Panic in Georgia over feared Russian invasion.

[Dinner]

Georgian television news ran a false report that the country's President had been assassinated and that Russian tanks were entering the capital sparking wide spread panic in Georgia.

Fake invasion news panics Georgia
By Tom Esslemont
BBC News, Tbilisi

Momentary panic was sparked in Georgia after TV broadcasted the news that Russian tanks had invaded the capital and the country's president was dead.

The national network report - with echoes of the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia - turned out to be false.

However, mobile phone networks were overwhelmed with calls and many people rushed onto the streets.

Imedi TV said the aim of the report had been to show how events might unfold if the president were killed.

For a brief moment on Saturday evening many Georgians thought history was repeating itself.

'Disgusting'

It is only 18 months since Russian tanks came within 45km (28 miles) of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.

In its news report, Imedi TV showed archive footage of the war and imagined how opposition figures might seize power after an assassination of the country's President, Mikheil Saakashvili.

Although the broadcast was introduced as a simulation of possible events, the warning was lost on many Georgians.

One local news agency reported that emergency services had received an unusually high volume of calls in the ensuing minutes.

And once calm returned, the report was seen by some as a poorly disguised swipe at the Georgian opposition politicians who recently travelled to Moscow to meet Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

The head of the holding company which owns Imedi TV said the aim was to show "the real threat" of how events might unfold.

That did not stop dozens of journalists and angry Georgians who gathered outside the Imedi TV studios to protest.

One opposition politician who was there labelled the report "disgusting".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8566571.stm

[DaShi]

I heard that at the end of the broadcast the Russians were defeated by germs.

[onodera]

I heard that at the end of the broadcast the Russians were defeated by germs.

I wanted to make a WotW reference too.

[OzzyKP]

I heard that at the end of the broadcast the Russians were defeated by germs.

Got it in one. Close it up boys, this thread is over.

[Dr Strangelove]

Next: Georgia bans the opposition parties in the interest of democracy.

[Serb]

Georgian television news ran a false report that the country's President had been assassinated and that Russian tanks were entering the capital sparking wide spread panic in Georgia.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8566571.stm

And guess who controls this TV-station? Sukashvili does control the Imedi after he has killed its previous owner. No man, no problem.
Once an opposition TV-station Imedi now a brainwashing tool for Sukashvili propaganda and provocations like this one.

I remember the threads about the Rose and Orange revolutions there. All that jazz about how cool those pro-western, liberal, democrat leaders are. But,
everything went in Georgia and Ukraine exactly like I said back then - one huge ****-up and pillaging of a countries.
You guys are really brainwashed idiots, if you still think that Sukashvili or Yushenko are democratic leaders and Ukraine and Georgia became a heaven after the years when your beloved pro-western leaders were (still are in Georgia) in charge.

[Hauldren Collider]

Bahahahahaha

Serb, what do you think the Rose Revolution was?

[Serb]

A coup sponsored by US.

[Hauldren Collider]

God dammit Serb you owe me a monitor. I just shot soda out of my nose and now it's all over the place

[Serb]

Try to prove me wrong.

[HalfLotus]

This is a pretty funny hiccup in the western propaganda machine.

This story was obviously supposed to coincide with a US/NATO offensive in the region, to be blamed on the wily Russians, but somebody's finger slipped and hit the 'send' button a little too soon.

[BeBMan]

Unbelievable.

[Serb]

Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili blamed for starting Russian war

• EU investigation says Tbilisi launched indiscriminate assault on South Ossetia • Inquiry accuses both sides in five-day conflict of breaking laws of war

Ian Traynor, Europe editor
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 30 September 2009 15.54 BST
Article history


An investigation into last year's Russia-Georgia war delivered a damning indictment of President Mikheil Saakashvili today, accusing Tbilisi of launching an indiscriminate artillery barrage on the city of Tskhinvali that started the war.

In more than 1,000 pages of analysis, documentation and witness statements, the most exhaustive inquiry into the five-day conflict dismissed Georgian claims that the artillery attack was in response to a Russian invasion, accused both sides of violations of the laws of war, indicated that war crimes had been perpetrated against Georgian civilians and rejected Russian claims of "genocide" in the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia.

The EU-commissioned report, by a fact-finding mission of more than 20 political, military, human rights and international law experts led by the Swiss diplomat, Heidi Tagliavini, was unveiled in Brussels today after nine months of work.

"There is no way to assign overall responsibility for the conflict to one side alone," the report found.

But the conclusions will discomfit the western-backed Georgian leader, Saakashvili, who was found to have started the war with the attack on Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, on the night of 7 August last year, through a "penchant for acting in the heat of the moment".

