Georgia's Chechen minority allegedly spreads "corruption"

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Subject: Georgia's Chechen minority allegedly spreads "corruption"

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Original sender: Felix Corley <[email protected]>

Georgia's Chechen minority allegedly spreads "corruption"


Friday, March 19, 1999
 
MONITOR - A DAILY BRIEFING ON THE POST-SOVIET STATES
 
CHECHEN-KISTIN MINORITY ALLEGEDLY SPREADS "CORRUPTION." An estimated
8,000 Chechen-Kistins, one of Chechnya's ethnic minorities, are living
in regions of Georgia which border Chechnya, and Georgian authorities
have become alarmed at what is going on in these regions. "Chechnya
has become one of the main sources of narcotics in Georgia. The
Georgian border guards cannot stop the flow of contraband; as a
result, narcotics are already being sold openly in the Chechen
villages of Georgia. Chechen criminal groups are also involved in
hostage-taking on Georgian territory. Thus seven Georgian citizens are
being held captive in Chechnya at the current moment," Mamuka
Areshidze, a deputy in the Georgian parliament and the head of its
committee for cooperation between Caucasian peoples, told the
Monitor's correspondent.
 
But what appears to worry Georgia most is that Chechnya will export
"Islamic revolution." "Already today in the Akhmet region of Georgia,
which is populated by Chechen-Kistins, some fifty people have become
followers of Wahabbi Islam. While this number seems small at first
glance, our local Wahabbis have very close ties to their counterparts
in Chechnya, and we are worried that this will become a new 'hot
spot,'" one Georgian parliamentary deputy, who asked to remain
anonymous, told the Monitor. This same source said that rebel Chechen
field commander Salman Raduev ordered one his close friends, Aleksei
Kavtarashvili, a Chechen-Kistin, to work up a plan for uniting with
Chechnya those territories of Dagestan and Georgia where their ethnic
brethren live. This has forced Tbilisi, in defiance of pressure from
the Chechen side, to stall and, under various pretexts, put off the
construction of its part of the Djohar-Tbilisi highway. Official
Djohar views the road, which connects Chechnya and Georgia, as having
great significance, given that it is the republic's only connection to
the outside world which circumvents Russia.
 
_______________________________________________________________
 
http://www.jamestown.org
 
The Monitor is a publication of the Jamestown Foundation. It is
researched and written under the direction of Senior Analysts Vladimir
Socor, Stephen Foye, and Jonas Bernstein, and Analysts Igor Rotar,
Douglas Clarke, Peter Rutland, and Oleg Varfolomeyev. It is edited and
compiled by Helen Glenn Court.
 
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any comments, suggestions or questions, please contact us by e-mail at
<[email protected]>, by fax at 202-483-8337, or by postal mail at The
Jamestown Foundation, 1528 18th Street NW, Washington, DC 20036.
 
Copyright (c) 1999 The Jamestown Foundation

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