28 November, 2008

Presided by the Chairman of the Investigative Commission  Mr. Paata Davitaia

Chairman. Please, let me greet all and let me greet Mr. President.   Thank you very much for coming. This temporary Parliamentary Commission has been created in accordance to the parliament resolution in order to investigate August events. The mandate of the temporary parliamentary commission did not envisage to summon the President. You expressed your willingness to come to us here. So, are you ready to co-operate with the temporary parliamentary commission and provide information within your competence?

M. Saakashvili. Of course, Batono Paata, following our conversation several weeks ago I am ready for a thorough co-operate with the parliamentary commission and, of course, I am ready to give irrefragable answers to all your questions, as well as questions of our people and those existing throughout the world.

Chairman. Thank you very much. Mr. President, the way of our work is to put several questions. You will answer them and the further format of our work will be like this. As we know, August events, which took place in Georgia, have not started... open aggression against Georgia did not start in August. This had certain preconditions. People have many critical questions concerning this issue. Therefore, I would like to ask you why Georgia could not prevent this conflict, or, to be more precise, could not avoid running into this provocation. Did it (Georgia) do its best in its diplomatic activities in order to prevent escalation of the conflict and was everything done by Georgia to achieve this? As we know, in February you met the President of Russia, Putin, and afterwards President Medvedev relevantly in Moscow and Astana. Did you have an impression after the meeting that Russia was preparing for the military aggression, which took place already in August? These are the questions you are requested to answer, to be followed by some other additional questions as well.

M. Saakashvili. Batono Paata, I have noted all your questions. If the Commission does not mind, I would like to make a statement first and afterwards answer all questions in detail.  First of all, I would like to express my appreciation regarding the fact of creation of this commission. I would like to say that this is an evident proof and demonstration of the fact that Georgia is continuing its way to democratization. What is happening now in the Parliament is a really historic process and I have honour to be part of this historic process. All of us, together with other friends of mine, have been creators of the history of Georgian parliamentarism.  All of us together have been building these institutions, but since adoption of our new Constitution, the President has never made an official visit to the Parliament except the occasions of his annual addresses to the Parliament.  I would also like to note that MPs here represent both majority and opposition, but the Chairman is a representative of opposition. There are members of several opposition parties here and I would like to remind that a year ago we and some of the opposition party members were on different sides, of course - not of the barricades, but some of us were in the building whilst others were definitely out of the building and there was almost an insuperable chasm separating us. We still have serious discrepancies, but the fact - that we could all gather in one hall and in one building willing to answer all questions; argue till loss of voice; do not agree; criticize each other, sometimes, even very harshly, but do place everything into the parliamentary and institutional frames of Georgia -  is a step made really forward.  I would also like to admit that many countries, in case they were facing aggression of the scale having place and still going on against Georgia... I would like to tell everyone - we already know this anyway, especially those foreigners, some of which sometimes would like to forget what is going on. Although, the other day the President of Poland, I think, clearly reminded all his European colleagues, what situation we are in. The occupant army is openly and illegally staying in several kilometers from Tbilisi carrying out shameless occupation of the territory of a sovereign state openly threatening its citizens by use of arms.

In the situation like this many of the countries would be tempted to harden their political systems, shut up their opposition and mass media, as well as control economy, but the fact, that we all together agreed we should have more freedom for press and right expression, we should have more discussions at the Parliament, more rights for the Parliament of Georgia, that we should carry on with our court reforms and at last create this commission, which, obviously, is unique – I believe, is our joint response to the aggressive actions.  Our response to the aggression is more democracy, more transparency, more flexibility and demonstration of the fact that our immunity is in this freedom. Of course, a democratic system has its weaknesses as well, but its strong sides will prevent our opponents from causing harm to us and our future.  Therefore, we will not leave any questions without answers – the government members had strict instructions to answer every single question. I appreciate your initiative to invite all kinds of people here, listen to everyone’s opinions: some of which were coinciding whilst others – differing.  You have listened to truth and lie, but I hope your judgment will be objective.  There are really very many questions existing not only in Georgia, but abroad as well. And as I see it, the main concern of the international community today is the question whether Georgia started military actions beginning of August in order to take a control over certain places in Tskhinvali and South Ossetia, having been out of our control before. You know that this question is considered to be the key question of the debates due to a very expensive campaign of the opponent. It (opponent) spends hundreds of millions to prove that we were the first to start, thus doing its best to get its expenses "laundered”, but we all know that "a raven can not be laundered” (meaning the Georgian saying that ‘you can not make a raven become white even if you rub it with sand’). Our opponent is trying to darken colours round Georgia and make picture vague thus preventing people to see where is truth and where is a lie. This is what their big campaigns are serving for. We have seen how different people have been bribed to let them lie. I would like to admit that this campaign really has a certain impact in case of some personalities. But this question in fact is an attempt to shift focus from really significant questions. But neither me, nor government other members have ever denied the fact the issue exists.

The answer to your question – whether we carried military actions at the beginning of August in order to have Tskhinvali and South Ossetian uncontrolled territories under our control – has been earlier and remains unchanged that yes, we took a decision to carry out military actions in Tskhinvali region.

This was a difficult decision, which would be taken by any democratic authorities responsible towards its country and nation in order to protect security of its own motherland and citizens. This decision was inevitable because of 2 core reasons.

First. We had learnt that hundreds of tanks of the Russian army, heavy materiel, artillery equipment and thousands of soldiers were on the Georgian-Russian border, near the Roki tunnel. We started getting true and justified information, data and figures of which you have already seen, from our intelligence that they started moving and crossing the Georgian border.

This fact was later endorsed by the world information media. Telephone conversations were publicized. Plenty of material, obtained from internet and other open- as well as arguable sources, was investigated. It should be admitted though that information from open sources are as much convincing as information of the intelligence, some times even more convincing. Even the Russian Federation could not deny the fact of incursion of its armed forces into Georgia.

On the previous day of intervention (I mean the wide scale intervention, as it was a continuation of the violation having started already at the beginning of August), 6 August, our peace keepers were killed. That night and the following day they were bombing non-stop and intensively those villages which were controlled by us. I would like to stress that these were not Georgian villages. These were villages with mixed population of ethnic Georgians and Ossetians. We had never separated them and they had been under control of the authorities of Georgia. We have been protected there people of all ethnicities and will be protecting them in future. We have been always equally treating them with love and respect.  When the intensive bombing started the disposition of the artillery of the opposing party was mainly in Tskhinvali and round the places where the so called Russian Peace Keepers were located. This, by the way, was confirmed by Kulakhmetov himself. In such circumstances the issue to be raised is not whether Georgia carried out military activities in Tskhinvali region aiming at annihilation of weapon emplacements bombing our villages. There is no need to raise the question on this issue, because we did exactly so and this is not a secret. The question to be raised is which authorities or responsible to its people government would act in a different way when aggressors of another country were annihilating our population of all ethnicities in their own houses, when our sovereign territories were being occupied through intervention of the armed forces of an aggressor country. 

No one should forget this. Some often mix up things listing Georgia, Russia and territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia between them. This is not just a territory, or an uninhabited  place which does not belong to anyone. This is an internationally acknowledged sovereign territory within the state borders of Georgia, most of which had always been controlled by the central government of Georgia even after Georgia regained its independence.

Thus, we fought off to prevent foreign intervention rather than break into our territory because a country can not trespass on its own territory.  We had been fighting on our territory, on our own motherland in order to defend our country in accordance with international law. None of the Georgian solders have stepped on the territory of another country. Therefore, the main criteria according to which legitimacy of the actions of Russia can be estimated should be not the question whether the democratically elected government of Georgia tried to defend its country or not, but answers to the following questions:

---------- Was it Georgia or Russia the side which in fact annexed the sovereign territory of the neighbouring country?

---------- Was it Georgia or Russia, who breached the agreement on limitation of armaments on the Caucasian flank one year before that and drastically increased number of military forces and armoured materiel in the Norther Caucasus while Georgia was staying part of the agreement? It was obvious that this was much more than they needed for their military operations even in Chechnya or other republics of the North Caucasus. It was obvious why they decided to be mo longer part of the agreement.

---------  Who was the country having crossed the border of the neighbouring democratic country with its tanks and thousands of soldiers?

---------  Which country has been organizing a whole series of provocations for months and years resulting in death of people?

---------- Which country distributed illegally passports to the population of the neighbouring country having thus breached the law of both our and their own countries in order to later carry out intervention with the pretext of protecting its citizens? 

----------  Which country refused to take part in the peace negotiations organized by the EU on 25 July and by the OSCE on 31 July?

----------- Which country rejected the peace offer organized by the Foreign Minister of Germany Steinmaier?

------------ Who tried to disguise its well planned intervention with a false accusation as if 2000 peaceful citizens were killed in Tskhinvali -the fact that was immediately refuted by all international organizations, unbiased observers and later Russian official authorities themselves?

------------ Which country started military operations with the pretext that it was stopping genocide?

-------------Which country started and is still carrying out ethnic cleansing of the population which country?

-------------Having breached the agreement on cease fire signed by itself, which country refused to protect the territories envisaged by at least the first stage, as well as refused to let European Monitors enter the conflict zone after the military operations were over?

These are the real questions to be asked needing to be answered. And the fact that there is no single answer existing in favour of Russia once again stresses what a big and dangerous aggressor we and the rest of the world are dealing with as well as the fact that our strategic decisions and tactic reaction in the most difficult situation had no other alternatives. I am ready to answer any question. I would like to tell you that this was a very difficult decision.

As for your question, Batono Paata, regarding the meeting in February with the President Putin, I would say that my last meeting with Putin was very difficult. He stated (Mr David Bakradze and Mr. Grigol Vashadze were also there) that they would have bilateral relations with Georgia – resume flights, might think of allowing import of your wines, but as for your – no he did not say "your” - these disputable territories – South Ossetia and Abkhazia – we shall answer not you regarding these territories, but the West – United States and NATO – in the light of Kosovo.  On this, please, do not feel nervous. This is not the matter of your concern. What we are up to will not be against you. It will be our reaction towards their actions. This was a statement made with utmost cynicism and we left the meeting very heavyhearted. We repeated to him there what we had told him for many times before - that we were ready to discuss any disputable issue and that there was nothing untouchable except the territorial integrity of Georgia and that we were open to any dialogue on all other issues. It is clear that Russia did not wish to listen to this. And when we left I asked David Bakradze (I think this was Bakradze’s first meeting with Putin. I had this pleasure many times in the past ... ) what his impression about the meeting was. And he told me that his impression was very heavy, that he thought Putin was threatening us with war... literally. I told him that my impression was also nearly the same.

Afterwards you mentioned a meeting with Medvedev in June. I went to this meeting with a hope that now we are dealing with a really new President of Russia, who graduated from the Faculty of Law nearly the same time with me and that, as we knew at least from our open sources, had never served at the KGB. We thought this could be a positive factor in order to find a "common language” with him. He used to say that he liked contemporary music and a modern way of life. He seemed to be inclined to smile and made an impression of an open personality, at least on the TV. This is why I went to the meeting with him with great pleasure.

I would like to admit that from the standpoint of climate of the meeting it was better than those to which I had been used to. He said that they were ready to discuss every question in a new meeting. We did not touch details there. He suggested to agree on a meeting in the nearest future and in general said that they wanted to somehow improve relations. We left the place with positive emotions. We immediately wrote him a letter with courageous proposals saying that we were ready to answer any questions he might have and that we were looking forward to his reply.  The reply was sent to Mr. Grigol Vashadze, now attending. He telephoned me and told me that the reply was very frustrating. After this I met Medvedev in Astana on the occasion of the anniversary of Astana in Kazakhstan. When I asked him there what was the follow up of our meeting, as we had had a telephone conversation during which I could not receive a definite answer, he said that probably it was too early for the meeting until situation fundamentally changed between Georgia and Russia. On this I said that the meeting made sense anyway as the existing difficult situation could become more complicated without talks, but unfortunately he refused very clearly there.  I had an impression that after the June meeting the center of decision making in Russia probably upbraid him for his proposal or some other intention. Anyway his rhetoric already in the month of July in Astana was much different than that of June, which was not ideal, but still something better.

By the way I mentioned this earlier. In Astana, during one of the informal meetings Nazarbaev turned towards me after my dialogue with Medvedev and told me " I have never seen you in such a bad mood. What’s wrong with you?” Probably I could not hide this. Usually I always try to be very open and communicative at such meetings. So, this is how things stood during those meetings. At the same time, as you know, there were lots of provocations carried out against us as well as legislative acts and specific military operations. Rhetoric concerning us and spread through information media as well as in the statements of high officials, was also very bad. This was mainly what concerned situation... In conclusion I would like to say (probably, you will have a question about this) that my last attempt to contact President Medvedev before the war was in the evening of the 6^th or 5^th, if I am not mistaken...on the 6^th? Yes, on the 6^th in the evening, when the situation became extremely difficult. First I called not anyone else, but President Medvedev, that is through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which usually provided the line with the Russian President. The reply was the following: "The situation is not ready yet for the Presidents to talk to each other. Let the Presidents speak later.” This was the answer. Then, as you know, I had been trying to speak to Medvedev or Putin every day on 8, 9 and 10. And by the way my initiative to telephone was carried on by  the Russians through different diplomatic channels and it was like a game: I was calling and they were not answering. We saw such game for many times later. I was a witness how Sarkozi was not connected with different excuses with President Medvedev for a very long time, when he was visiting Tbilisi. Probably this is the part of their diplomatic game. This is something like a Byzantine-Mongol game probably maintained by the elements of bureaucracy. What are the other questions?

Chairman. Mr. President, proceeding from this, I can not help asking you the following. Do you think that your personal aggressive approach towards Russia,...

M. Saakashvili. Yes...

Chairman. ...so obvious in your rhetoric, made it impossible to regulate relations between Russia and Georgia?

M. Saakashvili. Yes...

Chairman. I would like to remind an example of this rhetoric. Why did you call then President of Russia Putin – Liliputin – and do you think this could cause the reasons for aggression?

M. Saakashvili. Batono Paata, have you personally heard yourself me calling him what you said now? I do not want to repeat it now. Have you ever heard it anywhere?

Chairman. I am asking this question as we have been advised by the people that you had referred this towards the Russian President and the aggression having followed this from Russia was a response...

M. Saakashvili. People might spread any information, but I would like to stress that I have never done this under any circumstances - in a meeting with him tet-a-tet or during my public speech, with any other leaders or ordinary people, our citizens or citizens of foreign countries. I always pronouncedly respected him and have never assaulted him like this. I have never applied any rude expression towards any of the Russian leaders. This was my principle of action not only before the war, but, even after it. You could have observed this. Despite the fact, that I had every reason to be infuriated... You might know what expressions used in my address by Russian leaders Sarkozi and his Chancellery have spread; what epithets and threats were said; what terminology was used in our address. They have shot very "interesting” plots in a number of films about me, widely replicated by mass media. Despite this we have never used any coarse word in their address. Besides, I did so not because I liked them very much or vice versa. I always believed that those relations were not personal ones. They were relations between the states. We have always been liable, even doomed to build these relations whether we liked each other or not. Furthermore, I remember my first disposition when I arrived in Moscow. You mentioned the February meeting, but I remember my first February meeting of 2004. I felt an internal need to like Putin not as an individual as such, but as a partner President. I really felt this need. My instinct prompted me I had to develop as well-wishing relations as possible based on mutual confidence. I have achieved this with a number of world leaders. You know that I have friendly, even unceremonious relations with many European leaders, President Bush and our other neighbours, although even these relations have never passed the frames. Regrettably, in the case of Russia, our partners’ side has never wished this to be so. And, I think that, the reason for that has been the fact that they have never considered us to be their equal partners. They have never considered us as separate players either. The believe that we are a part of a wide conspiracy against them. It is a pity that we have not been able to establish with them relations of this kind. Despite this I would like to say that the myths about personal reasons of bad relations between us are spread by those people who do not to see fundamental problems in our relations. I would like to remind that the person whom the current authorities of Russia hated most of all is my predecessor President Shevardnadze. They had been using in his address all kinds of such epithets at both formal and informal meetings, which we would never imagine to think of or say. In Shevardnadze’s time they first bombed Georgia for several times; cut gas supply, first thing as soon as Putin came to power as Acting President. President Clinton, before he left, called Putin and asked him to resume gas supply to Georgia. This has been done to Georgia in the times of Eduard Shevardnadze. So, relations became tense much earlier and the reason for that was fundamental difference rather than incompatibility of characters.

Chairman. Mr. President, when you were speaking about your meetings with Putin, Medvedev, you mentioned that you were in a bad mood as you realized that serious provocation was being prepared against Georgia. Did you have consultations with the administration of the United States – one of our main allies? Did you get any so called "green light” from the Administration of the United States regarding starting of your military operations? Where were red lines drawn for us – Georgia and for our partners (as we know, the main partner of ours is the United States)?  Nowadays in Georgia some people have an impression that a certain group holds negotiations regarding "green lights”. What do you know about this? Could you please answer this question?

M. Saakashvili. I do not know and I have no an idea where this terminology - "green light” and generally "lights” has come from. We have never asked anyone to give us any green lights and consequently have not seen it. No one has ever wished to see it. We are speaking about a concrete thing. We have been always convincing our friends that Russia is holding an extremely aggressive policy, which is out of the frames of ordinary, classical provocations.

