Rough (In)justice: Becho, Svaneti

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This is a note of regret that I let such an opportunity slip through my fingers; and also a warning: The rule of law has a long road ahead of it in Svaneti!

I was returning from dropping some guests off at the top of Becho village on August 26, driving alone. Around a shallow curve, where neither of us could see ahead, an oncoming car came speeding towards me. It skidded on the gravel and its rear driver’s side hit mine.

I jumped out, as did the two men who were in another car just in front of me. I asked them in Georgian, before the guilty party could approach, “Please tell me you saw how fast they were driving.” They indicated yes, and it was just as well that they were there, because my two assailants were very drunk, and furious, putting all the blame on me. I got out my cell phone to call the police. “Who’re you calling?” they asked. “112,” I answered. “Oh no you’re not!” they said, and out came a long torrent of the foulest language. The men from the front car stopped them from physically attacking me. But both the drunk men were horribly aggressive towards me.

They demanded that I pay for the damage to their car, which was a bit worse off than mine; both had scrapes and dents from the collision in the driver’s back corner. This was sheer intimidation, but I knew I needed to stand my ground. The horrid verbal abuse continued, and eventually the men from the front car left. One of the two drunks then actually held back the other, the younger, who claimed to be the driver, from laying into me with his fists. He got in a vicious kick to my leg which I still feel now, and a push or two, but I wasn’t about to be goaded into two versus one. I seized a moment, got back into my 4x4, and headed down towards the start of Becho and the police station.

About halfway there, I saw a friend of mine from Etseri driving towards me, and motioned for him to stop. He was really a Godsend, because soon after this up pulled the drunken pair; now he, big and very hard to intimidate, was able to deal with them. More demands to pay for their damage, which I ignored. More men came, including some from Latali village, home of the two. Everyone was urging me not to call the police; this could be dealt with unofficially, they said. In the end, two policemen came anyway, summoned by the Mayor of Becho, a friend of mine, who had got wind of it. My attackers came and went; one of them was as verbally abusive to the police as to me. The police drove me back to the scene of the crash, agreed from the bits of my car’s rear light lying around that I had been on my side and that the other party were wholly at fault, and then took me to the police station for a report.

At the beginning of this, I was asked whether I wanted to press charges for assault. If so, arrests would follow. I said no, let them formally apologize and pay for all repairs to my car, and be fined; that would suffice. One of the guilty men’s friends came into the office and asked me why I was making up stories about being hit, so I stood up and prepared to pull down my trousers to show the bruise. He and the police wouldn’t let me do this; I suppose it proved, and least, that I was not bluffing, and he retreated.

We wrote the report together in Georgian, and at this point I let go mention of the men’s drunkenness, having been assured, I thought, that they would be fined for this. I learned much later that their only fine was to be 250 GEL for having caused the accident. No 1000 GEL fine for drunk driving or revocation of license, oh, no! Seemingly nothing against the owner of the car either, as it wasn’t theirs but borrowed.

MY breath was tested for alcohol (clean), which I said was a bit of a joke, as by this time 3.5 hours had passed. I assumed from this event that the other two had already had their breath tested; this, too, was wrong, as this test happened later, and was inconclusive, as it would be after so much time. (Online digging indicates that, in the USA, breath testing must be done within three hours of the suspected drunk driving time in order to be legally acceptable.)

I left for home, bolstered by a few phone calls from local friends who had heard the news, including the priest of Etseri. And only then did the fog of shock clear as I realized that there would be no punishment at all for the drunk driving, which has cost the lives of several of my friends and acquaintances in my years in Svaneti.

After a word with a good friend of mine in Etseri, trained as a lawyer, my bitter conclusion is that a cover-up to do with my case was called for and arranged from higher up. So: if you’re visiting Svaneti and need to call the police, be aware that hidden machinery may be working against you. Get your embassy involved, too, if you can, and demand justice!

Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with nearly 1700 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/

Tony Hanmer