Georgia Alleges Russian Role in a Coup Plot

Vano Shlamov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Georgian security forces on their way to the Mukhrovani army base near Tbilisi on Tuesday.

By OLESYA VARTANYAN and ELLEN BARRY

Published: NYT, May 5, 2009

TBILISI, Georgia — Georgia announced Tuesday that it had put down a brief military mutiny that aimed to disrupt NATO military exercises, ratcheting up tensions a day before the exercises are scheduled to begin over Russian objections.

Georgian forces surrounded a tank battalion 25 miles outside of Tbilisi, whose leaders Georgia accused of planning the uprising. A few hours later, most of the unit’s 500 soldiers surrendered, and several of their commanders were detained.

President Mikheil Saakashvili said Russia was hoping to derail the military exercises, which he called a “symbolic event.”

“We are asking our northern neighbor to refrain from any provocations,” he said, in a televised interview.

Russia immediately denied any role in the unrest.

“This is not the first time we have been accused of interference without evidence,” said a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “We would like to reiterate that Russia, as a matter of principle, doesn’t interfere in Georgia’s domestic affairs.”

The exchange raised the already high temperature ahead of the exercises, run by NATO’s Partnership for Peace program, which includes nonmembers. NATO has described the plan as routine and small-scale — around 1,000 soldiers will take part in field exercises — but Russia complains that, less than a year after its war with Georgia, any NATO training there are provocative.

Armenia, Serbia and Kazakhstan have said they will pull out of the exercises in solidarity with Russia. Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov notified NATO on Tuesday that Russia was pulling out of a long-anticipated NATO-Russia Council meeting scheduled for May 19 in Brussels in protest of the exercises, as well as NATO’s expulsion of two Russian diplomats on suspicion of spying.

Carmen Romero, a NATO spokeswoman, said Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer “regrets this decision” and hopes to reschedule the meeting soon.

She said the exercises would go on as scheduled.

Dmitri O. Rogozin, Russia’s envoy to NATO, warned that the exercises “may significantly affect the stability of the entire South Caucasus.”

“How can one insist on these exercises with such stubbornness and persistence?” he said, in comments aired on Russian television. “If these exercises were held at NATO’s insistence in some psychiatric hospital it would be a much more adequate decision than holding them on the territory of the Georgian state.”

Details of the Georgian mutiny emerged throughout the day on Tuesday, leaving many in the capital glued to their televisions.

Shota Utiashvili, a top official in Georgia’s Interior Ministry, said authorities learned at 6:30 a.m. that a tank battalion stationed at Mukhrovani — five miles from the site of the planned military exercises — publicly announced a mutiny. He said the unit’s 500 soldiers had sealed off the base and would not allow Ministry of Defense officials to enter.

“What happened is that battalion commanders told the soldiers that the Russians were attacking them and they had to take combat positions,” Mr. Utiashvili said. Around noon, he said, the soldiers learned from news reports that their commanders had misled them and surrendered. Authorities “didn’t know the scale of the mutiny” and were relieved to discover that it was small and isolated, he said.

In the morning, officials confidently asserted a Russian hand in the plan, but by afternoon they were more cautious. Mr. Utiashvili said it is “not exactly clear” whether the accused plotters had Russian support.

“To have a legally sound case we need more information,” he said. “This morning we had some evidence, and from that evidence one would follow that Russia was involved.”

Incriminating surveillance footage was broadcast all day on Georgian television.

In a video, which had been edited, Gia Ghvaladze, a former major in the Georgian special forces, describes plans to overthrow Mr. Saakashvili’s government on behalf of Russia. Mr. Ghvaladze says the plan was to approach Tbilisi with a column of 250 troop carriers and backup from 5,000 Russian troops, and talks about killing six of Mr. Saakashvili’s closest advisors.

Mr. Ghvaladze was arrested Monday night on charges of organizing a mutiny. By Tuesday evening, police had arrested 13 suspects, according to the Interior Ministry.

The unfolding events left much of Tbilisi spellbound — or paralyzed. Traffic thinned out on the city’s streets, and when Natia Kuprashvili, 29, tried to teach her class at Tbilisi State University, her students’ cell phones began to ring so wildly that she gave up and went in search of a television.

But in the end, she said, “it is very hard to understand what really happened here.”

Roman Apakidze, 30, concluded that a mutiny did take place, but that the government was distorting it for political purposes.

“I just don’t like the way the government is handling this information — it is real information terror against ordinary people, what they do,” he said. “It is better not to turn on the television at all.”

Olesya Vartanyan reported from Tbilisi, Georgia, and Ellen Barry from Moscow.

Yezids

Yezids or yazidis is a sect dwelling principally in Kurdistan, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Armenia and Georgia, who call themselves Dasni and claims to have originated in India 6,000 years ago. Their population is now estimated to be less than one million worldwide.

