Coming-home to houses looted by Ossetians and/or by Georgians – or both

Saba Tsitsikashvili, Gori

Yesterday the representatives of sub-department of Shida Kartli Regional Police glumly entered Georgian villages. The inhabitants of the villages of Nikozi, Pkhvenisi, Ergneti, Brotsleti and so on met the Georgian law enforcement with utter happiness. Marat Kulakhmetov, the head of Russian peacekeepers handed the former Russian block posts over to Vova Jugheli, who is the head of Shida Kartli Regional Police.

The COE observation mission acknowledged that the villages in so called buffer zone which had been controlled by the Russian are now free from the so-called Russian peacekeepers. However, the Georgian villages in Didi Liakhvi and Patara Liakhvi Gorges are still under Russian control.

In fact, the departure of Russian soldiers did not change the current situation dramatically. Simply put, the control area for Georgian police and local government has been expanded.

The inhabitants of freed villages from the Russian sphere of control will now be living in looted and half burned houses. The locals will have to make an investigation of whether the Georgians took part in looting Georgian families or this was done by South Osstians and Russian Forces working together, or at least while the Russians turned a blind eye to what was going on with Georgian property.  The returnees state that many houses have been recently looted by Georgians themselves.

“You can tell from the looted house whether it was looted by Georgians or by Ossetians. Ossetians looters did not follow so called “rules of thieves”. They entered the houses directly, kicked in the doors, and took windows out of the frames. They were afraid that maybe a Georgian was hiding somewhere in the house. It is easy to notice the “work” of Ossetians. Georgians did not loot they went about robbing houses. They entered the houses quietly unlike Ossetians. The Georgians knew that there was no one in the house and therefore did not kick in the doors or smash the windows,’ states G. Buzhghulashvili, the inhabitant living in the village of Brotsleti.

There was an incident in the village of Ergneti two days ago. The Kasradze family was attacked by Ossetian looters. The fighting broke out and a member of Kasradze family was beaten. He is now in Gori Hospital. Ossetians stated that several Ossetian looters died in Ergneti. No one knows if there is any connection with these two pieces of information or not.

Lado Vardzelashvili, the Shida Kartli Regional Governor requested the population to refrain from returning to the villages for now. The inhabitants of Ergneti, Brotsleti, Karaleti, Nikozi, Shindisi villages, as well as the population from Kareli District villages are now living in about 100 tents in Gori City of Campers. They say they prefer to live in their own looted and burned down houses than in cold and wet camps and be half starved.

The IDPs which had been placed in Gori nursery houses are leaving for their houses. The IDPs from the village of Pkhvenisi had an argument with the nursery home administration where they were living. The IDPs wanted to take stove-benches they received as humanitarian aid. However, the nursery home principal did not them access.  Tsiuri Eshmakurashvili, the teacher of Pkhvenisi Public School is shocked with the sarcasm and activities of the representatives of Gori District Governor’s Office:

“The head of nursery home told us that we had to leave the dishes and plates as well as beds we had received as humanitarian aid at the nursery home. She said the nursery home needed the dishes as their own dishes were broken… We went to the Gori District Governor’s Office to see Zurab Chkheidze, head of Culture and Monumental Protection. He was our curator. However, did not manage to see Chkheidze. There were other representatives of the Governor’s Office, much younger I am and they literarily laughed at me. They said you are a teacher and educated woman. Do not you know that everything you used while living in the nursery home is state property? Despite this I took everything I received as humanitarian aid and now I am in the village of Pkhvenisi which is situated at the border of Nikozi village.”

Tsiuri Eshmakurashvili went to school this morning. She says that it is possible to start studies in the Pkhvenisi Public School in the nearest future. It has not destroyed. Only glasses should be installed in the empty frames. Tsiuri Eshakurashvili’s husband was injured in August war and her father-in-law killed by a cluster bomb.

“The women left the village a bit early the men did. I was in Igoeti when my husband left the village with fellow villagers by car. Their car came across the Ossetians near Variani. The Ossetians riddled their car with bullets. The driver died, my husband was injured in the shooting. He had to return to the village and stay there. He spent 45 days in the village and healed his wounds without any medicine. This is when he did not even have a pain killer. However, soon another misfortune occurred. My father-in-law found a metal object in our garden, which may have been a cluster bomb.  He touched it and on that very moment it exploded. He was immediately killed. There were only 35 men were in the village at that time. They helped and buried my father-in-law in the yard.  There are no destroyed houses in the village. The most of them do not have windows any more. This can be fixed. The situation is not very dramatic in Pkhvenisi. We have undertaken so much suffering during the war. The meeting in the Governor’s Office angered me so much that I called you immediately to make a complaint. I did not know in what conditions my house was and that’s why I took the humanitarian things,” said Mrs. Tsiuri.

For the most part it was only old people who remained in Kelktseuli village during the war. Darejan Taruashvili recalls that no one visited the village for a month and a half.

 “No one from the either government or media came into the village during this period of time. Representative of National Movement came only once and brought some food. Journalists usually try to arrive in Jeeps and the Russians and Ossetians do not let them in. It is natural. If they came by bus they would go through Russian block posts without any problems. The bus has been operating for a long time now. They could have entered in a bus and seen just how we live. We had supported ourselves without anyone’s help. Russians were saying, you appear to be very good people. “We had totally different opinion about you.”

Locals say that they are now very happy that the Georgian police will be able to enter the village. We did not have guarantees that the Ossetian looters would not arrive. However, they did not come. We supported ourselves independently, and without anyone’s help from outside,” said Darejan Taruashvili.