Almost daily flow of inaccurate Georgian media reports, also occasionally originating by the Georgian authorities was fueling a widespread sense of uncertainty and alarm in the Gali district of breakaway Abkhazia, according to the report by UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon.

The report on situation in the Abkhazia conflict zone, which covers the period since early last October, was issued on January 25.

The report says that “disconnect between, on the one hand, realities on the ground and, on the other hand, media or official statements, is a matter of concern.”

”As it is, an “image of the enemy” is already pervasive among communities on both sides of the ceasefire line,” the UN Secretary-General says in the report. “Fanning fears and hostility through misrepresentation will only entrench it further, and make harder the restoration of confidence that is a stated objective of the sides.”

According to the report each individual inaccurate media report about the developments in the conflict zone may have had little impact, “but cumulatively they have contributed to growing distrust and insecurity, ultimately increasing the chances of confrontation.”
 
In recent couple of months the Georgian television stations have been extensively reporting about alleged declaration of a state of emergency in Gali; the deployment there of large Abkhaz forces and the closure of the ceasefire line around the time of the January 5 presidential election; the burning of seven houses in the villages of Otobaia, Nabakevi and Tagiloni by Abkhaz forces accompanied by the Russian peacekeepers, who allegedly detained eight local Georgian residents; the massive detention of Gali residents by Abkhaz forces; the vandalizing of road signs in the Georgian language and the burning of Georgian language books in schools by the Abkhaz militiamen, with the assistance of the Russian peacekeeping force.

Other reports concerned alleged shootouts between ethnic Russian and Chechen peacekeepers in Ochamchire, resulting in six peacekeepers being wounded; on the election day, January 5, the television reported that about an alleged deadly shoot-out between the peacekeepers.

The Secretary-General’s report says that UN observers patrolling in the Gali district found that these media reports “proved mostly groundless.” “By and large, these patrols found that the information was sometimes baseless, sometimes only partially correct and, in some cases, misconstrued,” it said.

In the most recent case, the Georgian televisions reported this week that over dozen of Russian peacekeepers went AWOL after having an alleged confrontation with the ethnic Chechens serving in the Russian peacekeeping troops in Abkhazia. On January 26, Rustavi 2 TV reported that whereabouts of AWOL peacekeepers were not yet clear.

The UN Secretary-General's report points out that the Abkhaz secessionist authorities’ warning that those residents of Gali who wanted to cast ballot in the January 5 election in Zugdidi, might be better off staying on the Zugdidi side of the ceasefire line “had a deterrent effect on participation by Gali residents in the election.”

It, however, also notes: “Paradoxically, they [ethnic Georgians of the Gali district] were also deterred by misinformation by the Georgian media that the ceasefire line would be closed around election time.”

In overall, the report notes, that although there has been no incident between the Georgian and Abkhaz sides in the past few months, “reliable observers on both sides of the ceasefire line have commented that the relationship between the two sides was in 2007 at its lowest point since the large-scale violence of 1998.”

“The two electoral campaigns that took place in 2007, for the Georgian presidency and the de facto Abkhaz parliament, illustrated once again the deep rift between the political aspirations of the sides and their constituencies, with reunification and independence seen as top, non-negotiable priorities in Tbilisi and Sukhumi, respectively, and promoted with an equal sense of urgency,” the report reads.