4.3 South Ossetian Abuses in Undisputed Georgian Territory

Summary Executions

During and in the immediate aftermath of the war, at least 14 people were deliberately killed by Ossetian militias in territory controlled by Russian forces. Human Rights Watch documented six deliberate killings in undisputed Georgian territory controlled by Russian forces, and received credible allegations of another six cases. As described above, Human Rights Watch also heard allegations of two such killings in South Ossetia. In addition, Human Rights Watch documented the execution of one Georgian detainee and three Georgian prisoners of war by Ossetian forces, as described in Chapters 4.4 and 4.5. Extrajudicial killings constitute murder as prohibited under article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions, and "willful killings" of protected persons as prohibited under the four Geneva Conventions. Willful killings of protected persons constitute grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and war crimes.[429]

Killing of civilians in Tkviavi

On August 12, Russian forces passed through Tkviavi, 12 kilometers south of Tskhinvali. Shortly thereafter, several armed groups started to systematically loot the village. Villagers described to Human Rights Watch the killing of three people by armed groups during the looting spree, and named six others who they said were also killed.[430]

Among those killed were Mikheil Melitauri, age 76, and his brother, Shakhro. Mikheil Melitauri's widow, Gulnara, said that around noon on August 12 several armed men broke into her house. According to Melitauri, two people speaking Ossetian entered the house while several people speaking Russian detained her husband and brother-in-law in the yard. Even though the perpetrators held Gulnara Melitauri separately, she could see the people in her yard beating her husband and his brother with their weapons. She told Human Rights Watch, "They really beat them mercilessly."

The armed men demanded the keys to the garage, money, and gold. They took the family's tractor, sprayed the house with bullets, and then attempted to burn the house by setting fire to some books on the balcony. Gulnara Melitauri told Human Rights Watch,

When I saw them leaving with the tractor, I ran into the bathroom to get water in a bucket to put out the fire. With that, I saved the house. [Then] I went out to find my husband. I found him and his brother lying next to each other. There was blood everywhere. They had been shot. They both had huge awful bruises on their faces.

Later that day a neighbor came and helped me move the bodies into the house, but then he left the village. I could not bury the bodies myself and there was no one there to help me. I had some apple vinegar, and I soaked cloths in vinegar and put them on the bodies to try to preserve them. For five days and nights, I was alone in the house. I sat with the bodies because I feared that dogs and cats would try to eat them.[431]

Melitauri eventually approached Russian peacekeepers stationed in the village who helped her bury the bodies in the backyard.

Another Tkviavi resident, Givi Chikhladze, age 62, witnessed the murder of his brother, Gela, by Ossetian militias on August 12. That evening, Givi Chikhladze and his 82-year-old father-in-law fled to Gela's house after six armed Ossetians had stolen Givi's tractor at gunpoint. Shortly after arriving at Gela's house, however, another group of Ossetians started banging on the gate and shooting in the air. Givi Chikhladze told Human Rights Watch,

They broke into the yard, they shot through the lock. My brother went to ask them to not burn down the house … And then I heard them shoot and they shot him.

Two armed Ossetians took Givi Chikhladze and his father-in-law to a pigsty in the backyard, made them lie down, and held them at gunpoint:

One pointed a machine gun at me and the other pointed a machine gun at my father-in-law. For 40 minutes they held us like that. They themselves were trembling, holding the guns. I was begging, "Please shoot us, please just finish this off!" I was so terrified. I was crying.

When the two Ossetians went into the house, Givi crawled through the bushes after them to see what was going on.

The Ossetians were still inside. I could hear my brother coughing, gasping for air. It was a horrible sound. The sound of death.

