Primarily, Kasparov travelled to Georgia for the 50th birthday of longtime friend and chess colleague Zurab Azmaiparashvili. The grandmaster stressed that his visit to Tbilisi was “not as a representative of the opposition, but as a chess player.” Given that, “it’s perfectly obvious that I don’t plan to turn down a meeting with the Georgian leadership,” said Kasparov. “I see nothing shameful in that.”

Kasparov met with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Tuesday at the presidential palace, where the two discussed Russia-Georgia relations and a forthcoming youth chess world championship to be held in Georgia this September. He also met on Wednesday with Speaker of Parliament David Bakradze to talk about the two countries’ relations.

Speaking with journalists afterward, Kasparov said that all that had transpired between the Georgia and Russia in recent years “is more than the mind can comprehend.” While relations severely deteriorated after the August 2008 military conflict in South Ossetia, Kasparov asserted that Russia had begun a campaign against Georgia long before.

“The eviction of Georgians, the embargo on Georgian goods – this was all part of a plan,” said Kasparov, adding that the conflict in August “had been predetermined.”

Kasparov expressed concern that Georgian opposition leaders had recently met with members of the Russian government, saying that there was nothing to be gained through negotiations while Prime Minister Vladimir Putin remained in power. “There are some things that will not change under Putin,” said Kasparov, citing as examples the imprisonment of oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Russia’s presence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. “While Putin is in the Kremlin, there cannot be any improvement in relations between Georgia and Russia,” he asserted.

That said, Kasparov was confident that no new military conflict between the two countries was on the horizon, albeit for all the wrong reasons. Referring to plans for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Kasparov said that “while Putin is building Sochi, there won’t be any war.” Given that Sochi lies just north of Abkhazia on the Black Sea, he explained, having a base there had always been necessary for the Russian government’s ability to organize construction for the games.

Kasparov noted that many Russians were critical of their government for its aggressive political stance towards Georgia, and stressed the importance of creating cultural contacts between citizens and civic organizations of the two countries. Referring to his own experiences in Georgia as a chess player, Kasparov explained that Russia-Georgia relations were a particularly painful topic for him. “I have many special memories connected with Tbilisi,” he said.

The World Report 2010 by Human Rights Watch (HRW), released on Wednesday, details the results of the organization’s research on the conditions of civil rights around the world. Researchers concluded that 2009 marked a downturn in human rights on a global scale, but that the situation for Russian rights advocates in particular had become “unprecedentedly tragic.”

In addition to issues regarding the armed conflict over South Ossetia, government harassment of NGOs, migrant worker rights violations, health care concerns, and the failure of international efforts to address Russia’s rights situation, the report spent significant time discussing the slew of murders of Russian activists over the course of last year.

“The brazen murders of at least five civil rights activists and violence and harassment toward several others marked a severe deterioration in the human rights climate in Russia,” says the report.

Experts noted that, most often, the journalists and civil activists who were under the highest risk of violence worked on issues relating to the North Caucasus.

“2009 saw an increase in violence and threats against human rights defenders, civil activists, and independent journalists in Russia, particularly those working on the North Caucasus,” says the report. According to HRW, these developments contrasted sharply with the “positive rhetoric” of President Dmitri Medvedev.

“We don’t deny that the president’s rhetoric is positive,” said HRW expert Tatyana Lokshina in an interview with Gazeta.ru. “It’s easy and nice to listen to his statements, but they remain only on the level of rhetoric, even though he’s been in power for a sufficient length of time.”

According to Lokshina, the actions of the Russian authorities have hastened the deterioration of Russian civil society. That the murders of rights advocates largely go uninvestigated “serves as a distinctive source of inspiration for criminals, who understand that no consequences will follow” their actions.

The report also remarked upon the continued discrimination of Russia’s 4 to 9 million migrant workers, citing unsafe working conditions, unpaid wages and a lack of redress for such abuses. Additionally, “police frequently use document inspections to extort money from visible minorities, including migrant workers,” the majority of whom are from Central Asia and other countries of the former Soviet Union.

In its criticism of Russia over the consequences of the August 2008 military conflict with Georgia, HRW stated that 20,000 residents of “deliberately destroyed ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia” are still unable to return to their homes more than a year later. It also cited a September 2009 independent report funded by the European Union that found widespread violations of international law on the part of both Russia and Georgia.

