Groups Rally in Dvani to Protest ‘Creeping Occupation’
For second consecutive day on Sunday the village of Dvani at breakaway South Ossetia’s administrative boundary line was a venue for a small protest rally with participants, who arrived there from Tbilisi, condemning what they called creeping occupation, as Russian troops continue ‘borderisation’ process.
Some protesters were also voicing criticism of the Georgian government for, as they were saying, not doing enough for preventing shifting of dividing line further into the Georgian-controlled areas.
A day earlier, a group of journalists also traveled to the village and held a protest rally close to the area where Russian troops are placing fences across the administrative boundary line.
A day before the protest rally by a group of Georgian journalists in Dvani, the Russian Foreign Ministry released on September 27 a statement condemning planned rally as a continuation of “irresponsible fueling of tensions in the border areas” by the Georgian side.
It said that the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Grigory Karasin, spoke on phone with EU’s special representative for South Caucasus, Philippe Lefort, on September 27 on the issue.
“Karasin called on the EU special representative and EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia to spare no effort to prevent this new dangerous undertaking by the Georgian side. It is important not to allow fatal consequences for the stability in the region for which the entire responsibility will rest with organizers of this protest rally,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
It was Russian Foreign Ministry’s second statement on the matter in a week. The Russian Foreign Ministry said on September 23 that Karasin spoke with Lefort on phone to draw EU’s attention on Tbilisi’s “intensified provocative actions in the border areas with South Ossetia”, accusing Georgia of fanning “propagandistic hysteria.”
Georgian State Minister for Reintegration, Paata Zakareishvili, said on September 28 that “tensions are not in our interests.”
“Russia wants us to yield to provocations and I call on everyone not to yield to ,” he said. “Barb wires are placed when Russia wants to fuel tensions. Our concern about it should not grow into something that can be used by Russia against us.”
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