The South Ossetian law enforcement bodies would do their best to ensure peace at the borderline, stated the first Deputy Plenipotentiary for Post-Conflict Settlement Merab Chigoev. Chigoev commented on the statement made by the Interior Ministry of Georgia, in which the South Ossetian side has been blamed in preventing the residents of borderline areas from working in their fields, and that this "makes the social situation more difficult for the local population." According to Chigoev, the media and authorities of Georgia have been lately increasing their activities aimed at slandering positive changes taking place at the borderlines of the Republic of South Ossetia with Georgia, those significant efforts taken to preserve peace at the borders. According to him, this kind of statements is not worth paying attention to. "Nonetheless, I would like to comment on the 20 April statement of Georgia's Interior Ministry that the authorities of South Ossetia had been reportedly preventing the residents of the borderline areas from working on their land, and thus, complicating the social situation for the population. This is pure lies and hypocrisy. First, the residents themselves and the whole world community know that the social situation in whole Georgia, not only in the borderline areas, is complicated by the authorities now in power in Georgia. They do so because of their inability and corruptness", stated Merab Chigoev.
Meanwhile, he gave concrete example reporting that the Georgian side, the Georgian authorities, namely, the Department of Interior of so-called Shida Kartli region had several times addressed the official structures of South Ossetia, the KGB border-guard department, with a request to facilitate security measures to ensure that the rural residents in the areas adjacent to the borderline could have unhindered access to their land: "Every time, our official structures tried to meet these requests and placed additional checkpoints, and there were no cases when the peasants were hindered in their field works".
"We always tried to meet these requests since we understand the situation in which Georgian rural residents are living. We do understand that they are suffering. Therefore, the statement by Interior Ministry of Georgia sounds hypocritical. Why is it happening now that the Interior Ministry of Georgia makes this kind of statements, saying that the authorities of South Ossetia are hindering Georgian rural residents to work in their fields? There is an explanation. According to information available to our law enforcement bodies, the Georgian defense and law enforcement structures, including the Interior Ministry, are increasing their presence in the borderline areas, they are equipping their observation posts, organizing provocations. We have concrete information about facts of Georgian law enforcement personnel's advancing into the territory of South Ossetia as far as 500 m – 1 km, entering villages, opening fire and conducting other provocative actions. In order to justify their violations, they have to make these false statements", he underlined. "I would like to reiterate that the authorities of South Ossetia do not hinder the Georgian inhabitants in their fieldworks; moreover, the law enforcement structures will do their best to ensure peace at the borderline so that the rural residents, both on the Georgian and South Ossetian sides, would have the possibility to smoothly work on their land allotments situation in the areas adjacent to the borderlines", concluded Chigoev.
