Hostage Crisis Goes On

Authorities Desperate to Release Abducted UN Observers

Georgian authorities say they know abducted UN observers’ whereabouts and hold talks with the hostage-takers to secure UN personnel’s safe release.

According to the unofficial reports on July 8, the fourth day of the UN observers’ abduction, the hostage-takers demanded USD 3 millions for the release of the hostages.

Georgian Special Forces hold kidnappers’ alleged hideout under siege in Kodori since June 9.

Neither the UN Observers Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG), nor the Georgian government agrees to pay the ransom.

President Shevardnadze confirmed on June 9 “the government is ready to talk with the captors in order to ensure hostages’ safe release.”

Deputy Secretary of the National Security Council Jemal Gakhokidze said on June 9, that the captors are getting in touch with the authorities from time to time, however he refrained from giving more detailed information. The UN Observer Mission’s Tbilisi Office is not commenting on this information.

The law enforcers are on high alert since June 5 after the abduction of the UN observers – Klaus Ott, Herbert Bauer of Germany, Henrik Soerensen of Denmark and their Georgian interpreter Lasha Chikashua, during the monitoring of upper Kodori gorge, which is the only part of breakaway Abkhazia under the Georgian authorities’ control.

The State Security and Defense Ministries, as well as the military battalion “Hunter”, consisting of the local volunteers, were looking for the hostages. The addition unit of the Defense Ministry’s Special Forces was dispatched to the gorge on June 7. 

The Georgian President and his envoy to the Kodori Gorge Emzar Kvitsiani hope the hostages will be released unharmed.

“We will find and release the hostages without paying a ransom. This is our duty,” President’s representative to Kodori gorge Emzar Kvitsiani said on June 8.
 
The local authorities call incident a “provocation” and do not rule out Russia’s participation. Some in Tbilisi share the same opinion.
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“When the captors ambushed the UN observer truck, the latter were accompanied by the Russian peacekeepers, which did nothing to avoid the incident,” Tamaz Nadareishvili, leader of the Tbilisi based Abkhaz government-in-exile said.

De facto Abkhaz authorities blame official Tbilisi for the incident. “The UN Observers’ abduction took place in the Kodori gorge of breakaway Abkhazia – the territory controlled by the Georgian authorities. Therefore, the Georgian side is responsible for the incident,” Valerie Arshba, the Abkhaz de facto Vice President told Civil Georgia.
 
Recently the situation deteriorated in the Kodori gorge, a flashpoint in Abkhazia, which frequently becomes the reason of confrontation between the Abkhaz and Georgian side. At a June 7 a public assembly the Kodori residents announced that they were tired of the grave crime situation and called the authorities to establish law and order in the gorge. 

This is the third case of UN observers’ abduction from the gorge for the past three years. The first two cases ended in release of hostages, who were unharmed. According to the Georgian authorities, in previous cases the hostages were released without paying a ransom.

Nine UN observers and crew died as the UN helicopter was downed by still unidentified attackers in 2001.

By Goga Chanadiri, Civil Georgia