Russian Border Guards Arrest Georgian Man Near S.Ossetia Contact Line

TBILISI - A Georgian man was arrested by Russian border guards on Wednesday near the administrative boundary line separating Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetia region from the rest of the country.

Aleko Sheverdashvili, a 41-year-old resident of Kveshi – a village near the occupation line in the Shida Kartli region – was detained by officers from Russia’s feared FSB intelligence service for an alleged border violation.

According to Georgian news agency InterpressNews, locals claimed that Sheverdashvili was working in his orchard on the Georgian side of the occupied region when the armed Russian guards arrived and illegally detained him.

The family of the detainee announced that they have yet to be contacted by the Russian or rebel authorities in the separatists’ capital Tskhinvali and have no information about Sheverdashvili’s current whereabouts.

Russia’s military and intelligence units operating in South Ossetia frequently violate the boundary of the contact line and illegally detain Georgian citizens from the impoverished villages along the border.

The detained individuals are usually released after being imprisoned for several days in an FSB or detention center in Tskhinvali, where they’re forced to pay between 1,900-3,300 Russian Rubles (USD $30-50).

Immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian-backed rebels in South Ossetia broke away from Georgia. Georgian government forces fought two wars against Russian-backed separatist forces in South Ossetia between 1991-2008.

The wars left thousands dead and led to the ethnic cleansing of most of the region’s ethnic Georgians.
Russia has effectively occupied more than 20 per cent of Georgia’s territory for more than 20 years. Moscow recognized South Ossetia and Georgia’s other breakaway state, Abkhazia, as independent countries in 2008.

By Tamar Svanidze
Edited by Nicholas Waller