Demo in Georgia against Russian military pullout
Agence France Presse
March 13, 2005
Some 3,000 people demonstrated Sunday in Georgia against the withdrawal
of Russian troops whose continued presence has caused tensions with
neighbouring former Soviet partner Russia.
In a toughly-worded resolution, Georgia’s parliament assembly last
Thursday gave Russia until next January 1 to pull out, after which
it will declare illegal the bases in the Caucasian state adjacent to
Russia’s southern border.
But Georgian television reported that 3,000 mainly employees at a
local Russian base in the town of Akhalkalaki, one of two in Georgia,
had demonstrated to protect their jobs.
The protesters say the base is their only livelihood and therefore
vital to the economic survial of the area.
They also believe the Russian presence is a guarantee of the safety
of the local population, mainly an ethnic Armenian minority situated
on the common border with the Caucasian state of Armenia.
Most people working on the Russian base are paid in Russian rubles and
have been accorded Russian nationality, said the TV station Rustavi 2.
Goga Khachidze, the Georgian presidential representative in the reigon,
has promised that locals will be offered alternative employment at
the same pay when the Russian base closes.
“The people of Akhalkalaki will not be workless,” he said. “The
Georgian government is looking seriously at the question … and will
propose alternative employment.”
But he stressed that the eventual Russian troop pullout was “inevitable
and no amount of demonstrating will stop it.”
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said Friday he was upbeat
about early agreement on closing the controversial military bases,
saying Russia had given positive signals on the topic, “and I hope the
problem between Georgia and Russia will be resolved in a diplomatic,
civilised way.”
In its resolution, parliament called on the Georgian government to
prepare by mid-May a list of measures to be enforced if it did not
succeed by May 1 in agreeing a hard-and-fast schedule for withdrawal
of the 3,000 military personnel.
Russia has sought to play down the impact of the Georgian parliament,
which nonetheless underscored growing international pressure on Moscow
to leave the two military bases it still occupies in Georgia that it
inherited with the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, when Georgia
became independent.
Georgia has accused Russia of dragging its feet in the negotiations.