Wikileaks – godsend for Georgian authorities

The Wikileaks phenomenon has become an important factor of global politics, even though its founder’s true motivations are yet unknown. Whether Wikileaks' scandalous publications are nothing more than a sort of political ‘spam attack’, or they are well-considered intrigues of some secret intelligence services, there is still no answer to the most important question: who benefits from the whole situation?

 

For example, the Georgian authorities benefited greatly from publications of US diplomats’ correspondence on the ‘five-day war’ and Russian-Georgian relations in general. According to Georgian media, secret cables support the Tbilisi version of events of August 2008 (i.e. it was the actions of Ossetian separatists that triggered the hostilities, as the US ambassador to Georgia John Tefft indicates).

It is true that before the mass shelling of Tskhinvali, Ossetian forces bombarded the Georgian village of Avnevi, killing one Georgian serviceman and destroying dozens of houses. And now the Georgian authorities insist that they ordered a mobilization only after this act of war. Another point that drew the attention of the Georgian mass media was the passage in which Mr Tefft writes about Russian and Ossetian military resources in the village of Java, to the North of Tskhinvali. The manoeuvres of Georgian troops were witnessed by independent journalists and OSCE experts, who were surveying the situation in the Goiysky district of Georgia. However, there were no independent experts to survey the situation in South Ossetian Java. And now it is being argued whether these operations were carried out before or after the 7th of August.

Mr Tefft’s cable to Washington suggests that the South Ossetian leader, Eduard Kokoity, was intent on escalating the conflict and deliberately failed to meet the Georgian Re-integration Minister. Sceptics, however, point out that these pro-Georgian passages might be inspired by Tefft’s Georgian colleagues, who influenced the US diplomat. On the other hand, Georgian officials say that John Tefft
was too good a diplomat to succumb to any kind of political influence.

Tefft’s cable also explains why the Georgian airforce bombed Tskhinvali after Saakashvili’s ‘ceasefire’ declaration. According to this piece of information, the Georgians moved their forces towards Tskhinvali only after Ossetians took aggressive action. "Georgia was not preparing for a war, even its high military officials were on vacation. The mobilization was declared only when the conflict was already intense," the cable reads.

 

At the same time, Georgian officials choose to dismiss other materials offered by the Wikileaks publications, indicating that major Western Powers did not intend to spoil their relations with Russia over the Georgian question. Moreover, for the most part European and US politicians consider the separatist republics forever lost by Georgia, according to the site. And Mr Tefft himself indicates that the majority of western governments do not really believe the Georgian version of  the ‘five-day war' events.

 

On the other hand, Wikileaks promoted Georgian-Belarusian relations by quoting President Lukashenko, who blamed Russia for the military provocation in South Ossetia. All in all, the Wikileaks publication came in handy for a government that is desperately trying to plead not guilty to triggering a global political crisis.

Georgy Kalatozishvili, exclusively to VK