The war started "with a massive Georgian artillery attack", the report said, citing an order from Saakashvili that the offensive was aimed at halting Russian military units moving into South Ossetia.

Flatly dismissing Saakashvili's version, the report said: "There was no ongoing armed attack by Russia before the start of the Georgian operation ... Georgian claims of a large-scale presence of Russian armed forces in South Ossetia prior to the Georgian offensive could not be substantiated ... It could also not be verified that Russia was on the verge of such a major attack."

While concluding the Georgians fired the first shots, the report said the attack was the culmination of months and years of rising tension and provocations for which both sides bore the blame.

Intended to settle intense finger-pointing over the conflict, the report predictably unleashed a fresh bout of charge and counter-charge between the Russians and the Georgians.

The investigators criticised and condemned Russian conduct and policy in the months and yearsleading up to the war and its behaviour since. But on the issues of who started what when, the report was unequivocal. The Georgian offensive against Tskhinvali was not justified under international law.

"It is not possible to accept that the shelling of Tskhinvali with Grad multiple rocket launchers and heavy artillery would satisfy the requirements of having been necessary and proportionate."

The Russians had moved mercenaries and paramilitary forces into South Ossetia in apparent preparation for armed hostilities before Saakashvili's disastrous offensive, which triggered a Russian invasion and left his country partitioned. But the proper Russian reponse to the artillery barrage came – by land, sea and air – 12 hours after the Georgian action.

The report concluded that South Ossetian irregular forces violated the rules of war in attacks on Georgian villages and that Russian peacekeeping forces "would not or could not" control them. Russian claims of Georgian "genocide" in South Ossetia were dismissed and Russian claims that Georgians had killed 2,000 civilians were found to be wildly exaggerated. The report put the figure of civilian dead at 162 on the South Ossetian side.

The secession of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia was branded illegal and Russian recognition of the two "states" in breach of international law.The report found that Moscow had been assiduously preparing the secession by, among other things, a policy of "passportification", illegally distributing Russian passports on a mass scale among the breakaway populations.The mission also found that western blunders spurred the warmongers. A "series of mistakes, misperceptions, and missed opportunities on all sides" internationally contributed to the breakout of war. It traced the conflict back to the early 90s and the fallout from the collapse of the Soviet Union and accused the Kremlin of abusing its status as a "great power" to coerce "a small and insubordinate neighbour."

The Russian forces in South Ossetia failed to stop irregulars conduct a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Georgian villages, entailing looting, rape, hostage-taking, and arbitrary arrest.

Key excerpts from the report on the five-day Russian-Georgian war:



"On the night of 7-8 August 2008 … heavy fighting erupted in and around … Tskhinvali in South Ossetia [and] soon extended to other parts of Georgia. It caused serious destruction, reaching levels of utter devastation. Altogether about 850 persons lost their lives, more than 100,000 civilians fled their homes. "


"The Russian side justified their military intervention by their intention to stop an allegedly ongoing genocide of the Ossetian population by the Georgian forces, and also to protect Russian citizens residing in South Ossetia and the Russian contingent of the Joint Peacekeeping Forces deployed in South Ossetia."


"The shelling of Tskhinvali by the Georgian armed forces during the night of 7 to 8 August 2008 marked the beginning of the large-scale armed conflict in Georgia, yet it was only the culminating point of a long period of increasing tensions, provocations and incidents. Indeed, the conflict has deep roots in the history of the region, in peoples' national traditions and aspirations as well as in age-old perceptions or rather misperceptions of each other, which were never mended and sometimes exploited."


"There is the question of whether the use of force by Georgia in South Ossetia … was justifiable under international law. It was not [under existing stability accords with Moscow]."


"Georgian claims of a large-scale presence of Russian armed forces in South Ossetia prior to the Georgian offensive … could not be substantiated."


"It seems that much of the Russian military action went far beyond the reasonable limits of defence. This holds true for all kinds of massive and extended action …

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/30/georgia-attacks-unjustifiable-eu

[BlackCat]

Nice try Serb, but it was an internal issue that soviet russia should have stayed out of. It was clearly Georgian territory and they had any right to go in.

[Serb]

It was not a clearly Georgian territory. It was a disputed territory. Where two sides of conflict have signed a ceasefire and were separated by peacekeepers.
If you think that Georgians had any right to go in and kill civilians and peacekeepers with their artillery and GRADS you are crazy.

The report says that Georgia violated international law when it used force against Russian peacekeeping troops stationed in Tskhinvali, and that from that moment, Russia’s army had grounds to use force in the peacekeepers’ defense.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/world/europe/01russia.html?_r=2&hpw

As long as they have attacked and killed Russian peacekeepers stationed in Tskhinval, since that exact second it wasn't an internal Georgian issue anymore.