NewsLab

The morning of the 12th of August, I had spoken with my friend Filios Stangos, a journalist in the Greek ERT. He was heading to Gori, to cover the war in Georgia. A few minutes later, he called me, terrified, shouting that he and his TV crew were under attack. I felt helpless, powerless. So, I prayed.  He was lucky.  This article was published one day after the russian bombing of  the Georgian city of Gori in Kathimerini newspaper.

“Tbilisi. I did not know cameraman Stan Storimans. Yesterday morning, he was killed beside me. My driver David is struggling between life and death in the intensive care of Tbilisi hospital. The bomb fragment that hit him in the shoulder blade broke his clavicle and a small piece from the bone found its way to the artery, leading to the brain. He was under repression and the doctors did not dare to operate on him. The doctors, who these days of war, are watching so many lives passing away, aimlessly and inexplicably, in their surgical beds. While I was waiting to hear from my driver, David outside the emergency room, a mother was crying and swearing for the loss of her six-year-old girl. Another bomb. Another drama…  My bomb that smiled at me and passed by me was said to be a “fragmentation bomb” according to the military dictionary. In the “real” dictionary, a “fragmentation bomb of human lives” would sound better to me. Something that hits silently, without any warning and unfolds its lethal operation with a sequence of small bangs. Like some kind of dynamite that children play with. But, in this case, it is more intense, with a stronger smell of dynamite and denser smoke.  As for the glow, I admit that I did not dare to look. My blood had frozen and the only thing I remember is the five metres I covered under the threatening chord of explosions, dragging my cameraman from his belt in order to hide behind a car. And the burn in my back, as somebody parched it with a blow torch. Later I calculated that the fragmentation bomb completed its mission within 30 seconds. It is within this time that the laws of the theory of chaos or God or whoever decides whether I am going to live, or my Dutch colleague will die and also David will fight for his life, in order for his two children not to lose their father, are activated. Thirty seconds. And afterwards cries, smoke and among them rigid bodies. Other are trembling, trying to stand on their feet and measure how much of their strength for life is left. In the middle of a big, deserted square, under the cupreous look of Joseph Stalin’s statue. I don’t know what happened in Tskhinvali . I was informed by someone else that the city had been flattened. However, in my own dictionary the word “war” will have from now on as picture, sound, smell and sense the square of the Town hall in Gori. The Georgian town which is situated 40 kilometres from Tskhinvali  and which yesterday was completely empty from Georgian military forces. A city of “strategic importance” with no military objective at all. Apart perhaps from the terrorizing of its few unarmed residents who decided to stay. But what I am saying? I am certain that the “valid” military dictionaries have next to the entry “strategic” the word “terrorism”. In the web page of the Dutch network RTL, I read that Stan Storimans was the fifth media professional who lost his life in this war. Apart from Stan, yesterday’s bombing in the square of Gori killed other four anonymous Georgian citizens.” by Filios Stangos