by Damozel | The Guardian’s correspondent reports on the rampaging of irregulars and the advance of Russian tanks and soldiers (allegedly there to “keep peace”). Here’s peace for you:
Villages in Georgia were being burned and looted as Russian tanks and soldiers followed by “irregulars” advanced from the breakaway province of South Ossetia, eyewitnesses said today.
“People are fleeing, there is a mood of absolute panic. The idea there is a ceasefire is ridiculous,” Luke Harding, the Guardian’s correspondent, said….
Harding, watching villages near Gori burn, said witnesses had told him Russian military, including at least 25 tanks, had moved from the Russian-controlled South Ossetia into the villages.
“They asked villagers to hang white flags or handkerchiefs outside their houses if they did not want to be shot, they say.”
The tanks had passed through the village of Rekha at about 11.20am local time. “Behind them (say eyewitnesses) is a whole column of irregulars who locals say are Chechens, Cossacks and Ossetians.
“Eyewitnesses say they are looting, killing and burning. These irregulars have killed three people and set fire to villages. They have been taking away young boys and girls,” said Harding, watching smoke rise from another village, Karaleti.
Agent-France Presse reports:
Russian armoured vehicles patrolled Gori, the flashpoint Georgian town between the capital and South Ossetia, the breakaway region at the centre of the conflict.
Hundreds of South Ossetian rebels with some Russian army personnel went house-to-house in villages near Gori. They set houses ablaze and looted buildings, witnesses said.
The body of a man, his mouth caked with blood, lay in a street in the village of Dzardzanis and nearby the body of a bearded man could be seen crushed under an overturned mini-van, an AFP journalist reported.
The Human Rights Watch group said its researchers in South Ossetia had on Tuesday "witnessed terrifying scenes of destruction in four villages that used to be populated exclusively by ethnic Georgians."
About 60 tanks, armoured personnel carriers and other vehicles were seen on the road leading east from Gori to the capital. An AFP reporter saw Russian troops shouting: "Tbilisi, Tbilisi" but their destination was unclear. (AFP)
I'll hazard a guess. Tbilisi?
Even the Russian news media doesn't think it's over, though they blame the Georgians.
There was considerable scepticism among Russian newspapers about whether the conflict was really over.
Even as Medvedev announced an end to the Russian operation "it immediately became clear that in fact the confrontation was hardly finished," wrote the daily Kommersant.
"It is too early to reach unequivocal conclusions about whether the agreement reached by Medvedev and Sarkozy will really put an end to military actions in South Ossetia," wrote the popular daily Komsomolskaya Pravda.
"Saakashvili is characterised by his unpredictability and a lack of willingness to respect agreements," it added. (AFP)
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