RUSSIAN MILITARY — A SOURCE OF TENSION IN GEORGIA.

Georgian parliament chairman Zurab Zhvania told a December 2 news conference that "Russian actions vis-a-vis Georgia are gradually turning into a cold war." Zhvania singled out the relocation of a key Russian border post onto territory that Georgia considers its own; the Russian border troops’ role in facilitating direct trade between Abkhazia and Russia, unauthorized by Tbilisi; the Russian "peacekeeping" forces’ pro-Abkhaz tilt; and the haven enjoyed in Russia by Georgian "terrorists" — a reference to Georgia’s former state security chief Igor Giorgadze, presumed leader of the abortive 1995 coup and assassination attempt against President Eduard Shevardnadze. Giorgadze was spirited away from the Russian airbase Vaziani to Russia and is being sheltered by security agencies there. Zhvania reiterated his statement, made a few days earlier, that his "confidence in Russia as a mediator in Abkhazia conflict settlement is down to zero." (Russian agencies, December 2)

Recently, Shevardnadze’s foreign affairs adviser, Levan Aleksidze, complained that Russian troops are "increasingly throwing their weight around" in Georgia without regard for international law. On December 1, Georgia’s Foreign Ministry and Border Troop Command made public official protests addressed to their Russian counterparts over two incidents — termed "deliberate provocations" — in which Russian border troops fired in the direction of Georgian territory from the Upper Lari border post. The Russian troops recently relocated that post 1,300 meters inside territory designated by both sides as a "neutral zone" subject to negotiated adjudication. Moscow ignored Tbilisi’s earlier protests, which had cited a Russian-Georgian agreement to keep their respective border troops out of that zone, pending the delimitation and demarcation of the border. (Russian agencies, December 1-2, 4; Radio Tbilisi, November 30)

On November 29-30 and again on December 3, the youth branch of the Georgia Citizens’ Union — the ruling party, chaired by Shevardnadze — staged pickets and a demonstration outside the Russian embassy in Tbilisi to protest against the actions of Russian border troops. The protesters threatened to organize demonstrations around the Upper Lari border post unless it is withdrawn to Russian territory. Also on December 3, a crowd of villagers organized by the ruling party’s youth branch from Tbilisi demonstrated at the gates of the Russian airbase Vaziani. The demonstrators held the Russian military responsible for a December 1 incident in which a Russian artillery shell accidentally killed three and injured another three residents. In Moscow, Georgian ambassador Vazha Lordkipanidze declared that "these sharp forms of protest by Georgian society are perfectly justified." (Iprinda, Russian agencies, November 29-December 4)

Georgian officials remain reluctant to comment on the links between Russian troops based in Ajaria and that autonomous republic’s leader, Aslan Abashidze, who over the last year has increasingly challenged Tbilisi’s authority. (See Zaal Anjaparidze, "Storm Clouds in Ajaria?" Prism, November 7, 1997)

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