Georgians Complain of Detentions (Russians Need to Hire Some Competent Lobbyists)

The reports coming out of Georgia are disheartening.  It becomes clearer and clearer that the news is manipulated by big money interests through intense lobbying and bullying efforts.

The bullying efforts are more apparent in back channel reports on the campaign. One side of the presidential races is pulling few punches in its effort to bend mainstream to it's cause.  

But, the reports on the Russian Georgian conflict indicate the power of the well connected lobbyist.  Incidently,Georgia also has ties to the people who are bullying the media to manipulate news for one of the campaigns.

Jonathon Finer reports on the stories he learned from the Georgians who had been held by "Russian and South Ossetian forces" in Washington Post's "Georgian Civilians Tell of Miserable Conditions as War Captives".

I will let you read the report there, but a couple notes I'd like to add.  Mr. Finer sites two sources that apparently  were the ones in Georgia and Russia who passed information on to the writer.  I'm a little disappointed in that it is easy for someone sitting in the US to not be able to detect prejudice creeping into distant reports from people who might not be as objective as they could be.  

One particular part of the report that disturbs me is the citing of a statement by a person supposedly assessing the situation for Human Rights Watch: 

Giorgi Gogia of Human Rights Watch, who also interviewed the former prisoners Saturday, said, "It is very clear that these people were unlawfully detained on the basis of their ethnicity." Gogia said the "ghastly conditions that these people have been kept in" were a "violation of international law."

I couldn't find any bio on Giorgi Gogia via a web search but what I did find was an indication that the one part of the world that the first name Giorgi is popular is in the Republic of Georgia.  Having local people involved may give greatest insight, but it also can lead to opinions that should be offered without prejudice, being biased in the end. 

With the amount of history we have found of news reports being pushed from interested sources, especially ones that are able to offer possible future advertising dollars, I'd like a little more transparency in mainstream journalism.  

It might clean up the system. 

Still the allegations are out there.  I hope the other side is shown pretty quickly by the Post.  How have Russian captives been treated?

tags: russia  georgia  russiangeorgian conflict  human rights watch  

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