We remember… 

This morning, the RTN television host Gennady Katsov spoke about the war between South Ossetia and Georgia. 

Note: The Russian American representatives of businesses and universities well know the RTN (Russian Television Network of America) as the main channel of the Russian Media Group LLC (RMG) company – the largest source of Russian television in USA (NOT to be mistaken for RT:Russian Television). 

I wasn’t surprised by these sources of “unbiased” information; claiming that Russia has been preparing for the war between Russia and Georgia for a long time, provoking the independent and democratic nation of Georgia, distributing Russian passports to South Ossetians for the purpose of finally attacking the state of Georgia to save its own citizens and occupying a part of Georgian territory. These lies were heard many times from the lips of Russian-speaking journalists of the western mass-media, who have grown up in the USSR and have received free post-secondary education in the country which they now slander (as they are directed to by the big pockets that pay them very well to do so). 

There was also something new that Mr. Katsov mentioned, something I've never heard before. So it turns out that all this was (the war) was Putin's plan for revenge for Kosovo! Original isn't it?!...  

Quite effective, if you consider that viewers of such television shows, are people who don’t like today's policy of Russia to be independent of the Western influence. This is exactly what they want to hear, scaring the viewers in USA, Canada, Europe or Israel, with Russia's new world policy of present ‘dictatorship’ and threats of intimidating Western society. 

I carefully listened for even the slightest mention about the USA arming the Georgian army with advanced weaponry, using the American taxpayers money for training and preparing Georgians for teasing the Russian "wounded bear" and creating a dangerous area of political intensity right near Russia's southern border. They have also led to power the Harvard graduate Mikhail Saakashvili and covered his government’s financial expenses, including funding high-ranking officials salaries, again from the wallets of regular taxpaying Americans. 

Russian tanks and armed cars were shown approaching, shooting and maneuvering around. I expected that they would show the same videos as on the night of August 7th to the 8th when South Ossetian capital Tshinval was intensively shelled by Georgian artillery and aircraft bombing. It would have been relevant to show videos of the Georgian tanks cruising the streets of the city with Georgian soldiers hollering with joy and machine guns firing at the apartment buildings where peaceful residents were hiding. The viewers would probably not like seeing views from the streets of Tshinval on those days, with the destroyed buildings, smashed windows and gates, and destroyed schools, and hospitals. In addition to this, the viewers would not want to see the horrifying images showing numerous remains of women and old people, crushed cars along the roads which people used to escape from Tskhinval, pictures of the charred remains of the Ossetian family shot in their car by a Georgian tank while trying to escape from this hell.  

They would also not approve the images of rotting remains of Georgian soldiers around Tshinval, whom the Georgian side refused to pick up, hiding from the regular Georgians the true scale of their crimes, and whom the Ossetians have later buried as any good Christians would. 

http://ossetians.com/rus/news.php?newsid=832 

Yes, I really have hoped to see on RTN at least the slightest scene which would display the pain and suffering the Ossetians have experienced with this monstrous crime against the nation. Doesn’t the RTN TV channel broadcast from the most democratic country in the world, which promotes freedom of speech worldwide? I guess freedom of speech doesn't guarantee freedom of truth.  

Instead, the host of the show with confidence tried to use the subject matter to make the spectators believe that Putin is a malicious and deceitful "bad guy on the block". Politics, politics and politics. Not a single word about the real victims of the long-term chauvinistic policy in Georgia who survived three attempted genocides and have lost thousands of people. Nothing mentioned of the Ossetians. 

And then, I lost my patience and knowing the show was live, called in. 

I reminded Mr. Katsov and listeners that although things seem much clearer from New York, it would not be a bad idea to ask the opinion of the Ossetians as well - the victims and witnesses of these events. I tried to tell him how on September of 2008 I talked to residents of Tshinval, saw the eyes of mothers who have lost their sons and daughters, saw an almost completely destroyed city which resembled Stalingrad in 1943. 

Completely surprised by the turn of events, the host of the telecast interrupted me and began to argue that though all this is awful, it is an inevitable consequence any war and it is necessary to see the instigators and reasons. 

While having agreed, I asked him to return to the beginning of 90s, when inspired by the first pro-American president of Georgia- Z.Gamsahurdia, the chauvinistic fever provoked a bloody war in South Ossetia and initiated the fleeing of more than one hundred thousand ethnic Ossetians from Georgia who lost their houses and all belongings. The host quickly interrupted me once again by changing the subject. 

A similar event such as mine, though better known, happened on FOX News in August 2008 when the host of the show tried to interrupt Amanda Kokoeva, a 12-year old Ossetian girl from California, who during the short war barely escaped from burning Tshinval.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=I5LwktPcq8o&NR=1 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWgpJij9NaE&feature=related 

But we, Ossetians remember it all. Our children and grandchildren will remember it too. All the powers of Western mass-media cannot erase the memory in us. Georgian people are not our enemy and have never been. With Gods will, years will pass and our people will live again as good neighbors in friendship. But to those who have led our nations to a bloody war for the sake of superpowers, geopolitical interests, as well as their patrons, must learn from the results of 08.08.08. 

It is impossible to subdue and enslave Ossetians with violence. They don't care much about where Mr. Saakashvili, his government and Western politicians see the borders of Georgia. The territory, where many centuries Ossetians have lived and will always live belongs to Ossetia. There will be Ossetian children who will speak Ossetian and grow up happy. They will dance Honga and Shimd, instead of Kartuli, and will pray to Shtir Hutsaw (great God) and Uastirdzhi with the three traditional Ossetian pies, instead of Khachapuri and Georgian wine on the table. 

For this all not to happen, Ossetians must become extinct, our whole nation destroyed until the last person disappears from the North and South parts of Ossetia. This is hardly possible... So it's better to leave us alone. 

Ossetians recognize their equal peaceful neighbours, but not those “bullies” who, like the Machiavelli Dukes in 19th century, pretend to become the masters in our houses.  

“A butting bull will break his horn sooner or later” - says the old Ossetian proverb.  

One horn was already broken in 08.08.08. It’s time to take care of the other one. 

Ruslan Kuchity