Panic in Georgia after the invasion hoax18: 04 14/03/2010, Luke Harding, broadcasting deception, Georgia, guardian.co.uk, media, news, Russia, the new

Panic in Georgia after the invasion hoax18: 04 14/03/2010, Luke Harding, broadcasting deception, Georgia, guardian.co.uk, media, news, Russia, the news on television, television news, News of the World, Guardian Unlimited

Imedi TV station causing panic with the paper claiming Russian attack in progress


Turn your television sets at 8 pm on Saturday, the Georgians were greeted with the incredible news - Russia had invaded. The pro-government trailers Imedi TV station reported that Russian tanks were once again in Georgia. Not only that, but for the country's Western leader Mikheil Saakashvili had been killed, the network said.

For the next half hour there were scenes of absolute panic, as the mobile phone network collapsed, the Georgians poured into the streets, and friends and family tried desperately to reach them and find information. In fact, it was not necessary.

The report, which proved to be a hoax. The Kremlin had not invaded and Saakashvili was known, was very much alive. Not since Orson Welles convinced Americans that Martians had landed during his non-sparking hysteria War of the Worlds radio broadcast, there was an entire nation so deluded.

Opposition politicians today angrily denounced the television stunt as dangerous and irresponsible. Angry residents in the capital, Tbilisi, gathered outside the offices of Imedi TV, hours after the report mistakenly flashed around the world. Saakashvili, however, was unapologetic. He stated that the threat of a Russian attack remains "very realistic".

Zaza Gachechiladze, editor in chief of the Georgian Messenger newspaper, said: "People were totally shocked. I was driving my friend's party when I received a phone call telling me to turn on the TV.

"I ran up. There Dmitry Medvedev said Russia was intervening in Georgia. I did not realize it was old footage of August 2008. Immediately I began to look for my children."

Gachechiladze said it took him 10 minutes to set the story was, as he said, "shit". He added: "It's a very cruel simulation. A woman whose son was in the army had a heart attack and died. Another pregnant woman lost her baby. Many children were taken to hospital suffering from stress. It was horrible what happened in reality. It is a criminal act should be punished. "

More in Moscow, news of the Russian state news agency, Interfax, flashed the news of the invasion and the apparent demise of Saakashvili. British and U.S. correspondents left their dinner, she phoned her publishers in London and began chasing their bulletproof vests. It was left to David Cracknell, an experienced former senior reporter in the Sunday Times who now works for the government of Georgia, to kill the story. He sent a text message to reporters briefly. It read simply: "Not true."

But for many Georgians from the threat of a Russian invasion remains disturbingly real, given the five-day conflict in August 2008. Tanks Georgia attempted to retake the breakaway province of South Ossetia, provoking a punitive pan-Russian invasion of Georgia. Russian troops continue to occupy South Ossetia and Abkhazia - within walking distance of Tbilisi, a picturesque mountain valley with walnut trees and fruit trees.

Relations with Russia have improved significantly since Vladimir Putin, Russian prime minister, Nicolas Sarkozy said well during the Russian-Georgian conflict that Saakashvili planned to hang "with the balls. Few observers, however, expect Russia to launch another attack since it achieved most of its geopolitical goals last time.

Among them thwart Georgia's joining NATO, Saakashvili humiliating and - by proxy - to his backers in the U.S. and the West to avenge the decision to recognize Kosovo, a move Moscow bitterly resents. (Russia has its own back for the recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent. So far, however, only Venezuela, Nicaragua and the guano of the small Pacific island of Nauru have followed the example of Moscow.)

Almost two years later, the unhappy war between Georgia and its powerful neighbor to the Georgian side continues to divide and polarize society. Saakashvili insists its offensive in South Ossetia is a desperate response to an assault on Russia's long-planned and already underway. Georgian opposition accuses Saakashvili of criminal recklessness. It is said that since coming to power in 2003, Saakashvili's Rose Revolution has become a liberal reformist nationalist autocrat.

Not coincidentally, Imedi TV special broadcast came just days after opposition leader of Georgia, Nino Burdzhanadze, met with Putin in Moscow, and demanded the restoration of ties. In announcing that Russia had bombed airports and seaports of Georgia, 30-minutes Burdzhanadze newsletter said it had taken power. The transmission seems to be an ill-conceived in the excavation of the opposition in Georgia, before major elections for mayor of Tbilisi in late May.

Georgian Interior Ministry, acknowledged that the broadcast had caused "great panic". Cinemas in Tbilisi emptied as parents called their children at home. However, Georgy Arveladze, the head of Georgia's Media Production Holding, owner of Imedi, said the purpose of the issue was to demonstrate the "real threat" of how events may develop. The station said the broadcast had shown was a scene - but the distinction seems lost on most viewers.

Russia and its state-controlled media have long portrayed Saakashvili as a dangerous snare chewing maniac. Today the Kremlin politicians hijacked the trick gay TV channel RAM home his view that the leader of Georgia was indeed upset. Russia's envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, nicknamed "criminal" and said the Western military alliance should have nothing to do with the erratic president of Georgia.

Imedi TV used to be Georgia's main independent television station. Saakashvili, however, took the channel off the air after an argument with his landlord, the oligarch and opposition presidential candidate Badri Patarkatsishvili. After Patarkatsishvili's death in exile in England in 2008, gave the station Sakaashvili a government supporter. Now regularly reviews the pro-government opinion.

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