The report concludes with a mention of the concern among residents of Sochi, the Black Sea city that will host the 2014 Winter Olympics, regarding environmental and property rights violations on the part of the government, which is struggling to complete the necessary infrastructure for the games.

The HRW report totals more than 600 pages, approximately ten of which are dedicated to Russia.

The full text of the Russian section of the report can be read by clicking here.

According to the report, which cited unnamed sources, Russia was considering paying Nauru up to 50 million dollars, which the island had requested for “urgent social-economic projects.”

The newspaper further reported that prior to an announcement in Tskhinvali by Nauruan Foreign Minister Kieren Keke that his country was ready to recognize South Ossetia, he had been in a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow to discuss financial aid from Russia to the small country.

Russia recognized the independence of the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia after a military conflict with Georgia in August 2008. The only other countries to recognize the two republics are Nicaragua and Venezuela, the latter of which only did so after receiving 2.2 billion dollars in Russia credit.

The attempt that followed to elicit recognition from Ecuador turned out to be unsuccessful: President Rafael Correa failed to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and also failed to receive any Russian credit.

The Republic of Nauru is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean that covers approximately 8 square miles and has an estimated population of 14 thousand people. Nauru’s government is notorious for its atypical methods of obtaining income, including becoming a haven for illegal money laundering, selling passports to foreigners, and running Australia’s illegal migrant detention center.

The president had asked the parliamentary Federation Council the day before for an expansion of his authority to deploy troops on foreign soil.

An amendment to a piece of defense legislation that the president signed in November required a special decree from the Federation Council for foreign deployment of troops. Until that point, the legislation only allowed troops to be used abroad as part of the war against international terrorism or in accordance with international agreements.

The Federation Council’s announcement on Wednesday would allow the president himself to make a decision on the use of troops abroad to deflect or prevent aggression from another country, to defend Russian citizens abroad, or to fight pirates.

The initial motivation to amend the defense legislation was the military conflict between Russia and Georgia in August 2008. At the time, Russia had explained its controversial participation in the war as the defense of its citizens residing in the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Both Russia and Georgia blamed each other for instigating the war, while a recent report from the European Union blames both countries in gross violations of international law.

The film, titled “The War of 08.08.08 — The Art of Deception” aired on the one year anniversary of the war, and alleged that Georgian propaganda efforts falsified and staged photographs of bloodshed during the conflict. Comparing photos taken in South Ossetia with images from Iraq, the film concluded that many of the images from the former were too “clean,” a sign that they were faked. There was only one problem: a photo supposedly taken in Iraq was actually the work of a Russian photographer, Arkadiy Babchenko, and was taken in South Ossetia. The image depicts a wounded Russian soldier.

Babchenko, who works for the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, was furious that his work was taken out of context, and has filed suit against Channel One. Calling those who produced the film liars in his LiveJournal blog, he has requested 100,000 rubles ($3200 or €2200) for psychological damages. Babchenko believes the misuse was deliberate, as the TV station did not want to acknowledge that the critical Novaya Gazeta reported the truth. The error raises questions about the rest of the film as well, Babchenko said.

“Now I personally have serious doubts about everything else shown in this film,” he wrote.

David Axe, the journalist interviewed as a photo-expert by the documentary, says his words were twisted out of context. In describing Babchenko’s photo, Axe said it showed a seriously injured man, which would be difficult to fake. The documentary translated his words as “Here is an injured person. I shot his photo in Iraq. It would be hard to call this a fake.”

For their part, the film’s creators claim that the error was caused by a technical mistake that happened during the editing process. Sergei Nadezhdin, one of the producers, said the audio went out of synch and connected two different parts that should not have been side by side. The audience, Nadezhdin says, was not misled, since the intention of the clip was to provide an example of an undoctored photo.

Irina Laptiva, a media analyst working for Park.ru, told Russia Profile that journalists are only human and make mistakes, but that they must be quickly corrected.

“If mistakes are made,” she said, “there must be a public apology within the mass media, which would state what was incorrect and when. If they do not do this, then I believe that it is a breach of human rights and copyright.”

Channel One, well known for its other over-the-top documentaries, has yet to issue a formal apology.

