A recent standoff between a Georgian Ministry of Interior special unit and Russian CIS peacekeepers has given rise to new tensions in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict zone. The incident took place in the village of Ganmukhuri, located near the border of the breakaway region of Abkhazia and home to one of the Georgian special purpose units under the Ministry of Interior. The controversy started in the early afternoon of October 30, when four Georgian MoI officers were detained and apparently beaten by Russian peacekeepers patrolling the area of the Inguri river separating Abkhazia from Georgia proper. Following a heated verbal exchange between Georgian MoI troops and Russian peacekeepers, the Georgian officers were released, but tensions remained in the following hours with reported shootouts between the two sides.

Shortly after the incident, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, accompanied by other senior Georgian officials, arrived at the site. Heatedly addressing a Russian officer with television cameras rolling, Saakashvili accused the peacekeeping unit of violating its mandate and went on to declare the Commander in Chief of the Russian Peacekeeping forces General Sergey Chaban persona non grata on Georgian territory and urged him to leave Georgian territory within days.

Chaban, on his part, defended the actions of his troops, describing the incident instead as a consequence of a Georgian provocation against the peacekeepers, who were on a routine patrol in the Gali and Zugdidi districts. Meanwhile, the Abkhaz de facto president Sergey Bagapsh announced the deployment of additional Abkhaz troops in the Gali district to prevent provocations from the Georgian side.

At an emergency session of the National Security Council in the evening of October 30, Saakashvili reinstated his declaration against Chaban and condemned once again the actions of the peacekeepers. In his address to the NSC, Saakashvili moreover brought attention to the issue of reforming the current peacekeeping format and recalled the parliamentary resolution passed in July 2006, which urged the Georgian government to suspend the Abkhaz and South Ossetian peacekeeping operations.

Indeed, Georgia has long pleaded with the international community for a revision of the current CIS peacekeeping format, but has received a modest response. The mandate, which originally called for renewal every six months, is currently valid until one of the parties explicitly suspends it. The Georgian government has however so far, albeit reluctantly, refrained from executing the parliament’s request, possibly to avoid a Russian Security Council veto against the UNOMIG mandate, or, indeed, against an international replacement force.

However, the recent events have seemingly triggered a forceful response to the peacekeeping issue by the Georgian side. In a statement on October 31, Georgian speaker of Parliament Nino Burjanadze announced the intention of withdrawing from the agreement which regulates the peacekeeping mandate. The decision was allegedly made during a meeting between senior Georgian Parliament and Government officials on October 31, but will not be formalized until consultations have taken place with Georgia’s western allies.

Thus, the implications of the Ganmukhuri incident are likely to stretch beyond a simple deterioration of Georgian-Russian diplomacy, itself worrying enough. It will undoubtedly put the Georgian peacekeeping issue back into the international spotlight and call for an in-depth review of the current format by western actors and ultimately, again challenge the western community as regards responding to Russian provocations against Georgia – only weeks after the missile incident in the South Ossetian conflict zone.