Georgia Heightens Control in Pankisi

Approximately 15 km long and 4 km wide, Pankisi gorge is still in the focus of attention.

On September 21 Georgian Interior Ministry forces, in cooperation with the Security Ministry, carried out, as officials put it, an “inspection” of the Pankisi gorge in an attempt to demonstrate that the gorge, which lies in the north-eastern part of Georgia near the Chechen section of the Russo-Georgian border, represents no terrorism threat any more.

The move follows allegations by certain Russian officials regarding the presence of Chechen fighters and terrorist groups in Pankisi.

The operation, which was personally supervised by both the Deputy Interior and Deputy Security Ministers, involved a door-to-door checking of the papers and documents of the Chechen refugees living in the gorge. The number of Chechen refugees in this area has dwindled by nearly half over the last few years and now stands at around 2,650. The area was also observed aerially from helicopters.

“We absolutely control the situation here. But we want to further tighten [our] control over Pankisi. We are going to set up patrol groups of the law enforcement agencies, which will carry out round-the-clock patrolling of the gorge. This will help to reduce crime as well,” Giorgi Getsadze, the Deputy Interior Minister, told reporters.

At the moment, checkpoints manned by internal troops still remain in Pankisi; however, their presence in the gorge has been reduced in recent years, after a special operation was held in the gorge in 2002-2003 to clear the territory of illegal armed groups. Officials say there is no need to station a large number of troops in the gorge any more, as the situation is rather stable and quiet.

On September 16 the U.S. State Department reiterated that the Georgian counter-terrorism operation has “shown a lot of success” in dealing with the terrorism threat in Pankisi. Russia, however, countered this statement on September 17 when Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Valeri Loshchinin said that “terrorists training bases” still remain in the gorge

Deputy Security Minister Gigi Ugulava, who was in the Pankisi gorge during the September 21 operation, dismissed accusations regarding the presence of Chechen fighters and terrorist bases in Pankisi, labeling them as merely “disinformation.”

“This information is far from the truth. Our inspection has confirmed that there are no fighters, or terrorists in Pankisi,” Ugulava told reporters. However, he added, “None of the country is [completely] secure from the presence of terrorists. But several years ago there were terrorist training bases here. Now this problem has been eradicated already.”

Chechen refugees, who sought shelter in the Pankisi gorge during the second Chechen war, which erupted in 1999, are cautious over the operation carried out by the Georgian law enforcers in the gorge. Following Russia’s frequent accusations that Georgia shelters Chechen fighters, Georgian law enforcers carried out a roundup of dozens of so-called “suspicious persons,” an overwhelming majority of which were ethnic Chechens, including children and women in Tbilisi in December, 2002, prompting some angry reactions by human rights activists.

But no human rights violations were reported during the operation on September 21. “The police came and just asked for our papers. They acted very correctly without any use of force. And we absolutely understand this move by the Georgian authorities and have nothing against of these kinds of checks. But, on the other hand it does increases fears among the Chechen refugees, because this kind of move occurs every time someone in Russia says that there are terrorists in Pankisi,” Chechen refugee Aslanbek Aburzakaev told Civil Georgia.

Chechens’ reasons for concern multiplied following a violation of the Georgian airspace by a Russian aircraft on September 19 over the village of Shatili, which is near the Chechen section of the Georgian-Russian border. In August, 2002, the territories adjacent to the Pankisi gorge were bombed four times by Russian aircrafts. One Georgian civilian died as a result of one of the aerial bombardments on August 25, 2002.

The Georgian Border Guard Department reported that Georgian and Russian border guard officials have recently intensified their cooperation and have agreed on closer ties in exchange for information, in an attempt to prevent the possible cross-border movement of illegal armed groups.

“Georgian border guard officials met with their Russian colleagues on September 18 at the Zemo Larsi checkpoint, on the Russo-Georgian border, to discuss cooperation. Another meeting will take place in October in order to outline the details of this cooperation,” Shalva Londaridze, spokesman of the Georgian Border Guard Department, told Civil Georgia on September 20.