Luke Harding in Gori
The Guardian,Tuesday August 12 2008
Local residents pass by a damaged building in Gori, Georgia.Photograph:
Sergei Grits/APThere wasn't much left of Kostia Asershvili's living room. Hischandelier sat in the middle of a glass-strewn carpet. The windows inthe children's bedroom had been blown out.Next door had fared worse. Kostia's neighbour was killed when a bomblanded on his roof.Across the road, other blocks of flats in the town of Gori hadsuffered the same fate: scorched and twisted metal lay in thecourtyard, surrounded by clothes, bricks, pillow feathers - and thesmell of burnt flesh.
"I was lucky. I got my children out 15 minutes before the bombs fell,"Kostia said, showing off his wonky door lintels and broken windows. Headded: "I don't know who's to blame for this war. The only thing Iknow is that it isn't me."Ostensibly, the Russian jets that bombed Kostia's house were aimingfor a Georgian tank base a couple of miles away. The bombs did notreach their target.Perhaps they weren't meant to. Instead, they landed on a residentialdistrict of Gori - the town that has borne the brunt of Russia'svengeful bombardment of Georgia after President Mikhail Saakashvili'sunsuccessful attempt last week to seize back the breakaway province ofSouth Ossetia.
Georgian tanks rolled into the mountainous enclave, 14 miles away fromGori, last Thursday; on Sunday they withdrew from South Ossetia'scapital, Tskhinvali. Despite having turfed the Georgians out, Russiatoday continued to bomb targets beyond the conflict zone all acrossGeorgia.With the tiny country's air defences flattened, the Russian air forcecan now fly insouciantly across Georgian airspace. Georgia yesterdaysaid Russian planes had launched 50 attacks overnight - a claim Moscowdenies.
Two Russian fighters did lob bombs on to a disused, communist-eraaerodrome near the border with Azerbaijan; others hit a radar stationin the capital Tbilisi, sending panic-stricken residents fleeing fromtheir beds at dawn, and crippling the international airport."It was 5am. We saw the planes loop over the forest. They thenreleased their rockets. There was a huge cloud of dust," FridonAkobia, a 41-year-old border guard on the river crossing into Georgia,said. He added: "We didn't know where the bombers were going to hit."Russia's indiscriminate bombing strategy appears to have no realmilitary objective. Instead it looks like a vindictive post-factoexercise in collective punishment.
In Gori, residents returned to examine their homes, wrecked in theweekend bombing. The five-story block across the road from Kostia'swas a blackened ruin: the upper stories had disappeared, its neat vinetrellis staved in as if by a giant fist."We lived on the fifth floor. We fled just before the attack started,"Nana Tetsladzi, 35, said. Her husband, Giorgy, 35, got out too. ButNana's pregnant neighbour Marca, who lived below on the second floor,wasn't quick enough."She and her husband were both killed. I don't know what happened totheir seven-year-old boy," she said. "He may be in hospital." In thecourtyard were the mangled remains of Marca's white car. She had beentrying to flee in it when the Russians struck.Nana opened up her garage to show off her surviving possessions: adust-covered television set, blankets, and a rack of glass jars. "Thisis all we have left," she said, tearfully.
Most inhabitants of Gori have fled. Some clearly left in a hurry: downone sidestreet, someone had left a generously sized red bra hanging inthe front garden. A few bakeries remained open today, churning outloaves of delicious round bread. Most of the town is undamaged; itsshops and bombed market are shut.In the afternoon a fleet of ambulances drove past Gori's main square -adorned with a statue of Stalin, who was born here. Among those whostayed, the mood was anger, directed not just at neighbouring Russiabut also at the west, which, they said, had failed spectacularly tohelp Georgia in its moment of need.
"If Europe and the US don't stop Russia, in 20 years time you'll see anew wall going up in Berlin," Paata Aspanadze - who had driven to Gorito visit his elderly mother - warned. "Russia wants to get back itsempire. Today they kill us; tomorrow they will kill you."Paata did not agree that Saakashvili's attempt to reclaim SouthOssetia was, as many have suggested, a reckless and ill-thought-outgamble bound to provoke Russia's wrath. Instead, he painted Georgia'sconflict with Russia as nothing less than a struggle for survival."If we say to Russia, 'OK, have two bits of Georgia,' then Georgia'sindependence will be finished,' he said.
Others decried Russia's hypocrisy, for encouraging separatism inGeorgia while ruthlessly crushing it in next-door Chechnya, the sceneof two brutal Kremlin wars."Russia is completely to blame. Georgia is an independent, sovereigncountry. They are just trying to grab our land," Paata's brother Nukrisaid during a family reunion over fizzy Georgian juice at his mother'supstairs flat."Why is the world not doing anything? Russia is using the same excuse,of protecting its citizens, that Hitler used in 1939."It is so far not yet clear what impact this crisis will have on thepolitical fortunes of Saakashviili, Georgia's pro-US leader. Moscowhas demanded that he step down, accusing him of genocide and othercrimes.Nobody doubts that the conflict has set back Georgia's attempt to joinNato by years, if not decades. At the same time, Georgia is moreisolated than ever before. The country's international airport isscarcely operational: to reach Georgia, you have to fly via Armenia orBaku, the capital of Azerbaijan. A bumpy, if picturesque, 10-hour carjourney then threads through wine-growing eastern Georgia, pasthorse-drawn carts transporting melons through fields of yellowsunflowers.
But the abiding emotion in Georgia at the moment is fear – fear ofwhere the Russian jets may strike on their next languid bombing run."People are scared," said Lika Teravze, a parliamentary researcher inTbilisi. "Russian bombers woke us at 4.50am this morning. We ran outinto the street to see what the noise was. We were looking into thesky wondering where the bombs would fall."
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