soumitra bryson if you knew the song from some stupid. stunts on t.v. don't come. back here's a recap of the top stories on our t.v. the greek government agrees a stringent set of a sturdy measures as riot police battled protesters just meters away from parliament the cots are a prerequisite for more bailout cash from the e.u. to fight off a really defaults. the greek economic turmoil is the first challenge facing the new international monetary fund chief christine lagarde the first woman to head the organization she also has the

a tough task of fighting off the perception that the i.m.f. is biased in favor of western countries. serious unrest threatens to spread across the middle east israel is increasing security at its borders with a lot going on after reports hezbollah is moving weapons there in case its ally president assad is overthrown. all next the latest in our series of reports on life in former soviet republics twenty years after the collapse of the u.s.s.r. . on april ninth one thousand nine hundred one george are achieved independence from the u.s.s.r. . before the standoff with the rapidly disintegrating soviet empire. but we did get independence but it resulted in much blood in the structure. of the civil war broke out in georgia he has to susie insolvency to this day the nation has been unable to overcome its aftermath the country's infrastructure is in ruins

tens of thousands of people have fled the country in the fall of the soviet union georgia was one of the wealthiest republics today one third of the population lives below the poverty line twenty years of past but people here enjoy less freedom and they did during the soviet period. back in the one hundred eighty eight kids mellish really was just a student he joined the mass from the strike outside government headquarters at that time the country was still cool to the georgian soviet socialist republic. that hunger strike which lasted eight or nine days triggered a movement of liberation i often sat on the steps of my friends. the number of protesters good day by day somebody then

a young historian lend his support to the cool. independence was my watchword at that time i didn't miss a single public action all right. in april listening to thousands of people gathered in tbilisi from an open ended rally outside government headquarters they wanted independence for the republic of georgia. the gamsakhurdia leader of a nationalist movement was the speaker who made the most extremist remarks in an intensely dramatic speech. in the early hours of april ninth the soviet government dispatched armored vehicles and soldiers against peaceful demonstrators sixteen people died and hundreds were injured. a mathematician and the magnet of georgia was lucky enough to evade even injury. we were in too much of a hurry we were trying to study history to help move it forward what happened then

had to happen but of course the thought the georgian might become independent is ninety ninety one never crossed my mind back in the late one nine hundred eighty s. . the against or for the became the first president of a sovereign georgia in april one thousand nine hundred one after an election campaign where independence was the catchphrase. but as soon as he came to power he didn't expect the independence motto georgian or from this regions of south ossetia with them own sovereignty into ethnic conflicts began georgia responded by sending troops to south ossetia. than a year later twelve because. people were once neighbors became bitter enemies thousands of refugees fled to georgia. as far as i know years ago this building was meant to be a hospital. but there is no hospital in it now. the building is

used as a shelter for refugee that's. thousands of the georgians who have left since the early one nine hundred ninety s. still live in makeshift shelters they have lost everything homes jobs and even the hope to return to their home country georgians and cousins alike have gone through a lot of suffering such as the horrors of war a loss of loved ones and yet they don't blame one another for that conflict. i think it is nobility sions have told the people apart there was no animosity between individuals my neighbor said to me what am i supposed to do one of my sons in law isn't a pansy and that means my grandsons are peasants aren't they need another daughter is american a georgian so her children are georgians join me to tell my grandsons apart what am i supposed to do in this situation. it's a fighting between georgia standing army and of cause and insurgents cost thousands

of lives on both sides. tomorrow is no cause young woman four of her five sons died in the war the youngest was seventeen when he volunteered to fight his grave is close to his father's. governable move there i would dearly like to have the world war confined to the history books to be my one new body to ever arteries again i wanted to be forgotten all together. tomorrow and a husband wanted the new house to have enough room for all the children and their future families but now it's almost uninhabited one of the rooms houses a memorial museum to their family it features their son's medals they received and the letters they sent from the front line to more especially treasures objects made

by her children i want to know this is the root of a pine tree they made a heart out of it. you. when my second son enjoyed making such things here she died in the battle on the same day as my youngest son. many georgian opposition parties and even zvi against his former associates demonstrated their discontent with the rule georgian intellectuals sent numerous letters to the president all seeing him to come to his senses gamsakhurdia responded by imposing censorship. of. the ninety ninety one law even denied registration for all political parties it was indorsed by people who had served terms in soviet prisons and campaigned for georgia's freedom and independence. most people did what they themselves had been opposed to.

