Georgia at War: What I Saw

The first thing that strikes me as soon as we are out of Tbilisi is the strange absence of military force. I had read that the Georgian army, defeated in Ossetia, then routed in Gori, had withdrawn to the capital to defend it. I reach the outskirts of the city, moving forty kilometers on the highway that slices through the country from east to west. But I see almost no trace of the army which has supposedly regrouped in order to fiercely resist the Russian invasion. Here we see a police station. A little farther on, a handful of soldiers, their uniforms still too new. But no combat units. No anti-aircraft weaponry. Not even the trenches and zigzagging fortifications which, in all the besieged cities of the world, are set up to at least slightly impede the enemy's advance. A dispatch received while we are driving announces that Russian tanks are now approaching the capital. The information is relayed by various radio stations and then finally denied, creating unspeakable chaos and making the few cars which had ventured outside the city turn back immediately. But the authorities, the powers that be, seem strangely to have given up.

Is the Georgian army there, but hiding? Ready to intervene but also invisible? Are we perhaps in the middle of one of those wars in which the supreme ruse is to let yourself be seen as little as possible, the way they did in the forgotten wars of Africa? Or has President Saakashvili deliberately chosen non-combat as a way to force us, the Europeans and Americans, to accept our responsibilities ("You claim to be our friends? You have said a hundred times that with our democratic institutions, our wish to become part of Europe, our government composed of -- unique in the annals of history -- an Anglo-Georgian Prime Minister, American-Georgian cabinet ministers, an Israelo-Georgian Minister of Defense - is the first in its Western class? Well, now is the time to step up and prove it."). I don't know. The fact is that the first significant military presence we run into is a long Russian convoy, at least one hundred vehicles long, headed in the direction of Tbilisi, casually waiting to get gas. Then, forty kilometers outside the city, around Okami, we see a battalion, as usual Russian, attached to a unit of armored vehicles whose role is to stop journalists from going one direction and refugees from going the other.

One of them, a peasant, wounded in the forehead, still dazed and terrified, tells me the story of fleeing his village in Ossetia on foot, three days ago. The Russians arrived, and in their wake, Cossack and Ossetian gangs pillaged, raped and murdered. As they did in Chechnya, they rounded up the young men and drove them away in trucks, to unknown destinations. Fathers were killed in front of their sons. Sons were killed in front of their fathers. In the basement of a house which they blew up with propane cylinders they had collected, they came upon a family and stripped them of everything they had tried to hide and then forced the adults to kneel down and executed them with a single shot to the head. The Russian officer in charge at the check point listens to the story.

But he doesn't care. In any case he looks like he has been drinking too much and he just doesn't care. For him, the war is over. No scrap of paper, a ceasefire, a five or six-point agreement- will change his victory. And this pathetic refugee can say whatever he wants.

II

As we approach Gori, the situation is different, the tension is suddenly palpable. Georgian jeeps are sprawled in the ditches on the sides of the road. Farther along is a burnt-out tank. Even farther along is a more important check point which completely blocks the group of journalists we have joined. And it is here that we are clearly told that we are no longer welcome, "You are in Russian territory now," barks an officer puffed up with importance. "Only those with Russian accreditation may go farther." Fortunately a car with diplomatic flags comes up. It belongs to the Estonian Ambassador, and is carrying the Ambassador and Alexander Lomaia, the Secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, who is authorized to go behind the Russian lines to look for the wounded. He agrees to take me with him, as well as the European deputy Marie-Anne Isler-Béguin and Tara Bahrampour from the Washington Post. "I cannot guarantee anyone's safety, is that clear?" Lomaia asks. Yes. It is clear. And we all pile into the Audi and head toward Gori.

After crossing through six new check points, one of which consists of a tree trunk hoisted up and down by a winch commanded by a group of paramilitaries, we arrive in Gori. We are not in the center of the city. But from where Lomaia has dropped us, before taking off in the Audi to collect his wounded, from this intersection dominated by an enormous tank as big as a rolling bunker, we can see fires burning everywhere. Rockets lighting up the sky at regular intervals, followed by short detonations. The emptiness. The slight odor of putrefaction and death. Most of all, the incessant rumbling of armored vehicles. Almost every other car is an unmarked car jammed with militia, recognizable because of their white armbands and their headbands. Gori does not belong to the Ossetia which the Russians claim they have come to "liberate." It is a Georgian town. And they have burned it down, pillaged it, reduced it to a ghost town. Emptied.

