Georgia on my mind

In the news...a supposed military coup in Georgia.

Georgia has never been lucky with neighbours. Or just the one neighbour. Or just lucky. Being stuck on the frontier between Western Russia and the Middle East, the small Caucasian republic has been invaded enough times to lose any sense of identity. Or so you’d think. 

The daytime news bulletin on Russia’s Channel 1 opened with the oh-so familiar shot of tanks rolling through the spring-green. As nature wakes up and blooms, manic depressives and schizophrenics enter the period of springtime exacerbation, so the political theatre raises its curtain. The Georgian State Department has just issued a claim that there has been a coup attempt 30km outside of the capital Tbilisi. 

According to initial reports, there has been a mutiny at the Mukhorvani military base, where the commanders have demanded the resignation of the recent President-troubled Mikheil Saakashvili. The military was said to be unhappy with Georgia’s conduct of the 2008 brief war with Russia and was in favour of closer relations with the big brother neighbour. So it was all Russia’s fault. Surprise.

What is surprising is that Channel 1 has taken the breaking news so seriously.  After all, Georgia has a record of falsifying evidence in support of numerous claims of national treason. The most recent one hit the Georgian state television just this March. On the hotline from Radio Echo Moscow to Tbilisi, the former Ambassador of Georgia to Moscow Erosi Kitsmarishvili said that he mistrusted any official information and would not be surprised if the mutiny appeared nothing more than a hoax. Well, he is in the opposition. Mistrust of the government is his job-description. Especially considering that for the past three weeks (or 2007, depends on how you count) the opposition has staged a protest in Tbilisi demanding Saakashvili’s resignation. And tomorrow was supposed to be the start of the Georgian-Nato military exercise so frowned upon by Russia. Bad timing? I think not. 

The Russian Bureau chief of The Economist stated that Saakashvili is not crazy enough to stage a provocation at this point in time. Not that the Georgian government was admitting to anything. It was a Russian conspiracy, said official Georgia. They are all nuts, said the Kremlim. That is the vein of high-level political exchange that the people of the two countries have grown so familiar with in the past few years, ever since NATO-hopeful Saakashvili came to opwer in 2004. In the volatile political and economic climate of the Caucuses, it’s nice when at least something remains constant.  

What really happened is still a bit of a mystery. However, what started as a rude awakening in the misty morning, was ‘resolved’ by 3 p.m. with up to 500 soldiers of the renegade base surrendering voluntarily and piling into buses provided by the government to be transported for questioning. The leaders also surrendered and were arrested. Have you seen the footage of the latest street unrest in Tbilisi? Stockpiling into a big yellow bus seems somewhat out of their revolutionary character.

By the evening, Channel 1 had changed its tone. Accusations of Georgia’s fabrications became abundant, like someone just remembered they’ve seen this before. Supposed organisers of the ‘coup’ were being arrested. The commanders declared that their intentions were to draw the government’s attention and encourage talks with the opposition leaders; we were not going to riot, the military was adamant. Well, the opposition was getting ready to hit the streets. Saakashvilli was shown chewing his own tie (footage from August 2008). Not crazy enough to stage a provocation at this point in time? Oh really. It all turned into a big media farce. We can only hope that NATO liked the show.