Georgia Moves to “Liquidate” Rebel Militia Leader

The Georgian government announced on Wednesday that an "anti-criminal operation" has been launched to detain a rebel militia group in the Kodori Gorge, a Georgian-administered strip of territory within the Abkhazian conflict zone. While officials stress that it is not a military operation, fears persist that the situation could spiral out of control.

According to unofficial media reports, the Georgian government was able to quickly subdue the majority of the 200-man armed militia, known as Monadire or "Hunter." Russian news services, quoting Russian peacekeepers stationed in the area, reported that Tbilisi sent between 500-800 troops into the area late Tuesday night in a bid to arrest militia leader Emzari Kvitsiani. Late last week, Kvitsiani had declared that he would not disband his group, as ordered by Georgia's defense ministry, and detailed a long list of complaints against President Mikheil Saakashvili's government. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Limited communication with the gorge – reportedly, no media are allowed access -- has led to contradictory reports about the fighting between Kvitsiani's militia and Georgian police. Early on Wednesday, the Russian news agency Interfax quoted Anatoly Zaitsev, Abkhazia's de facto deputy defense minister, as saying that Kvitsiani had fled and the fighting had stopped. Meanwhile, Giorgi Arveladze, head of the Georgian presidential administration, claimed at a mid-afternoon press conference on Wednesday that the operation was still in an "active stage" and would be finished within "several hours."

Television station Rustavi-2, however, has reported that Kvitsiani has fled to Sokhumi, the Abkhaz capital. The station went on to state that government forces have surrounded the Monadire militia in one village in the gorge, although some members had managed to escape into a nearby forest. There were also reports that Georgian police forces control the remaining villages in the gorge and 80 members of the Monadire group have surrendered. No one from the Georgian ministry of interior affairs or the ministry of defense was available to confirm these reports.

Similar discrepancies about casualties also exist. The Georgian media has reported that at least four injured people have been brought to a hospital in Zugdidi, seat of the Samegrelo region which borders on Abkhazia. However, in a press conference Wednesday afternoon, the government claimed that only two servicemen from the ministry of the interior had been hospitalized.

Georgian officials have presented Kvitsiani's defiance of the central government as an internal problem that can be dealt with quickly. However, concerns persist that the clash with interior troops could grow out of control. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters late Wednesday afternoon in Moscow that Georgia has violated the 1994 ceasefire agreement that bars any military from the Abkhazian conflict zone. "Another conflict is being triggered" near the Russian border, he added.

Tbilisi has accused the Russian government of supporting Kvitsiani in an effort to destabilize the region. Referring to the militia leader as a traitor, President Saakashvili has categorically refused to negotiate with either Kvitsiani or any member of his militia.

The Abkhaz de facto authorities have also been quick to react to the armed Georgian presence in the gorge. On July 24, de facto Defense Minister Sultan Sosnaliev warned that "appropriate measures" would be taken if Georgia started a military operation, the Abkhazian news agency Apsnipress reported. Despite assurances from Tbilisi that no military forces will enter Abkhaz territory, Sergei Bagapsh, the de facto president of the breakaway territory, stated Wednesday that Abkhaz troops will open fire if Georgian soldiers inch just "one meter" into Abkhazia.

Meanwhile, locals have been warned to avoid any contact with the militia. "The ground will burn beneath their feet, "Aveladze said in reference to the militiamen, "so we call on the local population to keep away from the places where they are concentrated." Education Minister Kakha Lomaia, who, in a departure from his usual portfolio, confirmed the start of police operations against Kvitsiani late Tuesday night, told viewers of Rustavi-2 that the band had two choices: "They will either surrender their arms, or they will be liquidated."

According to Thea Kentchadze, a researcher at the Georgian Foundation for Stategic and International Studies, the central government's actions in the Kodori Gorge could have far-reaching implications. While Kentchadze refused to comment on whether Russia had started the crisis, the result -- greater tension in the Abkhaz conflict zone -- definitely serves "some forces," she said.

Kvitsiani's declaration of defiance against the government came just days after the removal of Giorgi Khaindrava as State Minister for Conflict Resolution. Khaindrava's dismissal has been presented as part of a larger tug-of-war with Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili after the ex-minister criticized Georgian military police for detaining Russian diplomats traveling from the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

The fresh instability in the gorge, Kentchadze said, will help Moscow fortify its position that the Russian-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States peacekeeping troops should not be withdrawn from the Abkhazian conflict zone. The Georgian parliament passed a resolution on July 18 to end the CIS's Russian-led peacekeeping mandate in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

"I think that this conflict does not play well for the Georgian side," she said. "Current peacekeepers there will have the opportunity to say that this is proof that the peacekeepers are the key to guaranteeing stability in the region."

The crisis started on July 22 when Kvitsiani, an ethnic Svan, and presidential representative to the gorge under ex-President Eduard Shevardnadze, threatened armed resistance if Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili carried out an attempt to disarm his militia, allegedly planned for July 27.

Kvitsiani has accused the government of carrying out a policy of "extermination" against Svans, while the government has accused Kvitisiani of serving as a Russian pawn trying to incite rebellion. In a July 23 interview from the Kodori Gorge with Rustavi-2, Kvitsiani cited the murder of banker Sandro Girgviliani, an ethnic Svan, earlier this year as proof of this alleged policy, and called for Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili to be removed from office. (In a separate development, parliament on July 24 confirmed a new Georgian cabinet, with Deputy Foreign Minister Merab Antadze as State Minister for Conflict Resolution and parliamentarian David Tkeshelashvili as Minister of the Environment.)

Saakashvili and other government officials have rejected the notion that ethnic differences are brewing between Svans and the central government. "People living and working in Svaneti are the most loyal, hardworking, cultured and kind people in Georgia I have ever seen," Rustavi-2 broadcast the Georgian president as saying in response to the crisis on July 25. "I adore these people."