U.S. Official: International Police Needed in Gali

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Matthew Bryza said in an interview with RFE/RL Georgian service that an international police force is needed in the Gali district of breakaway Abkhazia to fill a gap ?in the abilities of the authorities to fight crime? in the area.

But he also added that ?we haven’t said it [international police] would be a replacement for the CIS peacekeepers, but a complement, an additional capability.”

Bryza?s visit to Tbilisi on July 30-August 1 came after the Georgian authorities sent troops to upper Kodori Gorge to crack down on rebel militia groups there.

?I think this operation, by eliminating an organized criminal gang that was really creating a terrible situation for the local inhabitants in the Kodori Gorge, underscores how important it is to have an international policing unit or international policing force in Abkhazia — maybe not so much in Kodori, but for certain in the Gali region, where there are similar problems in terms of serious criminality, which then prevent the return of IDPs,? the U.S. diplomat said.

He said that the Russian peacekeeping forces deployed in the Abkhaz conflict zone under the aegis of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has a different mandate, which does not include fighting crime.

?So there is a lack of a capability to create the conditions, the secure conditions, free from crime, that allow IDPs to return. And what I’m saying now is there was a similar situation in Kodori, where there was lawlessness. In this case, the Georgian government is eliminating the lawlessness and restoring the rule of law. In Gali, that’s not happening,? Bryza said.

He also said that the UN is expected to send its fact-finding mission to the Abkhaz conflict zone in few weeks to examine what is needed for the deployment of international police forces.

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