what's. the deal. in the registry now in the palm of your. column. welcome back you're watching r t coming to you live from moscow and this sunday morning we take a look at the top stories of the week brutal protests through greece after the government approved harsh new cuts to stop a country from drowning in its debts now an extra twelve billion euros of aid are coming to the rescue of greece's economy within weeks of. the international criminal court issues and arrest warrants for the can claim either leave you need or order the taps on civilians to suppress the ongoing civil war by the in an

exclusive interview to r.t. could obvious son explain why he believes the court is nothing more than a puppet. a u.s. captain of a gaza flotilla ship is arrested by greek authorities for trying to leave the board without permission several international vessels with activists and humanitarian aid on board were forced to angering greece's waters following what activists believe is pressure from israel and the u.s. . says george again in a paris after the collapse of the u.s.s.r. thousands of people have fled the country next we talk to georgian politicians and are just fine what's happening there today. april ninth one thousand nine hundred one george or achieved independence from the u.s.s.r. to know before a violent standoff with the rapidly disintegrating soviet empire. we did get independence but it resulted in much blood in the structure. of the civil war broke out in georgia in ways to susie came sufferance and 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 time of the soviet union georgia was one of the wealthiest republics today one third of the population lives below the poverty line twenty years have passed the 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 enjoying the mess from destroyed 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

protests is good day by day so somebody than a young historian lend his support to that cools. if 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 head courses they wanted independence for the republican georgia. gamsakhurdia leader of a nationalist movement with the speaker who made the most extremist remarks in an intensely dramatic speech. in the early hours of april ninth the soviet government despised ahmed vehicles and soldiers against peaceful demonstrators sixteen people died and hundreds were injured. a mathematician and would be magnets 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 afghans are 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 catch phrase but as soon as he came to power he didn't expect that that independence multo georgian autonomous regions of south ossetia with them own sovereignty into ethnic conflicts began. georgia responded by sending troops to self assess year. than a year later to a because. people were once neighbors became bitter enemies thousands of refugees fled to georgia. tech.

as far as i know years ago this building was meant to be a hospital. but there is no hospital in it now there's the building is used as a shelter for refugees. 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 their 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 amnesty between individuals my neighbor said to me what am i supposed to do one of my sons in law is in a pansy and that means my grandsons are peasants aren't they another daughter is married to me george and so her children are georgians do i need to tell my

grandsons apart what am i supposed to do in this situation. it's a fighting between georgia standing army and a cause the insurgents cost thousands of lives on both sides. tomorrow is never cause in 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. young of a move that i would dearly like to have the world war confined to the history books . i want new body to ever arteries again i wanted to be forgotten altogether radio . tomorrow and her 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 the family it features their son's medals they received and

the letters they sent from the front laurie 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. 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 evens be a. former associates demonstrated their discontent with the rule georgian intellectuals sent numerous letters to the president asking him to come to his senses. the a responded by imposing censorship. 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. those people did what they themselves have been opposed to. they trained to become a mathematician in the early one nine hundred ninety s. he left university and went into business his elder brother if you'll be chose the career of an actor today he is very popular in georgia i 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 in a cause here i'm such a war we're brothers we're 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 and the nine hundred ninety two standoff between protesters and the regime erupted into street fighting involving all tillery and tanks ziad gamsakhurdia had to flee the country. six it was shevardnadze it was george the second president the experience political heavyweight and back michelle gold which will spread a story. 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 and nine hundred ninety three i launched a project called. over ten years i turned the small studio in the provincial town of the star me into a leading national broadcaster. the first study to t.v. channel lashed out at the country's new leaders including president eduard

shevardnadze and was focused on runaway corruption. corruption in the economic sphere was enormous after seven knots or came to power but on the other hand businessmen learned new skills in tune with modern times and 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 channels editorial policy. the worst of it to t.v. channel and other georgian media pave the way for radical political transformations november two thousand and three saw

a bloodless coup in georgia dubbed the rose revolution we hail a circus really a young and ambitious person came to power. and 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 then you were coming from me is the law for the army no doubt the army would have defeated them then the ofter bloodbath i make no distinction between the two sides all of them and georgian citizens. mikhail saakashvili have 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.

