[LINK] "Radicalisation in Georgia: a self-fulfilling prophecy?"

[rfmcdonald]

Inga Popovaite writes at Open Democracy about Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, a mountain valley adjacent to Chechnya and with a largely Chechen population that has gained some fame as a source of radicals.

A narrow valley in the foothills of the Caucasus mountains, Pankisi Gorge is back on the local and international media radar. In fact, Pankisi has been the centre of attention for the past year after it was discovered in June 2014 that Abu Omar Al-Shishani, a leading commander in Islamic State, was born and raised here.

The focus on Al-Shishani has done Pankisi, and coverage of the region, few favours. Beka Bajelidze, Caucasus director at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), stresses that both local and international media reports lack context and deeper analysis. 'Foreign media was concerned only with the personality of Tarkhan Baritashvili [birth name of Abu Omar Al-Shishani] when they came to report from Pankisi.' Bajelidze tells me. 'They were not interested in the bigger picture - why mainly young people are joining insurgents in Syria.'

Bajelidze believes that, at a time when a lot of journalists solely rely on desktop research and online sources, they get disconnected from the reality on the ground, producing unverified and often biased material.

According to Bajelidze, Georgian news outlets also lack in-depth knowledge of Pankisi. Their reports are affected by prevalent attitudes towards ethno-religious minorities: 'For some journalists, it is enough to know that [Pankisi's inhabitants] are Muslim. Religion becomes the main cause of radicalisation. They often do not take into consideration factors such as the lack of inclusion in local governance, institutional support and social and economic alienation.'

Local and international media reports strengthen Pankisi's already infamous reputation as a cradle of radicals, criminals and terrorists in Georgia. This reputation emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the gorge became a haven not only for thousands of Chechen refugees fleeing the war with Russia, but also a base from which Arab and Chechen militants, allegedly with ties to al-Qaeda, could launch strikes into Russia. By 2004, former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili had cleared the gorge of paramilitary fighters – with US support – and dispersed the majority of the area's well-established criminal gangs.