However, two cars that were hijacked by S. Ossetian militia from foreign reporters were returned by Russian soldiers. This is confirmed, Nevertheless, yesterday I saw numerous South Ossetian irregulars man checkpoints throughout the town.

You can tell who they are because they often wear military fatigues, but sports shoes and in some cases, captured items of Georgian military uniform. One Reuters correspondent told me that they also wear white bands (actually thin rags) around one or both arms.

I saw plenty of these people in Gori yesterday and everything leads me to suspect they were S. Ossetian militia. Still, the Russians do seem much better (not always, but generally they are trained and do their job) and there is word that they are slowly trying to control the militias.

Trouble is, they work and appear unpredictably. I was also told that two British journalists and their Georgian driver were detained near South Ossetia by militia who wanted to either kill them or the Georgian.

They couldn’t decide and ended up arguing to such an extent that all three were finally released. Unpredictable is not the word.

In Battered Villages, Georgians Speak, if They Dare
…..
On Monday, three journalists from The New York Times gained unaccompanied access to four of these villages — Akhaldaba, Variani, Shindisi and Karaleti — providing an unfiltered, though limited, view of the ill fortune and punishments endured by the civilian Georgian population caught in the war.

The villages are in the southern part of the area where Georgia claims ethnic cleansing occurred and do not include any of the villages from which the most severe and chilling allegations have come. They also constitute a small area of the entire territory.

But the scenes suggested that ethnic anger and a sustained, often unchecked period of looting reached nearly to the boundary of Gori, the city astride the highway that has been under a Russian-enforced martial law.

Only in Akhaldaba, just outside Gori, where food was running short Monday because the village was still cut off, did the residents say that they had not faced privations beyond the initial barrages of artillery or rocket fire.

In Variani, further up the road, the scene was bleaker. The Rev. Tadeoz Kebadze, the priest at a small Georgian Orthodox church, said that after the rocket attacks had come rounds of what he called “lawless marauders.” More than 1,200 of the village’s roughly 1,500 people had fled, he said.

In Shindisi, the families gathered for a bus carrying sacks of rice and flour said they were too afraid to speak. One old man had a badly beaten face. When asked what had happened, another man answered in his place: “Nothing happened to him.”

About 90 percent of the town’s residents had fled, a village elder said. The fear was palpable in those who remained. Many people trembled; their bloodshot eyes looked as if they had been crying for days. Out of earshot, a few men pulled a reporter aside.

“They stole everything,” one said, of the looters.

He placed the blame on Ossetian looters and not Russian Army soldiers. During the day, three families said that the looters had appeared afraid of the Russian troops and had not often operated around them, although journalists in the past 10 days have seen looters intermingled at times with Russian units.
…

GEORGIA: GEORGIAN VILLAGERS RECOUNT TALES OF MARAUDERS
Paul Rimple 8/18/08

The Georgian village of Karateli lies seven kilometers north of Gori. While many buildings in the village are still standing, a large number of homes along the road have been destroyed and every store looted. Village residents recall being terrified as marauding bands swept into the village.

A woman named Marina, who requested that her family name not be used, said she was one of eight people who hid in a garage as the looting occurred. “Ossetians attacked us, they stole all our cars – didn’t leave a single one,” she states. Indeed, the only vehicles to be seen in the town were all burned-out wrecks. Marina said that while she was in hiding, her house was pillaged and a storeroom burned.

Locals claim only a few Georgians were killed, although another village resident, Medea Bibilashvili, claimed that “some” young men were rounded up and taken away. The account could not be independently verified.

The violence was much worse in ethnic Georgian villages in the separatist territory of South Ossetia. Displaced persons told stories of how they hid in basements while Ossetian and Chechen irregulars rampaged through their villages. They recounted tales of neighbors being shot and of homes being torched. Events happened so fast that many, especially the elderly, didn’t have enough time to escape.

“They poured gasoline on houses and lit them on fire everyday,” says 84 year-old Alexi Datashvili, one of about two dozen elderly and feeble residents from the Georgian villages of Tamarsheni, Chabeti and Kurta, the former seat of the Tbilisi backed alternative de-facto president, Dmitri Sanakoyev. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

“The Russians were normal. The Ossetians stole cows, pianos, cars … and killed everything. There is not a person, a dog, a chicken left alive,” Datashvili asserted.

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav081808b.shtml

In South Ossetia, Human Rights Watch researchers traveling on the evening of August 12 on the road from the town of Java to Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, witnessed terrifying scenes of destruction in four villages that used to be populated exclusively by ethnic Georgians. According to the few remaining local residents, South Ossetian militias that were moving along the road looted the Georgian villages and set them on fire.

On August, 13, Russian military had blocked the road from Java to Tskhinvali, allowing only military vehicles and a few civilian cars to pass, in an effort to prevent further arson attacks and looting. On August 13, several houses were still burning. By August 14, Human Rights Watch researchers saw no more fires in this area. However, looting and buring of Georgian villages, presumably by Ossetian volunteer militias, has continued in ethnic Georgian villages in Georgia´s Gori district.

Human Rights Watch remains concerned about the fate of those remaining in the villages, including many elderly, and calls on all parties to immediately allow for safe and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief operations.

http://www.hrw.org/photos/2008/georgia0808/

Russia/Georgia: Militias Attack Civilians in Gori Region

Russia Should Curb Militias and Allow in Humanitarian Aid

(Tbilisi, August 17, 2008) – Russian authorities should immediately take steps to end Ossetian militia attacks on ethnic Georgians in the Gori district of Georgia, Human Rights Watch said today. The Russian military should also ensure safe passage for civilians wishing to leave the region and for humanitarian aid agencies to enter.