"It's logical," explains General Vyachislav Borisov, as we stand in the stench and the night waiting for Lomaia to return. "We are here because the Georgians are incompetent, because their administration collapsed and the town was being looted. Look at this," showing me on his cell phone photographs of weapons of Israeli origin, which he emphasizes heavily, "Do you think we could leave all this lying around without supervision? And let me tell you," he struts around, striking a match to light a cigarette, startling the little blond tank gunner who had fallen asleep in his turret, "We summoned the Israeli Foreign Minister to Moscow. And he was told that if he continues to supply arms to the Georgians we would continue to supply Hezbollah and Hamas." We would continue? What an admission! Two hours go by. Two hours of bragging and threats. Sometimes a passing car would slow, but it would change its mind after noticing the tank and speed off. Finally Lomaia came back, bringing with him an old woman and the pregnant woman he had pulled from hell, and asked us to take them back to Tbilisi.

III

President Saakashvili, accompanied by his counselor Daniel Kunnin, listens to my story. We are in the Presidential residence of Avlabari. It is two AM but the noria of his counselors is working as it would during business hours. He is young. Very young. With a youthfulness which can be seen in the impatience of his movements, the intensity of his gaze, his abrupt laughter, even the way he guzzles cans of Red Bull as if it were Coca-Cola. All of these people in fact are very young. All these ministers and counselors were students sponsored by various Soros-type foundations, whose studies at Yale, Princeton and Chicago were interrupted by the Rose Revolution. He is a francophile and speaks French. Keen on philosophy. A democrat. A European. A liberal in both the American and European senses of the word. Of all the great resistance fighters I have met in my life, of all the Massouds and Izetbegovics I have had occasion to defend, he is the one who is the most unfamiliar with war, its rites, its emblems, its culture - but he is dealing with it.

"Let me make one thing clear," he interrupts me, with a sudden gravity. "We cannot let them say that we started this war ... It was early August. My ministers were on vacation, as I was too, in Italy, at a weight-loss spa, getting ready to go to Beijing. Then in the Italian press I read, "War preparations are under way in Georgia." You understand me. Here I was just hanging out in Italy and I read in the paper that my own country is preparing for a war! Realizing that something was wrong, I rushed back to Tbilisi. And what did my intelligence services tell me?" He makes the face of someone who has posed a difficult riddle and is waiting for you to find the answer, "That the Russians at the exact moment they are showering the press corps with this garbage are also emptying Shrinvali of its inhabitants, they're massing troops and troop transports, positioning fuel trucks on Georgian soil, and finally, sending columns of tanks through the Roky tunnel which separates the two Ossetias. Now, suppose you are the leader of the country and you hear this, what do you do?" He gets up to answer two cell phones which are ringing at the same time on his desk, comes back, stretching out his long legs ... "After the hundred and fiftieth tank lines itself up facing your cities, you are forced to admit that the war has begun, and despite the disproportion in the forces opposing us, you no longer have a choice."

"With the agreement of your allies?" I asked. "With the members of NATO who have more or less slammed the door in your face?" "The real problem," he says, sidestepping, "is the stakes involved in this war. Putin and Medvedev were looking for a pretext to invade. Why?" He begins counting on his fingers, "Number one, we are a democracy and incarnate an alternative to Putinism as an exit from communism. Two, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan [oil] pipeline goes through our country, such that if we fall, if Moscow replaces me with an employee of Gazprom, you, the Europeans, would be 100% dependent on the Russians for your energy supply. "And number three," as he takes a peach from the fruit basket which is brought to him by his assistant--"She's Ossentian, mind you!"--and then resumes, "Number three, look at the map. Russia is an ally of Iran. Our Armenian neighbors are also not far from Iran. Now imagine a pro-Russian government installed in Tbilisi. You would have a geostrategic continuum stretching from Moscow to Tehran which I seriously doubt would be doing business with the free world. I hope NATO understands this."

IV

Friday morning. I, along with Raphaël Gluksmann, Gilles Hertzog and Marie-Anne Isler-Béguin, the European deputy, decided to return to Gori which, according to the ceasefire agreement written by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the Russians would have begun evacuating, and where we are supposed to meet with the Orthodox Patriarch of Tbilisi who is himself on his way to an Ossetian village where hundreds of Georgian corpses have reportedly been left for the dogs and pigs. But the Patriarch is nowhere to be found. And the Russians have not evacuated Gori. And this time we are blocked twenty kilometers short of Gori when a car is held up in front of us by a squadron of irregulars, who, under the placid gaze of a Russian officer, haul the journalists out of the car and take their cameras, money, personal objects, and finally even their car. So it was a false report, part of that habitual ballet of false reports at which the artisans of Russian propaganda seem to be past masters. So off we go toward Kaspi, halfway between Gori and Tbilisi, where the interpreter for the deputy has family, and where the situation is in theory calmer - but two other surprises await us there.

