Pulitzer Center Untold Stories

Of Georgia, Jamtland and the Texas Solution

Thomas Goltz, special to the Pulitzer Center

(Thomas Goltz is an adjunct professor of Political Science at Montana State University, Bozeman, and author among other books of Georgia Diary: A Chronicle of Political Chaos and War in the Post-Soviet Caucasus, M.E. Sharpe, 2006, soon to be re-issued in paperback with a new Epilogue.)

Tbilisi/Baku, August 28, 2008

      Well, it seems to be over, surprise, surprise, unless it turns into WW III, which I hope it does not.
     The Caucasus War of 8.8.8 that is, the two-week (or two day) hurly burly in the mountainous southwest corner of the defunct Soviet Union that was a national debacle for West-obsessed Georgia and a crushing victory for a resurgent Russia.
      For those of you who chose to watch the Beijing Olympics instead, which seemed to be timed almost purposely to create maximum distraction from the seismic events happening in the place that gave rise to the legend of Pandora’'s Box getting re-opened, geo-politically speaking, let me fill you in on a fistful of details.

Articles and other resources from the Pulitzer Center's Caucasus conflicts project.

Yemen: Fake beards

By Ginny Hill, for the Pulitzer Center

I went to chew qat with the actors who play terrorists in a new feature film called ‘The Losing Bet’. Ahmed was the first to wander in to the production offices. He had left his shoes outside and was wearing socks, Yemeni-style. He sat down next to me.

Ahmed plays Murad in the film – an unemployed youth turned suicide bomber. “What’s in your bag?” I joked. “Don’t worry. You’re safe,” he laughed. “I won’t detonate.”

China: The Olympics and Checkpoints in China (plus slideshow)

Ryan Anson, for the Pulitzer Center

Since the August 4th attack in Kashgar that killed 16 Chinese police officers, officials have intensified security measures all over Xinjiang Province. Militia and troops from the People's Liberation Army man checkpoints on all major roads in and out of Kashgar.  Passengers in both private and public vehicles must disembark from their cars or buses, walk through the checkpoint, show their identity cards or passports which are all scanned electronically, and pass through another blockade of sandbags and gates before getting back on the road. 

Launch slideshow

Kashgar, China: Business as Usual on the Silk Road (plus slideshow)

Ryan Anson, for the Pulitzer Center

Kashgar’s claim to fame is its spot on the Silk Road.  Some of the first settlers built their clay homes along this major caravan route more than 2000 years ago.   It is, and has been a major trading post connecting the Western world with Central Asia and the Far East even if carpets are now sold off the back of trucks rather than camels. Silk, woven goods, exotic fruits, jade, and probably a little opium turned Kasghar into one of the more powerful Turkic kingdoms up through the 17th.century and later transformed this desert oasis town into one of Asia’s  major commercial powerhouses. 

Launch Slideshow

Yemen's fight against resurgent Al Qaeda

Ginny Hill, for the Pulitzer Center

The government is backing a feature film to warn young Yemenis against radical jihad.

The Christian Science Monitor, photo by Ginny Hill

Antiterror film: - The LandCruiser snaked along a desert road driven by a suicide bomber toward his target – unwitting tourists. "God is great," he shouted before carrying out the destructive mission.

It's a terrifying scene that is part of the new government-backed movie, "The Losing Bet," that premièred last Sunday to educate the public about the consequences of Islamist extremism.

The movie comes at a time when Yemen is seeing a new generation of homegrown radicals ramp up attacks against President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime and Western targets in the country.

"Terrorists are outnumbered by millions of Yemenis who love their country," says Interior Minister Mutahar al-Masri, speaking after the première. "The film is part of our efforts to enlist the help and cooperation of the Yemeni people."

The plot follows two Yemeni jihadis, who return from years living abroad. They were sent home by an Al Qaeda leader to recruit new members to carry out deadly operations in Yemen. Austere and intolerant, they clash with their families who make a living by selling goods and services to tourists.

Continue reading at the Christian Science Monitor...

