First deputy speaker of the Russian Federation Council Alexander Torshin, head of the Federation Council commission on the Caucasus, presented the Russian point of view at the conference sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Moscow.
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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Russians, Germans Disagree over War
A conference entitled “Changing Russia: Perspectives for the Development of Russian-German Relations” took place last weekend in Moscow. Well-known politicians, businessmen and journalists attended. Kommersant correspondent Morits Gatmann observed how the conversation on Russian-German relations turned into a heated argument over the war in the Caucasus.
The conference in Moscow last weekend was organized by the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation as an opportunity to discuss relations between Germany and Russia. The various discussions of that topic went on for three days. The hottest topic was the war in Georgia. The Russian point of view was presented by first deputy speaker of the Russian Federation Council Alexander Torshin, head of the Federation Council commission on the Caucasus, and Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee.
“If we had not reacted to Georgian aggression immediately, it would all have led to a war in the Caucasus,” Torshin assured his audience. Karl-Georg Wellmann, member of the Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee who was representing the German point of view, made a modest effort to object. “All sides should ask themselves why dubious figures [he was referring to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity] were able to drag us into an international conflict and why international anticrisis instruments did not work,” he said. Wellmann spoke rather harshly about the Georgian President. “I don’t believe that Saakashvili has a political future,” Wellmann said. He also said that, from Germany’s point of view, “Providing Georgia a NATO membership action plan in December is impossible.” Wellmann stated that the European Union used all the influence it had over Georgia before the beginning of the conflict, and asked whether Russia did everything it could to avoid the conflict. Kosachev firmly deflected the reproach by saying that “The moral victory is completely on our side.”
Georgia popped up in other discussions as well. The liveliest discussion took place in section devoted to the press. Vyacheslav Mostovoi, first deputy general director of TV Center, severely criticized the German media for allegedly not reporting the Georgian attack on Tskhinvali for the first 48 hours. German journalists insisted with equal ardor that their publications reported the war from its very first hours. Matias Schepp, chief of the Spiegel Moscow bureau, laid the blame on Russian officials who, unlike Georgian officials, did not allow journalists into the conflict zone for a long time.
Schepp accused Russian media of mounting a propaganda campaign against their Western colleagues. Mostovoi used the example of the Ossetian girl on Fox News as a counterargument. Germen journalists angrily answered that the policies of U.S. and German television channels are not related. After a lengthy exchange, Schepp was forced to admit that Der Spiegel had commercial motivations for a cover showing Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and tanks, with the headline “Dangerous Neighbor.” “Things like that sell better in Germany,” Schepp said.
German journalists criticized Russian television stations for carrying one-sided information. Sonja Zekri, Moscow correspondent for Suddeutsche Zeitung, told about the fierce arguments in that office about how best to cover the conflict. Then she asked Mostovoi if there were similar discussions at TV Center. Mostovoi said yes. “But the most important things is who started it,” he concluded. Summing up the discussion, deputy chairman of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Policy Elmar Brock agreed that the German media had “not entirely correct coverage of the events.” “But, unlike in Russia, in Germany, there is no headquarters that orders come from on how to cover events correctly,” he added. Russian journalists, of course, denied that there was any such institution in their country either.
Morits Gatmann
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 13, 2008
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