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Financial Times (UK)
November 2, 2002
Fallout from Russia siege felt in valley in Georgia
By Andrew Jack in Duisi
The Georgian village of Duisi, with its picturesque mountain backdrop, could not be further from the concrete district of Moscow where 800 people were being held hostage by Chechens just one week ago.
But hardline Russian rhetoric since anti-terrorist troops brought the siege to an end threatens to damage the rapprochement reached between the two countries' presidents last month, and has brought fresh nervousness to the region.
Duisi is part of the Pankisi Gorge, a no-go zone for local police that has acquired an almost mythic status thanks to Russian claims that it harbours large numbers of separatist rebels seeking temporary shelter among refugees just over the border from the breakaway republic of Chechnya.
Just a few months ago, Georgian officials criticised Russian military strikes across their borders, and insisted that there was no serious problem in the valley, a modest 20km-long gorge that ends in high mountains about 35km short of Chechnya to the north.
Now, after intense US pressure and funding, the authorities have switched tack, claiming since August to have purged Pankisi of 700 "criminals", including Chechen rebels, in recent operations.
Nevertheless, Moscow is once again showing its dissatisfaction.
President Vladimir Putin has warned of fresh strikes against terrorists "wherever they may be". Akhmad-Khakim Saltygov, Mr Putin's human rights representative for Chechnya, calls Pankisi "South Ichkeria", a reference to the separatists' name for the republic. And Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee, claimed the hostage-takers were trained in Georgia.
In Duisi itself, local refugees are reluctant to talk too frankly. One local man says: "Drug dealers operate openly here, but there have never been any rebels." He complains instead of frequent harassment by the several hundred Georgian soldiers based around Pankisi's 17 new roadblocks.
An "Arab" doctor working in a local clinic was recently arrested. He may be among several suspected al-Qaeda members allegedly handed by Georgia to the US for debriefing at Guantanamo Bay.
Elene Tevdoradze, a Georgian human rights activist, says: "The situation has improved radically since I first came two years ago, when I saw fighters with weapons in the open." In a region where criminality is intertwined with rebel activity, she has since returned to help negotiate the release of three kidnapped Spanish businessmen held nearby.
Even officials say there are about 60 "criminals" currently in the valley, while observers fear that with the mountain passes soon to be closed for winter by snow, many more will return to shelter until spring.
The Georgians are nervous that any open conflict with Chechens could destabilise their own country. As one western specialist based locally says: "The problem is that Putin does not control his army, and the Georgian army cannot control Georgia."
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