to. get. to. the book it was the fourth quarter. of. this street still keeps its secrets of announced time to reveal that it is the soviet files on. the what i was just thinking about my future before the foreign companies came i dreamed of owning a can cutting factory. but we have less garbage now. some

businesses who come here make fun of me. regular garbage boy i'm not bad like people think. i'm a good person. it's just the people don't see me. but i feel it was time people like me. that i feel people will start to appreciate us. as soon as second really took power he attempted to take control of the editorial

policy of the country's leading independent t.v. channel. to its own skits mellish really realize that his window of opportunity was quite narrow. bush the authority is ambition to take control of the channel it goes back to two thousand and four where the new system of government seem to be weak we thought we needed to build a viable state first and then take care of the rest of us but 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. as about the same time george's media was going out of its way to report on mikhail saakashvili his police reforms on 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 it's true 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. for many years nino burjanadze was speaker of the country's parliament and one of my. closest associates in two thousand and eight she resigned from the post a parliamentary speaker and founded an opposition party. in the us there is a very serious problem i know it's corruption in the elite it has grown even larger compared to what it was like in the last years of shevardnadze through when everybody was talking about corruption in georgia's government. every game. 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 sockets really assume a circus really in his inner circle came to power they set about collecting taxes and so-called dirty money with the recent very many people to prison businessmen as well as former officials among them and people realize they had better pay off as much as they were expected to pay they sold the property they ceded their shares in businesses to members of suckers billie's party prosecutors office and the interior ministry kept a close eye on the deals this man. ten top discontents fine 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 a problem to d.c. . for several days they kept around the trial vigil on nov seventh police barlinnie dispersed a peaceful rally hundreds of demonstrators were injured oh please take us.

police beat up people lying on the ground with batons. 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 a regular news bulletin. the merging of the metals and settled by closing the channel the government is violating the constitution this means that this is a dictatorship regime ots misnomers english here they are coming into the studio i want to say thank you i hear shouts in the control room i hope our employees will be in jersey cheer our guests. if. the independent journalist of a coma he'd say became popular in georgia in the mid ninety's ninety's enjoyed asking 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 ossetia in two thousand and eight. when up on this for me i know of no journalist who would not have wanted to get a scandal to get the facts. because all the state media sums up my work there is high treason. the self-proclaimed republic of south as such here hasn't been under georgia's direct rule since nine hundred ninety two. 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 l. it has in a sense and people don't need one either there is a force that wants the defeat of the georgian and it has an assyrian i promise they won't let it happen. but in the early hours of august the eighth altering repeated showed symbolic from georgian

territory in the morning troops were sent into the republic. it was the start of the military operation described by saakashvili of the introduction of constitutional order in the territory south and setting. it up i was woken up by a little noise everything was for. the shaking women outside was screaming 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. just kellerman put out a lot of lives in an old house on the outskirts of the village of got a cooler fifteen kilometers from the border with south of setia he's not interested in politics and doesn't know the first thing about international relations but alters from around the world for his home to display their works one of the our

projects was called liquid it would have been implemented jointly with russian artists in late september two thousand and eight. the georgian word for this place is from around here it isn't 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 products a line brand called liquid art. 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 of setia and georgia. well 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 this. hostilities came to an end knowing days later when russia sent troops into south and said to separate the warring parties georgia subsequently broke off diplomatic relations with russia. when investing come a 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 can't repeat them for. a he day lives in a swiss hostel for political refugees friends keep them abreast of events by. i hear you going to switzerland. that's right in october i that time you must complete all formalities concerning immigration chances are i myself will return home by then that there is a regime change. that you say regime change yes why not that's a possibility. we hope so. tang and so is us somebody has 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 parliament annoyed

him a second term and now the journalist is in hiding in a foreign country the ex is unemployed it would be a while if i praised their forages i would have been elected for a second term they would even have changed the law to let me for ten terms. in the last presidential election liver. was officially the runner up his party's headquarters supplied the zero s. c.e. commission with evidence documenting scores and irregularities 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 really 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 all torture is a prison but the georgian people made a mistake by electing what i call an illegitimate cursed. politician sportsman and artists all visited his cell to support the musician gets 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 make. his one man prison show again of the eleven pm and last until morning the following day the whole country will discuss

what had been said during the night after two months of self confinement you only get such a love they took time out for a public appearance at the b.b.c. stadium t.v. a cage in the midst of the show was a strikingly symbolic act the people who would fill the stadium and jason robards turned to churchill as a show into what amounted to a protest rally. on april ninth two thousand and nine leaders of all opposition parties as their followers to take to the streets in tbilisi. just felt get out second street get out saakashvili get down gets out and you see you know it always is and 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 our country. the leader of the new party is live and. a former magnets in the wind industry he has the support of eros he can smell is 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 affection as an honest woman. one of the shortest rulers in recent years have been so different a woman be hard 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 all says who are keen to participate in an international project that was to take

place in the home of kerman. this is a remarkably exquisite european style project but 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 you don't do that at a funeral the funeral still goes on. the russian artists didn't visit the georgian friends in either two thousand and eight or later they have decided against going to georgia for the trying be for they do not in politics they believe that in their beautiful country of long traditions funerals will give way to weddings and the street protests else did by our projects concerts and theatre festivals.

all.