—

For further details on the story, read an account by journalist David Axe.

As the first anniversary of Russia’s war with Georgia approaches, the area is showing signs that violence may flare up once again.  Last year, similar shoot-outs between separatist South Ossetian forces and their counterparts on the Georgian side steadily escalated into full-blown combat.  Is the stage being set for a second armed confrontation over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia?

Writing for the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper, journalist Yuri Simonyan explores the deteriorating situation, assessing the chances of a second Russian-Georgian war.

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SOUTH OSSETIAN DEJA VU
Yuri Simonyan
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
August 3, 2009

The situation in South Ossetia took a definite turn for the worst last weekend. The Ossetians claim that their capital city of Tskhinvali and police checkpoints come under regular fire from the Georgian territory. Tbilisi reverses the accusations and claims that it is Georgian police checkpoints that are fired at.

Guarantor of Abkhazian and South Ossetian security, the Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement warning the Georgian authorities to give a thought to consequences of the failure to put an end to “provocations against a sovereign republic, its citizens, and Russian servicemen”. A year ago, analogous warnings, accusations, and skirmishes had escalated into a shooting war.

Official Tbilisi maintains in all earnest that provocations are engineered by Moscow and Tskhinvali.

That Georgian State Minister for Reintegration Temur Yakobashvili said the Russian Defense Ministry was lying through the teeth to justify presence of “the occupiers on the territory or Georgia”. “No Georgians ever fired at Tskhinvali or checkpoints, including the checkpoints near the village of Eredvi.
Making all these bold statements, Russia hopes to justify the presence of the occupiers in the region. Fortunately, the international community knows better. Russia hopes to draw us into these provocations. It will fail,” Yakobashvili announced. The state minister dismissed another shooting war as unlikely “even though it is predicted by doomsday prophet Felgengauer”. This Russian expert had recently evaluated chances of another Russian- Georgian war at 80%.

The Georgian Foreign Minister appraised the statement issued by the Russian Defense Ministry as an open threat to “a sovereign neighbor”. “Aggressive rhetorics of the Russian Defense Ministry and some senior officers of the Russian Armed Forces reveals existence of some plans with regard to Georgia,” it said and urged the international community to appraise the statement issued in Moscow.

That Tbilisi will once again secure the international community’s support goes almost without saying. Lacking access to the territory controlled by Tskhinvali, the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM) refused to confirm the fact of firing at the South Ossetian capital. EUMM spokesman Steve Bird told journalists that observers had failed to find evidence of firing at Tskhinvali or any other South Ossetian settlement from the Georgian territory. The official statement made by the EUMM in the meantime included a reference to the necessity of access to the territory or South Ossetia, something Tskhinvali was denying EU observers.  The EUMM backed the Georgian claims that the checkpoint near Zemo Nikozi had come under mortar and automatic rifle fire from the direction of South Ossetia.

South Ossetian Foreign Minister Murat Jioyev dismissed the EUMM’s verdict as prejudiced. “Neither do they notice rapid remilitarization of Georgia, growth of its military potential, or aggressiveness of its leaders with regard to South Ossetia… All of that plainly shows that the August 2008 events have taught the Georgians nothing,” Jioyev told Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

Military expert Irakly Sesiashvili in his turn disputed the assurances of the official Georgian authorities that an armed conflict was unlikely. Last Friday, President of South Ossetia Eduard Kokoity voiced territorial grudges against Georgia and said that the Trusov Gorge (currently controlled by the Georgians) had always been Ossetian. “There are some serious territorial issues we want brought up. The Trusov Gorge which is currently part of the Mtskheta-Mtianeti Administrative District of Georgia is ancestral Ossetian land turned over to the Georgian Social Socialist Republic in the Soviet period for some inexplicable reason,” Kokoity said. “Time to demand its return to Ossetia.” As far as Sesiashvili was concerned, Kokoity’s statement signalled “the resolve of Tskhinvali to expand its territory and the desire on Moscow’s part to expand the security zone.”

Tbilisi claims in the meantime that deterioration of the situation in South Ossetia is Moscow’s way of reminding everyone that it does not want Mikhail Saakashvili as the president of Georgia. It is also alleged that Moscow’s stiffly-worded statements are expected to inflame and encourage the Georgian
opposition that pins the blame for the loss of territories [Abkhazia and South Ossetia] on Saakashvili alone. Applying pressure in the region, the Kremlin sends a message to Tbilisi that it won’t let go while Saakashvili remains the president.