[…]

Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed ethnic Georgians from the city of Gori and surrounding villages who described how armed Ossetian militias attacked their cars and kidnapped civilians as people tried to flee in response to militia attacks on their homes following the Russian advance into the area. In phone interviews, people remaining in Gori region villages told Human Rights Watch that they had witnessed looting and arson attacks by Ossetian militias in their villages, but are afraid to leave after learning about militia attacks on those who fled.

[…]

“Dato,” a victim of an Ossetian militia attack, told Human Rights Watch that on August 12, militia fighters stopped a minivan carrying him and several other civilians near Tkviavi. The militia fighters attempted to abduct the male passengers, but Dato and four others managed to escape. No further information is available about the fate of at least eight men whom the militia abducted from the vehicle. Kidnapping and enforced disappearances are both prohibited under international law, and may amount to crimes against humanity or war crimes, depending on the circumstances in which they occur.

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2008/08/16/georgi19630.htm

There’s also countless reports of South Ossetian, Cossack etc militia attacks on journalists here:

For example:

http://www.newssafety.com/stories/insi/georgia110808.htm

One minute we were driving past a column of Russian armour that, according to Moscow, wasn’t supposed to be there, the next we were being held up at gunpoint and plunged into that sudden moment when it flashes in your mind that your life is in real danger.

A Lada car had suddenly cut us off and three militia brandishing Kalashnikov rifles were dragging us out of our car. Actually our Georgian driver was dragged from the car; I was in the passenger seat and was shoved out by the butt of a rifle in the arms of a wild-eyed bandit who’d jumped in his place.

The three men were shouting all the time. They were shouting in Georgian which means they were almost certainly Ossetians, possibly Cossacks, who are non-ethnic Russians.

A short stroll down the road the Russian soldiers, lying on the decks of their personnel carriers awaiting orders, could see this mini-drama unfolding but it clearly wasn’t their problem.

At first these men thought we were Georgians and we thought they were going to kill the three of us, but we grappled for passports and waved them shouting that we were English, “Angliski! Anglia! Korrespondent!”

My cameraman Jolyon Mackew was now out from the back seat and all six of us were shouting at each other - but our nationality took the edge off it and, quite possibly, saved the life of our driver, Georgi, who was now held fast by the other two.

There are hangers-on trailing this Russian advance; Ossetians with scores to settle, volunteers with their own weapons, or mercenaries scenting a quick buck. And this is an ethnic conflict so, just like the Balkans and Chechnya there’s blood letting in the air.

These men were killers, that was clear in their demeanour, they just didn’t kill us. A Georgian family may have met a very different conclusion.

Under the wind of such a swift invasion, command and control is lax at best and people are dying in a ceasefire.

As the first militia man sped off with our car, camera, satellite kit and personal bags, then came that inevitable same thought. Should we have pressed them, argued further, faced them down? The answer is simple, absolutely not. When you’re covering situations like this one, whether it’s Chechnya, Baghdad or Haiti, draw your own line and never cross it.

We were left alone, the three of us, on the roadside, next to a column of Russian armour a mile out of Gori. We walked until we were out of sight, and then we ran.

Anyway, don’t get me wrong, atrocities happen from all sides in a war, but my point still stands. While the military of all cases faces charges for select incidents, militias systematically abuse human rights, terrorize civilians and murder.

And for now at least, it is the South Ossetian and Cossack militias we’re talking about in particular.

Indeed, it is the greatest fear of every journalist here — to come across these guys who rape, loot, hijack cars and kill journalists.

Besides, my coverage from the ground has not been published so you have NO IDEA what I am going to say.

So please, wait until I post my accounts — which wil be pretty much impartial and objective.

But I repeat again — the South Ossetian militia are thugs. They raped one girl today and kidnaped 5 others.

And yes, Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Ulster Unionist, Republican, whatever militia…

They’re usually always barbaric, savage and out of control. Russian troops have been polite on the whole.

The S. Osettian militia is something else entirely.

Only way in is through North Ossetia at present, where many of the refugees from the other side also are. Otherwise, Russians are restricting movement through Gori, show no sign of withdrawing, and are allowing South Ossetian irregulars to act with impunity.

They’ve killed journalists, injured others, and generally are a savage bunch usually high on vodka — but with the added danger of the fact they’re armed. Impossible to get into South Ossetia unless you’re prepared to come face to face with them — which I’m not.

Seamus, only one Guiness and it was good. No time for any more. Too busy.

What do the South Ossetian civilians say about all this? Are you able to interview any?

UNHCR is moving ahead rapidly with field assessment missions and the distribution of assistance in other areas of Georgia. Some 2,000 people have now received aid from UNHCR, which began large-scale distributions on Monday to the most needy people in and around the Georgian capital. On Thursday, some 1500 displaced people from South Ossetia, living in a former hospital building in Tbilisi, received a delivery of blankets, kitchen sets and jerry cans. During the weekend, UNHCR and its partners provided aid supplies to some 300 vulnerable Georgians from South Ossetia who had been transferred from Gori to Tbilisi. The agency also provided tents and other supplies to partners in Gori for use by the displaced.

The needs are great, especially for the most vulnerable such as children, women and the sick. There are newborn babies and women in advanced pregnancy among the displaced. Immediate needs include medications for people suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. Sanitation and hygienic items as well beds and mattresses are in great demand.

http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19154