Chikhladze remained hidden until around 10 p.m. When he emerged, he "smelled something horrible" near his house, but did not return. He later learned that neighbors had found his brother burned on the floor, apparently set on fire by the looters. Some women who were neighbors buried him.[432]

Chikhladze and another villager named another six people-Nodar Batauri, Koba Jashiashvili, Shamil Orkopiridze, Lasha Basharauli, Soso Otiashvili, and Jaba Jabaladze-who were killed in Tkviavi on August 12 or shortly thereafter.[433]

Interior of the home of Gela Chikhladze, age 55, burned down on August 12 by Ossetian militia in Tkviavi, August 19, 2008. © 2008 Marcus Bleasdale/VII

The killing of Viktor Gagoshvili in Ergneti

One day in mid-August (the exact date is unclear) Viktor Gagoshvili was shot and killed in Ergneti, a Gori district village right on the South Ossetian administrative border. That day, two Ossetian men with automatic weapons broke open the gate and entered the yard of Zuriko Kasradze, age 54. Kasradze managed to run away and headed toward another house, where about 10 other villagers were hiding. He told Human Rights Watch,

When I got there I saw an old man hunched over and running toward the house, so I also ran in. As the man ran in and sat down, we could see he was bleeding and had been shot in the back. He rolled over and died right there. His name was Viktor Gagoshvili.[434]

When four villagers tried to take Gagoshvili to his house to bury him that evening, however, they were apprehended by about 10 Ossetians who pointed and cocked their guns at them. One of the Ossetians who knew Kasradze intervened, and in the end no one was shot. Zuriko Kasradze fled the village. Neighbors told Kasradze that his house was burned that night.

The killing of Aliko Bibilashvili in Karaleti

About 4 or 5 p.m. on August 12, Nikoloz Bazandarashvili, age 78, Vlasiko Zaalishvili, and Aliko Bibilashvili were sitting by the main road from Tskhinvali to Gori city in the village of Karaleti. Ossetian militia driving by shot at Bibilashvili, killing him. Bazandarashvili told Human Rights Watch,

A white Zhiguli came down the central street. There were two guys in front and guys in the back. One of the guys in the front had a white armband. Someone from the back seat fired shots out the window.

They didn't stop [the car]. They fired at us and hit Aliko. Aliko fell and died soon after.[435]

The killing of Nora Kvinikadze in Abanoskoda

Raul Kvinikadze, a 22-year-old from Abanoskoda, a village in Kareli district on the administrative border with South Ossetia, described to Human Rights Watch the killing of his 75-year-old grandmother, Nora Kvinikadze, on September 6. On September 5 Raul Kvinikadze was in the village to check on his grandmother and help with the harvest.

My father and I were harvesting crops in my grandmother's field. As I approached the house, two Ossetians in camouflage, armed with machine guns, stopped me and asked me who I was. One of them cocked his gun and demanded that I give him my cellphone, so I did.

 

The next evening, after going into the village, I returned to my grandmother's house and found that my father was being held by four armed men in masks, wearing camouflage uniforms. They tried to take me and my father away. My grandmother was protesting and pulling on my father to keep him from being taken. One of them grabbed her to pull her away, and we all began to struggle. The assailants shot me twice in the right leg. They shot my father … and he immediately fell down. I don't know how my grandmother was shot, but when I was able to look at her I saw that she was dead.[436]

 

Raul Kvinikadze sustained a knee fracture, and his father was treated for a wound to the abdomen.

Rape

Human Rights Watch received numerous reports of rape of ethnic Georgian women during the August 2008 war. The Fourth Geneva Convention obliges parties to a conflict to protect women from "attacks on their honour, especially rape,[437] and rape is considered an act of "willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health" that is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, and a war crime. [438]

Due to the sensitive nature of the crime, rape is frequently under-reported, and it is particularly difficult to document cases during conflict. Human Rights Watch was able to document two cases of rape in undisputed areas of Georgia under Russian control. Several factors suggest that the perpetrators were members of South Ossetian forces or militia. In both cases, the perpetrators wore military uniforms and white armbands, usually worn by South Ossetian forces to identify them to the Russian army as friendly forces. In both cases, the perpetrators spoke Ossetian. In one case, the perpetrators handed the victim over to the South Ossetian police in Tskhinvali, who later included her with other detainees in a prisoner exchange with Georgian authorities.

