The conflict zones continue to heat up as incidents and “provocations” take place on weekly basis. Abkhazia and South Ossetia fear war. There is suspicion in Georgia that Russia is annexing those territories though carrying out its plan of “providing social assistance to its citizens”. Russia has many other things on mind.
A few days ago, the Georgian special forces showed some skills of “adequately reacting” to one of those “provocations”:
Georgian nationwide TV stations – Rustavi 2 TV, Mze TV and public TV - aired footage on June 17 showing several plain clothes Georgian security officers and several patrol policemen dragging two Russian peacekeepers from their truck, forcing them to lie on the ground, swearing at them and then pushing them into police cars.
There were other episodes in the past when the Russian peacekeepers were handled roughly in front of the TV cameras. It is always an interesting coincidence just how those journalists appear at the right place and at the right time (usually in the middle of nowhere or near some village close to 
conflict zones). Maybe the Rustavi 2 journalists camp around the area to catch a glimpse of action or maybe they are invited in advance.
In any case. If there is an interaction between Georgians, Abkhaz, South Ossetians and Russians, it is likely to have a negative connotation like incident, provocation, warning, lost drones, etc. If there were any real moves to actually resolve the conflicts, different events would come under public scrutiny. This shows just how Georgia does not have any meaningful strategy to resolve these issues outside the usual format of protesting the infringement of territorial integrity or getting “friends” to react to Russia’s dangerous moves.
So what is the plan? Some thoughts on the ‘to do list’:
- Portray the Russian peacekeepers as a source of instability.
- Get peacekeepers from a more neutral side to patrol the conflict zones.
- Remind the western countries that in case of war they would have to deal with it somehow.
- Find more allies who would condemn Russia’s moves on regular basis.
- Show the separatists they are messing with the wrong guys.
- Use the tensions in the conflict zones to discredit the domestic opposition (very helpful during the elections). Ex: why don’t you protest in front of the Russian embassy instead of the Georgian parliament? Or, we are practically at war, and you are discrediting our international image.
- Promise the impossible.
- (more?)
Actually resolving the issues with the Abkhaz and South Ossetians is not really a top priority. At least it must be a well hidden one. “Russia’s hand” behind things is good and complex enough to deal with…
So how will conflicts be resolved this way?
Georgia’s public defender evaluated the recent parliamentarian elections in Georgia as the “worst in the country’s history”. Unlike previous falsifications, 
this time the state resources were directed at intimidating, blackmailing or bribing the voters — says Sozar Subari in an interview with the Georgian newspaper Asaval-dasavali.
The international organizations observing the elections, of course, noticed progress, albeit “uneven implementation” of previous recommendations. Some careful diplomatic jumba-jamba, some pretending not to have seen things, and Georgia is a democracy — in a special category. Other countries praised Georgia for conducting the elections in a peaceful manner(?). It could mean, for example, no acts of cannibalism took place at the polling stations.
As a result, the champions of Rose Revolution — an event symbolizing the “real” democratic revolution in the country — are proudly representing the bribed, blackmailed or intimidated populations’ interest with well over 80% in the parliament. What does the “population” know about the country’s interests?
Protests, mass demonstrations, hunger strikes did not help. With a stroke of good luck and “surprising support form the population” things just turned out the right way for the authorities.
In the meantime, US department noted “lack of credible opposition” in Georgia. During both elections in Georgia, unprecedented number of people demonstrated against the authorities. During the presidential elections marred with “irregularities”, the opposition candidates together ![2007_09_28t102627_450x301_us_georgia_opposition[1]](http://blogs.tol.org/conflicts/files/2008/06/2007-09-28t102627-450x301-us-georgia-opposition1.jpg)
got a little less than 50% of votes.
Yet, there is no credible opposition — maybe finding one would help… what a coincidence — the former parliament chairwoman and ruling party guru Nino Burjanadze is establishing a “Democracy Foundation”. Maybe she could be the credible, constructive and cooperative opposition (at least in public, for the democracy’s sake).
… And you get a democracy decorated with opposition, parliament and even media. Success story.
“Prime-time” is a popular political talk show hosted by the former Imedi TV journalist Inga Grigolia. This is the only TV program in Georgia that 
broadcasts live debates between the opposition and authorities. Some call it Georgia’s “only island of free speech”.
Needless to say, the bi-weekly evening show attracts a lot of interest. Recently it has been announced that the show will not broadcast for at least a month, as the European football championship broadcasts will be in time conflict with the show. Of course, no other times were found to air the program — that would mess up the whole soap opera schedule.
Georgia’s public defender Sozar Subari has evaluated media trends as “grave”, saying that besides one or two exceptions, there is no free electronic media in Georgia.
Overall, media freedom has been steadily declining since the pro-Western-educated-lawyer (ironic title) Mikheil Saakashvili gained power through peaceful regime change in 2003 – the event trendily coined as “Rose Revolution”. Many TV stations were either shut down or brought under government control. Such are today’s major TV stations Rustavi 2 – former “peoples’ television” and spearhead of the Rose revolution, Mze and Public Broadcaster.
Last November, Special Forces shut down Imedi TV during live broadcast. The television station has been in center of controversy ever since and due to shady reasons (likely the authorities) has transformed into an entertainment portal.
Georgian newspapers and Internet media are more or less free. For how long, that’s another question.
Free media is fundamental to democracy – it provides checks and balances that are essential for responsible governance. Without this, abuse of power is inevitable.
Controlled Georgian media tends to disseminate propaganda and eschew facts about the conflict zones in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. During the elections, the “incidents in the conflict zones” got a thorough coverage. Usually, the journalists appear in the most unlikely situations — take Khurcha incident, where peaceful Georgian voters were supposedly fired upon by the Abkhaz militias: the journalists were on the spot awaiting to interview the crowd when the shooting broke out. Isn’t that lucky? Or, when Russian peacekeepers were detained drunk driving — the journalists were there to catch the Georgian Special Forces drag out the Russian peacekeeper from the vehicle. There are many other instances.
Continue reading ‘Forget politics, watch football’
I went to see the documentary The Lost Colony today by the Dutch film-maker Astrid Bussink. It is about the Sukhumi Primate Centre, which is the oldest in the world, which was the site of major research in the Soviet period but which has had to cease most activities since the war. The documentary covers the weeks up to the small international conference which was organised there in 2007 on the occasion of the institute’s 80th birthday. There is also a side-story of a man who goes out into the woods every two or three weeks with food for the monkeys he supposes still roam the area since they escaped/were let loose during the war.
I liked the film very much, it gave me a very good spherical impression of the place (and of Sukhumi). There was an interview with the film-maker afterwards, and one of the points that came up was that her style is more ‘filmy’ than journalistic. So if you go to see it, don’t expect a full coverage of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict for example. Go see it for the wonderful insight it provides into one place and the people that work there.
For more information: http://www.lostcolony.nl
![2007_09_28t102627_450x301_us_georgia_opposition[1]](http://images.google.hu/imgres?imgurl=http://bp2.blogger.com/__2BT-MDIzWw/Rv1jtf-mgOI/AAAAAAAAAGY/9m0wQ_gTp3w/s320/2007_09_28t102627_450x301_us_georgia_opposition.jpg&imgrefurl=http://duckofminerva.blogspot.com/2007/09/turmoil-in-georgia.html&h=214&w=320&sz=25&hl=hu&start=1&sig2=JtjbjNYdbe_d1GdAp2ly3A&tbnid=pdBm2Xi6-fZDRM:&tbnh=79&tbnw=118&ei=O1hbSMDlIpXg1wbas72IDg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgeorgia%2Bopposition%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Dhu)