First, there is the destruction. Here too. But this time it is destruction which has apparently targeted neither houses nor people. What have they destroyed instead? The bridge. The train station. The train tracks, which are already being repaired by a team of logisticians who are being supervised by the head mechanic from his room because of a severe hip wound. And the electronic command system of the Heidelberg cement factory, built with German capital, which was hit by a laser-guided missile. "There were 650 workers here," the factory director, Levan Baramatze, tells me. "Only 120 were able to come in today. Our production machine is broken." In Poti, the Russians sank the Georgian war ships. They even hit the BTC pipeline at three different points. Here in Kaspi, they deliberately took out the vital centers upon which the region and the country both depend. In other words, targeted terrorism. The will to bring this country to its knees.

Then there is the second surprise, the tanks. I repeat, we are standing at the outskirts of the capital. Condoleezza Rice is at this exact moment giving her press conference. Yet out of the blue comes one of those combat helicopters whose appearance always signals the worst, flying at low altitude just above the treetops. And suddenly the few people still in Kaspi find themselves in the street, first in their own doorways, then jammed ten at a time into old Lada cars, screaming at everyone and especially at our drivers that the Russians are coming and we must get out. At first we don't believe it. We figure it's like the false rumor we heard the day before yesterday. But no, the tanks are there. Five of them. And a field engineering unit digging trenches. The message is clear. With or without Condoleezza Rice, the Russians have moved in. They move around Georgian lands as if it were conquered terrain. This isn't exactly like Prague in 1968, it's the 21st century version of the coup, slow, bit by bit, with blows of humiliation, intimidation, panic.

V

This time the meeting is at four AM. Saakashvili has spent the end of the day with Rice, the day before with Sarkozy. He is grateful to both for their efforts, for the trouble they took and the friendship they demonstrated, which no one can doubt - didn't he call "Nicolas" "tu"? And the Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain, "close to Ms. Rice," - hasn't he been calling three times a day since the beginning of this crisis? But this time, I find he has a melancholy air unlike that first night. Maybe it's fatigue, so many sleepless nights, the continuing setbacks, the grumbling which he can feel rising in the country and which we, alas, must to confirm: "What if Misha is incapable of protecting us? And if our ebullient young President only attracts more of the same? What if in order to survive we will have to accept the wishes of Putin and his puppet?" All of that must figure in the melancholy of the President. Plus something else on top of it, something cloudier and that applies to, how to say, his friends' strange attitude.

For example, the ceasefire agreement which his friend Sarkozy brought and which had been written by four hands in Moscow with Medvedev. He recalls the French President, here in this same office, impatient for him to sign it, raising his voice, almost yelling, "You have no other choice, Misha. Be realistic, you don't have a choice. When the Russians come to overthrow you, not one of your friends will lift a finger to save you." And finally what a strange reaction when he, Misha Saakashvili, got them to call Medvedev but Medvedev sent word that he was asleep - it was only nine o'clock, but apparently he was already asleep, and would be unreachable until the following morning at 9 AM - here the French President got antsy again; his French friend yet again didn't want to wait--in a rush to go home? too sure that signing was what mattered, regardless of what was being signed? This is not how you negotiate, thinks Misha. This is also not how you act with your friends.

I have seen the document. I have seen the written annotations by the two Presidents, the Georgian and the French. I saw the second document, again signed by Sarkozy and given to Condoleeza Rice in Brégançon, for her to give to Saakashvili. And finally I saw the memorandum of remarks, written during the evening by the Georgians, a vital piece in their eyes. They managed to cross out - and this is by no means negligible - all allusions to the future "status" of Ossetia. They also got to be specified - again, not a small detail - that the "reasonable perimeter" in which the Russian troops would be authorized to patrol to protect the security of the Russian-speaking population of Georgia be a perimeter of a "few kilometers." The territorial integrity of Georgia, however, is mentioned nowhere in either document. As for the argument of legitimate aid for the Russian-speaking people - we tremble to think what could happen if we consider the Russian-speakers in the Ukraine, the Baltic countries or in Poland, who may one day decide that they too have been threatened by a "genocidal" will.

The last word will belong to the American Richard Holbrooke, a ranking diplomat close to Barack Obama whom I meet in the bar of our hotel at the tail end of the night: "There is floating in this affair a bad smell of appeasement." He is right. Either we are capable of raising our voice and saying STOP to Putin in Georgia. Or the man who went, in his own words, "down into the toilets" to kill the civilians in Chechnya will feel he has the right to do the same thing to any one of his neighbors.

