Veterans from Occupied Abkhazia Create List of ‘Criminal Georgians’
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Monday, July 16
The war veterans of the 1992-1993 conflict between Georgia and its breakaway Abkhazia region have created a list which includes the 26 Georgian citizens “who were involved in terrorist activities, war crimes and the genocide of the Abkhazian people.”
The list came after the Otkhozoria-Tatunashvili list, which was approved by the Georgian parliament on May 21, enlisting the 33 individuals who have committed crimes against Georgian citizens in the country’s occupied Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) regions since the 1990s.
The list with the name of Khishba-Sigua [surnames of two individuals who were killed by Georgians as the Abkhazian veterans claim] offered by the veteran organisation Ariaa to the de-facto parliament of Abkhazia for confirmation, enlists former Georgian officials among others.
Former Georgian Defence Minister Bacho Akhalia, another former Defence Minister Irakli Okruashvili, former Interior Minister Ivane Merabishvili, ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili and several others once taking high state posts are on the list.
Unlike Tskhinvali, de-facto representatives of Abkhazia had not announced about the creation of such a list by themselves.
However, the Otkhozoria-Tatunashvili list by the central government of Georgia became the reason of the derange of the Gali Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism meeting between the representative of the central government of Georgia and the de-facto Abkhazian leadership on June 27.
Members of the government of Georgia say that the Khishba-Sigua list will have no legitimacy as only Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Nauru and Syria have recognized Georgian regions as independent republics in the wake of the Russia-Georgia 2008 war.
Some members of the opposition believe that the government should have ignored the list.
“There is no need to make a serious comment about the Khishba-Sigua List as this list cannot have any effect on the public life of Georgia,” Sergi Kapanadze, a member of the European Georgia opposition party says.
