29.11.2005 - Source: Civil Georgia

Tbilisi: Court sentenced resident of Zemo Artsevi, to 23 years of imprisonment for murder, extortion and banditry; defense lawyer alleged that investigators were intimidating witnesses during trial ("Tbilisi Court Sentences Ossetian to 23-Year Imprisonment") [#41968],  [ID 5076]

Document(s): Open document

25.06.2003 - Source:

25.06.2003 - RFE/RL: Ossetians seek to emigrate from Georgia ("25.06.2003 - RFE/RL: As Ossetians seek to emigrate from Georgia (Newsline Transcaucasia & Central Asia)") [ID 5079]

"Ossetians living in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge and elsewhere in eastern Georgia are lobbying the government of the unrecognized Republic of South Ossetia for permission to settle there, according to Caucasus Press on 24 June and the Georgian newspaper "Akhali taoba" on 25 June. Of some 5,000 Ossetians who lived in Pankisi prior to the second Chechen war, only 1,000 remain there (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 14 February 2003)."

Document(s): 25.06.2003 - RFE/RL: As Ossetians seek to emigrate from Georgia (Newsline Transcaucasia & Central Asia)

03.2002 - Source: University of California Berkeley - Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies

Relationships between the Ossets and Georgians and Ossets and Kists are tense in Pankisi region; Ossets feel pressured and leave their homes to resettle in Northern Ossetia ("Georgia's Pankisi Gorge: An Ethnographic Survey") [#37322],  [ID 5080]

"Before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, interethnic relations in this region were quite stable. Later, conflicts in Georgia and the Caucasus influenced the situation of the local population in the Pankisi Gorge and the Akhmeta district as a whole. Relationships between the Ossets and Georgians and between the Kists and Ossets became tense. They are still tense today. The Osset inhabitants are sympathetic to the Chechen refugees,
whom they see as protecting them against oppression by the Kists. The Ossets feel pressured by the Kists and have been leaving their villages in the Pankisi Gorge to resettle in Northern Ossetia. Because they often cannot sell their properties, they leave behind cultivated lands and houses built over many generations. Kists and Chechen refugees have settled in these abandoned houses. In this manner, the Osset villages of Dumasturi, Kvemo Khalatsani, and Tsinubani were vacated from 1998 to 2002. Currently, the dwellers of the village Koreti are also preparing to leave. According to one local dweller there is no other choice: Kist criminals took her sons car. Then one night, criminals armed with automatic guns terrorized the family. Not finding any money, they took the family cow. Because of the crisis of criminality in Pankisi, not only Ossets but Georgians and Kists themselves feel unsafe."

Document(s): Open document

10.07.2001 - Source:

University of Maryland - Minorities at Risk: Risk Assessment ("10.07.2001 - University of Maryland - Minorities at Risk: Risk Assessment") [ID 5082]

"Recent negotiations between Tblisi and Tskhinvali have not been fruitful in settling the status of South Ossetia. The Ossetians continue to insist on independence for their state, although they would probably settle for unification with North Ossetia. They have a functioning government, with a president and a parliament, which were elected over strong Georgian opposition. Tbilisi's policy towards its breakaway republics has been "neither peace nor war" – it continues to advocate a unified Georgian state but expresses willingness to grant significant concessions to the republics, including South Ossetia. This moderate attitude is partially due to the fact that South Ossetians did not carry out full ethnic cleansing nor subject to their control all Georgian villages. Georgia and South Ossetia have managed to reach agreements on economic reconstruction and return of the refugees, but a political settlement to the conflict has proved elusive.
Despite some risk factors for ethnic violence, such as high levels of group cohesion and concentration (GROUPCON = 3), renewed violence does not seem likely in the near future. Tblisi has shown little interest in asserting its sovereignty by force, and the Ossetians have been more-or-less content with the status quo. Both Moscow and the OSCE have taken active interests in trying to help the two sides settle their differences, bringing significant transnational pressures on the side of peace.
The cease fire in South Ossetia seems to be less volatile than the one in Abkhazia. Its stability seems to rest on a couple of factors: the presence of Russian peacekeepers, whose mandate has recently been extended through January 2002; and the political talent of Shevardnadze, who has been very adept at holding his fractious state together. If the successor to the aging Shevardnadze is not as seasoned and as adroit as the former Soviet foreign minister, centrifugal pressures may bring a bloody end to the state of "neither peace nor war" that exists in South Ossetia today."

Document(s): 10.07.2001 - University of Maryland - Minorities at Risk: Risk Assessment