Is this how we will build Europe, peace and the world of tomorrow?

Translated from the French by Sara Sugihara

(Photos courtesy of Régis Fourrer)

Comments

[heavyrunner]

Did the Russian General who gave such generous quotes speak excellent French? Or do you, Mr. Levy, speak Russian? We are now to accept that Russia is supplying Hamas and Hezzbola with weapons based on this report of a conversation in a ditch between two individuals who don't speak the same language? What rubbish!

Saakashvili was elected with 96% of the vote in his most recent election. The last Georgian leader to win by such a margin was Joseph Stalin!

[research]

And Stalin came from.....G­eorgia!!!!­!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

[BayAreaResident]

Also Stalin was the one who initiated and supervised the process of collectivization in the early 30's which had resulted into a mass famine across the Soviet Union with over 15 million dead, and which the modern day delusional Ukrainian nationalists (Including Ukrainian president and his Georgian friends) are conveniently blaming Russians for...

There is a lot of demented theories out there, and i'm sure the Bush administration will figure out which ones he ought to be investing into before he is out of the door.

[Paprikapink]

In most of the world, it is common to speak at least two languages. In Europe and the Middle East, French is widely spoken. Levy in all likelihood was traveling with a translator. There may be a lot of disputable claims in Levy's piece, but the idea that they can be dismissed because he's quoting someone with whom he may not share a language doesn't hold water.

[11907281]

I wonder if the fox news crew that was shot at by Georgians Army "irregulars" , and were very understanding and forgiving of them, would do the same to the Russians?

[nogimmicks]

Great comments by the bloggers. What a pity that Mr Levi is as one-sided as the MSM (CNN/Fox/BBC/NYT and the like). Presenting one side is great but a complete 'cone of silence' around the real victims who had been brutally attacked is immoral. Our Media called the carpet bombing of the Ossetian towns and villages ordered by Saakashvili as just "naive" !!! You can that Saakashvili "had just snapped" etc.

Unfortunately, learning humanity and moral judgment in contrast to special interests is a tall order for some people.

[gcameo]

I agree. I have stopped watching BCC and channel4. now i only watch aljazeera. the bias is too much

http://www.eventsincontext.com/

[lisakaz2]

Oh, the Georgian prez is young all right -- but did he con you into thinking he and his country and soooo innocent? Gimme a break. Guess you couldn't tell us about any thuggery he's done either, huh?

[starman1695]

Georgia started hostilities in South Ossetia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1f0_hGSUwk&eurl=http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=A630252&entry=20569&mode=

[NotMcCain]

Yes. How does this fact keep getting omitted in our press?

The Russian government has a much stronger case for "doing good" (by intervening to protect a small country under attack without provocation) than the original aggressor-­-Georgia--­does.

I won't be surprised if Rove and Cheney visited to convince Saakashvili to provoke Russia--as a ruse to get NATO on board for supporting the missile defense shield in Poland.

Manipulation of international events for political gain--again--by the Bush WH. (And who cares how many LIVES are lost in the process)

[research]

It is surprising how complete the media black out is.

Of Course the dems haven't contested the Necon Versions of things.

[marymansour]

War is always hell!

[SpinDown08]

A good example of a question that is actually the answer:

After seeing the quick overtaking of Georgia by the Russians, if Russia was the initial aggressor and planned this, then why did 30,000 of the pro Russian people of the breakaway provinces have to flee over to Russian soil AFTER it began?

[Durango]

Is anyone else reporting the rape and murder of civilians by Russian troops.

From what I've seen it seems the press are relatively free to move around.

The Russian General says they needed to move further into Georgia to prevent looting and killing. That sound right to me. From the reporting I saw the Georgian Army just up and fled.

Is there any credibility in this story at all?

His comparing Saakashvili to Massoud doesn't help in the credibility department.

And his statement about having to defend him isn't much assurance of accuracy either.

[Cogniscient]

I've read, listened to, watched countless pieces on this macabre and confused conflict, none more thought-provoking than this piece, which cannot be dismissed as "Left-biased" or "Right-biased".

Something indeed smells - its everywhere and nowhere at once. Has the new "Controlling Narrative", the new "National Myth" been initiated upon Americans with a Bang? It will matter not who is in the White House, that person will be subject to shocking news from "reliable sources" in the dead of night..... "Mr. President, we have a situation that you must be informed of"... and thus will we head down the road once again - false 'intelligence', lying 'sources', illusive 'indicators', twisted 'threat assessments', and case-build­ing..... ??

[jacobomorales]

oh yes, you are correct, this smells to high heaven!!!

