Russian-backed paramilitaries 'ethnically cleansing villages'

Times Online ^ | August 27, 2008 | James Hider

[Schnucki]

Russian-backed paramilitaries are ethnically cleansing villages inside a buffer zone within Georgia, refugees from the area and officials in the nearby town of Gori told The Times today.

The South Ossetian militiamen have torched houses, beaten elderly people and even murdered civilians in the lawless zone just north of Gori, set up by the Russian army, close to the border with the breakaway republic whose independence Russia recognised this week, locals said.

The violence has triggered a new wave of refugees into Gori, 40 miles north of Tblisi. People who had started to return to their villages in the area now fleeing for a second time, joined by old people who had refused to leave their homes when the Russians stormed in two weeks ago.

A straggle of refugees, some of them in tears, gathered today at the feet of a giant statue of Josef Stalin, Gori’s most infamous native son, to register with the local authorities and the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, for emergency supplies and accommodation in three tent cities being built by the football stadium.

“They had no uniform, I think they were Ossetians,” said Siyala Sereteli, a 73-year-old woman who fled her village of Irganeteye the day before when irregular forces arrived. Crying, she lifted her sleeve to show a deep bruise from a blow with a rifle stock. “They took everything they wanted, even the fans, and beat up a man using sticks and a chair and then threw him in the river,” she said.

Other refugees clustered in the shabby city hall to see if they could glean news of relatives still inside the buffer zone which Russia said it had established to prevent Georgian attacks on South Ossetians. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has himself accused Georgia of “genocide” against South Ossetians.

[KarlInOhio]

So, how soon will the Russians have to "free" this newly Ossetian area from Georgia?

"I looked into his eyes and saw K.G.B." - McCain about Putin

[MattinNJ]

Paging Mr. Blackwater to the white courtesy phone. Paging Mr. Blackwater.

The Georgians have enough cash from petrodollars to pay protection money and we can't fight for various reasons. Blackwater would kick the crud out of these alcoholics

[Truth29]

Gee, where is the US main stream media outrage, the Gitmo brigade, the voices raised against alleged US atrocities wherever imagined, etc. They wouldn't want to raise too much awareness; it would hurt Obama the Anointed One.

[Calpernia]

bttt

[brooklyn dave]

Don’tcha know-—only Americans commit atrocities. It was the Soviets that created the borders of those republics in the first place. In Abkhazia only 20% of the population is Abkhaz and in S. Ossetia, the population is thoroughly mixed between Georgian and Ossetian. BTW the Ossetians speak a language related to Farsi, but like the Georgians, are Orthodox Christians. The Abkhaz, I believe, are Muslims.