Sunday, August 17, 2008

How Does Israel Compare?

This about reporters:-

Then, late Wednesday night, the commander of the Russian contingent, Gen. Vyacheslav Borisov, drove up in a Mercedes with Georgian license plates to the Russian army checkpoint at the entrance to the city and reported that everything is peaceful and under control.

"We are not going to shoot, we are not going to kill," Gen. Borisov, the deputy head of Russia's Air Assault Force, told a group of reporters that assembled at the checkpoint. "We came here simply to restore order...

..."The Russians are looting everything in sight. The whole city is full of marauders," said Roland Bochiashvili. Russian soldiers stood by as irregulars held a Sky TV crew at gunpoint and took their car and equipment. A group of Polish journalists also had their car and equipment stolen. On the road to Tbilisi, a group of refugees angrily shouted at a lonely Georgian government official. "Where is our government? Where is our army?" wailed one distraught woman. "Who in the world is going to help us? Nobody cares."

Gen. Borisov denied a request by reporters to visit Gori after the Russian takeover, saying that this would disturb sleeping residents. He also dismissed the reports of atrocities perpetrated by Ossetian irregulars. "There were only two or three cars of Ossetians that came down. I personally confiscated their assault rifles, kicked them in their behinds, and told them that I will have them executed if they come again," he said. "There are hooligans anywhere -- we cannot control everything."

...A group including the Estonian ambassador to Georgia, a French member of the European Parliament and noted French author and philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy Wednesday night was allowed past the first Russian checkpoint, just south of the main east-west highway traversing Georgia, but was kept away from the center of the city. "The part we were shown was a ghost town," Mr. Levy said as a Russian troop transporter screeched to a halt next to him, and Russian soldiers pushed him to the side of the road.


This about UN officials:-

GORI, Georgia — A stocky man in camouflage fatigues who walked from behind a Russian tank seemed like any other Russian soldier at the main military checkpoint just inside this occupied Georgian city. Then, he pulled out a pistol, stuck it into the thigh of a United Nations official and demanded the keys to a gleaming SUV parked nearby.

Seconds later, he pointed the gun at the feet of another international official, collected another pair of car keys, and — unleashing a volley of obscenities — fired two shots in the air. Suddenly, dozens of journalists, aid workers and diplomats rushed to their cars as Russian troops sat atop several tanks, watching the mayhem around them with amused detachment.

Three staffers of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, their vehicle seized at gunpoint, sought refuge in the back of a speeding Wall Street Journal car, breaking a window as they jumped inside. "This is not a very safe place," exhaled Nikolai Vanchev, the UNHCR field-safety adviser...

No comments: