Thursday - August 14, 2008

Russia destroying military bases in Georgia.

Russian forces have been accused of rampaging through Georgia and destroying its military infrastructure.

By Adrian Blomfield near Gori
Last Updated: 6:05PM BST 14 Aug 2008

American and Georgian officials said that Russian soldiers were sabotaging airfields and tearing up army facilities.

Russia is defying an appeal by Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, for it to obey the terms of a peace deal with Georgia. In Moscow its foreign minister Sergei Lavrov announced that the world can “forget about” Georgia’s territorial integrity.

A Georgian spokesman said: “The Russian troops are destroying the city of Gori. They are mining the city. They are destroying everything in Poti port. They are destroying the newly built roads in western Georgia.”

Moscow appeared to renege on a pledge to end its occupation of Gori, where several explosions were heard today. Russian soldiers and Georgian troops were involved in a tense stand-off at the strategic town.
Russian troops were also alleged to have re-entered the port of Poti, on the Black Sea, further testing an already shaky ceasefire brokered by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France.

Under intense pressure from the United States, which has ordered a military-led humanitarian mission to Georgia, hopes of a peaceful resolution to the crisis were raised after Russia said it would hand over Gori to the Georgian police this morning.

Russian troops used the first day of the truce on Wednesday to take the town, 15 miles into undisputed Georgian territory from the South Ossetian border, in contravention of a six-point ceasefire plan that called on all combatants to withdraw to positions held before the conflict began.

But as Georgian police in military vehicles approached a checkpoint outside Gori, the Russians appeared to change their minds. Both sides drew their guns, before the Georgians withdrew as Russian tanks arrived to reinforce the position.

A tense stand-off ensued as the Georgians retreated 200 yards. Drunk South Ossetian irregulars, manning the checkpoint alongside the Russian soldiers, most of them drawn from a Chechen battalion, began to barrack onlookers. One fired his handgun into the air as his colleagues robbed passers-by of their vehicles. Moments later, Russian field guns fired shells at what was said to be an ammunitions dump behind a nearby hill.

Behind the Russian checkpoint, fire could be seen raging though hillside farms and there was the occasional crackle of gunfire.
It was the sort of chaos that has characterised so much of this conflict and raises fears that while Moscow may have been talking peace and pledging to withdraw troops on Tuesday, it is in no rush to pull out of Georgia.

Russian troops had agreed to withdraw from positions around Gori, but diplomats say they may have delayed their pull out as the Kremlin digests the implications of the American humanitarian mission.
While US military aircraft and warships are being sent to the region to deliver aid, and Miss Rice is due to visit the Georgian capital Tblisi on Friday, the presence of US soldiers in Georgia is also intended to send a strong signal to Russia of Washington’s support for the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili.
It is unclear whether the Kremlin, convinced of Russia’s re-emergence as a global power, will be persuaded to ease tensions or increase its defiance as a result of the American move.

Georgia sent Alexander Lomaia, the secretary of the country’s National Security Mission, to negotiate with the Russian troops holding Gori.
Mr Lomaia said that although Russia had reneged on its initial promise to leave Gori it was now saying it would do so at some stage on Friday.
“We are trying to agree on the deployment of Georgian police into Gori,” he said. “But there is mutual suspicion. There are [South Ossetian] separatists trying to intervene. The situation is tense. The ceasefire is quite fragile.”

Mr Lomaia then met a Russian colonel, who, in an apparent drunken rage, railed incoherently at western correspondents.
Mr Lomaia tried to reason with him. “There’s no need to shout at the correspondents,” he said quietly. “Why don’t we go and sit in the car.”
Meanwhile, South Ossetian irregulars continuing to loot and pillage in Gori and nearby Georgian villages, often with the encouragement of Russian troops.
“Take whatever you want,” a Russian officer shouted at the Ossetian militiamen in one village.

Fears of Balkans-style reprisals by South Ossetian fighters have grown since they entered Georgian territory after the ceasefire was agreed.
Human Rights Watch accused Russia of inflaming the mood of the irregulars by exaggerating the number of civilian deaths in the secessionist province of South Ossetia since Georgia attempted to win back the region last Friday.

The Kremlin has accused Georgia or perpetrating a genocide in the region, claiming that 1,600 civilians had been killed. But Human Rights Watch, a respected New York based advocacy group that monitors abuses around the world, said it had so far only been able to find evidence of 44 civilian deaths in South Ossetia.

Two US aid flights today delivered cots, blankets and medicine to help the estimated 100,000 civilians displaced by the weeklong fighting. The shipment arrived on a C-17 military plane, an illustration of the close US-Georgia military co-operation that has angered Russia.

http://tinyurl.com/6fwag7

Posted by Drew458     on 08/14/2008 at 01:09 PM   
Filed Under: • War-Stories •  
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