When we are speaking about provocations we have to admit that provocation can be different, like making a statement or arresting someone... But when we are speaking about bombing of our country; when we are speaking about construction of military bases on our sovereign territory; when we are speaking about legalization of the regimes established after ethnic cleansing; when we are speaking about grabbing properties of hundreds of thousands of our citizens by the citizens of other countries; when we are speaking about distribution of passports – an example of concrete aggressive juridical act – all these are no more provocations. These are concrete actions of annexation. Our conversations went further. We always told our friends both in Europe and United States, that if they started, for example, mass terrorization in different places, if they again turned out tens of thousands of our citizens from their places of residence, if they organized mass explosions and attacks, of course, that would practically mean that we were in the stage of an active confrontation with our big neighbour and asked everyone to assist in such situation and speak to Russians.  And I think that our partners realized this, although some of them – very late, but still... This is why Solana arrived from the European Commission; this is why Steinmeier  arrived with very concrete packages of  proposals; this is why Condoleezza Rice arrived. We were assuring all of them that situation was becoming more difficult and asking to prevent jointly what could happen.

As we see it now, unfortunately this interference was already too late and not intensive enough to avoid the conflict. Besides, inactivity or, in certain cases, disdain of some of our partners served as a wrong signal for the aggressive part of the authorities of the Russian Federation. And this was also one of the incentives for everything what happened later in Georgia.

The war in Georgia did not break out in August. The war, in its broader meaning had started much earlier – years and months earlier. In August Russia decided to transfer the war into its most active phase, which had to finish this issue once and forever. This was a fact, but everything taking place before did not become the subject of adequate reaction. I think that our diplomats have done impossible though as well as you, parliamentarians and all other people involved in this in order to avoid this all.

The aim was to prevent a wide scale confrontation. This was our short term objective. Our long term objective was a peaceful restoration of the territorial integrity of Georgia with the support of the international community and either support or friendly neutrality of Russia. Unfortunately we could not realize this.

Chairman. ... One precision please...

D. Lortkipanidze. Yes, precision

Chairman. There is a question about this and afterwards Mr. Givi Targamadze will ask.

D. Lortkipanidze. Mr. President, you have mentioned Ms. Condoleezza Rice’s arrival. Various interpretations of the information about this have been spread. I would like to ask you about this. You have mentioned certain provocations presumably carried out or intended to be carried out by Russians. You said that the response of the democratic authorities on this would be adequate. Did Ms Condoleezza Rice, despite of these provocations, personally advise Georgian authorities not to become involved in them?

M. Saakashvili. We had been permanently warning the Americans that the provocations were intensified and the response of Americans on this was to be as preserved as possible and do not get involved in the provocations. But the fundamental principles of the Americans and our European partners were based on the strategic anticipations, which were changed only in August. 

Russia, despite its threats, aggressiveness and irascibility; despite its all kinds of major or minor provocations was not yet ready for a wide scale intervention into other countries, because its actual last big intervention like the one, carried out in Georgia, was in 1979 in Afganistan (carried out by the Soviet Union). Before that their intervention took place in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and before that in Hungary in 1956. And the fundamental principles established in the 90-es is that despite the fact that Russia had been openly or secretly taking part in different conflicts and no one believed when I said that Russia was fundamentally ready to do the same what had been done by the Soviet Union in Brezhnev’s and Khrushchev’s times in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan.

The main misunderstanding or rather discrepancy was that everything was clear, but we had to avoid getting involved into provocations as Russia would never do that. Unfortunately, this fundamental attitude existed and furthermore, some of us, in spite of the facts taking place around Georgia; in spite of the sure signs of a wide scale military operation, did not believe in our heart of hearts that they could cross this red line and be so prudent.

This is why Vano Merabishvili told you yesterday that may be we were even late with our response. I do acknowledge that we could be late with our response, but we did not believe until we checked 500 times, until we verified all our sources: Intelligence Department, Ministry of Internal Affairs, information from the field and just people we knew, let’s say, in Gori and other places - all confirming escalation of activities. It was difficult to believe this even for us until we faced the fact itself that something unbelievable was up to start. Even today, post factum, some people in the United States and Europe still can not believe – did they really start; did they really take the first step?

The world order having established in the world after the end of the Cold War in 1991 has changed profoundly due to the Russian aggression. This was not jus an intervention. Everything  has been revised again. Even the Cold War doctrine was revised. Although we maintained saying that that the Cold War is impossible, it is a fact that what Russia did was a hot expression of the Cold War, so rarely done even during the cold war period.  What we were repeating fundamentally, that the borders are indestructible, was changed for the first time after the WWII by a big European state having attempted to change the frontiers of the neighboring country with the use of force. After the Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union this has been an unprecedented case in Europe. And, of course, I would not blame my friends for not to believe this would happen.

Chairman. Batono Givi. 

M. Saakashvili. Batoni Levan had a question, if I am not mistaken

L. Vepkhvadze. No, no... I shall go on Batono Mikheil...

M. Saakashvili. As far as I know opposition is anyway running the whole show in this Commission... I have never seen such a majority.

L. Vepkhvadze. You have mentioned fundamental principles, which were referred to when our western partners did not believe expected or possible intervention. But we have also listened to the Minister of Defence, Minister of Internal Affairs and the Secretary of the National Security Council. The latter presented a whole range of arrangements carried out by Russians. And when I was listening to his report my very first impression was that the following logical step had to be an intervention. Despite this, all the officials having come here, including you, Mr. President, stated that they were all optimistic and did not believe that the Russians would take a risk to start an intervention of this extent. Is the fact, that your visit to Beijing was cancelled half an hour earlier before the flight, an exaggerated optimism on the background of the existing reality? On the 29^th of July first our villages were already being bombed by 120mm shells. On 1, 2, 5 and 6 August this process was still going on whilst you took a decision at the last moment and not before.  We have information that in the morning of the 7^th of August a column of Russian armed forces started coming into the country. What information did the analytical group, working here and providing you with reports, base on advising that intervention could still not start?

M. Saakashvili.  Batono Levan, I share your...

Chairman. Mr. President, I would also like to add a question regarding this block so that you could answer them together. When the Intelligence Department and the Ministry of Internal Affairs were providing you with information about the Russian preparations for intervention, why did not you stop the mandate of the Russian Peace Keepers, who became a reason of certain operations started and whose mandate was used against us.

M. Saakashvili. Batono Levan, first of all, I partially share your criticism and would not deviate from self-criticism either. First, I would like to repeat what I have already said. Probably in the heart of heart none of us believed that Russia was capable of this. And please, do not blame me for this, because neither Chancellor Merkel (whom I told that such scenario could be expected) believed, nor the authorities of the United States, which has a very good intelligence service and could get information about all these movements and dislocations. Other leaders, whom I contacted on the 7^th, also did not believe. Probably we were not careful enough, if I may say so, but as I have already told you, these provocations did not start on 6 and 7. This is a long story of several years. And as a rule it happened like this. They started escalation, opened fire at us. Unfortunately, always our citizens, policemen of all ethnicities were victims. We returned fire and as a rule situation for a while was usually back to normal.  For example, there was an attack on Dimitri Sanakoev in July. We took responsive steps and increased security measures. There were no more armed provocations in the direction of Tskhinvali for quite a while. When the escalation started at the beginning of August we said that it also could be a provocation to which we had to be responsive increasing posts and our readiness. We thought that it would also calm down after a certain period. When the Russian rhetoric started I was on leave together with my family abroad and I had "a pleasure” to watch Russian channels in my room. I observed how Russia started an unusual fuss.

L. Vepkhvadze. Sorry to interrupt,...

M. Saakashvili. Yes...

L. Vepkhvadze. Batono Mikheil, this was said at the Commission session with Kitsmarishvili about 21 July.

M. Saakashvili. What is 21 July?

L. Vepkhvadze. You were in Italy on 21 July. He said why you were in Italy for a week including 21 July.

M. Saakashvili. I do not remember whether it was 21 August or not, but I was away for several days, to be more precise – for a week, but I returned in 4 or 5 days. I was on leave, by the way, for the first time during these five years, together with my wife, Sandra, Eduard and Nikoloz on leave. We  ventured to take this opportunity after several quiet weeks. I would like to repeat again that after the incident with Sanakoev there were several weeks of emphatic peace and we thought we could go there for several days taking into account the fact that I was away from Tbilisi in three hour’s distance. We could go to the airport any time to be in Tbilisi in three hours. Our trip would take the same time if we went to Kutaisi by road. But when the escalation started again I returned. We responded, reinforced our action stations,. we were not going to Beijing  to have fun. We had planned meetings with several world leaders. I tried to speak to President Medvedev on the telephone. This request was practically rejected, but we had a unique chance to see Putin, President Bush, Sarkozi, President of EU and France. They were all in Beijing. There we could arrange meetings and apart from such bilateral meetings there was a Reception scheduled on 8 August at 12 hours, which would be attended by every leader of the world. At such a reception even 5 minutes are enough to separate with someone and speak. This already can be quite important. This is why my initial plan was to fly in the morning in order to be there for the above reception. But exactly at that time, when we thought that situation was more or less calm, they opened fire at a number of our villages. Then I said that I would not go to the reception and that I would go to the Opening, where all the leaders would be also attending. But saw that situation was worsening. Although we were told in the morning that Russians would arrive to talk. They did arrive, but did not talk to us.  Popov arrived and did not speak to us. We were getting bad news. I had to choose: either get on the plane and remain for several hours in the situation when one can not act. Although we have got a telephone and communication means, special communication means on board the plane, or stay in Georgia. But if I went there I would have done this in order to meet the world leaders there. It was already 20 minutes to 7. Our deadline to take off was 7pm. We received a telephone call from the Head of our Protocol Zurab Darchiashvili saying that I had to take a decision. If I was not immediately going to the airport there was a long queue of different delegations arriving in China and we would be out of turn and unable enter the country for 2 days.  On this I said that I did not want to take a risk and was staying in Georgia. Georgia has often been in critical situation. We had a very serious and tense situation when Sanakoev was attacked. Situation was difficult in April and May, especially in May, when Putin ordered to bring in armed forces to Abkhazia. There were several armed attacks on Kodori. There was an attack in Tsitelubani. Provocations became routine for us as we had to live with them. We got so used to such life – and by the way this is also a method to let your opponent relax. This was a part of our life. In fact, our reactions at the beginning were more acute whilst at the end they already became a part of everyday life and because of this the state of Georgia could not stop its existence, as well as its diplomatic activities. Trip to Beijing would also be a very significant part of this diplomatic activity. Russians chose ideal time for the implementation of their plans. If we look at this attentively we shall see that there were several factors why Russia needed war in August. It was a political calendar. As you know after Bucharest they were waiting for a decision in December regarding NATO membership. The Chief of General  Staff said clearly that they would resort various methods to prevent Georgia become a member of NATO. When the Chief of General Staff makes such statement, who is not a Director of Circus, what he means or what his methods are can be predictable. But what is the calendar for the Russian zone if you want to achieve anything before December? At the end of September it is already snowing in Caucasus. If you want to carry out military operations the best time for this is August or September. Why August? Because in August rivers are shallow and this is important to bring in tanks to Abkhazia. They constructed railway for this period. August is the best time for Russian aircrafts from the standpoint of weather. Their planes do not have good night vision. This is why they bombed with strategic bombers. The latter has got night vision. while SU 27, SU 25 and MIG 29 – do not. They do not have cloud vision either. They are blind in the clouds. In May, when escalation was very acute, even if they had any plans, they would be obliged to refuse from them, because it was raining all May. This is just a speculation. I do not know whether they had any serious plans then, but we were at the edge of a serious, very serious escalation.  August with its weather was an ideal month for military operations. I want all of us to remember, that Russia not only in Georgia, but elsewhere had been planning and realizing its other provocations in August. Two wars in Chechnya started in August... both times in August. I would like to emphasize this. Provocations in Abkhazia also started in August both in 1992 and 2004. Escalation lasted for several months then. Real military operations in Tskhinvali started in August after Russian instructors came and brought in weapons. They were giving directions to press. This was one thing. The other thing was that at the beginning of August everyone in the world thinks of pleasant things like a leave, as you mentioned I had also been on leave with my family, but not only me, but all the world leaders also do the same – either are on leave or travel. For example, when I started looking for people, Chancellor Merkel was on leave out of the country somewhere; the Foreign Minister Steinmeier was on Sardinia and had his telephone turned off. When I tried to contact the Secretary General of NATO, he was not in Brussels either and I could not speak or see him. I could not speak openly, because open conversations are intercepted by everyone who wants to do so and we all know very well who does this more than others.  I do not mean Merabishvili and the rest of leaders were all in Beijing. Bush and Sarkozi both were in Beijing. Can you imagine, that on the day of the opening of the Olympic Games, most of all I was astonished, when I listened to the statement of the Commander of the Russian Land Forces on the TV and this was the day when absolutely nothing was happening in Tskhinvali.  This statement was one of the shocking symptoms. He said that Georgia was violating the Olympic Chart, as it was intending to start war on the day of opening of the Olympic Games. This was like a bolt from the blue for me. I have heard many provocative statements from Russians, but such an exact and clear indication, of course, was alarming. Just imagine...no one in the world cares for anything. Most of the people including leaders, are on leave. When  people are on leave, very few of them watch TV or read newspapers. They are looking forward to watching opening of the Olympic Games. Somewhere very far in Georgia someone attacked someone at night. This is such an obscure issue for the world and such an ideal time for a big country to cover its shady business; such an unfavourable time for a small country to be heard fairly.  August was the most dangerous and risky period fro us. I would like to repeat that we had a similar situation last year in August, when they bombed Tsitelubani as well as in 2004, when we were facing provocations in Tskhinvali. Only because August is a bad period for us, we could neither take out August from the calendar, not turn upside down all our way of life. But it should be admitted that dates were selected ideally and they worked. Before we contacted France and Sarkozi arrived from there, before Bush arrived only several days later, Putin left Beijing immediately, as, probably had been planned. He arrived after he saw everyone on the first day. Therefore, when I speak about selection of dates I mean that nothing was accidental. There are many things proving now that from the standpoint of military preparations this date was ideally chosen. You can look through any Russian newspaper. They said the same thing, that the construction of the military railway (yes, military, because Ochamchire and Gali are deserted places with very little population left. In fact this is a deadlock) would be over by 5 August. I would like to ask you – where did this date – 5 August – come from?

They were building a military base in Java. I know from international organizations, that each resident of Java was paid monthly 1200 Euros and this amount in Java equals to 5000 in Tbilisi and 50 000 – in Berlin, because it is a very poor place. They were paid because the locals had to finish their works by 5 August. Where did this hasty date come from? We did not allow them get building materials from our side exactly because they were constructing the base. They transported construction material from Russia which of course was much more expensive. The Black See Navy had already left the Ukraine. 

As you know the President of Ukraine tried to stop them several times. He signed a special resolution, first about not letting them out of and afterwards about not letting them in, but Russians did not pay any attention to this. They left and returned without any remorse. Russians declared full mobilization in the North Caucasus, as well as of its paratroopers. They did not let people go on leave either in Russia, or across the border. I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that yes, we saw all these signals, but they repeated something similar nearly every summer. This time they did too much. It will take a time to analyze this. Any intelligence service (and Georgia is not a super power of such services) would have needed weeks to analyze everything in one mosaic. 

I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that we had this information at the beginning of July. We observed that Georgians, Russian citizens of Georgian origin, were under control in the North Caucasus. All of them (and there were lots of them) were released from the armed forces. There was a decree prepared (and we had a copy of it) ordering to record and analyze every Georgian conversation in the North Caucasus. They increased control over the Abkhaz section of the Russian-Georgian border, which was quite unusual for the season of tourism. They started mass repressions towards suspicious elements, as they call them and who could have contacts with Georgia. This small detail of intelligence – arresting information in the Caucasus region about what would happen - was very much like a preparation for something serious.

And now we say that this was something unexpected for the world. The tourism season was unsuccessful not only in Abkhazia, where it totally failed, but in Sochi too, which is the main resort of Russia. Hotels in Sochi have usually been  all full of tourists in previous years, while this year it was only 30%. Why?  Because the whole of the Russian press was speaking about possible Georgian-Russian war. I have read myself the articles by Pavel Felengauer and had an opportunity to meet him. He earnestly repeated in April, if I am not mistaken, that the war would be either in May or August. He was very exited about this fact and when I asked him why was this good, he answered, that there was nothing better for a military journalist than observing a war, especially in summer. He said "We are not anyway doing anything in summer and we shall have a rest and observe war at the same time.” This was the situation surrounding us.

Parallel to this Steinmeier was active, Solana was active, I prepared very radical letters. I mean radical in the light of flexibility, diplomatic proposals and degree of boldness. I wrote them to Medvedev having imagined what Russia would want if it did not wish a war; what I could, for example, offer them regarding Abkhazia to convince them. What could stop them so that we both could get something. Even if we could not get 100%, but only 30% - would be also acceptable for the time being, but all in vain.

I think that they made up their minds to start military operations against Georgia in order to somehow cope with our country. This decision was probably taken some time in 2001 or 2002 before we came to power. In autumn of 2006 Russia was very close to the point, but they declined because of the following three factors: harsh reaction of the European Union and their common position; harsh reaction of the American Administration and insufficiency of Russians’ readiness first of all in the Northern Caucasus. Their final decision, I think, was taken some time in February or March before the Bucharest Summit and decision about Kosovo. Our meeting with Putin was only a formal dialogue. He did not wish to deal with us and I am afraid this had been their position earlier. Batoni Gia will confirm this. We left the 21 February meeting with heavy impressions and empty-handed.

