I know I posted information pretty hastily earlier, but since Internet time is limited here (there are 10 suites that have Internet access, shared between 80-ish volunteers/trainees and all the PC staff), I didn't have much time to write. Now that I have time on my laptop in our room, I'm going to write a little bit more.
Thanks to Joanna, by the way, for posting the link from the Peace Corps that we were safely relocated to Armenia. We arrived this morning around 1am, after leaving at 11:30am from Georgia, so it was a REALLY long time on the bus, although the main problem was the four hour delay at the border. It seems Georgians outside of the areas with fighting are—in general—pretty calm. I texted about 15 Georgian friends/counterparts to let them know we were being evacuated, and I got many responses back that said something along the lines of, “Have a great trip! See you soon!” This was not exactly the response I was hoping for. The U.S. Embassy is making plans to evacuate all remaining U.S. citizens out of Tbilisi tomorrow (the 13th), but it sounds like things may be getting better.
Georgia and Russia have announced their intention to sign a creasefire, but this isn't the same thing as a peace agreement. Russia has “strong conditions” for a peace agreement; the rumor is that those conditions include Georgia completely out of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and out of anywhere they could attack the breakaway regions from (i.e., Gori and Zugdidi), which I can't see Georgia agreeing to. So although a ceasefire seems to be agreed to by both sides, I don't think this means its over yet (you may remember that originally, there WAS a ceasefire agreement that was broken, which is what led to all this in the first place). In the same speech, Mevdevev (Russia’s president) called Georgia “bloodthirsty” and irrational, so not exactly smoothing things over….This is still a huge rally taking place in Tbilisi where Saakashvili made a very emotional speech accusing Russia of still trying to dominate Georgia, and said that bombings continued even after the ceasefire was agreed upon.
- Carissa
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2 comments:
Thank you so much for keeping us updated. It eases our concerns and gives us specifics for prayer. We are getting the news of the agreement now, but as you said, it remains to be seen exactly what will be the end result. At least for now, perhaps, there might be a bit a respite from the assault. We love you both.
i'm an RPCV from Kenya, recently evacuated this past january during the violence there. i found my way to your journal through a post on livejournal in response to other RPCVs and PCV's concerns about Georgian volunteers. Know that we're all crossing our fingers for your safety, and that you will be able to return to Georgia if the situation calms down. Good luck!
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