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Shooting intensifies in Georgia
Georgian forces and South Ossetian separatists exchanged intense gun and mortar fire for the second consecutive night Wednesday, and officials said at least eight people were wounded. South Ossetian officials called the shooting there especially fierce. The fighting came as Georgia's defense minister was wrapping up three days of talks in Moscow intended to calm tensions over South Ossetia and another Georgian rebel region, Abkhazia. Irina Gagloyeva, a spokeswoman for the South Ossetian government, said Georgian forces had opened fire on two villages near its main city, Tskhinvali, around midnight. Five people were wounded and several houses were seriously damaged, she said.
But Gigi Ugulava, Georgia's deputy security minister, said South Ossetian separatists had fired on ethnic Georgian villages of the region. Colonel Alexander Sukhitashvili, a spokesman for Georgian police in South Ossetia, said two Georgian police officers and a villager had been wounded. Ugulava also accused Russian peacekeepers, deployed as a buffer force in South Ossetia, of joining in the attack. The chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, Colonel General Yuri Baluyevsky, angrily dismissed that allegation.
President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia has vowed to reunite his country by reining in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and Georgian officials have accused Russia, which has close ties to both rebel provinces, of meddling. Adding to the tension, Saakashvili has warned Russian tourists not to travel to Abkhazia's lush Black Sea coastline without being cleared by Georgian migration and customs, and he has ordered the Georgian Coast Guard to fire on any boats that fail to stop for a check. In a gesture of defiance, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Russian ultranationalist leader, traveled by boat to Abkhazia on Wednesday accompanied by several dozen lawmakers from his party.
| Okay, I'm stumped. Who do we cheer for here? |
| I'm for the Georgians. There are enough bandit states in the area. |
Posted by: Steve White 2004-08-12 |