Chairman. Mr. President, I asked a question. You forgot to answer my question.

M. Saakashvili. Mandate of Peace Keepers...Sorry... Why we did not stop their mandate...? Because people say now that Georgia might have caused provocations. If we had stopped their Peace Keepers’ mandate people would start saying both in America and Europe that this was a provocation; that good or bad the mandate was preventing from some other troubles, although everyone knew that there was nothing peaceful in them. If Georgia had done so without initial consultations then Georgia would be considered as an initiator of complication of the situation. We had discussions about this with our partners and we started very detailed preparations for that. This was Steinmeier’s plan about; this was the reason for Solana to arrive visit. Solana openly spoke about expediency of substitution by Europeans. We were proposing to substitute and not – turn out. I know that they will not go. And this will be followed by a total escalation. We had some progress in this direction and, I think, this accelerated Russia to start military operations. The reason was that Solana started open discussions as well as EU that it was possible to substitute Russians by the European monitors or any other forces.

There was something similar in Steinmeier’s plan, although he was leaving a certain part to Russians. This had always been an issue.  There is nothing to be hidden in this. When I was a student in America, Shevardnadze signed a peace agreement. As a student I published several articles in Georgian and foreign press. I participated in the conference and criticized this.  I studied this. International law and international peacekeeping was my specialty. I am a specialist of national minorities and human rights. I had been studying this and wrote scientific articles about. I worked and wrote term papers on international peacekeeping operations in America and Institute for Human Rights in Oslo. Therefore, what the Georgian authorities did then - was very painful for me.  Although forced by hopelessness and blackmail they made presence of occupants legal. The first Peacekeeping battalion was the one having fought together with separatists when occupying Sukhumi. This was very difficult for me.

We were already trapped, because the Russians managed to match their so called "peace keeping” presence with UNOMIG’s presence in Abkhazia. And our main concern was not whether Russians had to stay or not, but what would their reaction be if we told these international observers to leave.  Whenever we asked Russians to leave they always said that they would automatically withdraw the internationals. We had been thinking about this for many years. Why we did not have, for example, heavy military weapons in Nikozi, sorry, in Kurta, Tamarasheni, Kekhvi and other villages? Because, this was not envisaged by the peace keeping mandate; because Georgia had always been following the rules of its peace keeping mandate. Our decency brought us to this point. We were following the peace keeping mandate and that is why our Georgian police was armed with light weapons. When the situation became very difficult it was too late to bring in heavy weapons to Abkhazia, Besides, we respected UNOMIG and UN international mandate. We were very preserved and had been discussing for a long time; had consultations in accordance with the international principles. Did we have to follow Dagomis and Moscow agreements? Batono Paata, we were both in Zugdidi on 9 August, when our neighbour demonstrated to us and the whole of the international community that they don't give a damn about the international mandate. UN observers were there. We watched from a close distance how Russians moved with their tanks, military equipment, infinitely many soldiers. They said to the UN Observers "We are giving you 20 minutes to leave. We are going to Samegrelo from here”. It took our illustrious observers even less than 20 minutes to run away from the site. This was a clear lesson of how lawlessness triumphs over those people who want to follow laws; how win those people who never follow any law or agreement over those who are too decent not to respect their own agreement. Russia saw that the international process has startied; that things were moving from a dead point, which had been our dream for many years.  You know that in June UN General Assembly 15 years later acknowledged ethnic cleansing held in Abkhazia. When the process of internationalization started the UN said: "Wait, wait, you will not get internationalization now. You will get what happened. We shall all discuss a new counting out point later”. We found ourselves in this situation. Did we have to act otherwise? I still believe that it was a right policy, strategy and tactics to respect the international agreement.

We are a small country. International law is the alpha and omega for the activities of a small country. I am a specialist of international law and, I know, that some of you too. And we know that the borders, sovereignty and future of a small country are protected not by a rough power. Here a small country will always loose. It is protected by international regimes, norms, rules, agreements and a good will of the international community and, of course, Russia could permit itself to become impudent, what they did.

D. Lortkipanidze. Mr. President, my question will be about the international community. You have mentioned that on the 7^th of August President Bush was in Beijing and met Mr. Putin. During these 7 days I gave this question to several ministers. Unfortunately I could not receive any answer and therefore decided to ask you the same question: what consultations (with whom) took place, both inside and outside the country on the 7^th of August, before making this decision? And the second question: I do not know whether these are just rumors or true, but the information was spread as if on the 8^th of August Mr. Mathew Braiza arrived in Tbilisi and as if you refused to receive him during 2 days because of President Bush’s statement which, according to experts’ opinion was not quite adequate to the situation in Tskhinvali area on the 8^th of August.

M. Saakashvili: I would like to tell you that first of all we make decisions on such matters independently, without asking any prior permissions – if you mean a permission we do not take any. This is one point, the second point is that at the peak of the escalation the person I tried to contact was the President of the Russian Federation Dimitri Medvedev and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave us a negative answer regarding such contact.

The second person we tried to contact was Mr. Popov, representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and tried to solve the situation in the area. Maximum we could achieve was contact with General Kulakhmetov, because as you know Mr. Popov also refused to communicate with us using various excuses, even though he arrived in Tbilisi but avoided going to Tskhinvali and regulating the situation.

On the 7^th of August the situation became very complicated. Our peace keepers were killed, fire was started and ceased several times and the intensity was growing from time to time. Therefore, the 7^th of August, in the evening, I decided to contact all possible friends and supporters from my telephone book. I called our friends: the President of Lithuania Mr.  Adamkus, the President of Poland Mr. L. Kachinski, found the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden Mr. Bildt and Secretary General of NATO Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. We informed Presidents Adamkus and Kachinski about the situation and they promised to call others too. I told them that we could not get in touch with Russians. I gave him as much information to the Secretary General of NATO as the non-secure line permitted. I repeat once more that I could not give all details because the intelligence service of the neighboring country was checking all information sources, the situation was already very serious and details of the operations could not be risked. I gave him a general overview of the situation and said it was very grave. By the way everybody was surprised that the situation was aggravated in Tskhinvali area. It seems that everyone, like ourselves, expected problems with regards to Abkhazia. Why? Because the Russians hah been constantly mentioning the Kodori gorge. Kodori was stuck like a lump in their throat and Medvedev, Lavrov and other Russian officials actually made 2-3 statements a day regarding Kodori. Usually they seemed not to remember Tskhinvali. Well, the situation was like I said – I contacted everyone I could. As for Americans, I know that Eka Tkeshelashvili talked to different representatives of the State Department in order to inform them about the situation. At this moment I do not remember when I met Mathew Braiza, I definitely met him during those days.

At that time we had… first of all we went towards Tskhinvali several times; I visited Gori several times, we had constant meetings. We visited Zugdidi on the 9^th. It was already impossible to use a plain so we spent the whole day driving up and down the roads. This was an absolute priority and I did not have any TV interviews on that day. But of course I am not the only person in the Government and visiting officials of all levels met other representatives of our Government and talked to them. Definitely I was not angry with anyone, I understood that our partners needed time to look into the situation and evaluate its complexity, time was very valuable. But Russians made them grasp the situation quickly, because when I first talked to Condoleezza Rice on the phone… more exactly when the US Ambassador came to me for the first time and told me about the conversation between Condoleezza Rice and Pavlov… Russians were in a very aggressive mood and when we asked them about the goal of their intervention they said it was complete destruction of Georgia – the answer was conveyed to us through Americans. It was on the 8^th of August that complete destruction of Georgia was mentioned… I hope all partners will verify that the Russians were sending such messages. You know that President Sarkozi has mentioned other more vivid details about the plans the Russian leaders had regarding me personally.  I will not go into the physiological details here but these were the terms used by them to express their opinion and they really did not restrain themselves while communicating menaces or the ways of their implementation.

Maybe it was possible to react correctly earlier, to react quickly but anyway in a few days, very serious actions of our partners substantially hindered Russia’s maneuvers, implementation of the last stage of the Russian aggression against Georgia.

Chairman: Mr. President! One of the main accusations made with regards to Georgia and personally your decision is that you attacked the sleeping city, we are talking about Tskhinvali. What would you say about the attack: was it done at night and if yes, why? Was it a correct decision? What were the conditions there? There are some bypass roads there. Concretely what orders did you give at the beginning of these events? We are asking about your orders. The Head of the Head of the General Staff has already given us information on this issue. We would like to hear from you what particular orders you gave and why it was decided to carry out this attack at night. I think Mr. G. Gabashvili wants to add something.

G. Gabashvili:  Since we are already talking about the 7^th of August, I thing the following question would be important: Based on what data and at what time did you decide that this was not one more traditional provocation that used to take place in Georgia from time to time, but that it was a large scale intervention? At what moment did you give such evaluation to the events and made the decision that Georgia had to get involved in the military actions?

Chairman.  Mrs. K. Gogorishvili wants to ask a question and then Mr. Minashvili

K. Gogorishvili: Mister President, I have one question on this issue. Why wasn’t the population evacuated from the villages of Tskhinvali region before the final decision about starting a military operation?  Thank you.

Chairman... A. Minashvili...

A. Minashvili: Good Afternoon Mister President! There is a lot of talk on this topic in Russia and in the whole world: Did Georgia’s military forces attack the Russian "Peace Keepers” as they were called at that time?  

Chairman. Mr. G. Targamadze

G. Targamadze. I would like to ask you to what extent you were aware of the statement made by the Head of the Georgian Peace Keeping forces Mr. Kurashvili? This is the first question, and the second one: to what extent it was justified for the Georgian government to undertake several billions of expenses and take actions to form the Georgian army? I would like to ask you what do you think would have happened if we have not had such an army and have not made the decision to carry out military operations?

M. Saakashvili.  Thank you. I wrote down your questions but please remind me if I miss something.

As I have already told you, Russia has been preparing for this for a long time. I would like to say that we are dealing with a propagandistic machine of an authoritarian country. Starting from the soviet period this machine has accumulated a huge experience of disseminating disinformation. It is definitely not easy to fight against it. Recently I visited Ukraine for the memorial day of Ukrainian Famine – real genocide. Journalists existed at that time too, there was international community and a lot of their representatives traveled in Ukraine, saw hundreds thousands of people dyeing of starvation; total 7 million people died of famine in Ukraine  and as a result many parts of Ukraine were devastated from ethnic Ukrainian population. This was a very well planned targeted policy of the soviet government at that time. There were people who saw and described what was going on in Ukraine. But Russian propagandistic machine managed to find western journalists to support the soviet propaganda. E.g.: New York Times wrote at that time that all these stories were nonsense, nobody was starving, everything was well and the soviet citizens were very happy. The Russians have a huge experience of making disinformation look like truth.

You have been sitting here asking questions and listening to answers for a few weeks; you are listening to different versions, some information matches with other sources, some is conflicting. The picture is complex. You have received huge amount of information, only today I gave you and will still give so much information that its analysis may take several days. This is how democratic countries work. In democratic countries things are not just white and black, everything is many-sided and complex, detailed and often these details may be controversial.

In authoritarian countries everything is simple. Loathsome Georgians attacked sleeping Tskhinvali, shot everyone, destroyed sleeping population and committed many crimes. Russians came and saved peaceful population from the attack of these barbarians and fascists. Quite simple, isn’t it? But false from the beginning to the end. Gebels said: "The bigger the lie the better it can be sold” - this is classical Gebels type of military propaganda. Unfortunately today there are still some journalists in the world, including democratic countries, who are happy to "pick up birdseed” and believe all this – this is actually the whole charm of democracy – there are all kinds of journalists.

Tskhinvaliu has not been an ordinary city for a long time, and really it was not an ordinary city on the 7^th of August. Since summer 2004, before that …. Russia made a deliberate decision to turn Tskhinvali into its military base. Practically all adult male population of Tskhinvali, mostly those who earned their living by smuggling (before we closed all smuggling routs), were on the payroll of the Russian army or the Russian intelligence agency. Practically all adult male population of Tskhinvali was armed: trenches surrounding Tskhinvali or within Tskhinvali  turned into their working place. A huge military base was built in Tskhinvali. Relatively small military base was built in Java because of course the site is really small. Therefore, let’s be frank, by the time we entered Tskhinvali it was a well fortified town, left by the main population, living in the military regime – practically a militarized settlement or, we can say openly – it was a military base. It was interesting that evacuation of the population started several days before …. it started several days in advance....

Chairman. On August 2, the evacuation started on the 2^nd of August.

M. Saakashvili. On August 2, evacuation of Tskhinvali population started. I do not know whether Mr. Merabishvili told you yesterday but when I arrived from Italy I told him I did not like what was going on. By the way I called from Italy several times saying I did not like the Russian rhetoric and the answer I got was that actually nothing was happening in the area. I still repeated that I did not like the propagandistic preparations. I also had this "August complex”: that we must expect something bad in August. But when I came back the situation was already complicated, the first explosions took place just before my arrival. When I asked the Ministry of Interior what this evacuation might mean they said that according to their conclusions it was a propagandistic tool – they were planning to take children to summer camps anyway and decided to make it look like the war danger. But when in a few hours they checked the information and I also started checking from various sources (for I always rely on various sources) it turned out that the evacuation of Tskhinvali population is really of an unprecedented scale. Men were tolled to evacuate families. All families were followed to the border and then men would not be allowed to cross it. Men were ordered to return while women, children and elderly people were allowed to cross the border. As soon as most of the population was evacuated... but not whole population – those families who did not have potential solders among the family members were not evacuated.  Why did this evacuation take place? Definitaly not because Russia loved Tskhinvali population. These actions definitely could not be considered as an expression of love. This was absolutely necessary and unavoidable measure from the military point of view, if the Russia wanted to start military actions. Why? Because Tskhinvali and its vicinity, including villages controlled by us, are connected to Russia by means of a narrow road and a narrow tunnel. Military machines started moving in as soon as the population left. On the 5^th and 6^th of August huge number of military equipment poured in. That’s what I mean when I say that maybe our reaction was late. Because if we had closed the road one or two days earlier their number could have been smaller. Of course they would come into the country anyway from another place since the decision was made but at that particular moment we could have gained some tactical superiority. Even though it must be noted that in such case definitely everyone would immediately say that the war was started by Georgia. Even though from the military point of view this would probably be correct. By evacuating the population Russia cleared the way for its military machines so that it would not be hindered by the crowds of civilians moving in the opposite direction.

The second point was that if the local fighters who stayed in Tskhinvali (and during the last years served in the Russian army or other armed structures, so called South Ossetian army which was really a part of the Russian army) would be concerned about the safety of their families they would not have time to fight. It was important to take care of their families so that they would concentrate on the fight. These were rational military reasons for evacuation. This was one sign.

The other sign was that a lot of journalists had been there: up to 50 Russian journalists, most of them military journalists, from the Ministry of Defense i.e. brought here on purpose to give news about the war. While the world was asleep, Russians were getting ready to spread information about the war. This in itself was a very alarming symptom. After this, on the 6^th we all – members of the Security Council were together when we received unmistakable information that Russian border guards moved into the Rocky Tunnel and replaced the local forces of the separatist government. I would like to stress, that let’s not say any more that Ossetians were let out and the population Georgian villages was left: in reality considerable part of ethnic Ossetian population was on this side and they were the one that suffered the most. These were not Ossetians but representatives of the separatist group and Russia who are now members of the occupation government. They were ordered to leave and the tunnel was controlled by the Russian forces. Even though Russia has been organizing provocations in the area for a long time, direct take-over of the Georgian side of the border was the first unprecedented action. This was very upsetting for us. After this we received information that huge number of military machines was moving in the tunnel and that they had crossed the Georgian-Russian border. We also received information that new Russian soldiers joined the military forces located on heights around Tskhinvali. We also were informed that total mobilization was announced in the North, including mobilization of military pilots which has never happened before and we received the information that this was not of an episodic nature – everything fitted into one system and really looked like the start of a military intervention. At 2 o’clock on the 7^th the repeated attack of Avnevi took place. If you remember in the morning on the 7^th of August I visited our soldiers at Gori hospital, who were wounded in the attacks of the previous days. On the 5^th we took all ambassadors of European countries to show how Georgian villages had been bombed. Nobody can say that we had not warned everyone in advance. They saw with their own eyes what was going on, hopefully sent the information to their governments and will verify this publicly in future. We showed this to everyone in advance. On the 6^th our people were wounded and killed in Avnevi. This was the situation when an attack on Avnevi took place at 2 o’clock. Two our Peace Keepers were killed, several were wounded and bleeding. David Kezerashvili came to me and pleaded just to give a permission to the General Military Staff to use artillery to destroy the weapon emplacement of the enemy from which they were shooting in the direction of the villages and the road so that the wounded could be evacuated. Otherwise they would dye. I must recognize that unfortunately I told him we could not open fire even no matter what happened, even at the risk of their life. I knew what I was saying because opening of new fire would mean going up along the unimaginable spiral of escalation and unfortunately I took this upon myself , but after this Iakobashvili had a conversation with Kulakhmetov. We sent Iakobashvili there and I told him on the phone to stop this confrontation at any cost and I repeated this twice. Like in the previous days Kulakhmetov recognized in writing that Georgian villages were attacked. Kulakhmetov told Kezerashvili: "What can I do? These armed groups have become absolutely impudent, they are shooting from behind our positions”. Of course nobody would believe that but it was clear that the Russian General was saying that to avoid responsibility for the following actions. His advice was for us to announce unilateral cease fire and maybe this could help the situation. I would like to say that for the first time in my life I made a decision based on the advice of a Russian general. I came on TV and said that we announced amnesty for everyone and total disarmament....

