Hatchets Not Buried
OPED
They kill us and…nothing! They kill and then leave the bloodstained place unharmed as if nothing has happened. They disappear on us after murder like invisible ghosts never to be seen again, not even in the courtroom to face due punishment. No trace, no justice. Just a slight formal reaction to the fact of the heinous crime.
One of our men was slaughtered the other day in broad daylight on our territory, right in front of passersby who witnessed the dreadful moment of flashback to previous fratricides.
Deaths happen. We know that much. We know that nobody is safe from God’s will, but this one is different, very different. This one is a reminder of many other deaths, recent vain and foolish deaths. That fateful day, one more life was taken, and this time it was the life of a young Georgian family man who will always remain the symbol of unhealed wounds between Georgia and Russia, with Abkhazia in between.
Words lose their meaning when describing what happened. The man was buried, the bereaved family mourned, politicians sent condolences and the funeral gathered more people than it would have if it had been just another regular death.
The talk continues on investigating the case, circulating on a certain level of justice-must-be-done enthusiasm, the officially nursed rationale is to let the massacre shed the accompanying political inconveniences. Life continues, and the tragedy is going to be forgotten, as have many other human tragedies that have taken place before on the disputed Georgian land called Abkhazia, now insolently and forcefully occupied by Russia.
In reality, does it make any sense to know who gunned the man down and what nationality he belongs to, or who in particular was slain, or what the immediate cause of the murder was, or where the skeletons are hidden now? Technically, yes, but not in the broader context which propels our thoughts in two varied and scary directions – the past and the future.
The past is full of blood and rancor which totally defies reconciliatory attitudes because it has put Russia and Georgia in a perennial political cul-de-sac, and the future now looks heartbreakingly grim and frustrating because the deliberate shooting on the artificially created and militarily maintained border between this Georgia and that Georgia – with a new appellation of Abkhazia – has bogged down any presumable friendly talks between Russia and Georgia.
Potentially, the unfortunate deadly event is equal to a loose cannon that can explode the long-frozen conflict at any time. Time has passed but it seems that the hatchets have not been buried. The murderer did his dirty job, having killed a good man in cold blood. He then safely escaped into unidentified space and into mysterious oblivion, the worst part of the case being the possibility that he may very well get away with the butchery of this magnitude.
The internationally recognized juridical interpretation of a functioning system will not oblige the other side to extradite the assassin to Georgia to let justice be done. The venue of the presumable prosecution could only be Russia – this is what is fed to us right now. The investigation thereof, the apprehension if possible at all, the indictment if this time ever comes, the prosecution, the imaginable attempts of copping a plea, the verdict and the conviction might take years, and the emerged consequence might still be unfavorable for the victim’s family and for the Georgian people in general.
Incidentally, I have a name for the newly formed borders of Georgia with Russia – the vicious line of life and death, marked with inhuman everyday incidents of arrests, imprisonments, beatings and murders, cruelly decorated with barbed wire. And the end cannot be seen. Moreover, the slaughter of innocents may continue in this form or another.
These are just emotionally prompted hints of an angry compatriot of a murder victim, which might easily be qualified in the long run as a nasty introduction into the idea of our people’s extermination if allowed some day. I understand that it will take a while for the implication of these hints to sink in because they are bitter and hard to deal with. These are the hints to the incipient overwhelming hatred between the innocent participants in the Russian-Georgian conflict representing smaller ethnic groups, afflicted with the Russian-supported idea of utterly destructive separatism.
The Georgians and the Abkhaz have inflicted carnage on each other with the help of Russia. The carnage continues, and it will probably reach a level at which coexistence and cooperation will no longer be a possibility. They all – the conflict participants – want to eliminate each other, the role of chief executioner being assigned to the fact of the Russian occupation of our lands. The candles may flick massively in the wake of executions like this one, but they will only help the memory of the dead to be blessed. No lost lives will be brought back. The trembling hands of our daughters, mothers and wives will heave and rend their hair in mournful hysteria which will not be heard by the powers that be. All of us, all of us here in this beautiful but mournful little land have certainly found ourselves on the rack, desperately trying to save our remaining bodies and to let our dejected spirit somehow survive the hell suggested by the times.
Nugzar B. Ruhadze