Fence erected on Georgia-South Ossetia border

The village of Dvani, located on the administrative border between Georgia and the newly autonomous region of South Ossetia and home to around 1,000 people, has seen a number of protests in recent weeks over the erection of boundary fences by Russian forces. Other villages, such as Ditsi and Didi Khurvaleti, have also been affected by the dividing fences, which locals say amounts to a 'creeping borderisation' across Georgian territory that was not originally agreed upon following the 2008 Russia-Georgia War. The news has received much attention as Georgia's presidential elections approach this Sunday.

According to EU monitors, around 40km of barbed wire fencing has been erected along the 400km border, supported by intermittent pylons fitted with hi-tech surveillance equipment. At some junctures, the fence intersects properties, contiguous farmland and historical sites, including cemeteries. The majority of the work has been completed by Russia's army, appointed by South Ossetia to protect its borders as it did not have an independent force of its own.

Georgia's Foreigh Minister Maia Panjikidze last month said that the this provocative boundary demarcation amounts to “the illegal action of the Russian occupying forces”, a position supported by the EU's High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, who has called on Russia to remove the fence. Moscow's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, has labelled T'bilisi's claims “propagandistic hysteria”, denying that Russian action violate international norms.

On 25 August 2008, Russia recognised the breakaway states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent after having supported local militant groups during the 2008 Russia-Georgia War, however, Georgia saw this as an annexation of its territory and formally cut all diplomatic ties with its northern neighbour. Ever since then, the boundary situation has been fluid and unsettled. Border outposts have been moved back and forth, and shooting incidents still occasionally occur. EU monitors have played a limited role in keeping the peace.

Panel to review India-Myanmar border dispute

India has sent a committee to its eastern province of Manipur, on the border with Myanmar, to review work on its 10km border fence with its neighbour, following reports that Myanmarese troops made an incursion onto Indian land on 22 August. The soldiers are said to have entered Indian territory through the border town of Moreh and begun felling trees to set up a temporary camp at Holenphai village in Manipur's Chandel district, claiming that the land was rightly theirs and fell within Myanmar's jurisdiction. 

The decision to send the committee, headed by Chairman Suresh Babu, was taken during an emergency cabinet meeting convened on Saturday night by Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh. The meeting was called after a discussion the same day between the group charged with protecting the border area, the Assam Rifles, and their Myanmar counterpart, achieved little progress. Moreh Governor Ashwini Kumar will also be visiting the area tomorrow to assess the claims of the Myanmar troops, who are currently situated 3km south of Moreh police station and 10m inside the Indian side of the newly erected border demarcation.

Concerns over the border fence fomented into unrest shortly after construction began by the Indian Home Ministry in March 2003, following a joint survey that lasted six months. Protests by the people of Moreh, Chorokhunou and Molchan, which stalled building for a short period, sought to bring to the attention of the authorities the fact that the newly-built fence would bifurcate the indigenous Naga, Chin and Kuki ethnic communities in the area, whose lands straddle the border zone. In light of recent events and comments by Babu, who told journalists that what was being erected was a 'security' fence not a border fence, local groups have threatened once again to demonstrate against construction.

The Indian province of Manipur shares a 398km border with Myanmar. Prior to 2003, the porous border between the two South Asian neighbours was seen as a transit point for drug-trafficking and blamed for the deaths of hundreds of security personnel killed in militancy-related violence.