Chairman. Could you be more precise about did you give an order again, later on, about a peace corridor and ...

M. Saakashvili. The events we are talking about took place at about 7 o’clock in the evening if I am not mistaken i.e. in the evening. After this, we received more information from different sources that movement of the military transport continued. At 10:00 in the evening serious bombing of our territory within the conflict zone was renewed. Based on the analysis of circumstances it was absolutely clear that the Russian military equipment had passed Java and was moving in the direction of villages which, in accordance with the Peace Agreement  were not protected and where we did not have heavy military technique.   Thus, Russia violated these provisions too and its military forces were moving directly to those villages. Previously they mainly kept their heavy military equipment in Java and even Tskhinvali separatists complied with this because it was required under the Peace Agreement. Now they unilaterally violated this provision of the Peace Agreement.  In this situation I had preliminary consultations on the means of stopping Russia. The only means was long distance artillery that would reach the road leading to the villages. Therefore, when we all evaluated the situation, I gave the order to the General Staff to destroy the weapon emplacement, to stop the movement of the Russian military equipment and I strictly warned him then (and later repeated many times during the day) that everything must be done to protect the peaceful population, because Tskhinvali population is our population, these are our Ossetians, our citizens, our flesh and blood and occupation of the town was not our goal. We wanted to rescue our citizens, including Ossetians. At that stage the goal was very concrete: to stop movement of the Russian heavy military equipment deep into the territory in order to save tens of thousands of our citizens who practically found themselves in military isolation because the bypass road was unprotected and regularly bombed, villages were bombed and the heavy Russian military technique was moving forward. During the previous days Kokoiti announced that his goal was to clean these villages as he said ”from bandits”  but we knew very well what this "cleaning” meant and nobody doubted that the whole population would be included. In reality ethnic cleaning of the villages was starting. Why I am saying ethnic cleaning while big part of the population of those villages consisted also of Ossetians, the majority was Georgian but they both were our citizens, our flesh and blood. So in reality, at that stage we had a choice between a bad option and even worse option. This was the most difficult choice in my life. I would like to stress that.

-------------- Sorry to interrupt you but could you please give more details about these circumstances, namely how the order was given. I mean where the law enforcement ministers were at the moment and who was with you at the time. . . 

M. Saakashvili.  If I am not mistaken with me was our military … I think I have talked to you about it in detail ........

--------------How was the Order given?

M. Saakashvili.  Detailed questions were given on this and all of them were answered. If you want I can send you an additional report. The law enforcement ministers were no longer with me, the only person who was with me was Temur Iakobashvili. The ministers were busy because Avnevi was bombed at 2:00 and the military troops dislocated in Tbilisi and Gori were brought into full military readiness. At that time we did not raise the troops dislocated in the West Georgia because I still hoped that this was a temporary tension. Besides, if anything started, the military forces located in the West Georgia would have a lot to do. So, all our military commanders were at the places of their dislocation. Of course when the order was given to the General Staff, the Minister of Defense knew about it. Before that we had discussed many situations. In the afternoon there was a meeting of the Security Council. Many of the Security Council members were on vacation. Gela Bejuashvili was in the US, David Bakradze – in Spain (Spain or Turkey) and he had to change three plains before he could come back; Giga Bokeris was somewhere very far away because it took him a few days to return and many others from the Government were on vacation. The Second Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nino Kalandadze was in the US; I think Eka Tkeshelashvili was here. Anyway many people were absent, including many military commanders. From the military point of view the regime was very tense in May and April because the Russians started this escalation. As soon as the situation calmed down a little bit in July our military commanders took vacations. They are not robots, they also need rest, so I allowed the Minister of Defense to give many of them vacations so that they would return after the first decade of August. Frankly speaking I was thinking about this in connection with the chance that during the Olympic  games Russians might come up with something.  But we had to let these people take vacations at some time. So this was the situation at the time when the orders were given...

Chairman. Mister President, sorry to interrupt but I would like to ask this so that we do not have to return to this issue later on. Did the order given by you contain anything about entering Tskhinvali and if yes, what was the reason for this?

M. Saakashvili.  I would like to tell you that differentiation between Tskhinvali and other settlements is absolutely artificial and done on purpose by our enemy in order to shock the international community, and create an image of Tskhinvali as an unprotected invaded and destroyed city. At that moment the villages unfortunately were much more densely populated than Tskhinvali. Usually cities have considerably more means of protection from military attacks than villages. The theatre of war was the same. The decision was made taking into account the opinion of the military, but they received a strict instruction to avoid victims among the peaceful population. Our army is well trained (and I am very proud of it) to overcome problems of civilians and to protect them. As I understood at some point the military officials decided (and I fully share the responsibility for this) that without passing through Tskhinvali and destroying the weapon emplacements of the enemy dislocated on the elevations near Tskhinvali and in the town, it would be impossible to evacuate population of Didi Liakhvi taking into account that Russia’s heavy military machinery had already approached Didi Liakhvi valley from the other side.

Chairman. It seems the only way out was evacuation of the population from Tskhinvali.

M. Saakashvili. No, I think that mainly the population was evacuated by means of the bypassing road (I was watching this situation very carefully) but that road was an easy target from the village Dmenisi, and some other points, including Tskhinvali. From Tskhinvali it was easy to keep shoot in the direction of Tamarasheni and without destroying those weapon emplacements it would be impossible to evacuate population. If not for our army the number of victims would have been tens of thousands. It would be a new Srebrenitsa, because the armed groups that entered the area treated the remaining population the same way as Karachich and Vladich in Srebrenitsa. In reality we managed to pull out the local population from their hands.

Of course you asked a question why we have not done this earlier. Probably we lost the proper moment. Why? Because, I repeat once again, this escalation had such a chronic nature during so many years and months that it was difficult to identify the moment when the population really had to be evacuated. The local population was really heroic. They tolerated the life which most people in other countries would not be able to withstand. Shells hit the school of the Tamarasheni village but next day children and teachers went to the school and classes continued…    Houses were hit by shells but people refused to leave and returned to their houses. One women came out of the house at night and right at that moment a shell hit the house and her bed disappeared, but she returned to the house next day and continued to live there; people  cultivated the land, gather in the crops, apples, milked cows etc. We would have to evacuate and return them every other day because these incidents happened regularly. Unfortunately this heroic attitude made them used to a certain level of violence from which they had to suffer constantly. 

Do you remember there were years when snipers were hunting people who came out into their own yards? I remember a sniper killed a 72 year old man who came out to work in his orchard. Such things happened constantly in the area. By the way the terror against the local population was very similar to the one what snipers were doing in Saraevo – constantly shooting the population. The only difference was that the world heard about Saraevo immediately, while the information about the villages of Nuli, Avnevi etc. was known only in Georgia and now we have to speak about this. Yesterday Mr. Merabishvili let you listen to tapes on which on which conversation is recorded: the speaker is saying in vulgar Russian that a settlement must disappear from the map. This is exactly what was done in Srebrenitsa, what’s the difference? There has never been a Georgian commander who ever said or even thought of anything like that, to say nothing about doing such things.

If we go back to the statement made by Georgian commander Mr. Kurashvili, that’s absolute stupidity. He did not have either the mandate or any military order because he was not part of the military forces – he represented peacekeeping forces. He was in charge of dozens of soldiers who had purely peacekeeping mandate and when the crisis started he decided to speak instead of everyone –the president, the Commander in Chief, the ministers… I do not know what made him do it: maybe the unquenchable wish to prove himself, to show off, to pose in front of the TV cameras (which is unfortunately characteristic to our society) or, as he himself says the contusion… I do not know whichever reason it was but he decided to say something clever. Of course this was used by our enemy for propaganda against us and therefore of course this was a very bad mistake – the statement against restoration of constitutional order. This was the term used by Russia with regards to Chechnia. We are not Russia and Tskhinvali is not Chechnia.

There were questions about military expenses. If not for our army neither of us would be here today: Mr. Paata Davitaia would not be sitting here chairing this Commission and giving detailed questions to President Saakashvili (he wanted to send me to the tribunal last year but did not have any leverage; now all the leverage is in your hands); neither of us would be here in the Parliament. There would be someone like Mr. Igor Giorgadze and General Borisov would be here too. Probably the Georgian one would be making statements in front of TV cameras but the text would be written by General Borisov.

It was the Georgian Army, together with heroism of our population that saved the country. The Georgian state was saved by the Georgian army and hundreds of thousands of people who came out into the streets of Tbilisi, regardless the danger to be bombed.  The Russians knew that the army was still there, otherwise Tbilisi would have been completely unprotected and nothing would have prevented them from entering Tbilisi. Mr. Putin expressed that very clearly: "We wanted to reach Tbilisi in 20 minutes”. If not our army in 20 minutes Russians would have reached Tbilisi from Digomi road (near Kakha Bendukidze’s house) and in half an hour they would have been in the Parliament, here, at this building. But they knew that our artillery was dislocated around Tbilisi, they knew that we had started mining bridges. They knew that with few exceptions all the Georgian troops were capable to fight, the Government of Georgia did not go to pieces or run away and the Georgian public was opposing them.

Combination of all the above and the strict statement made by President Bush forced them to change their mind about entering Tbilisi. This was not a result of their good will. I would like to stress that the strategic goal of Russia was (and we will probably talk about it later) to dismantle the Georgian state, to change the Georgian Government by means of force, to get control of the oil and gas pipelines from the Middle Asia and the Caspian countries.  Fortunately none of these goals has been achieved. Fortunately or Unfortunately. Unfortunately because all this will stimulate them to start new provocations I am thinking about…   So I had to spend these 4 billions on the army. I would be happy to use it on building more highways, improvement of all schools (like the Tirdznisi school in the conflict zone which was saved by the pupils because the occupants were planning to burn it), free hospital treatment for everyone and improvement of hospitals (so that all hospitals would be like Kutaisi and Gori hospitals, or the Republican Hospital in Tbilisi) and to increase pensions 3-4 times.

Of course this was a hard decision to spend this money on armament but I had constant feeling of danger and this feeling is still very acute, as acute as never before. Maybe the fact that Georgia needs defence should not be a reason for panic. Nobody will be able to protect us if we ourselves cannot protect our interests and fight for this. It must be taken into account that there is economic crisis and we have to cut all expenses, including the defense sector.

Yesterday probably you watched on TV (I also had an opportunity to watch) training of our army…. at the polygon. The army is filled in quickly and intensive training is going on. Of course further military reforms are necessary for approximation to NATO standards. We are very much willing to use diplomatic mechanisms and our strong intention is to solve all conflicts peacefully, but the unfortunate experience demonstrated that this is not always up to us to choose. If the country needs we must be ready for fight and even sacrifice. We members of the Georgian Government are ready for this and our army is also ready for this.

Chairman. Mister President, now I would like to give Mr. Levan Vepkhvadze the opportunity to ask the questions and then to Mr. Dimitri Lortkipanidze. But before that I would like to tell you that the propagandistic machine is working. We have just been informed that all Russian media is watching the session. They announced that the President of Georgia acknowledged that he had started the war in Tskhinvali region. Now this information is disseminated through all their channels.

M. Saakashvili.  You see this is their usual method. We recognize that we did not surrender immediately and opposed them. We recognize and verify what we have always recognized from the very beginning – the Georgian Government made the decision to carry out a military operation in order to oppose the large scale Russian intervention and attack against peaceful population of Georgia. Once again I would like to stress this very strongly. We made this decision, even though it was a hard one, and it must be said such decision would be difficult for any person in the whole world and in Georgia.  The primary responsibility of a democratically elected leader is to protect the borders of the country and population of the country, including all ethnic groups. Could we please have a break for 10 minutes and then I will be happy to continue answering your questions with revived energy.

Chairman. Of course, we are going to have a break for ten minutes.

 After the Break

The Meeting is chaired by the Chairman of the Temporary Investigation Commission Mr. P Davitaia

M. Saakashvili. Where did we stop?

Chairman. Mister President, there is one question which Mr. A. Minashvili omitted and would like to ask. Then Mr. Levan Vepkhvadze and Mr. Dimitry Lortkipanidze will ask their questions and then you can go on with your answers.

M. Saakashvili. What was Mr. Akaki Minashvili’s question?

A. Minashvili. Let me remind you Mister President, when we were talking about the "sleeping town”. There are people who say that the peacekeeping forces dislocated in Tskhinvali and Tskhinvali region were attacked by the Georgian troops in advance.

M. Saakashvili. Very strict instructions had been given several times, in order not to give an excuse to Russia … because we knew that it could be used as an excuse. Even though it was difficult to determine who was an official peacekeeper and who was not, because there were several Russian Generals there, even though everyone prefers to close eyes on this fact; there was Colonel Barankevich and several other generals. Officially Colonel Barankevich is an officer of the Russian army. How can you say one day that he is a peacekeeper and next day that he is a fighter? There was also an ordinary Russian citizen Mr. Nindziaev who came from Russia. Anyway these people who came from Russia were using the positions of the peacekeepers for shooting in the direction of our peacekeeping forces and not just our forces but also peaceful population. The shooting was many times recognized by Kulakhmetov, even though he was blaming the Ossetian separatists for this. I verify that we have all information (from the intelligence agency as well as other sources) that during those days in Tskhinvali the weapon emplacements most frequently used for shooting the local population were those located near the positions of the Russian peacekeepers. We were obliged to react. Of course this implied certain risk, including risk for so called peacekeeping troops. We had warned the peacekeepers about it several times. We talked to them asking to fulfill the duties in accordance with their mandate as much as possible and not to get involved in this kind of provocations. Also, when several times in the past Russia made statements that a peacekeeper was killed (this was not he first time when they made such statements) it was usually death of one of so called "militia” members who died in such attacks and then was given a peacekeeper’s certificate posthumously. Why? Because according to the Russian legislation peacekeepers receive pensions and the families of killed peacekeepers receive compensations. This mechanism was working very well in Tskhinvali. I have a lot of evidence proving that for both political and economic reasons, members of local illegal militarized bandit groups were claimed to be official Russian peacekeepers after their death or if wounded. What are other questions?

Chairman.   Mr. Levan Vepkhvadze wants to ask a question and then Mr. Dimitri Lortkipanidze.

L.Vepkhvadze. Mister President, you were talking about 4 billions spent for formation of Georgian Army. Your position is clear: if not these 4 billions we would not have the Georgian state now. But my question is about 50 millions from these 4 billions. Yesterday I asked Mr. Kezerashvili what was the cost of creating the Reserve Troops during 2 years.  He told me it was 50 millions. Sorry, you like the word "million”, you also like the term "go to pieces” – "Government of Georgia did not go to pieces during the conflict”, but its a fact that the Reserve Troops "went to pieces” at the most critical point, when it was necessary to use them. Therefore, I have a question: in general many of the low rank military personnel and officials were punished.  But punishment of any high rank officials has not even been discussed. Are you satisfied with all of them? Even taking into account these 50 millions and the Reserve Troops?

