A Sorry Campaign

Nothing is ever boring in the election period in Georgia, and the most recent snap-parliamentary election held on May 21, 2008 was no exception. It was highlighted with explosions and burning buses (aside from the usual heaping measure of vote rigging and political violence directed toward voters, campaign workers and even election monitors).

On the Election Day, two buses allegedly picking up ethnic Georgians who were crossing the de facto border from the Abkhaz side were hit by mortars and propelled grenades - an incident widely covered by both the Georgian and international media. At first the blame was firmly placed in the media reports on the threatening role that Russia and the Abkhaz separatists had played in the event. Such claims further reinforce how the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia in a continued menace to peace and security, not only being a roadblock to Georgia’s NATO aspirations and reestablishing its territorial integrity.

Human Right Centre in Georgia-Norwegian Helsinki Committee ran a report on the Khurcha incident the next day, which raised disturbing questions as to the authenticity of whether or not “separatists had actually attempted to kill innocent Georgians who wanted to participate in the so-called democratic elections.

On the 7th of June two representative of the Human Rights Centre visited Khurcha, one an ethnic Megreliean and IDP, and the other an American journalist. The purpose was to try to find out first hand the perspective of locals about the events that occurred on the day of the incident. Based on their fact-finding visit, it now appears that the event was a poorly staged performance for Election Day hype – more of the same rigmarole, and things are in a mess as normal – SNAFU.

As one of the Human Rights team noted, Jeffrey Silverman, “I have been on the border with Abkhazia where Georgian Special Services appear to have blown up two buses; I could have just walked into Abkhazia. It is now clear that the Georgians tried to blame it on the Abkhaz and their Russian supporters. However, “we got to the truth, or as close as you can get; it is going to be interesting to understand the full extent of the political blowback over a staged political performance, and one that put the lives of innocent Georgian civilians in jeopardy.”

Team members debriefed upon their return to Tbilisi, – we spoke to locals living in the village and they told us that [they] had been instructed for them go to the buses "by representatives of a commission" before the shooting started, and that Abkhaz were not involved. We showed them the transcript from Georgian State TV and they took exception to what was written.

“Georgian enforcers control the situation in village Khurcha- and during the shooting in conflict region, one woman was wounded. She has been transported to a Zugdidi hospital. 2 buses were blowup when [those] from the Gali region was on their way to the elections by bus.

It is clear that current events developing in Gali have proved that human rights are restricted in the conflict regions-declared Eka Tkheshelashvili, Georgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and she added “that such events should not be repeated in the future.”
The first reaction from the side of the government was to firmly fix the blame on the Russian side.

“This information hasn’t been confirmed yet, but there has been some tension, which strongly supports how Russia is not being constructed in its actions in the conflict zone. Those living there are being restricted from being able to participate in the election process and this violates their human rights – which is unacceptable.

Story on the ground
Responses from those living in Khurcha, however, were rather different, which is supported those “actual” residents living the immediate area of the incident. They told that many of those that gathered where not even from the Gali region but were actually locals who had been instructed by governmental representatives to assembly on the football pitch.

One respondent: They [representatives of a commission] came to our homes that morning and told us to assembly on the football field.

Another respondent: [They] “Representatives of the commission came that morning and instructed us to go to the buses; they were trying to gather as many people on site as possible.”

We then asked, to several locals as why they thought that the Abkhaz could not have been involved … they responded by saying “that because this region of Gali has many mixed families and why to take the chance of killing members of your own family; that would be crazy, even for the Akbhaz.”

Local respondents said that the nearest Abkhaz block post is 3 km inside the Gali region and they have no contacts presence on this border, the Abkhaz side only patrol it from time-to-time. Very seldom you will even see any Abkhaz military or border guards, even when you cross over into the Gali district (breakaway region of Abkhazia that is mainly inhabited by ethnic Georgians).

This begs the question was it the Georgians who almost killed their own citizens as part of the black PR on Election Day?” In taking a closer look, now it has been confirmed for all practical purposes that the Rustavi2 new story was a total staged event, from the very beginning to the last moment with the flaming buses and people were seen running around as looked for cover, and at the same time others were walking calmly as if nothing was happening at all. There were different versions of the same tape showed at different times of the day. It had been carefully edited for later airings, and some of the remarks from the shot woman in Megrelian are especially revealing, especially when she asked one of the Georgian soldiers by first name as why did he shoot her. “Thank you Zaal….you say that it is nothing [her bullet wound] but I am going to die.”

She lived and now two weeks after the event, the sense of quiet on the front is rather suspicious, and this is further reinforced by several Georgian men were taking a dip in the small stream that separated the divide of the conflict zone; they seemed not at all to be worried about their personal safety and the danger from the so-called Abkhaz terrorists who tried to kill innocent civilians.