As far as their memory goes back the Yezids– one of the minorities in Armenia- have been engaged in highland cattle breeding.
There are two theories about the origins of the Yezids: one says that the Kurds are their ‘forefathers’; the other says exactly the opposite; that the Kurds came forth from the Yezid. Whatever the truth, the main difference between these two peoples is that the Yezids have preserved their religion for nearly 4 millennia.

The Yezidis were Kurmanji Kurdish-speaking (a dialect they call Ezdiki or Yezideren), but many of them did not consider themselves Kurds, because they’re not Muslims, but Sharfadin. In fact, the Yezidi religion is the original faith practiced by the Kurds before most were converted to Islam. The first mentioning of the Temple of the Yezid is related to the ancient town of Babylon and today the most important temple is located in Lalish, north of Mosul, Iraq.

The Yezids worship the sun, the goats and their most important deity created the world while looking at the beauty of a peacock angel or demiurg they call Tawsy Melek, Melek Taus, Taus-e-Malak, Al-Kadir, Azazel, Aziz or Shaytan. Since the Qu’ram reserves this name for Satan, often the Yazidis have been erroneously identified as devil worshipers. Such deity is the leader of Seven Holy Beings, who reincarnates periodically in human beings in a process called koasasa (metempsychosis). Even if dismissed as devil worship, Yezidism in fact combines elements from Zoroastrianism, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. They celebrate the New Year’s day on the first Wednesday of Nisan (March/April), as they believe God created Melek Taus on this day.

Because of the identification Muslims made with a satanic sect, and due to their pre-Islamic beliefs, they have been oppressed by their Muslim neighbors. Treatment of Yazidis was exceptionally harsh during the rule of the Ottoman Empire during the 18th and the first half of 19th century and their numbers dwindled under Ottoman rule both in Syria and Iraq. Massacres at the hand of Ottoman Turks and Muslim Kurdish princes almost wiped out their community in the 19th century. They were murdered as if they were armenians during the Armenian Genocide of 1915 in Ottoman Turkey.

For the Yezid the peacock is therefore a holy animal and its image can be found on their pillows, blankets and in their tents. The Yezids do not have a Holy Book and their religion is based on the knowledge of their priests. The right to become a priest is inherited once sufficient knowledge has been gained. The most important ritual is the annual six-day pilgrimage to the tomb of Sheikh Adi in Lalish, north of Mosul, Iraq.

Yazidi society is hierarchical. The secular leader is a hereditary emir or prince, whereas a chief sheikh heads the religious hierarchy. The Yazidi are strictly endogamous. Within Yezid society there are three major castes below Mir (the yazidi prince) and Baba Shiekh (a kind of Pope): Sheikhs, Pyrs and Murids (lowest caste). Marriages are allowed only inside the castes and sometimes the bride does not know her future husband. Society is strictly regulated with rules and taboos that are passed on from generation to generation, e.g. the bride cannot talk to the oldest man in the family or eat in his presence before the marriage. Besides the caste system, the roles of men and women in Yezid society are also strictly defined according to tradition.

Yezids have a rich tradition of celebrations: at weddings for example the groom throws an apple at the bride’s head and the more pieces it breaks into the better. The New Year (Sere Sal) celebration includes the coloring of eggs, the Parade of the Sanjaks (bronze lamps with peacocks), remembrance of the dead on the cemetery, where the tables for the ceremonies by the graves are divided into sections for men and women. Many celebrations also have their specific sacrifice. Animals mostly, sheep and cows are sacrificed by slitting their throats and praying with the Pyrs (priest of highest rank) pouring salt into the animal’s nose. Other ways of slaughter are considered as murder.

The Yezid have always had a nomadic life that is intertwined with the rhythm of the seasons. They are ever ready to move, so there is no place to anything superfluous. Everything is connected with the cattle – meat, wool, cheese for sale, yarn, blocs of dung dried by the houses just by the entrance. The furniture is minimal, very rarely one can see photos of relatives on the walls.

One of the most crucial periods in the migration cycle starts a month before the Yezids move their cattle up the slopes of Mount Ara when the shepherds and their families prepare themselves and their tents for their 5-6 month stay in the mountains. The shepherds live in military tents of Soviet times, some 3-5 kilometers away from the village. At a distance the tents, set on the background of the rocky foothills, resemble the marquees made of sheep hides. The herds live in similar tents especially allotted to them.

Moving up to the meadows of Mount Ara takes one or two days. After that the shepherds move their camp every couple of weeks, grazing and living on mountain slopes up to 3 thousand meters. In the last stage the camp will be moved to an Alpine meadows where a large variety of herbs and plants will be available.