Vladislav Ardzinba's obit in AP and double standarts of AP on partly recognized states
''The Associated Press (“AP”) is the essential global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats.''
This excerpt comes from AP’s ‘About Us’ section.
Please see below a letter sent to AP editors FIVE times but unfortunately without any reply. Draw your own conclusions...
In this letter you will see a very good example of AP’s bias in their news-reporting.
If you also would like to show your reaction, you can send a letter to:
Dear Editor,
I should note that the North Caucasians who came to the defence of Abkhazia when Georgia attacked in August 1992 were volunteers, organised by the Confederation of the (Mountain) Peoples of the Caucasus under its president Yuri (Musa) Shanibov. Ardzinba did NOT call in Chechen mercenaries. It is true that some of the volunteers (notably the Chechens) earned a fearsome reputation, but, after all, war is war...
As for the organising of ethnic cleansing, quite the opposite is true. See the condolence-message written by George Hewitt on 4 March. And HERE you can see the copy of the leaflet distributed just before the end of the war urging civilised treatment of soldiers laying down their arms or the non-combatant population; It’s included Prof. George Hewitt’s article in 'Transcaucasian Boundaries'.
There is no surprise that 'Sukhum' (Abkhazia) was represented as part of Georgia in your news: ''Vladislav Ardzinba, Once Led Abkhazia, Dies at 64''
SUKHUMI, Georgia (AP) —
I think it is still necessary to note that Abkhazia has been recognized by four members the United Nations, namely Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Nauru.
I would like to ask, what about Kosovo? Is ASSOCIATED PRESS using this title ''PRISTINA, SERBIA''? Or prefer to use ''PRISTINA, KOSOVO'' ? Or only PRISTINA?
Let me note that Georgianisation of Abkhazia's toponymy was introduced at the time of Stalin (who, as I'm sure you know, was Georgian). This was the time of immense discrimination against the Abkhazian population, including the reduction of the status of Abkhazia to that of an autonomous republic within Georgia. If the ASSOCIATED PRESS still recognizes Stalin's toponymy within Abkhazia, consistency would demand that it use the same Stalin-imposed names for the rest of the former Soviet countries with, for example, Stalingrad instead of Volgograd or Gorky instead of Nizhny Novgorod in Russia, or Zhdanov instead of Mariupol in the Ukraine, or Tskhakaya instead of Senaki in Abkhazia's neighbouring Mingrelian in western Georgia, or other names of numerous Soviet leaders and dictators of that time.
Kind regards,
Metin Sönmez
CircassianWorld.com & AbkhazWorld.com
Admin
The maps included here give an idea of the frontiers of Abkhazia at various times in history. The Abkhazians call their capital /Aqw'a/, but it is more usually known in other languages as Sukhum (Sukhum-Kalé or Sukhum-Kaleh in the period of Turkish influence along the Black Sea's eastern coast; /soxumi/ in Georgian). The ending -i in the form /Sukhumi/ represents the Georgian Nominative case-suffix, and it became attached to /Sukhum/ from the late 1930s when Stalin (Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili) and his Mingrelian lieutenant in Transcaucasia, Lavrent'i Beria, began to implement a series of anti-Abkhazian policies. Abkhazians today, for obvious reasons, resent the attachment of this element from the language of a people they see as oppressors.