Prisoner Release in a Bid From Sukhum For Peace

Abkhaz World -- Abkhazians will note with interest the statement issued by Baroness Ashton and the concern that she, on behalf of the EU, evidently felt for the fate of the Mingrelian prisoner released on 9 September by the Abkhazian authorities.

It is a matter of deep regret that the EU has not shown anything like similar concern for the fate of another Mingrelian, one Davit Sigua. Mr. Sigua was the Chairman of the Gal Electoral Commission and was abducted from Gal town in southern Abkhazia on 3 February 2007. Despite repeated requests by the Abkhazian authorities to both the Georgian government and the EU (including via the EU Monitoring Mission set up after the August 2008 war in South Ossetia), no definitive news has been received of him or his whereabouts. We can only conclude that he was yet another victim of the terrorism that has been directed towards Abkhazia and its citizens (especially in the Gal District) from the Georgian side of the border over the course of the last 17 years, since Georgia suffered humiliating defeat in the war that it inflicted on Abkhazia on 14 August 1992.

Is it not strange that it is a state that supports terrorist acts which continues to be the beneficiary of Western (specifically in this instance, EU) support, whilst the targets of Georgian terrorism (Abkhazia and South Ossetia) find themselves constantly subjected to the pressure of isolation and sanctions by those same Western self-styled champions of freedom and democracy?