China: Discontent on the Eve of the Olympics

Ryan Anson, for the Pulitzer Center

Like the city’s pervasive smog, Olympics paraphernalia covers Beijing. Flags bearing the Olympic rings, banners that read Beijing 2008, and “I love China” stickers smooshed on kids’ faces flaunt the country’s national pride in itself as host of the world famous Games.  Millions were spent on dazzling athletic advertisements along with billions more on new subway lines and buildings. For a town that needs to cut down on both its greenhouse gas and waste–be it paper, plastic or coal–there are definitely one too many posters and electric lights conspicuously lining the sides of Tiananmen Square.  The traffic is not as bad though-at least until the last day of competition.

One week after the impressive opening ceremonies in China’s new multi-billion dollar stadium, the Games are in full swing.  But so is concern about a simmering instability in a distant part of the country.  The months, weeks, and days leading up to opening ceremony on Aug. 8 were not entirely placid.  In April, riots exploded in Tibet and an earthquake struck Sichuan Province a month later, killing more than 70,000 people.  What didn’t make the headlines were a series of demonstrations, arrests and disappearances in the far reaches of northwestern China where separatist sensibilities have been simmering for generations.   

Vietnam: farm school

Stephanie Guyer-Stevens, for the Pulitzer Center with photographer Simon Dearnaley

Tu is 21 years old, and has just graduated from University studying agriculture. At Lanh's invitation, her family has moved from their village where they were growing commercial rice, onto the farm school property to start up a sort of model farm using only permaculture techniques. Back at home they grew wetland rice - the rice grown in big flat lowland paddies. Now they are in the mountains, they're struggling, because they don’t know how to grow upland rice - the kind of rice they grow here - in terraced fields. So they have to buy rice, and the new organic farm that they're just beginning to get going here doesn't provide them with anything left over to sell. Her mother and father are thinking about going back to their village where they can grow enough rice to feed their family, while she and her brother run the farm here. But they're a very close family. She would miss her parents so much if they had to do that.She's really worried, and starts to cry during our interview.It's been a hard move.

Amman U.N. representative talks about Iraqi refugees

Imran Riza, the representative in Amman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, discusses in an interview with Matthew Brown the challenges facing Iraqis in Jordan, and the ways in which they differ from more traditional refugees.

Learn more about this reporting project

Syria: The Iraqi responsibility

DAMASCUS -- Adnan Al Sharify sees a few obstacles holding up the return of Iraqi refugees to their home country.

Sharify, an official at the Iraqi Embassy here in Syria, helped to organize government-sponsored bus trips at the end of last year that he says carried 420 Iraqi families back to Baghdad. The Syrian government estimates the Iraqi populaton here at 1.5 million.

More free rides home are planned, Sharify told me this morning. But finding takes is likely to remain a challenge.

Sharify blames the U.S. military, for making it difficult to enter Iraq, causing waits at the border that he says can last days. Also the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, for raising the hopes of Iraqis seeking resettlement to North America or Europe. And the media, for reporting every violent incident that occurs in Iraq.

"About 90 percent of Iraq is safe now," Sharify said. "The main reason Iraqis came to Syria was the security situation. Now the Iraqi government has solved that problem."

Read more at The Baltimore Sun

Georgia, Russia and a whiff of 1914

Pulitzer Center Executive Director Jon Sawyer spoke to the World Affairs Council of Houston Tuesday night (8/26), addressing the Caucasus conflict -- its roots, the media coverage of the Georgia/Russia war, and likely repercussions. He drew on his own reporting from Georgia and South Ossetia two years ago and on the current Pulitzer-funded reporting by Jason Maloney, Kira Kay and Zygmunt Dziesciolowski.

As Russia and the U.S. raise the ante -- Russia by recognizing the breakaway republics of S. Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states and the U.S. responding by dispatching Vice President Dick Cheney to Georgia in a show of solidarity -- Sawyer says there's plenty of blame on all sides for letting the situation escalate as it has. Among his observations:

I don’t buy the loosely offered analogies to past Russian outrages, whether Poland or Czechoslovakia or Afghanistan. I do see parallels to another August, in 1914, when small-minded politicians spurred on by jingoistic journalism allowed an obscure conflict in a remote corner of Europe to erupt into a brutal world war. My hope is that this time cooler heads will prevail, that the media will play its role more responsibly, and that solutions will be found that put the interests of civilians – not politicians – first.

Read the complete speech.