Political scientist Paata Zakareishvili who visited South Ossetia the other day disagreed with this hypothesis.  Zakareishvili called the latest deterioration “petty and local”.  “The Georgian law enforcement agencies arrested an Ossetian gunman by name of Pukhayev, the one who had gained notoriety through exceptionally cruel eradication of the Georgian village of Kurta in the August war. The Ossetians responded by opening fire at Zemo Nikozi. The Georgian probably returned it, and so on,” Zakareishvili said.

Translated by Aleksei Ignatkin

“I want to express my gratitude for inviting me to visit this new country, this new state, South Ossetia, which appeared as a result of difficult, dramatic events and which the Russian people have certainly supported,” Medvedev said at a meeting with South Ossetian separatist leader Eduard Kokoity.  “I think that this first short visit by a Russian president will create a foundation for such contacts, for friendly relations.”

Russia is one of only two countries to recognize the region as an independent country after an armed conflict there escalated to full-blown war between Russia and Georgia in August 2008.  Georgia still considers the region, along with nearby Abkhazia, as its sovereign territory.

Medvedev also announced that Russia was planning to cooperate with South Ossetia on defense matters.  Russia has poured generous resources into the largely impoverished region, and plans to open a military base in the area.  The Russian president went on to pledge support for a number of projects to revive the local economy.

Kokoity, in response, thanked Medvedev for recognizing and supporting South Ossetia.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, meanwhile, called the visit “the most immoral and shameful precedent in centuries.”

—

Read more about the conflict in South Ossetia.

Shayapov added that a table map and 2009 calendar including the two territories was already printed at the end of 2008.

President Dmitri Medvedev has also designated an ambassador-at-large to lead the effort to finalize the borders of the two breakaway republics, the Vedomosti newspaper reported Tuesday.  No border agreement has been reached with Georgia, which continues to lay claim to the territories and other areas.

Russia fought a short war with Georgia in early August, and on August 26th recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two breakaway regions within Georgia.

In November, Medvedev told the French Le Figaro newspaper that the decision to recognize the two territories was “final and irreversible.”

“These are not joking matters, he said, “We have recognized these two new subjects of international law. From the point of view of international law, these two subjects now exist.”

Still, the regions have not been recognized internationally, and Georgia considers them to be sovereign territories.  Russia’s recognition has sparked criticism from the European Union, the US and other governments.  Georgia has since reclassified Abkhazia and South Ossetia as occupied territories.

The only country aside from Russia to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia was Nicaragua, which spoke out with support in August.  Afterwards, Nicaragua’s Foreign Affairs Ministry postponed establishing diplomatic relations with the two republics for an indefinite period.

—

Further reading:

Russia Started the Georgian War – Analysis

Russian Opposition Party Decries Recognition of Georgian Breakaway Regions

The meeting in question took place on August 29th at Putin’s residence in Sochi, where 35 media heads gathered to speak with the prime minister. Remnick reminds readers that Putin regularly held these types of gatherings during his presidency.

According to an account from the Washington Post, Putin spent several minutes berating Venediktov in front of the group, reading excerpts of what he found wrong in Ekho Moskvy transcripts. “I’m not interested in who said these things,” one participant recalled Putin telling Venediktov. “You are responsible for everything that goes on at the radio station. I don’t know who they are, but I know who you are.”

Afterwards, Venediktov approached Putin in the hallway and told him he was being “unjust.” Putin responded by pulling up a handful of transcripts and reportedly saying “You have to answer for this, Aleksei Alekseevich!”

Remnick writes that the editor was concerned, but “calculated that Putin would never have invited him to Sochi with the rest of the delegation had he intended to get rid of him or Echo of Moscow. That could have been accomplished with a telephone call.”

“Afterward, we met one on one, and there Putin’s tone was more positive,” Venediktov told Remnick. “But he made his point. He was demonstrating his ability to do whatever he wants with us at any time.”

Having returned to Moscow, Venediktov told the station’s staff that they should “pay careful attention” to how they report on events, checking their facts and making sure to air enough government views.