[grn1]

It smells to me that since an attack on Iran was not feasible at this time, someone had to suffer.

[MIKEinNYC]

The US and NATO have placed bases and arms in states on Russia's borders. When the USSR attempted to do the same thing, like in Cuba and Nicaragua, the US went nuts.

Can we blame the Russians for being a little nervous?

[whatsthatsound]

Valid point. But it is also true that the former Soviet Union put down rebellions in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. An American government acting like Brezhnev era Russia would have invaded Cuba with a full force and paraded tanks through Havana.

Can you blame the states on Russia's borders for being a little nervous?

[democratsaint]

the us had an agreement with russia about anti missle weapons,bush trashed it. moscow warned bush and poland about making an agreement for those bases in poland.rus­sia has been invaded over an over again by countries it had 'agreements' with in fact one of the stupidest things was after wwi when a us general wanted to rearm the germans and continue on to invade russia. thats what caused the iron curtain.

[MIKEinNYC]

There is no question that Russia is ruled by a bunch of anti-democratic, heavy-handed thugs.

On the other hand, is it necessary to provoke them?

If Iran and North Korea are the countries that we are worried about and we feel that we need these missiles in case of problems with these two trouble-makers, why not ask the Russians for permission to place the missiles on THEIR territory, possibly in conjunction with them? After all, these two trouble-makers are thorns in the Russian side as well plus there is the advantage that missiles thusly placed will be closer to their intended targets than those placed in Poland.

[Jason357]

Odd how the Russians are supposed to be so evil, yet there's no mentin that the press is apparently free to investigate and interview and print what they want. We all know how the US handles it, freeze out the press and military press conferences as the only source of information. Who's the real bad guy here?

NPR is no longer even reporting that Georgia made the first attacks against helpless civilians and created this situation in the first place. They keep reporting only that Russia invaded Georgia and won't leave. What Russia did was respond to an attack on the southern border of Russia. The US is trying to line Russia with "defenses" that will eventually neutralize much of any nuclear response Russia could perofrm if attack first by the US.

[grn1]

No end to the villans that want to destroy the joke on Americans called military democracy.

[srelf]

I realized some time ago (during the leadup to the Iraq invasion) that NPR is co-opted and not the final word on the real news.

[Brad]

The US Is a Weak and Stupid Country

In Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia
and New Orleans

[MyOwnPerson]

If the US is a weak and stupid country, does that make you a weak and stupid person for liviing here or being a citizen?

[lbrillante]

What is clear to me is that we most certainly do NOT want a man like McCain as president during these times. He is a war monger... he wants war. He wanted to go to war in Iraq the day after 9/11 happened or at least he used it as an excuse to promote war with Iraq the day after 9/11 who knows how long he wanted to go to war there. He will resinstate the draft during his presidency to fight all of his wars. He insists on war. He has already invoked that a new 'cold war' has started. Some of his own republican colleagues have said that they would not want to see him become president because he is not the kind of man you want having his finger on 'the button'. Under a President McCain our children would once again be drafted, forced to fight in wars that they do not believe in. People who feel safer because of McCain's tough talk are leading us to disaster.

[MyOwnPerson]

So would an inability to act, or to be so dilusional as to think a country is not a threat because it's a "small place. " I have no confidence in either candidate to be able to to what's necessary in a time of crisis, or to be able to back us away from an issue before it becomes a crisis. I'm sorry eloquent speaking is just hot air. Makes you feel warm and cozy for the moment, but disapates quickly leaving you more chilled than before.

As for a draft...I believe if they try to instutionalize a draft again there will be such a backlash from the people of this country it will make your head spin. And if people aren't thinking about it, they should be. It should be stated in no uncertain terms that "We the People" are telling you, our elected officials, that every politician who puts his/her name to such a thing will be committing political suicide. We will immediately throw you out, and you will never hold another political office! There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to bring back the draft. We just need to start pulling back our troops from the places they no longer need be, and be smarter about picking our battles.

[Gregan]

This whole Georgia thing and the McCain part in it reminds me of the film "WAGGING THE DOG"...and it seems BUSH/CHENEY is behind this. Even the images are the same.

[research]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hnY0Cnad1c&feature=related

Wag the Dog.

[jteschke]

Brokenduck states the facts as they really are. McCain's claim that he "knows how to win wars" shows his unfitness for office, especially since he appears to define "victory" as permanently continuing the war, since any withdrawal, even if requested by the government placed in power at the behest of US invaders, is "defeat." The Obama campaign has to be more direct in its criticism, since this is the central issue: can we afford a foreign policy which could result in bankruptcy, armageddon, or both.