A Government of National Unity

In my years of service I have had quite a few unusual adventures, most of them towards the end of the 1990s, in that turbulent period when many parts of Europe, some gradually, others more abruptly, dramatically and sometimes violently, were moving after long decades of authoritarian uniformity of thought towards a different, more open, free and democratic society. Much like today, only in the opposite direction.

There were many moments I regret not documenting in more detail, relying on my then still youthful memory. Now and then I was thoroughly scared. For example, in January 2000, over Chechnya, in a helicopter that the Russians repaired with a hammer just before take-off and that the Chechens then chose for target practice. With me were a German parliamentarian, who responded to the hammer and the shots with prayer, and a seasoned Reuters journalist, who pulled a bottle of vodka from his bag. As always, I sided with the fourth estate. Or the tragic news that the Italian aircraft that ferried aid workers around the Balkans for the United Nations had crashed at Pristina airport only a few months after I had flown back from Bosnia on it. Or a visit to a polling station somewhere near Pale, during one of the elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where I chatted with a Danish television crew about the hospitality of the local population. When we later drove off one after another towards Sarajevo, a few kilometers further down we passed an off-road vehicle with four armed men. They let our car pass, but welcomed the Danes with an honorary salvo from automatic weapons. One of the Danes ended up in hospital with a bullet in his shoulder. Or the time when my then boss, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Lord Russell-Johnston, and I, with a grossly overpaid Belgrade taxi driver, made our way past columns of heavily armed Serbian special forces to meet Ibrahim Rugova secretly at his unofficial presidential residence on a hill above Pristina. To this day I keep the crystal Rugova gave me then as a symbol of Kosovo’s natural wealth.

But of all these escapades, my heart sank lowest at a meeting with the government of national unity of South Ossetia. It was during one of my many visits to Georgia, which always enchanted me with its natural beauty and the warmth of its people. Almost always. It was sometime around 2000; at the presidential palace, Russell and I met the old fox, Gorbachev’s foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze, who was swept away a few years later by the Rose Revolution. We also met the architect of the future revolution, Mikheil Saakashvili, who was then, if I remember correctly, minister of justice. My memory fails me particularly regarding his post at the time, as Mikheil has held a whole series of positions in his career so far, from trainee at the European Court of Human Rights to President of Georgia and governor of one of Ukraine’s regions. Even then he came across as a bright but self-absorbed and inflated man who approached politics much as my son plays computer games. Boldly and without brakes; when you crash, you reset and try again. Lots of ideas and little responsibility. At the winter ski resort of Gudauri, popular with the local political and business elite, diplomats and representatives of international organizations, I spent the night bowling with the speaker of parliament, Zurab Zhvania, and his team. At breakfast I met Saakashvili and his family. Not long afterwards, Zurab died in suspicious and still unexplained circumstances in a friend’s apartment in Tbilisi. Misha became President of Georgia. During that visit, Russell and I managed to drive to South Ossetia, a separatist region then going through a brief and unstable period of relative peace before renewed bloody fighting in 2004 and 2008.

We went to the capital of South Ossetia accompanied by the head of the OSCE mission in Tbilisi, a French diplomat who made no secret of being fed up with the country and the people around him, including us. The “border crossing” was reminiscent of scenes from the Balkan wars: a no man’s land where a bunch of suspicious bearded men in uniform were busy with contraband. A landscape of canisters of smuggled fuel, cartons of cigarettes, Kalashnikovs and rosaries. The South Ossetian metropolis of Tskhinvali looked like a medium-sized village of dusty streets and single-story houses, out of which rose a single, rather battered high-rise housing all the organs of the South Ossetian authorities and the local university.

In front of the tower block, two bored soldiers in mismatched uniforms loitered on cracked brick tiles and escorted us into the unlit building and an elevator that did not inspire much confidence. During the long, creaking ride, I began to regret having suggested this trip to Russell. On the top floor we arrived in a large, dimly lit chamber where the highest representatives of the local authorities sat at a long table. They looked like the drama club of the Styrian Guard performing the Last Supper. “President of the Republic, Speaker of Parliament, Foreign Minister,” the scowling, pot-bellied bearded men introduced themselves one after another, all in military uniform. They were about as friendly as our escort, except that his pressed French arrogance was replaced by a staring Soviet gruffness. After the introductory and rather one-sided protocol courtesies, Russell asked them about their political program and plans. “There are no political differences between us. We work for the nation. For the people. For development,” our hosts assured us one after another, now and then underlining their unity and patriotic fervor with a heavy bang of the fist on the table. This made no particular impression on Russell, and he did what he often did in the company of people who bored him or got on his nerves. He bowed his head, fell asleep and snored loudly. Beware of politicians who are full of talk about national interests, he always told me. The South Ossetian political leadership took the behavior of their guest from Britain as an insult, which one can’t entirely blame them for. The temperature in the already cold room dropped a few more degrees. Confused and alarmed, I turned for help to the Frenchman, who nonchalantly turned his attention to the cleanliness of his fingernails. The next half hour passed more slowly than any other in my life. I tried desperately to keep the conversation going with frantic questions and diplomatic platitudes, which provoked increasingly obvious irritation and contempt in my interlocutors. The interpreter’s translations got shorter and shorter; the sweat on his face reflected the effort of removing from their answers content he considered unsuitable for guests from Europe. The last few minutes dragged on in complete silence like chicken guts. The soldiers who had met us were no longer bored; they looked as if they were waiting for orders on what to do with this gang of international provocateurs and mercenaries.

Just as I was convinced I would spend at least a few hours, if not days, in a prison cell somewhere deep in the bowels of the presidential tower, the tension was broken by the President of the Republic, who suddenly leapt up and shouted “Zakuska!” Russell instantly broke off his rest and winked at me conspiratorially. To my pleading that we return to Tbilisi at once, he merely waved his hand, saying that would be impolite. When he was in the right mood, he could be more arrogant than any Frenchman. We spent the next hour in that form of socializing that in diplomatic language is called a “frank and open discussion,” which can include anything from mutual strangling to joint drinking. The tables groaned under the weight of caviar, champagne and greasy mutton paid for by the sweat of the South Ossetian people, while I, in a corner, in the company of the still shaken interpreter, chased away post-traumatic stress syndrome with vodka. Ever since that day, whenever anyone mentions a government of national unity, a shiver runs down my spine and I get a headache.