ON A windy hilltop in northern Georgia, the Archbishop of Canterbury gazed at some cows standing on the other side of a line of ploughed earth. The cattle were half a field away, but, to retrieve them, the owner would have to risk being detained by Russian security forces.
The ploughed line that scarred the hilltop was referred to by the representative of the EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM) as a “borderisation feature”. It marks the point at which Georgia becomes South Ossetia. Although the former does not recognise the sovereignty of the latter, the “administrative border line” (ABL) between them is a de facto border.
In the 2008 war with Russia, Georgia lost two areas of its sovereign territory: mountainous South Ossetia, and the coastal strip Abkhazia. Similar to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine, both declared themselves autonomous republics, but are supported by the Russian Federation.
Reflecting on the visit to the ABL a few days later, Archbishop Welby spoke of the “absurdity” of a border that bisects villages, follows no geographical logic, and draws on at least three different historical maps.
The South Ossetian side of the ABL is policed by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). One of the monitoring officers handed Archbishop Welby a pair of binoculars through which he could inspect the Russian watchtower.
Later, in the valley, the Archbishop was able to see FSB infrastructure at closer quarters: over a razor-wire fence, which runs across what used to be a road through a village, but is now overgrown.
At one point, the fence runs through the garden of an elderly resident; on the Georgian side, to which she has access, it is well-tended, with chickens on the grass, and saplings behind the fence.
“Why are people in the village, in the valley, where the line goes straight through people’s gardens, why are they suffering? Because of this absurdity of human greed and ambition, and pride, and power,” Archbishop Welby said in an interview at the end of his trip in the South Caucasus.
Only about one third of the roughly 240km ABL is fenced. Much of it is completely unmarked, especially in inaccessible forested or mountainous areas. Until the past few years, much of it was also mined, but the HALO Trust has made the area safe — at least from the threat of landmines, although the toll on those who inhabit the border areas remains high.
As part of his visit, Archbishop Welby, with the British Ambassador, Mark Clayton, met representatives of local civil-society organisations at the EUMM field office in Gori.
They heard about issues relating to housing, irrigation, and the ever present fear of detention in border areas, where the lack of fencing and the wandering livestock make it easy to cross inadvertently into territory controlled by Russia.
Julia Kharashvili, who chairs a women’s association for people displaced by the 2008 conflict and ongoing occupation, told Archbishop Welby that 50,000 displaced people were still living in irregular housing
Others spoke about the issue of irrigation, exacerbated by climate change, on farmland that was not lost when the area was divided.
Earlier, in a convoy of Toyota Land Cruisers through the rough terrain, one of the EUMM officers explained how the organisation had helped to facilitate occasional access to places of worship and graveyards on the other side of the ABL.
Despite these efforts, there were instances of violent detention of people while they were visiting the graves of their parents, which were visible from their homes but on the wrong side of the line. “Some of the stories are really heartbreaking,” he said.
Listen to the full interview with Archbishop Welby here.