The Georgian side also does not seem to be on a high military alert in spite of all the rhetoric of an immediate attack or illegal annexation of Georgian territory by the Russian Federation.
They had already made it pass the Georgian border guards (and for a conflict zone the level of security is next to nothing, especially in light of the televised shooting incident with reported causalities on both sides, as reported by Rustavi2 and Georgia Public Broadcasting on Election Day.

During the several hours that the investigators were there taking with locals and inspecting the football pitch where the shooting incident had taken place, no Georgian patrols were noted. They did note, however, that the buses had been removed.

Now the only outward appearance of control over the area was few troops next to the bridge going from the Zugdidi region to the centre of Khurcha. We were told that there were a total of 20 to 25 troops for the block post in total.

The Georgian troops did not ask to see any documents from three passengers in the taxi, only the driver as it entered into the area of the shooting incident. The car passed the block post without any problems. On the return trip across the bridge there was bus in front of them, much the same size of the two that had gone up in flames on Election Day. Both a bus and the taxi were waved through the checkpoint without any checking whatsoever. Early in the day we had passed via another block post up the Enguri River from Khurcha, and still there was a short supply of apparent security procedures in place.

The bored soldiers had only asked for a few cigarettes from the driver, as the car stopped to be checked. The soldiers seemed not interested in any security risk, which is strange as one of our team members was a foreign national and in spite of the shooting incident two weeks earlier.

Many attempts have been to try to discredit the original Human Rights Centre/Norwegian Helsinki Committee report by focusing on whether or not it is an actual article, journalism or even objective observation, which seems to be a moot point at this point in the game. It is interesting to note that in the May 30 - June 5 issue of Georgia Today entitled "Right Wrongs Nobody: What?" - that Paul Rimple the same author of the first internationally published article on the incident writes another article but with a different rotation of spin that distracts from the original Eurasianet piece, “Border Attack Spurs Fresh Tensions Between Georgia, Abkhazia,” that was published the next day of what now appears to have been a poorly-staged event.

The Georgia Today article starts out with flashback of Vietnam and making comparisons of the experience of the author if he had served in that war - with the mission to "investigate what happened in Kurcha on Wednesday 21st May and to what happened at approximately 2pm when somebody opened fire on two buses carrying voters from Gali. It is highly questionable that he is old enough to have served in Vietnam and that is just part of the subterfuge to downplay the incident and the first article.

Paul Rimple, who claims to have actually covered the incident and had personally written an article about the issue, was taken there on a guided tour at the invitation of the Georgian government. He was flown by a Georgian government helicopter to the scene of the so-called terrorist incident. However, from all sources, including eye-witnesses, it is doubtful if he was able to get close to the buses, or to any of the actual witnesses and in the Eurasian Insight peace he claims that the only available witnesses were in the hospital and they were unable to speak."

It unlikely no coincidence that he is also working with Georgia Today, an English Language Newspaper in Tbilisi that is heavily funded by the Georgian Ministry of Defense. It is possible that the main aspects of the article not written by him, and that he was only provided the article - as it is rather different in language that other submissions or it has been heavily edited by some of his co-worker who also supports the official line. Moreover and especially disturbing that careful fact-checking was never carried out, and as presented, the creditability of the interviewed journalists and the international publications has had their reputations tarnished.

His story closely resembles the official story as reported by the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in response to the Kurcha incident. “Russia is openly demonstrating its direct interests in the conflict zone” the official statement reads. However, regardless of who is reporting the facts, Aleksander Diordiev, Assistant to the Commander of CIS Peacekeeping Forces, claimed that the incident might have been totally organized by Georgian special units. In retrospect, and based on the circumstances and apparent contradictions, this may have likely been the case.

It is also possible that much of the news story may have been translated from a text that had been prepared in Georgian by Paul Rimple’s sponsor [s]. In short, his trip to Khurcha on May 21 was most likely a black PR trip and all connected with NATO integration plans. However, it served more of a pragmatic function to divert media attention away from widespread election fraud and political violence that was taking place on Election Day throughout all Georgia regions.

As of now, one so-called international journalist’s professionalism has been tarnished, and now others seem to backing down or distancing themselves from the story, which in itself alone further indicates that there is reason to believe that the incident was poorly staged.

“It sure would be nice to talk to somebody that actually saw something,” we said, when suddenly, a Rustavi-2 journalist, who had filmed the entire attack sequence, arrived at the hospital entrance. She began to describe her version of the event, which changed with every question put to her. First they shot from behind the Russian post, which someone told us earlier was Ѕ a kilometer away. Then they shot from behind some bushes in a corridor they had set up, then, then, then. “They had everything,” she said. “Grenades, automatics, rockets.”
“Who had?” I asked.
“The Abkhaz.”
“How did you know they were Abkhaz?”
“Because their shoulder patches are different than ours.”
“Did you see them?”
“...No.”

To be continued ….

'There Is no Way to Peace; Peace Is the Way' - An Appeal to the Georgian Nation