The day after the meeting in Sochi, Venediktov announced that Ekho Moskvy would not be inviting Valeriya Novodvorskaya, a dissident politician, to appear on air for the rest of the year. The politician had made remarks which seemed to “sing the praises” of Shamil Basayev, a Chechen warlord who claimed responsibility for the 2004 Beslan school siege. Venediktov also gave orders to remove all transcripts and audio recordings of Novodvorskaya’s appearance on the station. The politician, in turn, assessed the move as “slanderous accusations of a criminal offense (that is, publicly justifying terrorism).”

Ekho Moskvy is primarily host to serious news and talk radio, including social commentary and political discussion. The station is often the first source for interviews with prominent opposition politicians, and is widely seen as the only independent news broadcast with a national reach in Russia. A running joke is that media figures exiled from state-controlled television and newspapers subservient to the government eventually end up as co-hosts. The station broadcasts out of Moscow and reaches around 2.5 million people across Russia through partnerships with local stations. Its broadcast is also heard in other countries of the former Soviet Union.

Still, Gazprom, Russia’s natural gas monopoly, remains as a majority shareholder in the station. While journalists and anchors on the station have worked to maintain integrity and independence, Venediktov himself calls the Kremlin “our main shareholder.”

The whim of the Russian authorities, then, and Putin himself is all that keeps Ekho Moskvy from going permanently silent.

—
Background reading

Aleksei Venediktov, interviewed in the Izvestia newspaper on September 3rd. (excerpt)

All of us understand that the bloody conflict was unleashed by Saakashvili. The shelling and murder of peaceful residents is not a topic for discussion. But the rest can be given consideration. During the conflict, we sought an interview with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov and Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili. We did not receive one neither here nor there. So what did we do? We took an 8 minute interview from EuroNews with one representative of authority, took the same from another [from the other side], combined this and sent it out on the air. And after [we ran] an interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, our radio station was shut down in Tbilisi. Why? It is unclear. It must be said that this is entirely characteristic of weak rulers who are hiding the truth from their people.

…“Ekho Moskvy” is a platform for discussion, where different points of view must be heard. And I only welcome the word “biased.” Who needs a commentator who doesn’t have their own point of view? We have different ones here –from Yevgenia Albats and Yulia Latynina to Maxim Shevchenko and Aleksandr Prokhanov.

In my opinion, one must speak about risks, about potential ambushes, and not to operate like the American Fox channel, which always supported the Republican administration in the war in Iraq. But in that same America there’s the NBC channel, which gives a different point of view, and which was even called Vladimir Putin’s “fifth column” in the US by a Fox commentator. There is a platform for discussion. If discussion is happening in the country and different arguments are sounding, it allows the right decisions to be made with fewer mistakes. Nevertheless, Valeriya Novodvorskaya has been entered into Ekho’s “stop list” for her statements about Shamil Basayev.

translation by theotherrussia.org

Representatives of Memorial and the New-York based Human Rights Watch (HRW) visited the conflict zone to investigate what actually happened there. According to the rights workers, they found that the official casualty numbers put forward by Tskhinvali to be grossly exaggerated. While officials have maintained that around 1600 people were killed, no documentation confirming this figure was ever presented.

“People are individuals, and only the most detailed and full list can present an accurate picture of the death toll,” said Alexander Cherkasov, a Memorial board member. He added that most of those killed on the South Ossetian side were armed resistors, and not peaceful residents. Still, Cherkasov underscored that even a small number of casualties was a grave loss for South Ossetia, whose population numbers approximately 70,000.

The rights workers made clear that looting was still rampant in the buffer zone around South Ossetia, and said local residents were responsible. Russian soldiers stationed in the area, meanwhile, have taken to drinking, and are looking the other way. “Having entered a wine-producing region, they have started to let themselves go, and may become dangerous,” the authors write.

The report counters rumors that Georgian soldiers had tortured Ossetian prisoners. “As result of our trip,” said HRW investigator Tatyana Lokshina, “we did not find any evidence of prisoners being tortured by Georgian special forces. There are many rumors going around about this, but no specifics.”

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For more on the human rights situation in South Ossetia see:

Human Rights Expert Tatyana Lokshina explains the conflict in South Ossetia – (Part One and Two)