VERSANT

Dato Vanishvili, a Georgian citizen whose land
is now divided between the two governments.
“So the question is, did Russia build the new fences to keep Georgians
out or Russians and their ethnic Ossetian allies in?”
a police station to give a statement about their four-day ordeal. “Their
border was over on that side. I was close to their side,” says Murazi
Javakhishvili. “[The soldiers] came and told us, ‘Come quickly, come
with us!’ ‘What did we do?’ I asked. We hadn’t done anything. We
weren’t on their territory. We were right next to it. And they came
with dogs and automatic guns. Not follow them? Of course we had
to follow them. On that road they drove like they were hauling sand
instead of people. I told them to go slowly. ‘Don’t throw me out,’ I
said. What can we do? It was what it was. We suffered. In old age
they put me through this. I have a good grandchild. He gives me
hope and inspires me to keep living. We were close, we had to follow
the herd when they suddenly swarmed us like bandits. And they
told us, ‘Come quickly, come quickly!’ How could I not have gone?
What could I do?”
Hundreds of people like Murazi Javakhishvili are rounded up by
Russian border guards every year. But according to separatist South
Ossetia’s own KGB most of these arrests are of South Ossetians and
Russians picked up by the Russian border guards for trying to come
into Georgia. So the question is, did Russia build the new fences to
keep Georgians out or Russians and their ethnic Ossetian allies in?