The Truth Behind Government Officials’ Actions During the 2008 War
Date: 30 October 2024
The Georgian Elections Observatory (GEO) is a short-term initiative focused on fact-checking pre-election narratives leading up to the crucial parliamentary elections on October 26. What sets this project apart from traditional fact-checking platforms is that it doesn't just address specific claims but examines entire narratives, offering political analysis alongside fact-checking and media analysis. This project is powered by the Fojo Swedish Media Institute in partnership with Investigative Media Lab (IML) and the UG Security, Politicy, & Nationalism Research Center (UGSPN).
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During the last few years, government representatives and individuals associated with them have frequently spread information suggesting that, during the 2008 war, high-ranking officials and members of parliament fled the country.
On July 20, 2020, during the nomination of candidates for the subsqeuent parliamentary elections in October, the current chairman of the Georgian Dream party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, said in a speech:
“The National Movement not only failed to protect the people during the crisis but also abandoned them to their fate… I remember how they fled the battlefield and the country… these people are now clinging to the past, their main goal being to seize power and exact revenge.”
The same narrative was echoed by the then-Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development, Natia Turnava:
“When discussing how to handle a crisis, don’t pretend that you have a better solution than we do. In August 2008, some of the leaders of your political party fled to various borders, leaving the country.”
On October 15, 2024, the executive secretary of Georgian Dream, Mamuka Mdinaradze, reiterated this narrative during a speech at a regional campaign event in Zugdidi, stating:
“Where there was fighting, their leaders were not there. No one could reach the Red Bridge—if there was a fight, we fought harder than anyone!”
The narrative promoted by current government representatives, which has circulated for several years, contains inaccuracies. While some individuals affiliated with the government of the time did cross the border during the war, none of the decision-makers permanently fled the country. In fact, some who crossed the border returned almost immediately after.
In 2014, Irakli Sesiashvili, a Georgian Dream MP and chairman of the Defense and Security Committee, published a list of the departures and returns of former government officials between August 7 and August 14, 2008. According to Sesiashvili, the list was requested by the temporary parliamentary commission investigating the August war and obtained from the Border Protection Department. The document is archived in parliament.
According to the list published by Sesiashvili, several officials returned to Georgia on August 9, including Davit Bakradze, the then-chairman of parliament; Giga Bokeria, the secretary of the Security Council; Bakur Kvezereli, the Minister of Agriculture; and Giorgi Meladze, a member of parliament. August 10 saw more government figures cross the border and return, including Nino Kalandadze, a member of parliament; Nikoloz Rurua, the Minister of Culture and Monument Protection; and Koba Subeliani, the Minister of Internally Displaced Persons, Resettlement, and Refugees.
Nikoloz Rurua returned to Georgia from the United States on August 10. His brother, Giorgi Rurua, later confirmed this on Facebook, stating that he had requested information from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The document shows that Nikoloz Rurua returned to the country via the Red Bridge, Georgia’s border with Azerbaijan, on August 10.
We can therefore state that the narrative spread by representatives of the current government, claiming that high-ranking officials fled the country during the August 2008 war, is not entirely accurate. While some officials did cross the border, the majority returned shortly thereafter, as confirmed by official records. Importantly, none of the decision-makers within the executive branch abandoned the country during the war.
POLITICAL ANALYSIS
The Utility of War-Fear Manipulation
If we look at the process of meta-narrative formation by Georgian Dream (GD)—which, in a nutshell, can be framed as “without us (GD) in power, there will be war in Georgia”—it becomes strikingly evident how structurally well-developed the GD information campaign is, with its messages and contextual focuses uniquely serving a particular target group (audience). Starting with the general claim that all competing political parties will push Georgia onto a path to war, the logic of their argumentation continues with attributing the risk of war to a mythical “global war party,” which is supposedly difficult to attribute to a particular country or institution, but is powerful enough to shape the global policy of the West. Consequently, Georgia’s wish to join the EU and other Western institution is presented as an act of Georgian good will, in which no general conditions of membership will apply to the country: that is, Georgia will join the EU only with “dignity.” If this is not possible and the EU insists on enforcing its rules, then Georgia, according to GD, will choose to preserve its “dignity,” refuse the membership, and maintain a strategic balancing position between major powers including the West, Russia, and China. In this way, the “war versus peace” narrative turns into an effective “information trident,” with which the triggered psychological fear of war is accompanied by the political promise of future membership in EU and NATO, and the invocation of “practical benefits or losses” to be compensated if necessary, via strategic non-alignment. From this perspective, the GD approach—while not perfect—truly appears the best available, better than anything offered before.
Despite the fact that GD's fear-mongering efforts slowly came to public attention immediately after the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it only became evident in late 2023 and early 2024that GD had failed in pushing its previously chosen primary message of anti-LGBT propaganda: as a result, it quickly jumped on war-fear messaging by significantly intensifying its information campaign. This can partly be attributed to the failed efforts by Georgian Dream to sabotage Georgia’s EU candidacy status by not implementing the Charles Michel plan (and the respective nine steps outlined by the Commission), along with the European Union’s decision to grant candidate status. It appears that GD was looking for a much “stronger”move that would, on the one hand, significantly alienate the EU, thereby effectively blocking the country’s membership negotiations; on the other hand, any such move had to provide a formal justification of noncompliance for the domestic audience and create the twin psychological and political dilemma of “no to GD means war” for the upcoming parliamentary elections. This move was found when the ruling party introduced the so-called Russian Law (officially the Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence), which saw the vast majority of public organizations and NGOs labeled as foreign agents, receiving foreign financing and pushing for the supposed Western agenda of opening a second front: that is, starting war against Russia.
It is evident that there is no other topic left powerful enough to capitalize upon and mobilize support. GD abandoned all the other issue areas on which political parties typically focus to formulate their electoral programs and promises. From the perspective of rationality, the GD decision can be justified, since the party has nothing to present to the electorate and no serious achievements to be proud of. Therefore, due to the significant decline in GD’s popularity since the adoption of the Russian Law, the persistent popular belief that joining the EU is a necessity, and the fact that any other (economic, social, etc.) electoral topic could be very damaging to GD itself, the “preservation of peace” message remains the only one that can potentially dominate and trump all the others. This assumption appears even more convincing as, much like Russian propaganda, the GD information campaign relies heavily on half-truths, manipulation of facts, and simple wordings that leave strong psychological imprints and affect basic perceptions. For instance claims that a “global war party” is the major culprit (not Russia) in starting the war in Ukraine finds a fertile ground in Georgia and is further pushed by GD, as it points to the West and its inability to provide enough military support to defeat Russia, alongside its unwillingness to accept Ukraine and Georgia into NATO to prevent and stop Russian aggression, as clear evidence of Western weakness, manipulation of Ukraine, and intention to keep the war going.