On August 13, Mariam C., in her 20s, left Tbilisi on a minibus with about 15 other passengers. Near Gori city, around 1:30 p.m., the minibus had to turn back because the road was blocked by Russian military troops.

As the driver turned the minibus around, four armed men in a black jeep drove up to it and started shooting in the air, forcing the minibus to stop. The armed men, dressed in black T-shirts, camouflage pants, and white armbands, ordered all the passengers out of the minibus and confiscated their cellphones. They took the minibus and then let all of the passengers go, except Mariam C. She described to Human Rights Watch the terror she felt during the abduction,

As one of the assailants took my cellphone he looked me in the eye, and I immediately felt that something terrible was going to happen. I just saw it in his eyes. Everyone was released but me. I begged them to let me go, but instead they dragged me and stuffed me into the jeep.

One of the assailants drove in the jeep with Mariam C., and three others rode in the minivan in the direction of Tskhinvali. Before reaching Tskhinvali the driver stopped the car, telling Mariam C. that it had broken down. They got out of the car on the edge of a deserted field and the driver asked Mariam C. whether she was married and had children. She told Human Rights Watch,

I sensed something terrible.… I immediately panicked. I was begging him not to do it, not to touch me. He just forced me onto the ground, slapped me several times, and raped me. The other three did the same.

At some point I must have lost consciousness. I saw them all before I fainted. I was thinking that they would kill me afterwards because I saw their faces. All I was thinking about-and waiting for-was when they would kill me.

When she regained consciousness she was surrounded by four or five men in military camouflage uniforms-apparently servicemen-and three of her attackers. They placed her in a Niva jeep and drove her to Tskhinvali. Mariam C. remembered feeling ill and in pain after her attack. "I felt sick. I had a terrible headache, and my back was aching," she told Human Rights Watch.

In Tskhinvali, the servicemen first took her to a school or a kindergarten where an Ossetian man in green military uniform gave her some medicine, including what she thought was a tranquilizer.  Around 5 p.m. Mariam C.'s captors brought her to the Tskhinvali police station where she was interrogated. She told them what had happened to her. According to Mariam C., the police officers did not write down the information but confiscated her gold ring, earrings, and money, which they never returned. The police officers then took her to the basement where she was put in a cell with 13 other women.[439]  (For a description of the conditions of detention, see section below on Detention of Georgians).

One of the women who shared a cell with Mariam C. described to Human Rights Watch the young woman's condition when she arrived at the police station:

At one point they brought in a young girl. Her name was [Mariam C.]. When they brought her in she immediately kneeled down on the floor and started crying. I said, "What happened to you my daughter?" She said, "I was taken away by some men." I asked, "Did they treat you badly?" And she said, "Yes, very much so," and continued to cry.[440]

On August 19 an unknown man arrived at the police station and promised to take Mariam C. home. Instead, however, he took her to an apartment where a woman was living with her two daughters. They gave her a separate room and meals, and treated her well. On August 22 Mariam C. was handed over to Georgian authorities during an exchange of prisoners, and she sought and received medical care. She described to Human Rights Watch the trauma she continued to suffer as a result of the rape: "Once back in Tbilisi, I was in shock and I could not sleep for three nights. I now take strong tranquilizers to sleep. I have nightmares and frequent headaches."[441]

On the morning of August 13, 18-year-old Eliso E. and her family learned that Ossetian looters were entering nearby villages (an uncle had phoned to say that looters had just stolen his car and had shot his friend who had refused to hand over a truck). The family began packing to leave their Gori district village,[442] but as they were doing so seven men in camouflage uniforms with white armbands arrived at their house in a Willys jeep. According to Eliso E., the men were heavily armed with automatic weapons, grenades, and large knives.

The armed men forced Eliso E. and her mother to the second floor of the house at gunpoint. They searched through the family's clothes, apparently looking for military uniforms. Some of the men beat Eliso E. on the shoulder and back with the butts of their guns and one slapped her in the face. The intruders stole several items of electronic equipment as well as gold jewelry and money (in the interests of protecting this young woman's identity, the details she gave have not been included with other accounts of looting featured below).

