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Finally, We Have Lost the War

April 1, 2010

Ia Antadze, Radio Liberty

“Darkness Around
Means End of the Night”
Kote Kubaneishvili

I know that everybody is fed up with the statements about the simulated reportage of the TV Company Imedi released on March 13. Only the word “simulated” remained in our memories from the reportage which is actively used in ordinary speech of Tbilisi dwellers. For example, “don’t you feel a bit simulated?”

However, I will say that we have not received any convincing replies to any of the questions raised after the reportage yet. We do not know the motive, the customer of the reportage, the goal and the result of it. And I want to write about the result. Besides that, since I will have to speak about the president, whose connection with the reportage was documented, I will clarify that the article was written based on my personal assumptions.

***

I do not think that the authors and people working on the reportage could predict the real results of their work which they received now. The real war launched on August 8, 2008 against Russia finished by the simulated war of March 13, 2010. After the shock of the day, we, the entire country, realized everything what we did not believe after the real war. The government of Georgia lost the war and they should be responsible for it.

Many people paid attention to the fact that both Georgian and foreign societies started to evaluate the real war though it had to be done after the August war. Black clouds started to gather over the loser commander-in-chief only now, though it had to happen 18 months ago. In addition to that, understanding of the reality, which disappeared after the real war, has started to appear only after the imitated war. After the shock the focus corrected and we understood – we have endured the last disaster. The burden, which was torturing us for the last one year and half and did not allow us to live peacefully, has a name now: paying with the war is craziness. At last, it finished and we started to discuss responsibility issues.

On the one hand, embassies of the US, GB and France spread protest statements; on the other hand European and American newspapers and telecasts speak about the responsibilities for the war which is beyond the competence of journalists. Many media sources said that the TV-Company Imedi is run by the person close to the President Saakashvili. Foreigners called the reportage not only “unpleasant” as the president of Georgia did, but they said it was “irresponsible.”

The most important is Georgian society who divided in two parts after the reportage. One part thinks that the audience is guilty because they did not tell the truth and false from each other and got panicked; the second part thinks the president does not have healthy psychic. Statements and behaviors of the president have been assessed in different ways, but nobody has ever made public diagnosis about his health as it was done after the simulated Chronicle. And first in the last year, we see that the number of supporters of the president is much less than the number of people who are shocked by him.

 ***

Nobody could dare to make similar evaluations about fabricated reportage if not the five-day war which we lost. Nobody was going to punish the offender for the real war if the president had not launched it. Real and virtual stories are fatally connected with each other in order to finish what has started and then wait for the verdict.

I do not know when and how the end will be formulated. Two weeks ago I wrote an article about wasted time when people, having lost reality, are hurrying to get changes and think that Saakashvili’s government will finish in two  or three days. I do not think so, but I am fully aware that Georgia finally finished the war on March 14 which was lost in 2008.

Nevertheless, we all remember Mikheil Saakashvili looking strong after the August war. After the first shock, he started propagandist war strongly and persuaded part of the society that we have not lost the war. In addition to that, foreign countries supported us which was expressed in the transfer of the 4,5 billion USD to Georgia. Opposition parties started protest rallies in the spring of 2009 and the government opposed it very cleverly. In the shameful end of this wave, the government had its role as well. The failure of the opposition reinforced the president and his team even more.

***
Mikheil Saakashvili maintained such a high spirit before the simulated Chronicle of March 13 which destroyed all his efforts for a year and half to finish the war. That meant, we should not have confessed that we have lost the war. Even before the New Year the president called upon us to take guns in hands and fight. Now, finally, we have put full stop at the end of the war. That means that we have gained the right to put guns and look after our country – if it is possible.

Thus, after March 13, it has become quite clear

 http://www.tavisupleba.org/content/blog/1988273.html 

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