Russland

[Putin]

Russian journalist in defection-style move to Georgia; South Ossetia hold Georgian teenagers
NOVEMBER 16, 2009
By Sarah Marcus

Things are going quite well for the Georgians in the propaganda battle with Russia. Oleg Panfilov, a well-known Russian journalist and specialist on freedom of the press, has moved to Tbilisi, saying he found it ‘impossible’ to live in Russia.

He will anchor a programme on the new Georgian Russian-language television station which is to broadcast throughout the Caucasus region as well as teaching journalism at Tbilisi State University, so he’ll have ample opportunity to influence Georgian and other Caucasian minds.

He said he had decided to move to Tbilisi because of the political situation in Russia.

‘It is impossible to live in the country where the authorities lie to you, where media lies to you and people are afraid of them,’ Panfilov said after his arrival. As is clear from this 2004 interview with him, he is an expert in his field with a very clear vision of the complexities of how the media work – or doesn’t work – in Russia, so that country’s loss should be Georgia’s gain.

Panfilov should know just how difficult the situation is in Russia, he has been monitoring press freedom there since the 1990s and in October this year Tbilisi nominated him for the post of OSCE representative on freedom of the media, one of a series of developments bringing Georgia and Russian journalists critical of Moscow closer together.Apart from the nomination and Panfilov’s move to Tbilisi, Georgia’s Rustavi 2 television recently showed a documentary on the August 2008 war by Russian journalists Andrei Nekrasov and Olga Kronskaya. Nekrasov is a consistent critic of the Russian government and made the 2008 film Rebellion: The Litvinenko case,about the former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko who was murdered in London in 2006. Russian Lessons,

Nekrasov and Kronskaya’s film about the August war is, according to what I’ve heard and read – I haven’t seen it yet – a very personal, moving account and analysis of the fighting which clearly shows Russia as the aggressor and highlights years of Russian menacing of Georgia.

Away from the propaganda front, however, Georgia is having trouble. On 5 November the de facto authorities of South Ossetia captured and detained four Georgian teenagers, saying that they had illegally crossed into South Ossetian territory and that one of the party was carrying a grenade. Today, more than 10 days later, they are still being held, despite a EU presidency appeal for the resolution of the matter.

The families of the boys being held said that they could not have been carrying grenades and that they believed they were abducted from Georgia proper into South Ossetia, according to Radio Free Europe.

The line between South Ossetia and Georgia, recognised as a border only by Russia, Venezuela and Nicaragua, is in any case ill-defined and not marked or patrolled for large stretches, meaning it’s possible to cross over without realising it. Even if the boys knew they were crossing over, it’s hardly justified to hold them in detention for such a long time. Even if one of them was carrying a grenade, surely, given that they are underage, there is a better way of dealing with it than this?

But of course for that to happen there would have to be normal relations, or indeed any functional relations between South Ossetia and Georgia, and there are not. South Ossetia is pointlessly provoking Tbilisi and the opinion of the EU, the only international actor left in Georgia/South Ossetia, seems not to matter to them at all.

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