Georgia
Katie Roy, Mark Hearn

British officers serving with the UN in Georgia and Abkhazia played key witness roles after Russian tanks rolled across the de facto border in August. Reporter Katie Roy and Cameraman Mark Hearn paid a return visit to the region to see where the shock waves began in a crisis that rocked NATO.

As we drove up to the ceasefire line between Georgia and the de facto state of Abkhazia, we noticed a number of things had changed since our visit two years ago. The man selling puppies on his car bonnet by the side of the road was, strangely, still there, but the main bridge from Tbilisi to the west was a hurried rebuild in the wake of the summer's violence. South Ossettia, still crackling with inter-ethnic violence, was just kilometres to our right. And then nothing but farmland until we hit the Zugdidi suburbs 5 hours later.

The second change was a single Russian tank, parked up on the main highway into town, its crew sat on the gun turret, stuffing down crisps and coke and grinning at passing Georgians. They were having a bit of a giggle in the face of the biggest crisis between Russia and the West for decades.

And thirdly, there were very few passing Georgians. Two years ago, after thirteen years of stalemate between the break-away republics and Tbilisi, people trudged through life, be they businessman, farmer or Internally Displaced Persons, with just a lovingly tended glimmer of hope that Georgia would be whole again….or the break-away regions would be independent, depending on one's ethnicity… Now the place was silent. The displaced people knew they wouldn't be going home; the Zugdidi region was stunned by Russian troops steam-rolling across their land and through their towns, and the world was wondering if NATO could survive the shock-waves.

Our visit took place during this period of adjustment. The UN Zugdidi Sector commander was a British Lt Colonel. All his team were still fired up from an August where Soviet invasion came from a clear blue sky, and a posting where ‘you bring an OU course to keep you occupied' became the centre of world attention. As the tanks rolled straight past UN bases, the Lt Colonel bearded a surprised Russian General in his den and warned him every move his troops made would be reported on by his patrols. The locals claim this highly visible UN presence stopped the sort of violence suffered by both sides in South Ossetia.

British officers with the UN in poverty-stricken Gali in Abkhazia met with us in Zugdidi. We waited twenty minutes while they read the restaurant menu with wide-eyed reverence, and wondered about ordering every item on it. When they'd stopped drooling, they explained why Mark and I couldn't go across the ceasefire line as we had before. They called our camera ‘one giant bullet-magnet'. They'd had some nasty moments with their small stills cameras and the militia, and so instead they just described the daily Gali diet of explosions, shootings, abuse and oppression, mainly by the newly emboldened Abkhazian militia against ethnic Georgians and Mingrelians. As we arrived, four Georgian policemen were hit by a sniper, one fatally. Those investigating later found mines awaiting them.

On the Zugdidi side we found heartbroken IDPs jabbing fingers into UN chests and asking why the Blue Berets could help them – stop the Russian and militia oppression that denied them their homes and livelihoods. UN officers would patiently explain over and over that they could only watch and report, and it was those reports that might make the difference in some far-off international court. Eventually frustration would burn out, and there'd be a handshake, and the offer of Cha Cha, the local fire-water.

Evidence of Russia's sally into Georgian territory – bomb craters, UXBs, a rear-guard of troops – were still being dealt with as we left, and the UN was squaring its shoulders to its own uncertain future in the region. If there is anything positive to come from the summer's events, it's that South Ossettia and Abkhazia, and all the IDPs have been in stagnant limbo for well over a decade. Now for better or for worse, the ‘forgotten conflict' is well and truly back in international headlines.