Russian Plot Or Clinical Paranoia?

By Steve Hynd

Reports broke yesterday of a mutiny by a Georgian tank battalion at the Mukhrovani base outside the capital Tbilisi. Saakashvili's administration had initially described the mutiny as a coup plot and showed a scant minute of footage as "proof" of this.

Utiashvili said the plot was organized by Georgy Gvaladze, a former special forces commander who was arrested after the ministry caught him on video saying 5,000 Russian troops would enter the country to support the uprising, which was due to erupt nationwide on Thursday.

“They were receiving money from Russia," Utiashvili said. “It seems it was coordinated with Russia.”

There's no time signature on the video, no evidence Gvaladze wasn't filmed months ago talking about his thoughts about potential Russian movements during their conflict with Russia and presented now hopelessly out of context.

Georgian officials swiftly backed away from allegations of a coup, saying the mutiny was aimed at disrupting upcoming NATO exercises. That certainly seems more plausible, since the Gori independent tank battalion involved is only one of five such battalions and the base involved is also home to other units that apparently stayed loyal. The mutineers surrendered after a very short time, with no bloodshed - also arguing against an attempted coup.

Allegations of Russian meddling remain - unsurprisingly since everything that goes wrong for the tie-munching Georgian leader gets blamed on Russian plots. The Russians have said Saakashvili should "see a doctor" and Georgian opposition leaders are scathing.

Russia's ambassador to Nato, Dmitri Rogozin, dismissed as "mad" Georgian claims of Moscow's involvement in the coup attempt. He told Interfax: "It can be said that both the Georgian army and Georgian nationhood are undergoing complete destruction, and the reason is again Saakashvili's mad policies."

Doubts were also expressed from inside Georgia. Giya Karkarashvili, an opposition leader and former defence minister, said: "Today Georgia is in the hands of sick people, who write the scenario themselves, play it themselves, then make a movie and show it to people for intimidation purposes."

(Doesn't that sound just like Saakashvili's neoconservative American friends too?)

Comments

[Lex]

No, no, no, no, no! Georgia is a bastion of freedom and democracy beset by the evil Russia and her machinations.

Georgia didn't start the war; there were no US troops on the ground during the war (not even a national guard unit from home fort of the US Special Forces); and there hasn't been hundreds of millions of US dollars funneled into Georgia in the form of military hardware. Nor is the US educated Saakashvili anything remotely resembling a US puppet.

We're all Georgians still, right?