EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Television Station in Georgia Operates Mysteriously, Generates Controversy

EURASIA INSIGHT

TELEVISION STATION IN GEORGIA OPERATES MYSTERIOUSLY, GENERATES CONTROVERSY
Molly Corso 5/22/06

Seven months after it began broadcasting in Georgia, Alania TV, a pro-Tbilisi, Russian-language television channel, remains a subject of controversy and speculation.

The chief mystery concerning Alania’s operations concerns its ownership structure. Television station representatives have taken pains to keep its financial picture under wraps. Anonymous sources within the station have been quoted by Georgian media outlets as saying the station has "foreign" financial backers. However media observers in Tbilisi claim it is an open secret that Alania is supported by the Georgian government itself. In a telephone interview Gela Charkviani, the president’s spokesperson, denied any knowledge of the television station’s owner, or the source of its financing. Television station representatives refused to comment for this article.

"We all know this is also a state TV channel. It is not privately [owned]," said Irina Tsintsadze, a development officer at Internews Georgia, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that focuses on media capacity-building. She noted that while she does not understand the need for secrecy, she characterized the station’s emergence as "good strategy," as President Mikheil Saakashvili’s government goes about trying to bring South Ossetia back under Tbilisi’s control. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. "If you want to send a message to somebody, you should send it in an important way that �this is especially for you," Tsintsadze said.

NGOs activists active in promoting conflict resolution suggest the secrecy surrounding Alania TV’s operations could be fueling distrust on the part of South Ossetians. According to Maia Tsaboshvili, chairwoman of the Georgian Ossetian Union, the hype surrounding Alania is proof the two sides are not ready to communicate openly. Noting that everyone knows that Tbilisi officials support the station, Tsaboshvili maintains Alania would be a more effective tool for promoting reconciliation if its ownership was out in the open. "Why shouldn’t we respect that and admit what so many � if not everyone -- understands already?" Tsaboshvili asked. Going on to describe the channel’s news programming as slightly "colored," Tsaboshvili said it nonetheless serves an important purpose by providing Ossetians with information they don’t have access to otherwise.

Sabine Freizer, Caucasus Project director at International Crisis Group in Tbilisi, noted that most Ossetians do not understand Georgian, thus rendering inaccessible most of programming coming out of Tbilisi. Since Alania is broadcast in Russian, it provides an alternative to the Russian television stations that have entered the South Ossetian market.

Freizer expressed the belief that Alania could play an important role in rebuilding Georgian-South Ossetian ties -- but only if the television broadcasts are supported by other confidence-building measures. She added that a draft law for property restitution and an OSCE-hosted donor conference scheduled for June were steps in the right direction. "It is very important that Georgia implements its peace plan, and it is very important that it should not be seen as checking off boxes," Freizer said. "It should be really a sustained, comprehensive ambition to implement this with a real political will to peacefully resolve the conflict."

At first glance, Alania’s programming, which largely consists of new Hollywood releases dubbed over in Russian and the occasional satirical cartoon about Ossetian and Georgian leadership, appears harmless enough. But on occasion, the station has aired politically oriented content that has painted the separatist leadership in an unfavorable light. This has prompted journalists working in South Ossetia maintain that the station broadcasts Georgian propaganda. Irina Yanovska, a journalist with the Tskhinvali-based NGO called Journalists for Human Rights, believes Alania is adding tension to an already severely strained relationship between Tbilisi and Tskhinvali. In a telephone interview, she noted that if the station was created to bring the two sides closer together, it "is having the opposite effect."

When Alania went on the air in November, the de-facto Tskhinvali government immediately announced plans to jam the station’s frequency. According to Georgian and Ossetian press reports, the broadcasts were temporarily disrupted in January when Alania aired a damning report on Eduard Kokoity, the de-facto leader of the separatist territory. The separatist leadership has referred to Alania as the "Georgian Special Forces channel."

According to Tsaboshvili, it should not come as a surprise that many Ossetians are suspicious. The station paints a very rosy picture of the Georgian government’s policies, and that is hard for Ossetians to accept, Tsaboshvili said.

Editor�s Note: Molly Corso is a freelance reporter and photojournalist based in Tbilisi.

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