The armed men then took her mother downstairs and forced Eliso E. to stay in her room, with one armed man guarding the door. She told Human Rights Watch,

I started crying and praying. I was very scared. Then one man came back to my room. He was the one person who knew Russian, Ossetian, and Georgian. He asked me, "Where is your husband?" I said that I don't have one. He ordered me to take off my clothes. I resisted, but I couldn't stop him. He tore my clothes off of me. He told me in Georgian, "You'd better do it yourself or we will kill you and we'll still do what we want with you."

He asked me if I was a virgin and I said yes. He was the only one of them who had a mask on his face. He started to really struggle with me, and I pulled the mask off and I saw his face. This infuriated him and he started beating me. Then he raped me and told me that if I told anyone, he would kill me.

Before they left, the armed men beat Eliso E.'s brother and cousin on the head, shoulder, and back. She and her family left for Tbilisi. One month after the rape, Eliso E. told Human Rights Watch that she continued to suffer from her attack. "One month has passed. I have headaches, fever. I have terrifying nightmares, thinking that they are coming up the steps to take me," she said. "I don't want to go back to that place where I lived before."

Eliso did not immediately report the rape to a doctor, fearing the stigma attached to it, but eventually sought medical assistance.[443]

Abductions

Human Rights Watch documented many incidents of unlawful detention by Ossetian forces in which the victims were taken into Ossetian police custody (see below); we also received reports of Georgians who were abducted by Ossetians and not handed over to the police. Abductions violate the ban, contained in article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, on unlawful confinement of a protected person and are considered grave breaches, or war crimes.

Lia B., 76, tearfully told Human Rights Watch on September 10 how she witnessed two Ossetian men abduct her 17-year-old granddaughter, Natia B., on August 13 in the middle of the day. She remembered,

We had left our village and spent a few nights in [a village in the Gori district]. We were walking back to our home in [South Ossetia]. Two men in a Zhiguli [car] … in camouflage uniforms with white armbands pulled up next to us. One of them was Ossetian … They were armed with automatic weapons and a big knife. The men didn't get out of the car. They grabbed Natia by her hair and dragged her into the car into the front seat. I begged them not to kill her. I screamed, "Help me they are taking my child away!" … They drove off in the direction of Tskhinvali.[444]

Soon after this interview, having had no information on her granddaughter's fate for four weeks, Lia B. learned that her granddaughter had been released from her captors sometime in September. Natia B. told her grandmother that she had been kept alone in a run-down deserted building and given bread and water daily, but did not report other abuse. She had no idea where this building was located.[445]

Zura Kareli told Human Rights Watch that he was in Karaleti on August 19 or 20 on his way home to Tkviavi together with his wife, son, and another relative. An Ossetian man wearing camouflage and with an automatic weapon attempted to detain him, his family, and 10-12 residents of Karaleti. After some of the Karaleti villagers fled, the Ossetian man shot Kareli in the hand in order to take the keys to Kareli's car, and then drove off in the car with four villagers in the back seat. Kareli did not know the names of those abducted and has no information about their whereabouts since the abduction.[446]

Pillage and Destruction of Civilian Property

Ossetian militias looted, destroyed, and burned homes on a wide scale in undisputed Georgian territory south of the South Ossetian administrative border. As noted above (Chapter 3, Violations by Russian Forces), Russian forces were in many instances involved in these actions, either as active participants, passive bystanders, or by providing transportation to militias into villages. The Geneva Conventions prohibit pillage and destruction of civilian property, and the deliberate nature of this violation against protected persons makes it a war crime.[447]

Pillage is prohibited, and the destruction of any real or personal property is only permitted where it is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.[448]

Villages close to the South Ossetian administrative border such as Koshka, Ergneti, Nikozi, Megvrekisi, Tirdznisi, and Tkviavi in Gori district, and Dvani, Knolevi, Avlevi, and Tseronisi in the Kareli district were particularly hard hit by destruction and pillage.[449] Though the looting and torching was ongoing, two waves are discernable: the first just after Russian troops began the occupation of Gori and Kareli districts, and the second in the last week of August.

As noted above, in some incidents looters killed residents during the pillaging.

Gori district

Tkviavi

On August 12 several groups of armed Ossetians arrived in Tkviavi with Russian forces and stayed to loot and burn civilian property after Russian forces passed through the village. Luiza L., a Tkviavi resident who stayed in the village during the conflict, described to Human Rights Watch,

Three people came to my house. I can't remember the date, but it was after the bombing [on August 11].[450] They asked, "Where are the cars? Where are the people? Where are the big houses in the village?" I just said, "Take anything you want, but please don't shoot." If someone tried to say something, to prevent the looting, they would start shooting. They came to my house three times-first Ossetians, then Russians. Russians just asked if the "bandits" were here and asked for cigarettes.[451]

Other Tkviavi residents, Salome S. and Sofiko S., told Human Rights Watch, "The looters were mostly taking away cars, and money from some well-to-do houses as well. After Russian checkpoints were established here, the massive looting stopped, but they kept coming during the night."[452]

Toma T., an ethnic Russian who is a long-time Tkviavi resident, told Human Rights Watch, "They came on a tank. If a family wasn't home, they would break the gates of the house with a tank, enter the houses-they were mainly looking for arms and ammunition. At that point, they were taking away cars, not household items. The looters took almost every car in the village-the ones that they couldn't take away, they burned."[453]

Tirdznisi

A Tirdznisi village administrator told Human Rights Watch that Ossetian looters had deliberately burned 16 houses in the village; Human Rights Watch saw the remains of many of these houses.[454] A witness to at least one of the burnings, Julieata Tetunashvili, described to Human Rights Watch seeing militias shoot "a sort of rocket" into some of the houses, which would set them on fire: "They were shooting at houses from a long weapon and immediately after, the house would catch fire. It was Ossetians, not Russians, who set houses on fire."[455]

On August 15, the home of Elizabeta Naskidashvili, age 78, was set on fire presumably by militias. Naskidashvili was not at home when the militias set fire to her house, but she arrived home to find thick smoke billowing out of the doors, which had been broken down. A neighbor helped her extinguish the fire. Her house had been ransacked, but nothing was missing.[456]

On August 12, Ossetian militia assaulted Leila Tetunashvili, age 65, and looted her house. She told Human Rights Watch,

At about 5 p.m. three Ossetians in camouflage uniforms and armed with automatic guns [broke] in, taking the door down. One of them stood there, raising his hand, saying that I had five minutes, then he would bend one finger, saying four minutes and so on … they were counting the time that I had left before they would shoot me unless I gave them money and gold. The same guy called his friend to bring the gun to shoot me. I got really scared and gave them all the money I had-40 lari [about US$28].

My grandson, who was not home, has a corner in the house with icons and he also had a Georgian flag hung there. The Ossetian found it and brought it down and started cursing at me. He slapped me on the face, shouting, "What is this?" And then he twisted it and … started strangling me with it. I started suffocating and turning red. Then he released me. They stayed for 20-25 minutes and took everything they wanted.

The next day other Ossetians came and took two cows. The day after that only one came, saying that he was a Russian soldier, then he pointed a gun at my husband, but I begged him on my knees not to shoot him and he left.[457]

Seventy-year-old Izolda Samadashvili described a similar experience to Human Rights Watch:

Ossetians came, three of them, all armed with automatic guns. They pointed the gun at our head and demanded our car keys. We had a Zhiguli and we had to obey; we feared they would shoot us.

The second time they came, they asked for weapons. Then they asked for my son, who lives in Tbilisi. Then they entered the house and started looting. They took everything they liked, clothes, fur coats, 300 lari [US$210]. They also broke into a small shop we had in our house and took food and cigarettes.[458]

Dvani

According to one villager, Russian troops, followed by Ossetian militia and Cossacks, passed through Dvani on August 8. The villager, Vasili Otiashvili, said his neighbor's house was looted that day; two days later Otiashvili fled.[459] When he returned on August 27 his house had been burned to the ground. Otiashvili estimated that at least 30 houses had been burned in the village, although it is not clear how he made this estimate.

