Amid a deluge of unconfirmed reports that South Ossetian militias are committing war crimes, including ethnic cleansing against Georgians, one name keeps popping up: Kurta.
The village in South Ossetia was mentioned early this week by Alexandre Lomaia, secretary of Georgia’s National Security Council.
He cited unconfirmed reports that Georgian men were being held in a detention camp there, but said no agencies had been able to cross Russian lines to verify the reports.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned Thursday that many reports from the ground appear to be overstated. Moreover, the Russian Embassy´s press attache in Washington, Yevgeniy Khorishko, said: “Russia fully observes wartime laws including those allowing the Red Cross access to places of detention, if there are any.”
On Wednesday, Georgia´s President Mikhail Saakashvili told reporters in a teleconference that Russians had “ethnically cleansed” parts of South Ossetia of ethnic Georgians.
“They have separated men from women and set up internment camps for men in the area of Kurta. There are reports of summary executions,” he said.
The U.S. envoy in Tbilisi, Matthew Bryza, told reporters in Tbilisi this week that he had received what he called credible reports of violence, especially by South Ossetian “irregular forces” against Georgians.
“We have credible reports of villages being burned, shootings and killings,” he said.
This week the Georgians issued what they called an “ethnic cleansing” fact sheet, a roster of criminal acts by Russian troops and South Ossetian militias.
Reports of the internment camp have made it to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where Georgia on Tuesday filed an ethnic cleansing case against Russia for reportedly supporting ethnic cleansing of Georgians from South Ossetia and Abkhazia since the early 1990s through monetary and military means.
Payam Akhavan, a law professor at McGill University in Canada, is heading the suit. Mr. Akhavan, a former legal adviser to the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, told The Washington Times on Thursday that the “Kurta detention camp” is mentioned in a supplementary filing.
Georgian Ambassador to the U.S. Vasil Sikharulidze was asked by The Times if his government is in consultation with U.S. intelligence officials to verify whether the Kurta camp exists through satellites or other intelligence mechanisms. He said only that officials were working with many nations and agencies.
Malkhaz Mikeladze, a senior official at the Georgian Embassy, was asked if any attempts were being made to verify the Kurta claim during a live chat session Wednesday on The Washington Times´ Web site. Mr. Mikeladze said simply that “he had no reports that the Russians were willing to open a humanitarian corridor,” a precondition for verification.
Speaking by telephone from Georgia, Giorgi Gogia, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, said Thursday the organization had heard reports of camps at Kurta and would attempt to confirm them.
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