SAINT PETERSBURG (AFP) — Russia Tuesday declared its opposition to deploying European Union monitors in Georgia's rebel provinces, while Russian rights groups reported pillaging in Georgian border villages.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after meeting here with his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner that security in the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia "is assured by Russian military contingents after the recognition of their independence by Russia.
"As far as the European Union monitors are concerned, we believe the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan should be respected. It says they should be deployed in areas adjacent to Abkhazia and South Ossetia," Lavrov said.
The European monitoring mission, comprising 225 unarmed observers, deployed in Georgia on October 1 as part of a ceasefire agreement agreed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy to end an August war between Tbilisi and Moscow.
The EU has called for its monitors to be allowed into the rebel regions to monitor the ceasefire, but Moscow and rebel leaders have so far refused.
Russia and the breakaway regions have criticised the monitoring mission, with Moscow accusing observers of taking a "light view" of alleged ceasefire violations by the Georgians.
Several Russian rights groups Tuesday denounced the pillaging by Ossetians of Georgian villages on the border of South Ossetia, where people have tried to return to their homes after the August war.
"People come during the day, look at their burnt-out homes, in ruins or ransacked, without even going inside. They don't dare spend the night nor try to repair the damage," said Varvara Pakhomenko, from the non-governmental organisation Demos, at a press conference in Moscow, after a visit to region from October 12 to 23.
She said she saw bandits from South Ossetia ransack what was left of a school in the village of Kochki, some 100 metres (yards) from a Georgian police station, which she claimed police do not leave.
"The EU observers (in the region) are powerless because they do not have arms," she added.
In the Akhalgori district, which passed under the control of Russians and Ossetians after the war, some "Ossetian officials insist that people take Russian citizenship," said Tatiana Kassatkina of Memorial, adding that more than 2,000 residents have left the district.
"It is the only district where people have complained about theft by Russian soldiers. According to the residents, they have pillaged abandoned homes, and sometimes ones that are occupied," she said.
Russian forces moved into Georgia on August 8 to repel a Georgian military attempt to retake South Ossetia, whose breakaway administration had long enjoyed extensive support from Moscow.
Sporadic violence has continued despite the ceasefire, under which Russian forces later withdrew from Georgia but not the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Moscow has recognised as independent states despite protest from Tbilisi and the West.
Lavrov is scheduled to hold more talks Thursday on the situation in Georgia with the Dutch foreign minister, Maxime Verhagen, at The Hague.
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