TSKHINVALI, Georgia: Teams of ethnic Georgians, some under armed guard, were being forced to clean the streets of South Ossetia’s capital yesterday. It was the first apparent evidence of humiliation or abuse of Georgians in the Russian-controlled breakaway republic.
Three teams of ethnic Georgians, men in their 40s and 50s, were seen cleaning the streets of Tskhinvali, which was badly damaged in the fighting. When approached, one worker confirmed that he was being forced to work.
One group of about two dozen men was escorted through the streets by armed Ossetians and a Russian officer. “Labor turns even monkeys into humans,” the Russian officer said. He threatened to arrest an AP photographer when he attempted to take pictures.
The city was bombed and hit by heavy rocket fire when Georgia launched an offensive on Aug. 7 to retake the separatist republic, and it saw fierce street battles after Russia responded to the Georgian attack by sending in hundreds of tanks.
About 80 percent of the city’s 30,000 residents fled the fighting, said Mikhail Mindzayev, the interior minister for South Ossetia.
After Russian and separatist forces had driven Georgian troops out of the nearly deserted city, there was widespread looting of stores and homes. The houses of ethnic Georgians on the outskirts of Tskhinvali were burned.
Mindzayev said police were cracking down on looters, and had shot and killed two of them Thursday. He said police have instituted a policy whereby if they catch someone with a car or truck loaded with furniture or TV sets, and the driver does not seem to be the rightful owner, both the goods and the car are burned.
Much of the looting has been blamed on South Ossetian forces, but a spokeswoman for the separatist government denied this and said civilians from outlying villages were doing it.
Mindzayev described the situation in the city yesterday as “complicated and nervous.” He said there were many unexploded shells lying on the ground. He also accused Georgian agents of shooting at people in the city, a claim that could not be independently confirmed.
Refugees have begun returning to their homes, and yesterday many were sweeping up glass and debris from the fighting.
Russian Emergency Situations Ministry troops were erecting a camp near the scorched shell of the South Ossetian Parliament building. For the first time in days, there were more cars on the street than tanks.
Ersan Bestayev, 78, a retired officer with the South Ossetian military, said he and his wife, Valentina, were among a few dozen refugees who returned Friday night from the nearby Russian city of Vladikavkaz.
Their two sons, he said, are tank drivers in the South Ossetian Army, currently part of the Russian and Ossetian contingent occupying the Georgian city of Gori.
Bestayev said he and his wife found their home so badly damaged that they decided to go to a second home they own in a village, called Disnise, about 10 km south of Tskhinvali. He said he doesn’t care if more fighting breaks out in South Ossetia. “I’m staying here even if Georgians come and kill me,” Bestayev said.
Many people are coming back to find their homes destroyed, and then they leave again, said Lyudmila Bitoyeva, a resident of Tskhinvali in her 40s. She said her family had been hosting five Georgian workers, who were forced to clean streets and pick up wreckage after the fighting subsided.