M. Saakashvili.  . . .First of all I would like to say that I am very much satisfied with our army. Why? If not the army’s actions we would not be able to save our state. I said that President Bush’s statement was a turning point – it was made on the 13^th exactly at the same time when CNN was showing Russian tanks moving towards Tbilisi, and there was no sign that they had any intention to stop. Their generals were telling us that they were waiting for an order to attack Tbilisi. In Gori, Kakha had intensive conversations with the representatives of the occupants. President Bush’s statement was made on the 13^th, after he returned to Washington, listened to the reports of the US agencies. President Sarkozi came to Tbilisi on the 12^th. But before that, thanks to heroic opposition of the Georgian army, Russia suffered many thousands of losses: soldiers killed and wounded, up to 17 aircrafts burnt (including a strategic bomber and several helicopters). This shows that the 4^th Georgian brigade practically destroyed the 58^th Russian army. They had to fight against General Khrulov at the bypass road, more exactly at Dzara road. I would like to stress and it is strange that foreign media did not pay attention to the fact that General Khrulov, General of the Russian army, some time ago was the Minister of Security of so called sovereign republic of South Osetia!  General Khrulov was badly wounded but managed to run away with the help of his driver. He left his demoralized, destroyed army and armored vehicles the majority of which was destroyed. This was the famous 58^th army – the main Russian army in the North Caucasus, which fled from the battlefield. Afterwards this defeated General who fled from the battle received a medal so that he did not lose the face and this was shown by Russian TV channels. Last time a Russian general ran from the battlefield during the World War II – this is what our army did. After this, you know that Mr. Putin arrived and brought with him the best paratroopers from Pskov. I can say with full responsibility that it was not just one army that fought against Georgia and was destroyed, not only some special troops that we destroyed (including famous special force "Vimpel” that landed by parachutes on the Tsveriakhlo mountain), but 95% of the Russian military forces, a super state was fighting against small Georgia - 95% of the military force of a nuclear super state. Just think about this number. They have not used so much forces in Czechoslovakia, Hungary or Afghanistan. The number of troops that initially entered Georgia equaled the number of troops sent to Afghanistan, but you must take into account that the Soviet Union had a much bigger army, much more tanks and was much better prepared. Those people in the West who naively think that Russian tanks can fly over mountains are very mistaken and do not know the laws of aero-dynamics. There was a lot of talk that Georgia started the war and then Russia reacted. The God gave Georgia and Russia a great border. He probably thought a lot on the situation while distributing lands and gave us this border – high Caucasian mountains.  As you no most of these mountains are higher than 4 000 – 5 000 meters. After this, the First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party Mr. Edward Shevardnadze dug a narrow tunnel – Rocki Tunnel in these mountains that connected us with our Northern neighbor. Unfortunately these mountains were not high enough to keep away Russian aircrafts. During the World War II it was difficult for German planes to pass them. Russian planes are not the most modern one in the world but definitely fly at this height and the purpose of the Rocky Tunnel was exactly this. But I would like to remind everyone, that this huge army entered our territory and by the way it takes time to mobilize such a big army. A very interesting research was made by several serious American military experts. Mobilization of an army of this size would take minimum several weeks in case of the US and minimum several months in case of Russia. I would like to remind everyone about the events preceding the intervention. There were some political preparations: you know that after the NATO Summit, 20 minutes after the Bucharest Communiqué was published, Mr. Putin made a statement (I remember this very well, I was in Bucharest and journalists brought me this news and asked for a comment): "We will provide effective assistance to South Osetia and Abkhazia in return to the NATO’s decision." I would like to inform you that the Head of the Russian Military Staff said: "We will do everything to prevent Georgia from entering the NATO”. After the Kosovo decision Mr. Putin said:  "We have a special plan of what to do in such case”. In 2007, when a military unit was established in Dagestan Mr. Putin asked: "Where is this road leading?” The answer was "towards Georgia”. This was shown on TV and the Russian Government fully controls its TV. This was repeatedly shown by the Russian TV channels for the whole world to hear: "It’s great, we will have one more military rout for entering Georgia”. In this situation, when they closed all the surface routs for civilians, such were their political preparations. Several times they said they would create the same situation as in the middle of Cyprus. This was what they said to several high level officials in the West who informed me about it but somehow could not react to this accordingly (or maybe reacted but I do not know). Anyway all these were political preparations. Other preparations were military. Last year in November, after the well known events that took place in Georgia, I appointed elections and that was when I received information that cleaning of Ochamchire Port had started. The water area of the empty port of Ochamchire was cleaned from silt and various sediments, clearly for military purposes. I was shown pictures of structures at the Russian military bases in Abkhazia where at that time there was no equipment and the capacity was much bigger than needed for the military equipment of the separatist regime or the Russian peacekeeping forces. Therefore, I came on TV and said that military preparations were going on. I also informed our Western partners but many of them said that I was trying to invent external danger in order to divert attention elsewhere from the internal problems and release internal tension.  But this really was military preparation. In April additional paratroopers and railway troops entered Abkhazia. The paratroopers were dislocated around Kodory valley. It was clear that these were preparations for entering Kodory. I would like to remind you that last year, in October, the special force dislocated in Samegrelo destroyed Abkhazian special forces and two Russian colonels who were implementing reconnaissance operation in Svaneti mountains. It was absolutely clear that this was the regime of military readiness. Now let’s look at more recent events. Several days before the intervention the whole Black Sea fleet left Sevastopol and moved towards Georgia. Several weeks/days earlier explosions of oil pipelines took place on the Turkish territory, under some very strange circumstances. We are talking about Baku-Tbilisi-Geihan pipeline. Why did I call the situation suspicious? Because some Russian strategists could think that sudden increase of oil prices caused by the explosion during the war (you know that this pipeline has a significant impact on oil prices) could be used as a reason to tell the West that the oil supply was endangered and therefore some reaction was necessary on the ground. These are not just my speculations but a result of very scrupulous analysis, because I do not remember any such explosions ever organized by Kurdish separatists. It is a fact that the timing of these explosions was very suspicious, especially that this surprisingly coincided with Russia’s interests.

In the North Caucuses military forces were fully mobilized. We hit several planes and one of the pilots was 53 years old. As Vano Merabishvili told you yesterday, the first pilot was from the plane hit by the local Ossetian separatists and he was pelted with stones before he had time to open the mouth and say something in Russian. We transported this pilot to hospital where my wife visited him. The Gudushauri hospital was crowded with thousands of wounded people, 10-20 people in one room, while the Russian pilots were placed in a special Lux room and received everything they needed: food, visits of the Russian Consul and the Red Cross representatives. My wife asked them if they had any problems and they said they did not have any – it was us who had problems. When Sandra asked why, they said we treated our people badly. They were given this information in advance. I am telling you all this to show that the whole military machine and full scale of political and intelligence resources were mobilized for the intervention into Georgia. This was an existential fight for Russia prepared and planned long ago. What was done by our army under these circumstances? As a result of heroic actions our army managed to stop the Russians for a few days, with minimal losses to ourselves. I grieve death of every our soldier of all nationalities and I am not happy when I speak about numerous casualties in the Russian army.  The other party was constantly concealing the numbers but such information leaks. Their casualties were 15-16 times higher than ours. Our army managed to withstand their first attack before the international diplomacy would interfere.  The 58^th army was defeated and so it became clear to Russia that a small scale operation failed. So they moved to the backup option and used the land, air and navy forces prepared in advance, just in case: including the main Black Sea Fleet and strategic aviation - all military pilots were mobilized. Missile corps was also ready and I think they used more than half of their "Iskander” missiles - more than 60 tactical missiles and "Iskander” missiles were used against Georgia. We found only 7 or 8 of them, others are scattered somewhere in the mountains but we have video materials showing that these missiles had been shot. The Russians managed to transport all this into our territory from Larsi. By the time when they faced difficulties in Tskhinvali up to 500-700 armored equipment was gathered by them at Larsi. I received this information from Mr. Merabishvili who said that the army would try to stop the Russians but this could not be done for a long time. The Russians entered West Georgia. We were in Zugdidi and saw with our own eyes how they were entering from the famous road about which Mr. Putin was talking last year, in 2007. The Russians also were entering Kakheti territory from Dagestan. More than 100 armored vehicles were accumulated there.  So what was going on? If the Russian troops entered from Larsi and Rocky they would destroy the whole Georgian army dislocated near Gori, because they had 40 00 soldiers on this side and another 40 00 on the other side, ready to cross the border at any moment. More than 3 000 armored vehicles crossed the border; hundreds of "Grads”, "Uragans” and other artillery equipment; up to 200 military pilots participated in the fight. Therefore, we were realistic in evaluating out chances. Our army on which we spent a lot of money was good enough to withstand operations carried out by Russia in the 90ies in Abkhazia. At that time Russia was bombing and shooting us but at the same time pretending to be a peacekeeper and mediator. In such case our army would easily neutralize the attack. Our army would easily deal with so called "volunteers”, armed groups from the North Caucuses etc. To say nothing about local bands – we would not even need to carry out any military actions against them. In this case our army was ready to delay the Russians and for strategic defense of our capital.

Under the circumstances, when they were bombing the territory by means of more than 100 "Grads” (even though they were saying that it was Georgian party who was bombing Tskhinvali) and by means   "Iskanders”, when at some moment more than 50 planes were in the air, will you still ask me whether we had to continue defending several settlements against these forces? No matter how well trained and equipped an army of this size would not be able to preserve that territory. It was only possible to keep the territory for a certain time at the expense of destroying our own army. Even though of course soldiers are in the army in order to sacrifice their lives when needed, and they were ready for this sacrifice.

So this was the situation. Now I will answer about the Reserve Troops. I do not think that the goal of the Reserve Troops was very specific: it was control the settlements passed by the regular army, to protect peaceful population from any problems and to keep order in those settlements.

When Russia started the attack of such scale training of our Reserve Troops was not enough for fighting against a regular army. Besides, let’s speak openly, number of officers was not enough for leading the given number of our Reserve Troops and probably their qualification was not as good as we would like. This is true. But these people are well educated young people really ready to sacrifice themselves for the country. When Kakha visited the military base in Vaziani they were asking him to send them to the battlefield quickly. They asked him not to give a retreat order. Of course I grieve every single casualty, including those among the Reserve Troops but unfortunately the history of our country has always been such: we live because generations of Georgians (multiethnic population of our country) sacrificed their own lives for Georgia.

By the way, the last unit that bravely fought against Russia on the Georgian territory in Kazbegi in the 19^th century was an Ossetian unit. This unit tried to rescue the Georgian Queen who was captured and being transported to captivity. If you read carefully the novels of classic Ossetian writers you will find that many of them are dedicated to joint fight of Ossetians and Georgians against foreign invaders, including those from the North. We have this kind of history and therefore we unfortunately must always be ready to sacrifice our lives and fight.

It is natural that Georgia espiers to join alliances that will help it to avoid wars and trouble and solve all problems peacefully. I do not want to insult the Russian nation but the people who violated the Georgian border were far from civilized (could not meet any such criteria); this was very similar to Mongol invasion and those who know the history probably noticed the similarity … they were much like the soldiers described in Alexander Kazbegi’s books, also very much like the soldiers of the 11^th Bolshevik Army and the Bolshevik hordes that invaded Georgia later on.

Therefore, even though of course I cannot be satisfied with everything… I would like to say, that we have received a decision to renew our General Staff. When I came I thanked Mr. Gogava for what he had done. He himself does not think that he could have done maximum, it’s impossible to believe this. We appointed Mr. Chachibaia as the Head of the General Staff. He received the highest military education at the best military academy of the US.

Now we are sending many of our military personnel to the best education centers around the world. This has been agreed. We teach them foreign languages so that they can read technical literature. The army has language courses: English, French and German, because the most contemporary military literature is available in these languages.  We need intellectuals. Even though we are a small country according to the population number we have always won thanks to the intelligence, flexibility and dedication of our people.

Our enemies have almost always exceeded us in numbers, but Georgia’s fate has always been such. We must have no illusions about the future. We will always need an army. Of course it would be preferable to be a member of a big military alliance so that nobody is tempted to solve problems with the use of a military force or any other type of violence. Violence is definitely not within our interests. Our main instinct is constructive. Besides thousands of victims our biggest tragedy is that we have 500 000 IDPs from Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region.

But this is also my personal tragedy these hoards destroyed everything we had built: schools, hospitals, administrative buildings, businesses, attraction parks, e.g. a disco bar we built in the Liakhvi valley and an attraction park where I had a chance to walk with children from the Tamarasheni village. We had also organized and attended concerts there. All this infrastructure was destroyed, leveled to the ground by these hoards.

Last year, together with the local children from Kodori and Chkhalta valleys I personally opened a ski resort in the upper part of Abkhazia. It was fantastic. This is one of my warmest memories when we gave these children good sports cloths and they looked and behaved like first class sportsmen, real Europeans. Everything changes when you change conditions. They were so disciplined and had excellent local trainers. The first target hit by vacuum bombs was this resort. This demonstrates what kind of people we have to deal with. Our progress, welfare, education is absolutely unacceptable for them. That’s why they closed the road to Tskhinvali and blocked the means for development.

If we had been preparing for the war why would we build civilian infrastructure? I would like to ask this question! Why so much construction? Why would we spend huge resources for construction in the area intended for war? Everybody laughs at me that I paint buildings. The most beautifully painted buildings were in Kodory, upper Abkhaziaდა and Didi Liakhvi valley. Those painted and rehabilitated buildings turned to be very good targets. These newly built administrative buildings and schools were destroyed by the Russian aviation first in March of the last year and now in August. 

So, our approach was very clear, proved both by our actions and rhetoric: I have always been saying that Georgia belongs to all ethnic groups living here. It is not only a country of Georgians. This state belongs to Georgians, Georgia’s Ossetians, Georgia’s Abkhazians, Georgia’s Armenians, Georgia’s Azeri, Georgia’s Jews.

I have always been saying that and this has always been my primary thesis (since the time I was in the opposition or working at various positions). During Mr. Shevardnadze’s Government, when I was in the opposition, some people said that I was Armenian and that’s why people should not give me their votes. They also disseminated brochures in Akhalkalaki where the majority of the population was Armenian saying that my mother was Azery and therefore they should not vote for me. That was when I said that for those who hate Armenians I am happy to be Armenian, for those who hate Azeri – I am Azeri, for those who hate Jews  - I am a Jew and for those who hate Ossetians – I am Ossetian (and really there are Ossetians whose surname is Saakashvili), but at the same time I will remain to be Georgian, more than anyone else. This is my credo and the concept on which our State has been built. Our greatest king has always been saying that Georgia belong to its multiethnic Georgian population. So this is our philosophy. Who were the soldiers of our army?  Before this war started our Surgeon Magdaev died in Iraque. Ethnically he was Ossetian, head of our Sapper Group. Anal Lakoev –one of our most experienced military pilots, real hero of the Abkhazian war – is Ossetian. The same can be said about many other commanders, I cannot list them all here. We also have Abkhaz commanders etc.  

The most surprising was that when the Russian tanks were coming to take control of the Baku-Tbilisi-Jeihan oil pipeline, the group that blocked their way was local Special Force Unit from Akhalkalaki, Javakheti region, lead by Capitan (or Major, I am not sure) Odoian (Ogoian). When the Russians ordered him to move away, because they were going to Javakheti, he answered: "You can go only over my dead body”. When the Russians saw that the members of this Special Force Unit were Armenians they were not sure what to do and turned back.

This is new Georgia. When I became the President of Georgia, all conflict solving organizations all Western organizations had their representatives in Akhalkalaki, like ravens sensing death, expecting a big ethnic conflict to start any day. By now all of them have left, because this region is one of the most dynamically developing and loyal one in Georgia today.

This is a result of the above policy. When the Russian occupation forces entered Akhalgori, where many Ossetians lived and told them that they came to liberate local Ossetians, most of these Ossetians left Akhalgori and now we are building houses for them so that they can settle in other places because they were our citizens and we cannot stand such lawlessness. This is what I am so proud of. Nobody can say that Georgia mistreats its ethnic minorities.  

Wherever we could control the situation this problem was eliminated. Real separatism today exists in Russia, that’s where Russia must take care of the problems. That’s where real separatism and real brutality can be found. We had control in Akhalgory and Akhmeta populated by Ossetians live, in Akhalkalaki populated by Armenians, in Marneuli – populated by Azeri. We do not have any problems there – where we have problems are the areas occupied by the Russian military, so called "Peacekeeping Force”. In Abkhazia, where they created a 100km buffer zone and Tskhinvali, where they actually created an occupational administrative body and finally got rid of all Ossetians (or almost all).

I would like to remind you that we liberated from Tskhinvali prison Mr. Mr. Alan Parastaev. He has never been a great supporter of the Georgian state. Back in 80ies and 90ies, together with Mr. Dimitri Sanakoev, he was one of the most prominent separatist leaders.  Mr. Dimitri Sanakoev was the Minister of Defense, fighting against us with weapon. In 2004 Mr. Karkusov was fighting with soldiers subordinated to me (I do not know whether my comment will offend him) but today he is very successful Deputy Minister of Economy of Georgia. Today Mr. Alan Parastaev is one of the leaders of our delegation at Geneva negotiations. We resqued him from Tskhinvali prozon where he had been beaten so badly that one of his kidneys practically stopped functioning. He almost died. I did not have any idea whether this man liked Georgia or not, we just liberated and welcomed him and today I absolutely trust this man.  This is the strength of Georgia. The Russian FSB did not trust Osetins in Tskhinvali. That’s why they bought Barankevich, Mindzaev, Morozov etc.  We chose to organize elections of the administration in settlements controlled by us and to the local population elected the person who some time ago had been shooting at them to be their leader. We also formed Special Force Units from people who were shooting at us a few years ago.  We gave them weapon on behalf of the Georgian State and many of them died fighting against the invaders. That’s what new Georgia is like!

I apologize for extending this topic so much and talking so long, but when we are talking about the Georgian army I cannot restrain myself from saying that Georgia managed to achieve national consolidation in the most difficult conditions. Therefore, when Russia’s all attempts failed. They did everything possible to increase tensions. There was an attempt to blow up the bridge on the road between Azerbaijan and Kaspi in order to spoil our relations with Azerbaijan. There was huge pressure on Armenia. Several high ranking Russian officials and officers from the Russian Ministry of Security arrived to instigate unrest in Akhalkalaki during the war. Nothing happened. They could not stimulate any unrest because there are higher interests. No matter what the geopolitical orientation of each country is, we know that we depend on each other   We know that peace is the most valuable thing and we know that once the peace is broken this can lead to catastrophic consequences for the Caucasus. It is our common job to prevent this.

Of course we have a lot of shortfalls and of course we do not have many reasons to be happy of ourselves … a big part of the Georgian territory is occupied today. Georgia is under heavy pressure and blow, but formation of the Georgian state has been achieved, including formation of the multi-ethnic society. This country is an example of many nations living together, in friendship and cooperation, protecting common interests.

Many people might not remember, but I would like to remind you that when Georgia defended its independence Georgians and Armenians stood together in Javakheti and saved Georgia’s independence and the territory. This lesson is very important and we should not forget the surprising brevity of our policemen Ogoian (Ogoian is more correct). This is the basis on which our common future will be built.

Chairman.     It’s turn of Mr. Dimitri.     

M. Saakashvili. In future I’ll refrain myself from monologues like this.   

D.Lortkipanidze.   Mr. President. In the beginning of our meeting you have mentioned, or, to be more exact, expressed  an assumption, whether our response actions to Russian aggression  late?

