed by what the Georgian Interior Ministry says was a remotely detonated landmine. A police officer also was severely wounded.

Abkhazia acknowledges its soldiers have fired across the border and may have hit the Georgian police, but says they fire only in response to Georgian attacks.

On the territory of Abkhazia, five people have been killed and several wounded in 13 attacks since Aug. 29, Abkhaz Deputy Foreign Minister Maxim Gvindzhiya told The Associated Press.

He said there was evidence the attacks were carried out by Georgian agents intent on portraying the separatist republic as unstable. Georgia accuses Abkhazia of plotting to use the violence to justify a military incursion into Georgian territory.

"This media campaign against us, saying that we are attacking them every day, it reminds me of the period just before the war," said Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili.

The village of Mujhava sits aside the administrative border that has separated Georgia and Abkhazia since Abkhazia first broke away from Georgian control in the early 1990s.

Nestled in a valley amid densely forested mountain peaks, Mujhava illustrates some of the formidable obstacles in bringing calm to the border: Local police here could not even explain precisely where the border was.

Police blocked a reporter from inspecting the house where the bombing occurred. Curtains fluttered out of open windows, and police said they were afraid to shut the windows, fearing they could be boobytrapped.

Georgian police and villagers blame Abkhaz forces for the violence.

"If I talk to you the Abkhazians will catch me," said one frightened villager, who quickly walked away when he realized that he was speaking to a reporter. "I live around this area, it's too dangerous for me to talk to you."

Abkhazia has claims on as many as 14 villages on the Georgian side of the border, but Gvindzhiya said they will seek the return of what they see as their territory by diplomatic means.

The August war started when Georgia attacked South Ossetia, which also broke from Georgian government control in the early 1990s. Russian forces swiftly repelled the attack, sending troops and heavy weaponry into both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and then drove deep into Georgia, beyond the two regions.

Russia now has about 3,800 troops in each region and its recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states has badly damaged already strained relations between Moscow and the West.

South Ossetia and its adjacent regions — located north of the Georgian capital — have seen sporadic violence since a French-brokered cease-fire went into effect in September and 225 European Union monitors began patrols the following month.

EU monitors patrolling along the Abkhaz border say Georgian residents have become noticeably more fearful in recent days, said Wolfgang Schafer, an official with the EU's regional field office in Zugdidi. A team of EU monitors was standing just 100 yards away when the blast went off in Mujhava on Oct. 25.

"We are not living here in a paradise, we are living in a crisis situation," he said.

The EU monitors are barred from investigating violent incidents themselves and have to rely on local police reports, which Schafer said complicates their efforts to build confidence in communities more on edge than at any time since the war.

Gvindzhiya, the Abkhaz official, said Georgia "is intentionally trying to destabilize the situation on the border so it can then appeal to the international community to deploy EU patrols on the Abkhaz side." He said the EU monitors are not welcome because they have not offered a plan to provide for their security.

Adding to the tensions was the destruction of two key bridges over the Inguri River, which runs along the border between Georgia and Abkhazia. Both sides accuse the other of destroying the crossings, leaving just one border crossing in the region.

Russia has deployed soldiers to help Abkhazia in patrolling the border and Russian troops control all border crossings. One day last week, a Russian soldier guarding the river border crossing turned away two ethnic Georgian women who were trying to cross into Abkhazia's Gali district — a district that is dominated by ethnic Georgians.

When they told him they were heading to a funeral, he laughed and walked away.

Before the war — when the Abkhaz controlled the border — movement back and forth between the regions was possible, said one of the women, who also declined to give her name out of fear of retribution.

Now with the Russians in control, the link to her home village in Abkhazia has been cut.

"No one really asks the Abkhaz about anything," she said. "They're just here for show."