they trained to become a mathematician in the early ninety nine he left university and went into business as elder brother your views chose the career of an actor today he's very popular in georgia. his songs in short films have an uncanny bearing on the country's present day situation. i had no desire to get involved in the war now because you're on such a a war where brothers were killing brothers so i decided to stay away from georgia for a time there were. those who were displeased with the first president gathered to

openly demand his resignation the nine hundred ninety two standoff between protesters and the regime erupted from just street fighting involving artillery and tanks. gamsakhurdia had to flee the country. and was shevardnadze was george's second president the experienced political heavyweight had backed michelle goldberg perestroika soon after he took office he lifted the ban on opposition political parties and allowed independent media when i did it after i went into business in one nine hundred ninety three i launched a project called restore me to over ten years i turned the small studio in the provincial town of the study into a leading national broadcaster. the first study to t.v. channel rushed out of the country's new leaders including president eduard shevardnadze and was focused on runaway corruption. sure corruption in the economic

sphere was enormous after seven knots or came to power but on the other hand business man learns new skills in tune with modern times a real market economy took shape true there was pervasive corruption from top to bottom but there was also freedom of speech and individual liberty a sort of quagmire that we have now it didn't exist then. independent t.v. channel worst of the two became a so-called platform for the opposition and had great political weight but president shevardnadze who declared freedom of speech as a principle made no attempt to sway the channel's editorial policy. the rest of the two t.v. channel and other georgian media paved the way for radical political transformations november two thousand and three saw a bloodless coup in georgia dubbed the rose revolution. the second is really a young and ambitious person came to power. when i tended my resignation

of my own free will to prevent bloodshed when they burst into the house of parliament i went out into the street to meet my followers of any order coming from me is the law for the army no doubt the army was of defeated then the only after a bloodbath i make no distinction between the two sides all of them and georgian citizens. believe had promised to beat corruption and lead the nation to prosperity however it was the press that was the first victim of his law and order. culture is that so much of an oldish musician. that the market freedom flotilla two point zero four thousand pro palestinian activists from twenty two countries for such a joint freedom flotilla two in it. something

at. the beginning as. if that. thing your thought or whatever it was. this is true still keeps its secrets but now it's time to reveal the things the soviet files on oxy with. to.

fish. as soon as the second really took power he attempted to take control of the editorial policy of the country's leading independent t.v. channel or stuck to its own kids' mouths really realize that his window of opportunity was quite snare a little dish deal foresees ambition to take control of the channel goes back to tucson. thousand and four the new system of government simply weak we thought we

needed to build a viable state first and then take care of the rest of us because of birth as it turned out the regime's aim was to take control of the channels i think the blame for what i did because i gave away restudy to i didn't want to rock the boat because knowledge is about the same time george is the media was going out of its way to report on mikhail saakashvili as police reforms and face value the changes look quite impressive petty crime had been stamped out people now felt more secure on the streets of the towns of the us traffic patrols that stopped taking bribes. because. through the country's traffic police are totally free from corruption but you can get your license within a day after pain right through official channels instead of flying in somebody's sockets would that. for many years nino burjanadze speaker of the country's

parliament and one of me fail. closest associates in two thousand and eight she resigned from the post parliamentary speaker and founded an opposition party. in the us there is a very serious problem by its corruption in the elite it has grown even larger compared to what it was like in the last years of shevardnadze as root when everybody was talking about corruption in georgia's government. it was always an opposition moderates to saakashvili as the owner of a major medical insurance company he knows all too well the meaning of so-called elite corruption. that's really the soonest suckers really in his inner circle came to power i said about collecting taxes and circle dirty money with the recent very many people to prison businessmen as well as former officials among them all the people realize they had better pay as much as they were expected to pay they sold

the property they ceded their shares in businesses to members of suckers release party prosecutors office and the interior ministry kept a close eye on the deals this man. ten top discontent fun erupted into a mass rally in november two thousand and seven according to various estimates fifty to one hundred thousand opposition supporters came to the house apartment in tbilisi. for several days they kept around the clock vigil on nov seventh police barlinnie dispersed a peaceful rally hundreds of demonstrators were injured people please take us. police beat up people lying on the ground atoms. in the only remaining independent t.v. channel showed these events in tbilisi to a nationwide audience it was like shut down while it was on the air with regular

news bulletin. the the making of the middletons are closing the channel the government is violating the constitution this means that this is a dictatorship regime ots mr schroeder here they are coming into the studio i want to say thank you i hear shouts in the control room for generations i hope our employees won't be injured here our guests. the independent journalist of often coma he'd say became popular in georgia in the mid nine hundred ninety s. he enjoys also king unpleasant questions no matter who is in power he says now in hiding in switzerland his latest piece of investigative journalism concerns the armed conflict between georgia and south the city and two thousand and eight. on the form. of no journalist who would not have wanted to go to scandal to get the facts. let's all the state media summed up my work there is high treason. the

self-proclaimed republic of south to set here hasn't been under georgia's direct rule since nine hundred ninety two michel's like it's really repeated many times the republic had to return to georgia and he promised to settle the situation through diplomacy. we don't need a war elvie it has in a sense and people don't need one either there is a force that wants the defeat of the georgian at has an assyrian people i promise they won't let it happen. but in the early hours of august the altering repeated showed symbolic from georgian territory in the morning troops were sent into the republic. it was the start of a military operation described by saakashvili as the introduction of constitutional order in the turret tree south of setia. i was woken up by a little noise everything was for. shaking wieman outside with cream and crying it

