From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 8/2/2007 10:09 PM
02-Aug-07
Georgia Angered by UN Abkhaz Report

A report critical of “provocative” Georgian camp upsets Tbilisi - but is welcomed in Abkhazia.

By Mikhail Vignansky in Tbilisi and Inal Khasig in Sukhum (CRS No. 404 02-Aug-07)
At six in the morning, a bus is already speeding north along the dusty road from the southern Georgian town of Akhaltsikhe. Its oldest passenger is 22 years old. Young people from the town are travelling to the “patriotic and sports camp” in the western Georgian village of Ganmukhuri.

The only thing they know about this village is that it is situated a kilometre from the breakaway territory of Abkhazia, which is outside the jurisdiction of Georgia.

Along the way, other buses full of young people are heading in the direction of Ganmukhuri from almost all parts of Georgia.

The Ganmukhuri camp was opened, along with several others, two years ago by Georgia’s president Mikheil Saakashvili as an attractive new project for Georgian youth. Georgian parliamentary speaker Nino Burjanadze and the president's wife Sandra Roelofs visited it recently.

But Ganmukhuri is now at the centre of an international controversy after UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon called on July 23 for it to be moved away from the border with Abkhazia on the grounds that it was provocative to keep it so near the conflict zone. (See previous article).

Sulhan Sibashvili, head of the camp, told IWPR that Ban’s report had come as a “surprise” to them and that they had received no such warnings during visits from UN monitors to the camp.

“We are not provocateurs, we are patriots and we only want peace,” he said. “Our camp has a special function, we are one kilometre from Abkhazia and this is the best place for arousing and developing feelings of patriotism in young people.”

The young people in the camp are specifically told not to approach the border with Abkhazia where CIS peacekeeping forces stand guard.

"On the very first day, we were told that we are now 1.5 km from the administrative border of Abkhazia and, therefore, we have a particular mission," said Nino from Tbilisi, 19. "The leadership of the camp says that we are to show the Abkhaz that we are not enemies, that we want peace, and that we have come here - so close to them - not with weapons, but with songs and dancing.”

About 600 young people, aged between 15 and 22, have made ten-day visits to the camp this year.

It covers a large area on the Black Sea coast. There are 56 wooden cottages built in a circle looking out onto the sea.

Orange caps, T-shirts, and vests are distributed to participants, in order to make it easier to distinguish them from local youths who enter the area secretly to amuse themselves at discos.