Sokhumi Blames Tbilisi of Resorting to Terrorism

Foreign Minister of breakaway Abkhazia Sergey Shamba said on March 9 that the Abkhaz side will not even consider possibility of opening UN Human Rights Office and deployment of UN police component in Gali district after the March 8 attack on a vehicle which resulted into death of four people in Gali district.

“Terrorist acts and cases of murder, carried out on the territory of Gali district aim at one goal: to state that Abkhaz authorities and peacekeepers are incapable to control situation in the region,” Sergey Shamba told Regnum news agency.

He said that the Abkhaz side has clear evidence proving that March 8 attack on a vehicle in Gali district, which resulted in death of four people, was carried out by a well-armed and well-equipped group of 12 men.

“This gang moved back to the Georgian territory after committing this terrorist act, which took place just one kilometer away from the Georgian border,” Shamba said.

He told Regnum that the Georgian side might also launch attacks against Russian peacekeeping troops stationed in the conflict zone under the aegis of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), in order to mount more pressure on them.

“They [the Georgian side] simply do not dare to do this and currently they kill only civilians; so we should only expect further escalations in this respect,” Shamba said.

“There can be only one, clear-cut and definite response to this: if we up to now were ready to consider these proposals, now we can put a big, bold dot on them… No [UN] police, no human rights office will be opened in Gali district,” he stated.

In a statement issued on March 8 the Georgian Foreign Ministry condemned the recent shooting in Gali and claiming that “the so-called militia of the local separatist government and the Russian peacekeeping contingent stationed in the region are in no position to control the criminal situation in the region.”

The Georgian Foreign Ministry also called for an immediate opening of the UN Human Rights Office in Gali and deployment of UN police in this district, which is predominantly populated by ethnic Georgians.

The Police Component of the UN Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) currently operates only on the Georgian side of the administrative border, in the Zugdidi district, which borders the unrecognized republic’s Gali district. The UN police aim at improving security conditions by assisting in training and equipping local law enforcement agencies.