I think that for the work of the Commission this will be a matter of principle. How confirmed is this assumption, because can the issue of responsibility of the Minister of Defense arise, this is the matter of discussion of the Commission in future, since the Military Intelligence Department is the part of the Ministry of Defense. Here we can discuss also responsibility of the State Chief, Mr. Gela Bezhuashvili. I’ll express my belief that this will be important for the work of the Commission and if you can confirm the above mentioned …

M. Saakashvili. Mr. Dimitri, I share,

Chairman.    I beg your pardon. I’ll interrupt you I’ll add in this regard. I would directly ask this question I terms that what you told, those changes that you implemented in this situation, speaking of General Staff, why didn’t you discharge the Minister of Defense? When there is an impression that after military activities like these, only two Ministers, Economics, Culture and Environment Protection  Ministers took responsibility…

M. Saakashvili. I want to tell you that the change of these last two ministers, I’ll start my answer with this, was not actually connected with the responsibility for the war. I have a great respect for example of Mr. Nika Vacheishvili and there will be a big center of Monuments’ Protection and he will be in charge of it. I thought that we have gained a perfect new Minister of Culture. What about future changes in the Government, I think it’s an ongoing process and we have a new Prime Minister. I do not pretend, as if this does not concern me, it concerns me. I’m the first one to be responsible, but I think, and this would be ethical and justified, to tell the new Prime Minister – give everybody გამოსაცდელი time, evaluate everybody by their performance. But I want to say one thing: I’ll turn back and it is continuation of Mr. Levan’s question, what you say  - in total, almost, almost maximum of maximum was, taking into consideration those deficits that we had in such a short time, for establishment of the Georgian Armed Forces. Was this ideal? Of course, was not. Am I satisfied with this final result? Of course, I’m not. The final result for us will be when we peacefully reach integrity of our country and of course, I’m not satisfied with the current results.             

But I saw, I was several times in Tskhinvali, nearby Tskhinvali, around Tskhinvali during this……combat and I saw that all the ammunition was deliverd on time. All the logistics was arranged in a correct way. All the transportation assets were moved on time. Our communication was suppressed and there were problems, you know, but many other things, meaning organization and what a civilian person can do, let’s say it, Dato Kezerashvili has managed it in a perfect way. Now he is not the Commander in Chief and he does not claim for it. Yesterday he answered your questions. I do not know, whether you are satisfied with his answers or not, what about me, what I saw, was impressive, we are democratic and you have opportunity to express your opinion always.             

Now what about Intelligence Department, I want to say, Mr. …go back, first of all whether our response was correct and timely, I want to say that I partly agree, from the military point of view we probably should start to act earlier, but today  it is difficult for us to convince the World that we were not the first ones who started and South Ossetia, you know what will be correct, on 1, 2, 3, when we saw Russians concentrated and there is a threat of their intervention, … as a preventive measures we should take with all our forces Roki tunnel under our control.        

And then you should see the justification of Russian intervention and reproaches casted upon Georgia The problem was that we are a small country and we have to make choice between diplomatic and military priorities and our mission was to maximally avoid conflicts using diplomatic, peaceful methods. Because as a result, if we acted earlier if they anyway would move in 80000 troops, 3000 armored equipment and 200 aircrafts from every direction, as it was planned, they would take without any doubt, and whether it was taken under the control or not, it would not make any big difference.

Based on this, I think that we had to act. If we did not act, we would not manage to stop their advance and actually it could be possible for Russia to say that we have nothing to do with it. Georgians and Kokoity had some fight there, some villages were destroyed, well, some population was killed, were totally emptied and destroyed, such things happen during war. We are peacekeepers, we only keep neutrality, as it was in 90-ties in Abkhazia and the World would have no reaction for this.  

I assure you, this tragedy is sorrowful but there are so many tragedies in the world, that they would say, well, again, there is something, somewhere obscure, something has happened in August. And the result of this would be very heavy. It would be the same, all these populated points would be cleaned-up,   Kokoity would declare himself and Bagabsh would declare themselves as sole winners, declare victory of the renown Abkhazian and Tskhinvali Armies on numerous Georgian occupants and Russia would wash hands of and say, we have nothing to do with it. So, that was it and after this it could happen, I do not know, some of you would not do it, or may be would, turn back to us and say, - look, here is incapable, unskillful Georgian Government that was not able to protect the population.

So, let’s say, this was not the best way, what has happened, but if you analyze the whole situation carefully, it is to say, that we had not a big choice. What questions are there?    

Chairman. To Mr. Nika Laliashvili. After him to Mrs. Khatuna Gogorishvili.

N. Laliashvili.   Mr. President, you made a broad review of the August events, and we already, as I can see evaluations, go to the Block and I am interested, you as the Commander in Chief, how do you evaluate the results of the August war. Is this an another defeat in Georgian history? Is this an unequal, heroic but lost combat for our country. Thank you.

M. Saakashvili. Thank you, Mr. Nika. I want to tell you, that first of all, defeat and victory are evaluated by the end of the fight. Georgia’s fight is not over; Georgia’s fight is going on and will last till victory, until Georgia exists, until Georgia has a democratic system, has the Army and the society, like we have, has Armed Forces and economics and we’ll be a successful society, successful country that will reach a peaceful development of the country. That is why our historical instinct as a result of the entrance of conquerors like this was one and the same: the statehood of Georgia stopped its existence for long time. I do not know how many examples were in Georgian history when 80 000 troops were mobilized at our borders, tens of thousands – intervened, I do not know what armored equipment can be compared with, since there was nothing like this in the Middle Ages, there were no aircrafts. Of course, if we imagine, approximately, taking everything into consideration, it is as if hundreds of thousands of Mongols intervened Georgia. And of course, always, in cases like this, Georgian statehood stopped to exist. We reached to save the most important thing: our social integrity, our democratic system, our statehood. Main strategic goals of our adversary are to defeat Georgian Government, full control over Georgian territory, destruction of the Georgian democratic system, control over oil pipelines and destruction of the Army.  These goals are not achieved. They also say that they are not achieved, this is not my speculation. Listen well to what they are speaking in Russian Duma, how do they evaluate negatively, including effectiveness of their troops, and I think, they themselves, their comments express everything. Now I want to say, unfortunately, this is the situation when there is little reason to be calm. And that is why our response is maximum cooperation with all our counterparts, maximum enforcement of all our democratic systems, survival of Georgian economics and preparation for peaceful integration with Georgia. I want to say  that the Georgian Government not only is not down, I use this terminology, I gathered the Georgian Government on the 12^th and I told them: whoever wants to leave, you can leave, whoever wants to take away the families, I do not advice, but you can, I stay here, indeed. And then they brought it in, the list circulated here, who has left and where. Nobody went anywhere. You have carefully checked it and you saw it, except those who were sent on mission to the neighboring countries with different economic issues and absolutely specific economic and administrative tasks. All the salaries, all the pensions were issued on time. We managed to keep banking system. Supply system, despite the fact that Georgia was cut into two parts was kept. There happened a very interesting fact, I was telling you about Akhalkaki, as a matter of fact, we used to have a problem with controlling Georgia-Armenia border on the Akhalkaki span and we individually sent fuel there through Poti to provide fuel and possibility of transportation to the population. But we see that this fuel disappears soon and then, local, and we could not understand what happened. Then the local population blocked the border and said: "Do not take out our fuel across the border!” and across the border was Armenia, that was poor and I did not like it at all. But the local population said strictly, this is our identity, our country, our border and the border must be controlled. So, the small details like these, that we never spoke about but they speak on their own. That is why I think, that we, I have told you that on September …do not believe that, well, let’s say, that we are winners. Because every my day starts with hard thoughts about, that and I do not overstate and do not make myself pity, with hell feelings about, that major part of Georgian territory, the most favorite part for me, the most favorite part is occupied by foreign conquerors. I, you know it well, Mr. Paata attended there, I went to Zugdidi on September 9, went there not only to encourage people, despite the fact that at that time it was serious concern there already. My first instinct and decision were to go up to Upper Abkhazia, to Kodori gorge by the road the we built there and to lead the gorge defence. Unfortunately I was late. Unfortunately Russians were coming over the river Inguri and unfortunately this road was cut for me and I had to go back to Tbilisi by a common vehicle. Because it was impossible to drive escorted already, and I remember it well and that feeling, I had on my way and … how patrol. Because everybody came from the sea, including Azeries, Armenians, those, who went to those countries and, well, our citizens as well, who went to Tbilisi from the sea. The biggest danger was on that road. Because Russian bomb launchers bombed that road. But this was a surprising view, that the Police was there, and traffic jams were there, at some places on Rikoti, in Shrosha and in Roki tunnel and some other places and they and aircrafts launched bombs and fortunately many of them fall into gorge, but I remember, on the one hand faces of people, they dismounted vehicles, we were locked in the traffic jam with others and they looked up into the sky, not with fear, but with surprise and I remember imperturbability of the patrol, they did not pay attention to the bombs and continued their activities of regulating the traffic, the country like this cannot be considered defeated, but the feeling of helplessness, that I stood there, the elected President of these people with my car in the traffic jam and I could not do anything to protect these people from the danger. There is a feeling of a very big humiliation, very big tragedy and until this threat exists, until these results are not corrected, I think that it will be impossible to speak about any success in any field, about any serious, big success. But at the same time I repeat once again, until Georgia’s heart beats, until the flag of Georgia waves in the Capital, until state structures of Georgia are functional and until the society is united and consolidated, Georgia will not be defeated. I want also to tell you that the strategic goal probably on this stage of one part of our adversary … is what they told to the State Secretary of America in days of August. Full ruin of Georgia. What does full ruin of Georgia mean, it means that in the Capital of Georgia, Tbilisi a marionette Government will sit, Georgia will be divided into different separatist regions or invent these regions, if they do not exist. To create some more so called states within Georgia, to prevent spread of Eropeisation Western democracy virus spread in their direction forever. In our post Soviet space we have to understand, what problems we have and what type of competition do we have with Russia now and we’ll speak about it afterwards. We have an ideological problem, not because we have an ideology, we build the life, but the fact that we build an uncorrupt, democratic, transparent society, the fact that it is possible to have reviews like this in this society, causes in them, in part of this establishment, cause a dreadful allergy, because they think that if it was successful  here, tomorrow common Russian citizens will ask a question, why cannot it happen like this in Russia, why cannot it be that "GAI” does not get bribes, why cannot it be in Russia, that you can make business freely, without any pressure, why there cannot be debate, reviews like this, why there cannot be a seriously open society in Russia, why cannot Russia move to Europe. Until it was only Estonia, now Russians said, these strange Northern people, with their Protestant religion, with their own rules, well they are not a big thing, when their beloved, but still an addition, Georgia, the country of the same faith turned out to be possible to establish a European type real contemporary society, based on traditional values, and also with our … return to our traditional European roots, this was a killing challenge. That is why until this idea is alive, until this idea is successful, if we continue our revival, if we continue our development, they will be defeated and we’ll consolidate and we’ll be winners. So this is my broad answer to this question. Today Georgia is in the existential fight and the result, speaking about the result is still early.            

Chairman.   Mrs. Khatuna Gogorishvili, please.

K. Gogorishvili.   Mr. President, I have such question, did this war delay in time restoration of the territorial integrity of Georgia, i. e. return of Abkhazia and Ossetia and whether integration is delayed in time and a specific question, that is kept discussing in the press and it is asked to you, Akhalgori, the status of today’s Akhalgori, is not it a some secret part of so called Sarkozy agreement, that was not known by the society. Thank you. 

M. Saakashvili. First, what about the first question, it is not a simple question. Today the situation is fundamentally changed. If earlier Russia played a peace-loving and formally recognized Georgian territorial integrity but never spoke about it specifically, that recognizes it, simply it never said that considers it as different separated territories, the fact was that in conditions of this peacekeeping-occupational regime these territories were torn away from Georgia and the World would appreciate them as peacekeepers and nobody would recognize this is indeed an international problem, and the situation worsened more and more and became as bad as possible. Today everybody recognized the start point. The territories of Georgia are occupied, Russians are occupants no matter how unpleasant is this truth, for the world commonwealth, this is the truth, that exists. Today, exactly for this reason, every European Institutions are involved in the resolution of this problem. I would like this support to be much more. I would like here not to be different hotbeds, that are, but fact is the fact, there is a support. There are many serious statements and our partners took responsibility. The issue of the European integration is seriously put for the first time, of real European integration, I speak about being closer to Europe and the territorial integrity of Georgia is very strictly mentioned, loudly, by all these international organizations and our friends and by the civilized countries of the world in general. China played a very good role, I speak about Europe and America, China, Central Asian countries worked, played an important role, many of unexpected countries, for us provided support and solidarity. I do not want us ever to forget and this should be written down in history of Georgia.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, Baitikunas, came to Georgia, came to us and said, I ask you, when we knew that the airports were bombed, I ask you to announce that I’m going to be camped on the runway of the Tbilisi International Airport, put a tent there for me, and announce for the whole world to hear, that the Foreign Minister of the EU member country lives on the runway of the Tbilisi Airport, and if they bomb this runway, they will kill me.

200 000 Georgian flags were sold in Lithuania in 5 days. Like our singers, whom I appreciate very much, wrote many songs, there, a lovely kid, a girl of 14 or 15, wrote a very thrilling song about Georgia and some other bands did. Big quantities of blood were collected in Estonia and Poland. I, the Polish press blamed and part of representatives of different parties. President of Poland, but I saw him 4 days ago in Akhalgori, I’ll tell you more. I’ll tell you what was not heard yet. When he flied to Tbilisi, he demanded, because Russians told him, we’ll not let you in the air space, and he demanded his pilot to land at the Tbilisi Airport, despite rocket threat from Russia, and this was a very, very real threat. I know this in details, because Sandra was on board too, she came back from Beijing, circuitous route. So, really, and I looked at him several days ago in Akhalgori, he did not move an eye brow, when they shot. Now it was dark and it was very difficult to understand, who was shot. There were many provocative Russian soldiers. That is why we have to never forget it. We really have this support. May be some countries show less support, but today the Prime Minister of Denmark was here, he strictly blamed Russian aggression, spoke about strict support of Georgian territorial integrity, spoke about support of our integration in NATO. This is our, these are our partners and our friends. Now, this is it, this is a new reality for us. And existential fight is going on for Georgia today. Georgia exists on the World map in this shape for millennia. During these millennia many huge empires attacked us. Much stronger, than today’s Russia, for that time. And we survived in these borders and the names of some of them no one knows except historians. That is why, this our nearest and long term historical perspective. If we manage to keep Georgian statehood in these conditions, we’ll restore our territory. If the Georgian state is down … and they know it, if it is down, then it won’t be unite. That is why they will try to downfall, down and destroy us, that is why we must keep ourselves, in order to integrate. This is our strategic priority today. And everything else, moaning, groaning, pouring ashes, conversations, like what will happen to us, since it is complicated, on the one hand and on the other hand everything is much easier and our tactical and strategic goals are determined. What was another question?                                   

Chairman.          Mr. President….

M. Saakashvili. What about Akhalgori, I want to tell you, that Sarkozy agreement was not ideal, but of course such stupid stuff was not written there. When Sarkozy came here, he brought 6 point agreement. In the 6^th point it was said, that territorial integrity of Georgia we, to be correct, the international status of these territories of Georgia will be determined on the next meeting. And well, this was completely unacceptable for me. I. e. we had to leave the issue of our territorial integrity open according to that cease fire agreement. …. Tanks came towards Tbilisi, I told him, OK, if they are tough let them come and destroy and kill us. But I, the President of Georgia, whose task is to keep the territorial integrity of Georgia, cannot sign anything, that may put under doubt the territorial integrity. President  Sarkozy tried to contact President Medvedev and he was told, that Medvedev had no time and offered to cal next day. This was some common diplomatic maneuver. Well, we told him that we cannot sign it and let us part on this, because these are unimaginable conditions. Well, when Russians realized that Sarkozy does not leave and does not stop his efforts, and we do not surrender, in an hour, or hour and a half, they demonstrated respect and picked the phone for the call of the President of France and agreed to take that point out. I say it, because this was the only agreement that I personally signed, it is cease fire agreement and this agreement provides troops withdrawal from Kodori, Liakhvi gorges and Akhalgori as the first stage. Why, because this is the status-quo before August 7. This, of course, base installation there is a violation of the agreement, of course, so called recognition is a violation of the agreement more than rough. But I want to say that even this, till status-quo is the first stage. The next stage, of course, is their getting out of Georgia, since they are on the territory of Georgia, breaching all international norms. But I think, despite of this, interference of European Union was a very important step. I want to say, that next day after their interference, they violated the cease fire agreement and attacked and started large scale bombings of Georgia. On that second day they started large scale attack on Upper Abkhazia and developed offence in Gori and Tbilisi directions. So, what Chancellor of Germany Bismark said, times ago, that often, unfortunately, agreements concluded with Russia, cost exactly the cost of paper they were written on. Including, that it was not an agreement concluded with us, this was the agreement concluded between them and European Union, that they roughly trample down till today.                     

Chairman. Mr. President, Mr. Levan and after him I have several questions.

L. Vepkhvadze. Mr. Mikheil, I’ll continue with the issue of Akhalgori and ask you two questions, if you please. The first question is about today’s Russian occupational troops’ being in Akhalgori. Part of experts thinks that 2 years ago, when so called administration, Sanakoev’s administration elections were hold. By this, Georgian side had done it itself, gave a certain legitimate base to that Russians are in Akhalgori. I. e. actually, we, ourselves restored Ossetia in former borders. What comments would you make?