was as if all of us had landed in hell after a volcanic eruption and everybody stayed awake throughout the night the noise never died down not even for a second. color man could have lived in an old house on the outskirts of the village of got a cooler fifteen kilometers from the border with south of thirty or his north interests in politics and doesn't know the first thing about international relations but artists from around the world flock to his home to display their works one of the projects was called liquid art it was to have been implemented jointly with russian artists in late september two thousand and eight. the georgian word for this place is maharani year it is in places like this that

georgians traditionally make wine in artists of different nationalities are going to contribute to georgian traditions they will get in to press grapes with their feet just as it was done in the old days a year later we were going to jointly made product a wine brand called liquid aren't. in the spring of two thousand and eight carom and began building a pavilion for the exhibition he was still constructing it in august when another war broke out between south setia and georgia. i went on building the pavilion during the war fighting was going on right behind the mountain fifteen kilometers from here i saw the flashes and heard the bombings i also saw helicopters up in the air.

hostilities came to an end nine days later when russia sent troops into south a city or to separate the warring parties georgia subsequently broke off diplomatic relations with russia. when both turn coming he was working on a film about the georgian city and conflict he made arrangements for an interview with european human rights campaigners to be held in geneva shortly before he was due to go the journalist received a tip off that he had better stay in switzerland. all sorts of problems cropped up after my return from senegal i won't talk about them because my words may get in the way of the investigation. i can only tell you that i received open threats and heard something so humiliating that i countered b.s. . no comma he'd say lives in a swiss hostel for political refugees friends keep them abreast of events by.

i hear you going to switzerland. that's right you know it's over by that time you must complete all formalities concerning immigration chances are i myself will return home by then there is a regime change. did she say regime change yes why not that's a possibility. although we hope so. vectoring and so somebody have been friends ever since they went to school together when parliament appointed ceasar to the post. he gave his friend a job in his office when his first term of office came to an end the noid him a second term and now the journalist is in hiding in a foreign country the ex is unemployed could be a while if i have praised health or a taser would have been elected. they would even have changed the law to let me for ten terms. in the last presidential election live i'm good church was

officially the runner up his party's headquarters supplied the zero s c e commission with evidence documenting scores a regularities some of them made public in the commission's conclusions but the final report ultimately described the election as a valid. deal he gets up to let's say is a famous georgian musician in protest against the second billy regime he decided to barricade himself in a television studio made up to look like a prison cell for several months he stayed in the room with four t.v. cameras tracking his every move just. today georgia means prison with all of georgia as a prison but the georgian people made a mistake by electing what i call an illegitimate person. politician sportsman and

artists who visit his cell to support the musician live and get such a lot say heads the leading opposition party the visit his brother three times during his self-imposed imprisonment. how are you so so what are you i get loads of letters to castles are full of them already the guy's a nuts they've made a saint out of me. you're his one man prison show again of the eleven pm and last until morning the following day the whole country would discuss what is being said during the night of the two months of self confinement you only get such a love they took time out for a public appearance at the b.c. stadium b.v. a cage in the midst of the show was a strikingly symbolic act the people who had filled the stadium and jason robards

turned you'll get church allowed to show into was mounted to a protest rally. in a poor man's two thousand and knowing the visible opposition parties as their followers to take to the streets in tbilisi. get out get out second street get out saakashvili get down get out do you know it all position has never said saakashvili is our president we call him a de facto rather than does your president. today the former participants in the rallies for georgia's independence have united into a party. with our aim is to create a party that is without parallel and georgian history it should be a party based on genuine national values shared by most people in the country. the leader of the new party is live and it's. a film the magnets in the wine industry

he has the support of eros he could smell it's really the architect of the country's leading television company and george's last ambassador to russia the party's third leader is a historian who has won the nation's a fictional as an honest woman. fun for the soldiers rulers in recent years have been so different the woman behind put to say which of them is fully to blame for the present day situation there are no independent courts of law democratic institutions are not allowed to develop and the country's people are intimidated in the autumn of two thousand and eight a group of friends met in old warehouses turned into studios in moscow they were keen to participate in an international project that was to take place in the home of color men come to say that i will this is a remarkably exquisite european style project and i think we need to make slight changes to emphasize a note of sorrow in it merry making is out of place after what happened with if you don't do that at

a funeral the funeral still goes on. the russian artists didn't visit their georgian friends in either two thousand and eight or later they have decided against going to georgia for the try and be for they do not fall in politics they believe that in their beautiful country of long traditions funerals will give way to weddings and the street protests else to but projects concerts and seattle festivals. down the field fishel antti allocation your wife and i pod touch from the caps to. enjoy life on the go. video on demand parties my old cars and r.s.s.

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