Georgia: Russia Is Stoking Tensions

Border Incidents Spark Accusations From Both Sides

KVEMO-NIKOZI, Georgia -- The tank rumbled across the border from South Ossetia in the middle of the afternoon, followed by about 40 Russian soldiers on foot, witnesses said. The troops took up a position at the edge of this small Georgian village, on an empty piece of land where residents once tended an apple and walnut orchard.

Villagers who watched nervously from a distance said that a few soldiers appeared to take measurements while the others milled around. Then, after less than two hours, the soldiers followed the tank back across the border.

Not a shot or even a word was exchanged between the soldiers and the villagers or the Georgian police officers posted here. But the Feb. 11 intrusion sent a ripple of fear through this tiny hamlet of 500 and was a reminder of the fragile security situation on Georgia's borders six months after its defeat in the August war with Russia.

"They're trying to make the situation more tense," said Nodari Longurashvili, 47, a farmer in Kvemo-Nikozi, which Russian troops occupied for nearly two months after the war. "They don't want our village to feel normal. They want to make us remember them."

That assessment is shared by Georgia's leaders, who say Russia has been orchestrating a series of escalating border incidents in an attempt to provoke a new conflict and create an atmosphere of instability in the country that would undermine its pro-Western government and frighten off investors.

"This is the biggest challenge," President Mikheil Saakashvili said in an interview. "Of course, investment flows will stop, and that's what keeps this country going."

He said Georgia is determined not to be baited into a new confrontation but that it has limited options for countering the Russian moves. "That's why we really need strong international involvement," he said.

Russian and Georgian negotiators agreed at international talks in Geneva on Wednesday to establish a hotline and regular contacts between local police officials in an attempt to prevent incidents from escalating. But both sides expressed caution about how effective the accord would be.

In the past five months, sniper fire has killed 11 Georgian police officers and wounded 22 in the border areas next to the two breakaway regions protected by Russian forces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, according to Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili. One officer was shot to death minutes after leaving a meeting with European monitors, he said.

In another incident, a group of armed men wearing military fatigues crossed into Georgia this month and stopped a car on a stretch of highway near the South Ossetian border, seizing the vehicle and one of its passengers, a prominent soccer referee.

The Feb. 7 abduction, which followed at least 10 kidnappings in Georgian border areas in recent months, caused particular alarm because the highway is Georgia's main east-west artery. If security on the road becomes a problem, it could choke trade and investment across the country, officials said.

"For Russia, it was never just about these two territories," said Giga Bokeria, Georgia's deputy foreign minister. "The prize for them is to get Georgia back into their back yard, to have a weak government here. . . . That goal hasn't been achieved, and that's why they're doing this."