And the second question, that is also experts, let’s say is heard in media, this is title 69, the chapter is "The President of Georgia”, it is written there, title 69, paragraph 2, that the President of Georgia conducts and executes internal and foreign policy of the country. He provides unity and integrity of the country. Taking Akhalgori and Kodori into consideration, i. e. Upper Abkhazia part of experts asks a question why the issue of Presidential responsibility is not put. Since the Constitution was violated.

M. Saakashvili.   I want to tell you, that the issue of Presidential responsibility is, was and will be always. I take full responsibility for everything that happened in Georgia till this time and will happen during the time of my second term. This is one, and it is to be decided by Georgian people and Parliament how they will evaluate this responsibility.

What about seeking for legitimate base. There is no legitimate base for one country to occupy another. This is Russia’s, Russian propagandists, and I do not know, military legal personnel’s, because, probably no common lawyer would never write such stupid stuff. I think this is a complete delusion. what a document could we develop, that would give Russia possibility to occupy our territory. Now we can say, that this is doubling, some foreigners repeat this lies, Stalin gave South Ossetia and Abkhazia to Georgia, otherwise they never were in Georgia. Stalin has created South Ossetia and Abkhazia especially for this reason. Let us do not deceive ourselves that he did not trust Georgians. Stalin, together with Orjonikidze lead the 11^th Army here, conquered Georgia and in 2 years Georgian Bolsheviks, Budu Mdivani and others, so called National-Communists declared that thank you for bringing us to the power, but we refrain from entering the Soviet Union and then they realized that Georgian Bolsheviks are not trustworthy. That is why they created these two formations as absolutely artificial Soviet adding. I do not say this that autonomy of national minority is unacceptable, on the contrary, I think, that their rights are to be maximally protected, their cultural, political, legal rights. This is my belief. I repeat it once more, I was an expert in this field. I wrote my first big work at the Norway Institute of Human Rights Protection about how to avoid already imbedded at that time conflicts in Tskhinvali and Abkhazia. I worked on this as a student, as a lawyer, and for me their rights, their broad, including the autonomous rights, this is a big component of my being and belief.  But the Soviet interpretation of this was creation of local elite of top bureaucracy and actual violation of rights of every ethnic group, including titled Abkhazians and Ossetians, whose rights, of course, were also roughly violated. That is why, now, these were mines that, autonomies created in a wrong way, were put by them and unfortunately they exploded. Now, our plan of autonomy was much broader, much more comprehensive, much more specific and much more oriented on self-governing, considering interests of all ethnic groups, having much more autonomy, than could be imagined in the Soviet period, much more economical and political self-governing means. That is, what we were doing. So, let us no seek the base. I think, that Sanakoev’s project was, the project of establishment of the South Ossetia administration, correct and this was unique experience of accommodation between different ethnic groups, how people are inclined to peace by reviving processes. Russians had first to construct barricades against this project, then arrange provocations and after all start this war, because this project was winning, the time worked for us. When I said two years ago, chronometer is on, I meant that every day a new person came out, every day a new event happened, every day a new hope appeared for people, that we would consolidate unite and would live next to each other. I want to tell you that, of course, probably many mistakes were made, including those, made by different Georgian politicians, and among them, by different Georgian Governments, but mainly by our Government. But our main policy was directed to accommodation and consolidation and protection of their rights. For me the problem of autonomy of South Ossetia, never existed, they shoud take as much autonomy, as they could. Even today one cannot put South Ossetia to his shoulder and take it with him, whatever railways are built there, they can even built a space launching site there and whatever roads they built, because it is the organic part of Georgia, this is a society, that is organically bind to other part of Georgian society. I was often criticized and blamed for it. I am for broad autonomy and I do exactly understand what it means, and I realize risks, connected to this in case of incorrect development but also huge positive showings, connected to this for seek of consolidation.                                  

Chairman.  Mr. President, I want to go back to Tskhinvali events. That well known statement that Tbilisi Mayor made, you gave him a task to make this statement, why did you give this task to the Mayor of the City, whose competence did not include .....   

M. Saakashvili. What statement, excuse me.

Chairman.  We are talking about that, making a peacekeeping corridor, cease fire and about making a peacekeeping corridor, Mr. Gigi Ugulava said that he received the task from you and the second question is do these words really belong to you, about moving the Capital or Georgia to Sukhumi in August.

M. Saakashvili. I want to tell you, that, first of all, Mr. Gigi was here with  other civil services, was mobilized there, significant part of Tbilisi motor car park was mobilized there. Many Ambulances and Fire vehicles, Fire service. The services worked well, and this is a success of Tbilisi Mayor. Tbilisi Mayor could make political statements, because he is a politician. He did not make military decisions and I think he does not claim for this and I now, you can make different interpretation of his performance, but his mandate was strictly defined. 

Chairman.  You tasked him.

M. Saakashvili. I tasked him to be there and to lead the civil infrastructure, his infrastructure that his is tasked with in the city, so nobody ask any more, what Ugulava wanted there, He wanted to perform his duties. This is one.

The second, about the issue of the Capital of Georgia. This, … speculation, about this. In August we would not be able to decide anything and you know it well and it was impossible to claim it. But this issue was discussed in the society in general and that, that if we signed, what we offered to Abkhazians, we offered them actually to divide power on the level of the Central Government, to the ethnic Abkhazians. I want to say, that the people of Abkhazia, these are ethnic Abkhazians and ethnic Georgians, ethnic Armenians, ethnic Ukrainians, ethnic Estonians, ethnic Jews, ethnic Greeks, all those people, who were forced out of there. 460 thousands are forced out of there. Recently one deputy from Greece, who literally was busy more with representing of the interests or other countries, rather than his own country’s, in Valencia on the Parliamentary Assembly when I was in Spain, told me several days ago, that, there, why do not you respect the rights of local Abkhazian population, who stayed there, that they do not want to live with you. I told him, ask those 30 thousand Greeks, who were evacuated by Geek port from Sukhumi that was bombed by Russians. Ask them, what they will tell you. You do not believe me? Ask your citizens. Ask several tens of thousands of other ethnic Georgians, who live there as result of this war and they will in the clearest way describe what exactly has happened there. So, but we offer Abkhazians and offered a very far-reaching suggestion, to rule Georgia together, to rule Georgia together. They had an opportunity, opportunity of dividing of power on the level of the Central Government, however and they would have a right of veto for every decision, that is about Abkhazia and they would also have full economic independence, free economic zones, international warranty of their autonomy, including from Russia, in case if they wanted it. And if after this all we agreed that the Federal center of Georgia is Sukhumi, but if agreed, I underline it, nobody would solely declare it. There was a discussion of this issue and I thought about it, I will not hide this, however I did not gossip with those people who now, this is the issue for the open discussion. This will be a subject of agreement. You know that we moved the Constitutional Court to Batumi, we move the whole number of structures to Kutaisi, delegation is made also, in conditions of the federal establishment of Georgia and based on the peaceful negotiations where the Federal Center of this Federal state would be.                    

Chairman.   You speak about constitutional limits, don’t you? I want to underline.  

M. Saakashvili. Within the limits of the new federal establishment we offered the ethnic Abkhazians. However I repeat once again, this is not an issue of our sole decision, it never was at this stage and in this direction this would be a big, long term issue of trust revival, negotiations and warranty of special protection. I do understand very well, what sensitivity the ethnic Abkhazians have towards their national identity and threat of assimilation. What happened to them today in terms of Russian occupation is the biggest threat that could happen to them. Because, now, does not matter, how they falsify history, Mukhajyr was arranged by the Russian occupational Army in the XIX century. Today they really face the new threat of Mukhajyr and new downfall and of course it is bad, it is a tragedy, one of the biggest tragedies that we have today, not the tragedy of Georgia in general, not the tragedy of those refugees and displaced and injured people, who lost their houses, but the tragedy of the people, who stayed there. The ethnic Ossetians are almost destroyed today, because actually this community that was well integrated in Georgia almost disappeared due to this occupation. The ethnic Abkhazians may face the threat of disappearing due to this occupation, because they do not need Abkhazians there, they need summer houses, military bases, military airfields and Abkhazians interfere with all these, by the way we know about it better than others, because we too have had relationships with our Russian partners and we know very well what is their mood and attitude. And even more, they do not need Abkhazians, they do not need them at all, they need Georgia.  They need Georgia and everything this is just some exchange coins, these small nations, in the big fight, to dominate in Georgia, in Caucasus, in Central Asian and Caspian regions. This does not cause any doubt.         

Chairman. To Mrs. Khatuna.

K. Gogorishvili.  Mr. President one specific question, please. Why was Erosi Kitsmarishvili assigned as the Ambassador?

M. Saakashvili. Here, I want to tell you that we all make mistakes, what can I do. I want to tell you, that by the recommendations of the Foreign Ministry this person was assigned. But at the same time I want to tell you, here is Mr. Gia Vashadze, former Deputy Minister of Foreign, we make one mistake per 100 successful assignments, sometimes one hard mistake. But this ministry, Foreign Ministry, I shall never forget it, worked day and night. ….   They were told on my task, Minister’s duties at a certain moment, then Eka told them, that you can go home. Nobody left the building at all. Georgian public service is realized and this Ministry worked heroically indeed with its modest personnel and its modest capability. And now Georgia is in the stage of establishment of its statehood, we achieved much success, we as a state are realized. If the attack like this would happen 2 years ago, I think, we would get down, I return to this term again, and, I think much more would be like this …. this, I do not want to name them this word, because we all know what it is, but there is one thing, that everybody, and it concerns everybody, this, I think, concerns some of our colleagues, this concerns every person, this concerns our acting or fired officials, dismissed people, discharged people, among them. Yes, it may happen, that they do not like this Government, but we must no, with lies and untruth, go over the border, where ends the fight with the Government and starts the fight with interests of own country. It concerns everybody. Please.  

----------Mr. President, you said, that ………. in Tbilisi I hope its for the reason, that as for heroic performance of our Army, same for support friend – countries from abroad. And was it affected also by the fact that they could not find support in the capital of Georgia itself and is it expectable that tomorrow or the day after tomorrow they will actively continue and make more active their activities in this regard.   

M. Saakashvili. I want to tell you, that first of all, once again I want to get back to this topic. This operation was prepared in Tskhinvali long time ago. Not ours, theirs. Because, that, imagine, in Tskhinvali in 90-ies was such illegal ruler, but ruler by people, elected by the people who stayed there Mr. Ludvig Chibirov, professor Chibirov is now a professor in Vladikavkaz. I think that he was a very good man and he is a very good man. He was a person, he wrote a big book and I have read this book in details and the main idea of this book is that the place of Ossetians,  place of South Ossetians was, is and always will be only in Georgia. He asked, he begged Shevardnadze, just sign something for us, sign an agreement, but this is the period, when Shevardnadze told Aslan Abashidze, if you remember, declare independence and, now, in the circumstances, when the Ministry of Internal Affairs was itself involved in Ergneti market and contraband there, nobody in Georgia had any desire for negotiations. Before elections Chibirov saw that threat comes from Moscow, because Moscow did not consider him …. the center for him was Tbilisi and he once again asked Shevardnadze, and there are many witnesses of it, that I ask you let us agree on just anything, for me to tell people before elections. "FSB” brought Kokoity, a former racketeer from Moscow, being completely under the control of Moscow and assigned him as the President of South Ossetia. After this they issued the order on passports’ issuance and this was followed by all those events, that, all the active involvement of Russia into these events. So this was a long planned thing, at the time, when no one of us hold these positions and were not actively involved into these issues. This was a well calculated scheme of that, to execute crawling annexation of Georgian territories and again I want, that in broad understanding, this war started at that time. August 7 was a desire of final completion of this war and final dealing with us. And, of course, since it was an attempt of final dealing with us, with us as with a state, I do not mean the Government, this threat, of course, still exists. I think, threat of military confrontation and it is comparatively decreased, because there are very unprejudiced European observers on the ground, but, unfortunately, our neighbor still has its strategic goals.

Will they try to find a support here, they try it always. I want to recollect whole number of provocations. I want to recollect year of 2006, well, let us start, let us go through the list. Provocations in 2004 in Tskhinvali, after this bringing in great number of weapons, after this, ministers assigned from Moscow, after this coming of Morozov, the Prime Minister of the Government of Tskhinvali, after this, in January 2006, I tell you about exploding the pipeline in Turkey, but this was not the first pipeline exploded. The first, pipeline, to be correct. The first and two electric transmission lines were exploded by the end of January 2006 and, practically Georgia was drowned into complete darkness and shadow of that winter and during many winters in the coldest days. That was an economical embargo, placed in Spring of 2006. This was an open attempt to depose the Government by Russian agents during the year of 2006. I want to remind you that I said about it in public for the first time, we arrested Russian Colonel Boyko, Russian Colonel with proved accusation of exploding of Police in Gori, we had every evidence that he exploded, he leaded and local terrorist group did explode. Russians did not say anything about it on TV, then they came to us and said, maybe, we can calmly negotiate, we do not need complications now, let that person out. I made, all of us made, may be not completely lawful decision, and passed this person to them under risk for ourselves. And after this, their activities did not stop on this, it became even stronger. After this we had to do it openly, openly arrest Officer of "GRU”, also with proved accusation of espionage and preparation of diversion and openly pass him to them in front of TV cameras. That is why this was such a long list of these provocations, that and we do not speak about attempts of attack on leaders of opposition, attempt of killing of Koba Davitashvili, proved attempt of killing of the Deputy Head of the Intelligence Service of Georgia. We have videos that we passed to G-7, where this case was specially discussed on the Internal Affairs Ministerial meeting, how they tried to kill the Head of our Intelligence Service and how, in Vladikavlaz, the Head of local "FSB” in front of TV cameras passed money and tasked to kill high ranking official of Intelligence Service, the official Law Enforcement body of the other, your neighboring country. That is why, of course, these attempts will be continued, I do not exclude, that as you saw, even based on different other examples, that there were our citizens, who are ready to cooperate with this, but our response to it is more democracy, more freedom, more discussion, more economic reforms, more openness of the society and the main recipe is not a work of Police and Counterintelligence, the main recipe is to have healthy debate In the society, everything to be named its own name and the truth will be born in this discussion and this will not be in the interests of our adversary.                              

Chairman.  Mr. President, here, all this, here, out of this information, that we received, especially, out of your last statement, are you going to conduct negotiations with Russia and are you ready for the restoration of the diplomatic relations and to start a phase of negotiation?           

M. Saakashvili. I want to tell you, I want to give a brief history of our relationship with Russia. On 2004, my first official visit as the President was to Russian Federation, to Germany and Russian Federation, to be correct, first to Germany.

But, well, I on purpose went there before America, because there were speculations, that we are American project, how you can often hear now, including some naïve foreign publications. I met President Putin. Well, it was a general conversation excluding the two details.

He said, that, the first – please, do not push removal of military bases right now and the second – that your Security Minister, acting, this is our friend, and I ask you to take care of him and have good relationship with him. Well, now, this conversation was about Valery Khaburdzania. I have no personal claims to Valery Khaburdzania, but it is a fact, that Putin, the leader of the state that bombed us, turned off road (typing error, gas instead of road – translator’s note) suddenly declares that our Security Minister is their friend, we should not touch him for this reason.

Well, after this personnel shifting happened here. The Security Minister, we closed the Ministry itself, joined it to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. I thought that was right. We are the only post Soviet country except Baltic countries that did it, and after this on my second or third visit, when Putin asked, - well, how is our friend, I told him, - your friend is promoted, he is now the first Deputy General Prosecutor, - what kind of promotion is this? You have fired him. I told him, - now, - excuse me, but you did a very bad thing. But I want to tell you, I do not arise indeed and I do not declare Valery Khaburdzania to be a Russian agent, but I would never accept indeed that even friendly Russia’s President, and indeed at that circumstances relationship was not really friendly ministers in our country, especially the Security Minister who has to take care, that interests of other country in our country do not increase. This is one.

Then another. I have told you about bases. After this about the events in Ajara we had coordination with them, we worked but Russia’s Foreign Ministry did everything, not to depose Aslan in Ajara. Great number of Russian officers came on mission and run N-72 (typing error – T-72 instead of N-72 – translator’s note) by the border, as if they simulated military activities and if not very wise position of Turkey, that strictly accused any separatism in Ajara, Russia could manage its business. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, take it out, made statement one more aggressive than another about Ajara and despite this, the local Ajarian population, has shown complete heroism and bravery and we managed to avoid that bloodshed and to free Ajara.

After this on the second or the third day, I think on the second day, despite that, I repeat it once again, that with the leadership of Nedkachyov, sent by Russia, Dumbadze exploded bridges and this was Russian special operation. You know that who took Dumbadze, now, do you know by chance? The master came and took him. And I want to say, that why did we change Dumbadze, because we changed him to several hundreds of innocent local inhabitants, all of ethnic ancestry, who were taken as hostages. Indeed for me to drop even one hair from the head of even one our person, whether Ossetian or Georgian, is not worthy of sitting in a jail of one betrayer of the Motherland, I do not use it as a political term, this was a decision of the Court and that is why I can use it, anyway for keeping a diplomatic courtesy, I called Putin and told him, that, thank you very much, Vladimir Vladimirovich, for understanding. 

