Saakashivli’s Informational War

Joni Simonishvili 

Paata Zaqareishvili, majoritarian candidate (single mandate) of the Republican Party and political expert in conflict affairs estimates that the recent tensions in Kodori gorge are part of a PR campaign. There is a tendency of such provocations before elections and this benefits president Mikhail Saakashvili and his corrupted minions.

Those on Saakashvili’s team, including close advisors, are often tied with Georgian intelligence, youth movements, and so-called Color revolutions (Georgia and Ukraine). If we look at the situation closely there seems to be a pattern of such media events, and they are always breaking news in countdown to elections, whether it is presidential or parliamentary.

In the Russia language there is the expression: keep my friend close but keep my enemy closer. "Derji cvoix dryzei blizko a vragov ece blije” Also, in the news you will notice that things, either by coincidence or by plan are heating up in the South Ossetian or Abkhazia zone of conflict, and used effectively for political gains by the ruling National party of the current pro-Western Georgian government.  The latest deals with the so-called preparations of Russian and Abkhaz separatists to unfreeze the “frozen conflict” zone of Akkhazia, and start a shooting war. It is sometimes difficult to understand who is friend or foe – and whether or not the enemy is from within or from outside.

Nonetheless, there is always a tense situation in the run-up to elections. In 2006, it was the Kodori gorge events with Emzar Kvitsiani, former presidential advisor, so called outlaw and “enemy of the people”.  For locals, most of the rhetoric, however, can be brushed off as more political positioning and mere sabre rattling. The Kodori Gorge, (renamed Zemo Abkhazeti – upper Abkhazia), is noted in the press as the last enclave in the Abkhazia region where Georgian jurisdiction still reins supreme. However, on closer inspection, it is a shinning example of where crisis can be manipulated by all sides; there are as just many side plots as there are main events, including helicopter attacks that could have been staged by the Georgian side.

Foreign envoys and media representatives were constantly detailed about the anti-criminal operation that was carried in the Kodori Gorge in the so-called hot pursuit of Emzar Kvitsiani, and who was the former leader of the paramilitary group “Monadire” (Hunter) and his so-called “gang” – and all is reflective of other shady characters who no longer served a useful purpose – other than to act as distraction of convenience.

Next was the infamous Russian spy case in 2007, which spoiled uneasy relations with the Russian Federation when 4-alleged intelligence officers were arrested for spying, and tossed from the country with much fanfare and media blitz.  Such arrests are not that uncommon and the practice is to just make them leave the country. It was the justification for the blockade of Georgian wines and the mass deported of undocumented Georgian citizens from the Russian Federation.

And then there was the case of Saakashvili personally standing down Russian Peacekeepers on the border of Abkhazia, the Ganmukhuri incident, where Saakashivli told the peacekeepers on National TV to go back to their Russia and they were persona non grata over the arresting of some Georgian Security with weapons in the buffer zone between Georgia and Abkahzia. It just happened that Saakasvhili and his media troop, including Rustavi2 and Georgian State TV, including representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, just happened to be hand for the “brave” Georgian president to stand-down the uncultured and occupying Russian “demons” for wider public consumption; things could not have been better staged (especially before a highly contested and rigged presidential election).

Even now Rustavi2 announces some murder or rape, nearly every day that occurred in the Gali region, part of the breakaway region of Abkhazia that is mainly inhabited by ethnic Georgians, in demonizing Russians and their Abkhaz supporters. However, the Georgian and international media fails to mention that most often the incident has nothing to do with actual events, or it has been carefully staged, or was just a criminal event devoid of any political basis. There have been instances of women gong on TV and telling horrific tales of rape, whether true or not. The most recent curfew announced by Georgia TV about how the Abkhaz had clapped down on ethnic Georgians living in the Gali region proved just as untrue as all the other staged PR.

Why is it that the Georgian media seem never to fact-check their stories, and one TV station outlet quotes the other – and such outlets like Georgian Public TV and Rustavi2. They are broadcasting basically the same mistruths; it is if they have access to “breaking news” as if they are traveling together in the same news vehicle or have the same faked news release as their story line.

Naturally, it could be said that there are “National interests involved here, and the free and fair media is only doing it job inasmuch as uniting the people against domestic and foreign enemies. It is only because of the Russian aggressive and twisted foreign policy towards Georgia that forces the government to close ranks, which in turn actually brings a one voice to its concerted policies. However, in reality it can also be said that Saakashvili and Russia are working as one team, and right before elections that Georgia and Russia can find ways innovative ways work together in a bad way.

It is only natural that lots of people, included some with duel Georgian-American citizenship are suggesting that all this anti-Russian hysteria is another PR game that Saakashvili’s propaganda machine is playing with Georgian voters before elections. However, the media and supporters of the reformers fail to mention how the story that few are willing to tell is why all the “PR Drama against Russia” and how under the cover of media NEWSpeak that the democratically Georgian president-elect has been flogging off everything to Russian or Kazakh companies; they are basically one in the same, with economic ties back to Moscow and well-linked networks of political patronage.

It is clear that Saakashvili is exploiting tensions with Abkhazia and South Ossetia for his own domestic electoral purposes, but as General Leonid Ivanov said last week in Rosbalt, the fifth floor of the Georgian Ministry of Defense is staffed with NATO liaisons who make, or at least need to authorize, any moves by Tbilisi, and Saakashvili wouldn't dare make his recent statements without knowing the West would back him up if it came to a shooting war. Washington and Brussels would have gagged him a long time ago if they weren't in on the grand scheme of things.

Georgian moves are blatantly political ahead of elections, and Russia's troop presence is a (and probably the) factor preventing renewed violence.  Georgia's armed forces have made extraordinary progress from the Shevardnadze era, and their experience in Iraq and Afghanistan is invaluable.  However, Russia's troop 'surge' must also be seen in the context of the government's legalization of the Abkhaz/Ossetian governments and official removal of the blockade in the post-Kosovo environment. It's clearly part of a pattern of de facto annexation.