Koshka

As described in Chapter 3.6, Russian and Ossetian forces began looting Koshka on August 9 and 10. Because Russian forces failed to provide security in the areas under their effective control, the residents remaining in Koshka also became victims to common criminal groups operating in the area in the weeks following these initial attacks. On August 24, four armed Ossetians returned to the village and forced Arkadi A. to help them loot his neighbor's house. Arkadi A. knew the men and told Human Rights Watch that they were not members of the South Ossetian forces, but simply robbers from the ethnic Ossetian village of Khelchua, in South Ossetia. He told Human Rights Watch,

 

I stood in the street with three neighbors. They approached us, shooting in the air, and said, "You weren't happy with a peaceful life-now we're going to show you!" They asked for money, but what kind of money do we have? Then they started beating us with their gun butts. One neighbor had his collarbone broken as a result of the beating. They hit me and another neighbor in the face, on the ribs, and in the kidney area. Then they went to the house next door and looted it. I saw them take away a fridge, clothes, and other things. They loaded the loot onto a cart and forced me at gunpoint to push it.[460]

When Human Rights Watch interviewed Arkadi and his neighbor, the two men were visibly in pain, and were transported to a hospital shortly thereafter. 

Megvrekisi and Nikozi

On August 26 and 27, numerous residents fled the villages of Megvrekisi and Nikozi because on the previous days Ossetian militias had been looting and burning houses. Nanuli Maisuradze, a 52-year-old resident of Megvrekisi, told Human Rights Watch that she stayed in the village during most of the fighting, occupation, and looting that followed but that the deteriorating security situation eventually forced her to flee: "I left the village [on August 26]. We left because [on August 24] Ossetians came into the village, beat one person and killed another one. The Russians were not doing anything, but did not stop the Ossetians either."[461]

Karaleti

Izolda Tedliashvili, age 66, was in Karaleti on August 13. She told Human Rights Watch,

I saw how three houses were burned. Within one hour they were completely burned. The fire started from the inside, then the roof would collapse, and then smoke and fire would come up. We were hiding in the yard and we would peek out and see that the [assailants] were still there. We only know that they were in camouflage uniforms, we could not see their faces.[462]

Human Rights Watch saw the burned houses and has photographs of them on file.

Kareli district

Knolevi, Avlevi, and Tseronisi

Knolevi, Avlevi, and Tseronisi are neighboring villages in Kareli district, close to the South Ossetian administrative border. Dmitri Abukidze, 24, described how he saw Ossetian militias fire grenade launchers at homes, setting them on fire and how the soldiers stole livestock from the local residents. Abukidze had been detained with his father in Tseronisi on August 13 and placed in an armored personnel carrier. Abukidze recounted that while he was being transported to Tskhinvali,[463] he observed in and near Tseronisi that "[the Ossetians] just fired from their grenade launcher at the houses, from a distance, and the houses would immediately catch fire. They mostly targeted big, wealthy-looking houses. They also took the cattle away. The elderly were forced to accompany the cattle to the border, and [the looters] went behind, holding them at gunpoint."[464]

Inhabitants of Knolevi told Human Rights Watch that after Russian troops moved through their village on their way south, Ossetian looters followed in their own cars, looting and burning houses. The few remaining residents we found in Knolevi on August 23 told Human Rights Watch that Ossetians had looted and burned 29 houses in Knolevi, 6 in Avlevi and about 42 in Tseronisi.[465] One of the residents remarked,

They are still coming-yesterday [August 22], for example, they were here. They are taking away cars, cattle, and valuable things like fridges. There is no order, no law enforcement here. Just an Ossetian checkpoint nearby. Russians used to patrol, but now they are gone. There were also peacekeepers, but they don't come anymore either.[466]

Russian forces maintained a checkpoint just outside these villages at the time the looting took place.