South Ossetia: Ethnic Georgians Alarmed at New Passport

Ethnic Georgians from the Akhalgori district, taken over by South Ossetia in the 2008 conflict, fear new rules obliging them to accept local passports will make it harder to cross into Georgia.

The local authorities are insisting that all residents apply for South Ossetian passports, and are also discussing the imposition of a tax for all movement into Georgia proper.

In August 2008, Russian forces repelled a Georgian attempt to regain control of South Ossetia, and Moscow subsequently recognised the entity as an independent state.

Before Akhalgori was overrun by South Ossetian forces, the district’s population was 5,500, the overwhelming majority ethnic Georgians. Currently all but 1,000 of them are living as refugees in Tserovani near Tbilisi.

Only registered residents of Akhalgori are allowed to cross the borderline in and out of their district. The new rules would make it significantly harder for them to do so.

“The South Ossetian authorities do not permit joint citizenship, and those people who want to live in Akhalogori must hand in their Georgian documents and take out a new passport,” Alan Jusoev, head of the Ossetian administration for the district, in an interview with the magazine Liberal.

The deadline for the passport switch was originally set for May 10, then extended to June 1, and has now been postponed indefinitely.

Residents are also concerned at the price. According to Sergei Margiev, head of the passport service in the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali, the new documents will cost 620 roubles, about 20 US dollars.

The second change worrying Akhalgori residents is a proposal to impose a tax on people wishing to leave or enter areas under South Ossetian control. No date has been set for this to come into force, but local people say they have heard they will be charged 250 roubles to pass through the South Ossetian checkpoint on the edge of Akhalgori.

“We buy most of our food in Tbilisi, so we have to cross the administrative border several times a month,” said Tamar Mearakishvili, who heads a youth centre in Akhalgori. “Introducing payments at the checkpoint will make life harder for many locals.”

Mearakishvili said that she hoped the new passport rules would not force people to leave their homes, and that they would be allowed to keep their Georgian documents.

“People who live here on a permanent basis are not afraid of this passport system. We’ve lived through too much to worry about it. The most important thing is that there isn’t a war,” she said. “Besides, the deadline has been postponed several times and it isn’t clear when it’s going to start. We will deal with the situation as it comes up, since we can’t change anything anyway.”

International observers have urged the South Ossetian authorities to ease the burden on local Georgians and ensure they are not forced to leave their homes.

A report from the International Crisis Group, ICG, issued on June 7 urged Tskhinvali to “refrain from arbitrary detentions of Georgian citizens and violation of their freedom of movement; release those detained since the August 2008 war; and cooperate with international mediators in investigating cases of missing and detained people”. It also asked them to “recognise the rights of Georgian IDPs and facilitate their step-by-step return”.

Meanwhile, analysts in Georgia are urging their own government not to obstruct the handing out of South Ossetian passports, so that the ethnic Georgian population can remain in situ.

“We must allow these people to use these [South Ossetian] passports on Georgian territory,” said Paata Zakhareishvili, head of the Institute for Nationalism and Conflict Studies in Tbilisi. “They must have the right to use these documents to obtain medical treatment in Tbilisi, and to carry out other legal tasks. At the very least, they must have the right to cross the administrative border. We need to admit cars with Ossetian number plates.”

However, it looks unlikely that the Georgian government will adopt such a liberal approach.

Temur Iakobashvili, the minister for reintegration, said the government did not intend to recognise South Ossetian passports as legally valid.

“These passports are more like some kind of joke than real documents, especially if you consider that the population of the region [South Ossetia] has fallen significantly,” he said.

Given the stance taken by the Georgian and South Ossetian authorities, the ICG’s other recommendations are likely to be ignored. The ICG urged all sides – Georgia, South Ossetia, Russia and international bodies – to take swift action to “ensure movement across the administrative boundary line for local inhabitants and humanitarian and developmental organisations; rights to property and return; and economic freedom”.

However, talks held in Geneva on June 8, mediated by the European Union, the OSCE and the United Nations, ended in failure when negotiators from South Ossetia and Abkhazia walked out, accusing Georgia of ignoring their position. The Georgians in turn blamed what they called the “unconstructive position of the Russian Federation and its puppet regimes”.

Iakobashvili said all attempts to cooperate with South Ossetian president Eduard Kokoity had led to nothing.

“In this context, all attempts to talk about humanitarian issues are pointless, since they become politicised,” he said. “Maybe the Crisis Group could teach us how to find a common language with Kokoity. Even the Russians can’t find a common language with him.”

Ana Kandelaki is a freelance journalist in Tbilisi.