Gazeta Wyborcza Georgia: the Russians Behaving Like in Chechnya

Gazeta Wyborcza Georgia: the Russians Behaving Like in Chechnya

Wojciech Jagielski, Gori2008-08-12, ostatnia aktualizacja 2008-08-12 08:18

When French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner arrived at the hospital inGori on Monday afternoon to visit the war victims, he was passed in thedoorway by orderlies carrying a stretcher with yet another corpse.They took it to the hospital's morgue, where there put it besides adozen others, those who had died on Sunday.'On Friday and Saturday they kept bringing the dead and wounded. Twohundred every day. The sound of sirens was deafening', says MerabMakharadze, a surgeon from Tbilisi, who, when the war with Russia inSouth Ossetia broke out, came to Gori as a volunteer. 'On Sunday, thingscalmed down, we took in some 50-60 people. But today, even though it'sonly noon, they've already brought almost a hundred'.On the first day of the war, virtually all patients brought to thehospital were soldiers. The lightly wounded, covered in bandages, inold, often blood-stained uniforms, stroll among the trees in thehospital's orchard.They don't want to talk about the night battles in the South Ossetiancapital of Tskhinvali, where they were beaten first by Russian tanks andaircraft, and then by paratroopers brought from Pskov. Before burstinginto tears, Private Dawid Guguladze managed to say only that he hadnever imagined it would be such a nightmare.Since Saturday, when the fighting in the streets subsided, most of thepatients have been civilians, victims of Russian air raids, but also ofthe first pacification operations carried out by the Russians inGeorgian-dominated villages in South Ossetia. The nine villages, orrather settlements, were inhabited by several thousand people.They didn't leave in the 1990s, when South Ossetia announced a secessionand, supported by Russia, won a war against Georgia. They didn't leavenow, when Georgian troops entered Tskhinvali last Friday to quash theinsubordinate republic's rebellion. The Georgians' initial advances musthave assured them they were safe. When Russia sent troops to SouthOssetia, and combat aircraft before that, it was already too late toflee. The villages are surrounded by Ossetian settlements from thenorth, and when Tskhinvali to the south was taken by the Russians, allevacuation routes to Georgia were cut off.'Some manage to get through, even though, by setting off on the journey,they risk their lives', says doctor Makharadze. 'But not evacuating thewounded from the villages they'd be leaving them to death'.Those who are desperate enough and have enough fuel, set off as soon asthe Russian warplanes leave and the sound of the bombs dropped by themdies away. They expose themselves to the shelling by Russian andOssetian outposts, to aircraft pursuits. 'I'm not sure whether I moresympathise with their plight or admire their courage', says doctorMakharadze.His patients tell him about life in the besieged, shelled and air-raidedvillages. The dwellers hide in the basements, leaving their sheltersonly to bring some food and water and hide before the guns start theircannonade again. It is the rumble of their fire that can be heard duringthe day from the hills around Tskhinvali.Doctor Daridzhan Kakhidze, a friend of Mr Makharadze's, who has alsocome to Gori as a volunteer from the Tbilisi ambulance service, addsthat the most recent wave of patients are victims of Russianpacification operations in the Georgian villages. In South Ossetia, butalso in Gori county, on the Georgian side of the border.'Russian soldiers enter the villages as soon as the warplanes bombingthem have left. They search the houses, check documents, saying they'relooking for guerrillas and spies', Ms Kakhidze says. 'People say theyact exceptionally brutal, like they recently did in Chechnya'.First nearly 40,000 Ossetians fled the province, which has a totalpopulation of 60-70,000, from the advancing Georgians. Now it's theGeorgians, who were few there anyway, who are fleeing from the Russians.translated by Marcin WawrzyńczakŹródło: Gazeta Wyborczahttp://tinyurl.com/5qhdzn