ARMENIAN NGOs OF GEORGIA URGE GEORGIA AUTHORITIES TO PREVENT ETHNIC CONFLICT
IN TSALKA

TSALKA, MARCH 11. ARMINFO. The Multinational Georgia and New
Generation NGOs have urged the Georgia public, authorities and
President Mikheil Saakashvili to take urgent measures to solve the
problem in Tsalka in order to prevent one more ethnic conflict in
Georgia.

The NGOs urge the authorities to fairly investigate the incident in
Tsalka and to punish those guilty.

To remind, Georgian and Armenian residents of Tsalka got into fight
Mar 9. 5 young Armenians were wounded, Gevorg Gerorgyan – killed. The
attackers were Georgians from Svanetia.

Alarmed by the incident the Armenian residents of Tsalka (some 500
people) held a rally in front of the police building with demands to
punish those guilty. The police togeter with local criminals dispersed
the ralliers. Mar 10 the police blocked all the roads leading from
Armenian villages to Tsalka and are controlling all the governmental
facilities in the town.

Commenting on the incident the United Javakhq NGO says that it is a
direct result of the Georgian authorities’ policy to artificially
change the ethnic maps of its regions. The large-scale population of
the mostly Armenian regions with Georgians from Svanetia and Ajaria is
breaking the ethnic balance in the region and provokes ethnic
tensions.

The NGO urges all the Armenians of the region to be calm and
restrained and demands that the Georgian police fairly investigate the
case and punish all those guilty.