In the news...ten years since the start of the Second Chechen campaign, ten years since Putin's coming to power, one year since the Georgia-Russia war over South Ossetia.
August is a heated month in Russia. What the northern country lacks in temperature is more than compensated for by its political climate. This year, Russia is marking some major anniversaries - some more widely advertised than others. On August 7, 1999 the Islamist rebels from Chechnya invaded the neighbouring republic of Dagestan, thereby triggering the beginning of the Second Chechen War and Russia’s continuing streak of human rights abuses in the Caucuses. Vladimir Putin has been named Deputy Prime Minister on August 16, 1999, to be carried forward to the Presidency on the wings of his hard-line policies and the couter-terrorist operation in the breakaway region. Rearing popular support through military bravado has been the Russian government’s steady bet for the past decade. The new President-heir Dmitri Medvedev clearly needed a sprinkle of patriotic heroism for his halo. Thus, on August 8, Russian state media has launched a magnificent propaganda campaign to commemorate last year’s war with Georgia over the contested region of South Ossetia.
Well, less of a war and more of a squabble, rather. Russia has been at odds with the Georgian government ever since the coming to power of the Harvard-educated and NATO-ambitious Mikhail Saakashvili in 2004, who deposed a pro-Russian ex-KGB Eduard Shevardnadze as the result of the so-called Rose Revolution. After four years of stepping on each other’s toes (see below), the Big Bear and its unfortunate neighbour finally came to blows on August 7, 2008. Or August 8, depending on whom you choose to believe. When trying to place blame for some 400 civilian deaths you also have to pick sides, as both Russia and Georgia plead self-defence. As Georgia symbolically picked the first day of the Beijing Olympics in its bid to portray Russia as an aggressor, so Moscow decided that 08.08.08 would look prettier when people will be lighting church candles in the streets a year later.
In the midst of this war-branding process, no one bothered to ask what colour flag South Ossetia wants to be waving. Well, they sort of did. In the 1991, South Ossetia - a small Georgian enclave of about 100,000 inhabitants - declared its independence. No one paid it any attention. Russia was too busy trying to prevent its own dissipation into a million little pieces after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The rest of the world had its nose deep in the Helsinki Accords. So the 1992 and the 2006 internationally monitored referenda - where some 99% of the South Ossetians expressed their desire to belong to Russia - went largely unnoticed. Until recently, when Russia decided to flex some political muscle and show Georgia that flirting with other super-powers like America is hurting Russia’s romantic notions of the Caucuses. Who started shooting first is to be determined by the EU committee, hopefully by September. The report, originally planned to appear in July, was postponed; the world is still not sure who to blame. So the media field is still fair game both for Moscow and Tbilisi. And a year on, the information war is hot as ever.
In the week leading up to the anniversary, Russian state media started reminding its viewers of the Georgian aggression. War ‘trophies’ in the form of military documentation intercepted from the Georgian side were widely cited, proving preparation and intent. First-ever broadcast from the Russian military base in South Ossetia was aired, showing armour glistening in the summer sun. On August 6th, Russia announced tightening of security on the Georgian-South Ossetian 'border', and once again tanks were rolling through the greenery. On 08.08.08 Channel One offered a wide selection of patriotic delicacies. A television series about the special forces fighting Russia’s numerous enemies was being aired as a double bill. Later on, a film about a brave Russian journalist who risks her life trying to prove to the world that Georgia, and not Russia, started the 2008 war, is scheduled. There is also a concert of the army’s favourite rock band. Just to set the mood.
Actual propaganda comes in the shape of two documentaries - ‘Tsekhenvali: a life without war’ and ‘07.08.08’ dedicated to the Western media’s outright prejudice in favour of Georgia at the outbreak of the conflict. Controversial images from CNN, showing the destruction of the South Ossetian capital Tskhenvali but claiming it was the Georgian town of Gori, were shown over and over again. A mistake suggesting that there are usually two sides to a war - a fact that Channel One seemed to have neglected somewhat. The Tskhevali film showed crying mothers and children reminiscing about the horrors of Georgian mortar fire. Awful, no doubt. But the authors of the ‘documentary’ failed to walk across the border to Gori, which saw heavy attacks by the Russian air force. It was a rich dish of human suffering, served with a hefty side of arrogant bias.
Georgia seemed to have ceased to exist on the Russian demagogic map that day. The Channel One news opened with the statement that Moscow, Tskhenvali and ‘the rest of the world’ are commemorating the year since Georgian aggression. Not Tbilisi, mind you. Standing ovations for President Medvedev from his July visit to the South Ossetian capital were repeated. A poster declaring ‘Thank you, Russia!’ was displayed in the centre of Tskhenvali. It was suggested that Russia’s President will visit the capital again. However, he only made it to Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia. There, he addressed soldiers and doctors who took part in the conflict, thanking his fighting comrades for saving innocent lives. Somewhat over-stated, since the President did not even have the balls to go to South Ossetia proper. The same balls by which Vladimir Putin promised to hang Mikhail Saakashvili only a year ago.
If you were curious about how Georgia was dealing with the consequences of the war, you had to go do your own research. The ‘rest of the world’ seemed to pay little attention to the date; the anniversary failed to make any headlines in the Western media. Neither President Saakashvili nor the Georgian press were too vociferous about Russian aggression. Perhaps, realising that the world adoration has shifted, Tbilisi curbed its rhetoric of Russian aggression. Still, with not-so-mild innuendo, the main street in Tbilisi was closed down for a photo-exhibition dedicated to the years of Soviet oppression, specifically the Spring of 1989 when Russian troops suppressed the anti-communist protests. Church bells rang and candles were lit all over the country to remember the dead. The dead neither Russia nor South Ossetia bothered to acknowledge.
Just like the 30,000 ethnic Georgians that are still displaced by the war. South Ossetian ethnic cleansing, that saw some 25,000 Georgians expelled from the border regions, is not getting a great deal of press coverage. However, these people are out there, living in makeshift housing provided by the Georgian government, on as little as $3 a day, according to Amnesty International. Official reports say that 70% of Tskhenvali was destroyed. Although the city saw some of the heaviest fighting, the statistic gives an indication of what damages the Georgian side has suffered. With the propaganda campaign in high-season, Russian promises of aid and reconstruction are echoing over South Ossetia. Distant echoes, that have no walls to bounce off yet.
In August 2008, Russia clearly lost the information war. But in the past year, Saakashvili’s oppression of the Georgian liberal opposition, the fabrications of the Georgian state media and empty accusations of Russian provocations - as well as military documentation - have toppled him off the victim’s pedestal. You would think that Russia could have shrugged that misunderstanding off. But its national pride hurt, and its image of a world super-power under strain, it has debased itself to Orwellian-style propaganda. It seems now that it is not as important to place blame for the events of August 2008 as it is to rise above politics and acknowledge the human tragedy of the five-day war. Alas. Having painted President Medvedev in victorious colours, there is a strong chance that Russia is going to neglect not only the Georgian people, but the South Ossetian pawns of the Moscow propaganda machine as well.
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