Georgia Border Mission Closes

Georgia and Russia have started 2005 with a new dispute following the forced closure of the border-monitoring mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE.

Russia, as a member of the OSCE, vetoed an extension of the mandate of the mission from January 1, leaving Georgia alone to monitor its border with the North Caucasian republics and in particular Chechnya from the New Year.

Moscow argues that the mission, which began in 2000, has achieved its objectives and there is no need for it to be prolonged.

“The cooperation of the appropriate authorities of the two countries on the Georgian-Russian border has been successful and there is no need to extend the monitoring,” a Russian foreign ministry statement read.

Arguments over the extension of the mandate resulted in a bitter row at the ministerial meeting of the OSCE in Sofia in December, with the United States leading calls for it to continue but Russia digging in its heels.

There was widespread surprise at the Russian position as Moscow has spent much of the period of the second Chechen conflict blaming Georgia for providing a haven to rebel fighters, especially in the Pankisi Gorge.

Military analyst Soso Margishvili believes that the OSCE mission’s activity has undermined the validity of Russia’s claims against Georgia – and therefore Moscow has no interest in seeing the mission continue.

“The OSCE monitoring has disproved what Russian state propaganda has been claiming for several years,” he said.

“In other words the monitors are establishing that no consignments of weapons are being carried across the border and no armed groups are crossing from Georgia into Chechnya, Ingushetia or Dagestan.

“And that means that Moscow’s inability to win a war in Chechnya over ten years is not the fault of [any help from] Georgia, but the failure of Russian politicians and generals.”

Before its abrupt end, the mission was growing in size and extent. Last year, around 150 unarmed monitors from 30 countries were monitoring more than 300 kilometres of border.

Their job was to watch for armed groups or airplanes crossing the border and report these incidents back to OSCE headquarters in Vienna. Georgian border guards have provided backup on the their side of the border, while the Russians have a heavy contingent of troops on their side.

The presence of the mission has probably not stopped small groups of fighters making their way across the border, but there has been no evidence that larger bands have been able to cross the high mountains of the Caucasus, which are in any case passable only in summer. The same is true for weapon shipments.

In 2002, the United States alleged that the Pankisi Gorge in northern Georgia was home to a number of Chechen fighters and Islamic militants, in particular the Chechen commander Ruslan Gelayev.

Later that year, Gelayev and a large number of fighters crossed back into Chechnya via Ingushetia - which did not have any OSCE monitors on its border at that time. Since then, the traffic across the border has reduced substantially.

However, the Georgians claim that Russian aircraft have frequently crossed over the border, identified by monitors using an album of Russian fighter plane silhouettes. However, the OSCE does not divulge what it has or has not seen and will not confirm or deny this.

The Georgian authorities also accuse Russia of allowing armed men to cross from its territory into the breakaway territory of South Ossetia – or Tskhinvali region as they call it - which is not under the control of Tbilisi.

“The OSCE monitoring mission should not end, it should be seriously widened,” said Colonel Korneli Salia, deputy head of the state department for defence of the state borders, who is responsible for the mountainous border.

“After the Chechen, Dagestani and Ingush sections of the Georgian-Russian frontier it ought to be extended to [the part that] adjoins the Tskhinvali region as in the summer of 2004 armed groups crossed [into] this area [to fight].”

Consultations are now underway as to whether the European Union can replace the OSCE in running the mission – an option discussed in December by Georgian foreign minister Salome Zurabishvili and EU high representative Javier Solana.

Kote Gabashvili, chairman of the Tbilisi parliament’s foreign relations committee, said, “It’s too early to say that the OSCE will end its border monitoring mission in Georgia, as the issue of the budget of this organisation will soon be back on the agenda, but in this case there is a way out, by which I mean replacing the OSCE with the EU, which would help us put pressure on Russia.

“It won’t be possible to change an OSCE mission into an EU mission immediately, but … if it happens it will be better for Georgia.”

Irakly Aladishvili is a commentator with Kviris Palitra newspaper in Tbilisi.