Now, that, indeed I would not deceive myself, that you helped us, but you met events in Ajara with understanding  and I thought he also would keep a diplomatic courtesy and he would answer that well and let us be friends, - but unexpectedly for me, he interrupted me very roughly and told me, that now, this time, we have helped you in Ajara, this was not truth indeed, but, - let you know, in future, in South Ossetia and Abkhazia you will not have any gifts from us. Well, I was confused a little bit and told him, that, - I do not know, let us speak a little bit, send somebody, may be we’ll agree on something.

Igor Ivanov came, without bringing anything concrete, we whirled around him this way and that way. Not only we whirled around him, for example, Foreign Minister Lavrov was assigned after and at a certain moment journalists asked him, - here, what do you want from Georgia? At first, when they asked Ivanov, he did not answer. Lavrov answered, Georgia knows it well itself, what do we want from it. But I want to confirm with whole responsibility, that never we could get any concrete answer for any of the issues.

And after this a serious complication happened. Because we closed contraband from Tskhinvali, Russians brought in several hundreds of armored equipment, 25 "MI-24”s, several thousands of troops. More than enough to remove the Armed Forces of Georgia of that times out of Tskhinvali in several hours.

So, this was our expansion of this relationship, but I want to say that we offered them many things: first of all we entered number of peaceful, for example, in regard of Tskhinvali, tell Russia, that, - if it is your interest, for Ossetians to have autonomy, for you toe be declared a winner, here, you say that Georgians cancelled Ossetian autonomy, - let you make us, - we tell them with these words, - make us to give autonomy back to Ossetians, be a warrant of their autonomy, you will be winners, we shall be winners, Ossetians will flourish and everybody will be happy.                        

---------- Mr. Mikheil, excuse me for interrupting you, Mr. Erosi Kitsmarishvili was here with us several days ago.

M. Saakashvili.   You already refer to this person as if he were a classic…

---------- Yes, no, because he made statements and, correspondingly, it is our duty to subsequently check these statements with you as a personal source. First that he said after your first meeting with Putin, Putin said to you on this meeting, that he is not ready to discuss issue of Abkhazia, but he is ready to start discussion on the issue of South Ossetia. 

M. Saakashvili.   I do not know how this person could learn it. Probably he read about it in "Alia” or in "Asaval-Dasavali”, it is long time since I read "Asaval-Dasavali”.

---------- And I’ll add another thing that he said. You have mentioned August. He said, that in August the Government of Georgia was reviewing, he mentioned specific date, and specific people, who attended this meeting, was reviewing possibility of force, i. e. conducting of military operation in South Ossetia.   

M. Saakashvili.   What August?

---------- August 2004.

M. Saakashvili.   On August 2004, we conducted anti contraband operation. I made a decision at that time, when the situation was complicated, to move all military formations out of there. I made this decision. Well, what about, now, first speculations.       

Now we can many, open newspapers, many things are written there, I tell you about what was if you are interested, I’ll go on telling in this direction. After this the provocations happened, that I told you about, gas turn off, electricity turn off, military embargo and On November 2006 after the first has happened, that pass of spies to Russia.

Putin went there, Russian television started to speak, that the war will occur between Georgia and Russia. There was a very big military rhetoric, it was, now we blacksmith Georgia, started deportation of Georgians from Russia and, in thes circumstances President Putin went to the EU summit, to Finnish city Lahty and read a real reprimand to the EU leaders about, that Georgia is going to destroy small nations – Ossetians and Abkhazians and blamed us on attempt of genocide. Same rhetoric that was used this year.

But there, I’ll tell you how the sitting was conducted. Many of our friends attended it, it was agreed beforehand. Putin’s speech was very aggressive and then President of France Shirak, who was his friend and ally, said, - that OK, OK, let us leave this issue and move to other issues. And for a minute Chancellor of Austria took the word, Schiesel sad, - let us speak about this issue, we are interested, in this issue till the end. And after this every leader, without any exclusion took the word, including our today's guest the Prime Minister of Denmark and everybody strictly criticized … Putin.

And th EU, practically completely …. has shown towards his aggressive policy. After this Condoleezza Rice went to Moscow, she had a very strict conversation with Putin on the level, as far as I know, that at a certain moment these negotiations almost failed. But anyway, the message, as they say now, was received and in a week the issue Georgia and about the war disappeared from Russian TV screens.

But after this I was in Minsk on the CIS summit and there I had a very unpleasant conversation with him, with Putin. At first he scolded me for the spies, then said, that I know, that economical embargo does not work, unfortunately, he  knew about it, may be, if he considered that we are destroyed and will perish, he wouldn’t do anything more, but, - we shall see, - I’ll make you North Cyprus, - what does it mean North Cyprus?  North Cyprus scenario, by hi understanding is a military intervention, to another other country and holding its territory under military occupation and after this its recognition – absolutely definite military political scenario. Kosovo was not on the horizon at that time, He took this scenario, but other … it was named then a Cyprus scenario.

By the way the same he told to some western Leaders. On my every attempt, that was, - OK, let’s speak; what exactly do you want from us? – We want, - was the answer, fundamentally, - you to change your behavior and, - let’s we say, may be we can speak, - no, first you change your behavior and then we shall speak on specifics, change everything what you are doing.

I have to tell you, once again, that it was an attempt, that the model of Georgia as a successful state with economical reforms, democracy, free speech expression, integration with West, with Europe, this everything was basically, ideologically  unacceptable for that authoritarian model that this specific leadership tried to implement in the whole post Soviet space.

Fundamentally unacceptable was also, that it was considered in 2004 we were not considered as a big enough threat, in November-December 2004 the Revolution happened in Ukraine and the leader of the Ukrainian Revolution used to say, that they adopted example of Georgia, and then we were already considered to be a killing threat. At that time the situation became very complicated for us. That is why and after this planning started. I remember, after the Ukrainian Revolution Russian energetic corporations representatives were called to Kremlin and asked, - how is it possible to turn off gas and electricity to Georgia, and they said, that it is technically impossible and after, you know, they thought a lot and after some time executed direct explosions in North Caucasus direction.      

So, we, unfortunately had a fundamental agreement of this type on the main issue. My conclusion, after all, was this, this type, provided this political system, this freedom of choice, existence of Georgia today’s leadership in Moscow is, unfortunately fundamentally unacceptable. There is no personal incompatibility. Even today I want to tell you, that I have no irritation, personal neither towards Putin, nor to the President Medvedev. This is a fundamental incompatibility. This, that they think, that our existence is their serious problem and their serious defeat, and how can this be corrected, I, to tell you the truth, to not know completely. I think, the long term correction of it is in integration of Georgia in Europe, in further hopefully civilized development of Russia, democratization of Russia, civilized relationship of Russia with other European and other civilized world in general and as Russia has less today with Finland, as, let’s say it had in times of Stalin in 1939 and we do not want to wait for such a long time, hopefully, it will have less problems with us in the nearest future. As Russia does not doubt today existence of independent Czechia, independent Slovakia, independent Hungary, hopefully, it will not doubt existence of independent Georgia.

Russians always had three fundamental issues to us. The first, that they would make North Cyprus in Georgia and, in general, we are going to have problems. The second, that Ukraine is not a real country, it is a territory. The third, NATO cannot protect Baltic countries. They have already executed the first one. I fear that the second and the third are still on their program. We have tried everything. First of all, we made a serious offer on autonomy, for Russia to be a serious warrant of South Ossetian autonomy. We made an offer of very broad autonomy to Abkhazia. Again we offered Russia to be a broad warrant of their autonomies.

In the month of June, I sent a letter to the President Medvedev, I repeat it once more, and thought, well, what can I offer, that if they do not want war, to make satisfied. I know, that they like resorts, Bitchvinta, Gagra, well, Sukhumi. I know, they had bought property there, as a cheap gain and I told them, that, - OK, we are ready, your economic interests here, we are ready, to legalize in terms of our agreement, being of your peacekeepers more to the North, for example on the river Kodori, of course, in terms where the territorial integrity of Georgia is recognized and protected and we do not negotiate on territories, we do not negotiate with territories, but really your economic interests will be legalized, political occurrence. Let us speak about opening the transport communications, which would be good for the Sochi Olympics, and we supported the Sochi Olympics till the last time and in return, let us get refuges in for 80 kilometers till the river Kodori, on the distance of 80 kilometers, let us make mixed administration, let us make a free economic zone. Let us give people possibility to develop and give the example of how is it possible to resolve conflict by development and economic success. To reinstate the train Moscow-Tbilisi-Yerevan, open communications, give people possibility to contact with each other and I think this was a very good plan of conflict resolution. More long term plan, but the one compatible with Russia’s peaceful, theoretically peaceful interests.

We got a very rough answer to this. After this Stainmeyer was involved in the process, before that the EU accepted our plan, OSCE accepted our peacekeeping plan in public. Stainmeyer brought not an ideal plan, that was weaker than our plan, but we agreed to it. By the end of July, Russians seemed to agree, then Abkhazians said, let us postpone the Conference till the end of August. So, they took this month, from the middle of July till the end of August. Here’s a question, why? Condoleezza Rice came and also, had relationship with Russia. Russians said, - let us discuss this issue in September. This is to be questioned why did want to take time-out for the month of August. So, and I know, this plan, which, that leaked. I want to say, that I did not advertise this letter since we were in the process of negotiation and we did not want, to speak with each other by newspapers. This leaked to Russian press and reaction of Georgia was very painful. I was maximally informed, but I thought that I had to take this responsibility, bravery, offer maximally brave and flexible plan to Russians. Because I knew that the main value on this step was for us freedom and gain time. 

Chairman.    I’ll underline, Mr. President, ....

M. Saakashvili. And I want to, .......

Chairman.     Was not there a plan of dividing, of dividing?

M. Saakashvili.   No, this was not a plan of dividing indeed, I repeat once again, but this was a plan of step by step resolution. Not at once, but step by step resolution plan, considering Russian economical, political and military interests of Russia. Including, of course, at the cost of postponing of a complete resolution of the conflict. But at the cost of that, as a minimum, half of refugees we would move back, because of that, as a result of this and really would start an integration and consolidation process. But this would be a process stretched in time. That is why, when we offered this, I think it is clear for everybody, that we did not speak about no Blitzkrieg, especially Blitzkrieg with whom, with Russia a Blitzkrieg? We have seen how Russia interfered in Abkhazian elections, when it had no headache of it at all, on January 2005. It has recently lost elections in Ukraine. How they interfered in the elections! I remember well Putin’s threatening in spring of 2004: we’ll not allow, by all methods we’ll not allow a military decision of the Abkhazian issue. I knew it well, that Russia would fight for Abkhazia with all its force. And this was our main problem, for the attack not to occur on Kodori and we developed all sorts of plans, thousands of plans of reinforcement of Kodori. But, unfortunately Russia completely refused this plan and it was absolutely clear for me already, that the situation, considering that military railroad is completed, to be correct, railroad for military equipment transportation is completed and this "MIG”s marked everything there, around Tkvarcheli and on Kodori direction, on Gali direction provocations happen more often, it was as clear as day for me that something much worse would happen, than we could imagine. Could we or not to intercourse with Russia different way. We and intercourse with Russia, probably, may be, some mistakes, may be, were made, of course, but we cannot enter any agreement at the cost of the fundamental value – territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia, people. History did not give us right to do it. You say…do we want negotiation with Russia. We are in negotiation mode with Russia in Geneva. We have kept consular relationship with Russia, since it is in the vital humanitarian interests of citizens of both countries, but do not request me, to me, as the President of Georgia to agree that Russia would have one Embassy in Sukhumi, another one in Tskhinvali, here, as near as your years are, and the third one in Tbilisi. This will be a mockery of every international principle of law and this will be an absolute trampling down of Georgian dignity,     sovereignty and basic legal principles. We will by all means have relationship with Russia. I want to say, that no Russian in Georgia dropped a hair from the head, I know this attitude, what it is. Recently my wife took Dukhobors from Tsalka and Ninotsminda for two days sightseeing tour, I know, that these people are very …. despite the fact they were invited to go to Russia, no one went, this is their motherland, they are Georgian Russians. And even more. Recently I have met several Russian former militaries in Batumi, they were walking like this, they felt themselves well, they served there and then they stayed there and Georgian patriotism seems to be in these people. Not even this, Borisov too seemed to swear to have Georgian patriotism, but of his own understanding. I had intense conversations with Kakha on this issue. But the whole substance is that these people, these people must, these people must understand, I speak about the leadership, about the Government, that it’s possible to have relationship with Georgia, as united, federal, in terms of protection of every right, different ethnical groups’ representatives, autonomies and integral state formation, integral subject and in this case, we, I’m sure in future will have very good relationship. I always told Russian leaders during these meetings, I can recite for hours, recite poems of Mandelshtam, Yesenin, Vysotsky, our brother Okujava and many other prominent poets. I do not think, that every "FSB” Colonel, General, who work on different positions, can have contest with me in this, they may be better in other things. I love Russian people very much, I respect them, but most of all I love my country and I love justice nd I told them, you, ma be not the next, but the next after next President of Georgia may not know even a single word in Russian. You have more influence on us today than you can gain by military provocations or dividing of our territories. You can really be Georgia’s … because Georgian people love your culture, you love our culture, we love to meet each other in different situations, we love, and after all, there are more Georgian restaurants in Moscow, than anywhere else. We are one and the same, in many regards, there are many things that unify us. But in the circumstances when we respected each other, we respect them there are no our soldiers on their territory, it is their soldiers who shoot us in Akhalgori. Their soldiers are on the Inguri Bridge.  City of Akhalgori in the XXI century is renamed to Leningori. They build a new Berlin Wall in Abkhazia. We are in the European country of the XXI century. So, I think, this has no perspective. I think, we are at the nightmare stage and keeping of this, doing of it without punishment is impossible by any of historical principles and they keep it, the situation will worsen much more there and then all others will have problems around them and will worsen even more, before it starts to become better. That it will become better there too, I have no doubt at all. I think, that we have to continue our Euro Atlantic integration, our relationship with our traditional partners and we, of course, the better shape we are in, the easier will be to solve even the most unsolvable problems with Russia. This is my deep belief, we will not … the Lord sees we have not created these problems and we are those who want to solve them most of all, but solving of our problems, shaking hands, I, you know I have stretched my hand on the first elections. On the second elections I said, let us start everything from the blank page. We shook hands, but we’ll shake hands on the Psou and in Roki tunnel, or, if not there, then in Lars, somewhere there, at a lit place and after this we’ll visit each other without tanks.                                          

Chairman.  Mr. Givi, please.

G. Targamadze. You have mentioned a Euro Atlantic integration and I want to give you a question on this issue. Do you think that the war significantly interfered NATO integration perspectives for Georgia, in general, against the background of statement of the new American administration, what are your expectations for the December summit and do you think that besides political issues, unconvincing pace of democratic reforms in Georgia is interfering factor for NATO integration. Thank you. 

M. Saakashvili. I want to tell you that when I spoke about strategic goals of Russian intervention, I may be missed, but I mean, it is about to prevent Georgia from NATO membership, Georgia and Ukraine, because we go in the package. The main aim of this war, one of them, was that NATO would declare that Bucharest decisions are cancelled and Georgia cannot in these new circumstances become a NATO member. NATO firmly declares, and the most skeptic country among them – Germany, that despite the August aggression, Georgia anyway will become a NATO member. This is the first serous victory. The second one, about that much talked-about MAP. Now this MAP at the due time was invented for several countries, for Baltic countries, because it was a step for membership there. Before that there was an intense dialogue, invented especially for Czechoslovakia, for Czechoslovakia I times of Vatslav Havel. That Vatslav Havel, by the way, who said the attack on Georgia reminds him Sudetland, German occupation of Sudetland … that shame as a result of agreement between Czechoslovakia and Munich, that Europe of that time experienced. So we want to join NATO, but we do not want MAP, we want to join NATO. If they will think about any new technique, how to make Georgia join NATO, this will be very good. Lastly this was the joint initiative of America and Britain. Will this be a difficult way? This will be a difficult way. Will there be provocations?  There will be provocations, but do we have any other way. Do we have any other warranty of our protection. We, on the one hand, but we enter there not because NATO will return us Abkhazia or Tskhinvali. We want to join NATO, because we want Georgia to develop and keep statehood and be consolidated, for us to be a part of this big system, for them to help us, but also for us to help them, for us to be a part of this big decision making system on global issues. When you are effective, when you are useful, then you are helped more and not on the contrary, nobody needs completely useless, ineffective countries. That is why I, when I get foreign assistance, now it is announced we received four and a half, five billions, and I hope, the Parliament will control this, it must not be considered as to be kept somewhere in Bakradze’s room or in mine. Years will be needed for it to flow and I hope you will control this, but I do not want Georgia to be hanged on the foreign assistance. We have to have a real economics; people must have a real income, real work places should be created. We cannot become like another occupied Palestinian administration, another formation that constantly lives on foreign assistance, Georgian self-respect, dignity and mere pragmatic calculation is based on being self-reliant and same about our security. We must be able to protect ourselves, to resist adequately and be adequate partners in every issue and that is why I think, that we have a perspective regarding NATO. I think, many thing will be decided by spring, however, I hope a serious support will be expressed towards us, support was not decreased, but even widened. I have told you once more, there are well known countries. There are elections next year in Germany and this is a very big interelectional topic between different parties. And another thing. This issue is in on of the countries, but today, you look probably at the Prime Minister of Denmark, which is not, let’s say a Baltic country and let’s say, does not automatically express interests of our traditional allies, that is it, in the most firm way supported ambition of Georgia for NATO membership. And same about many western traditional European, old European countries. England is very active, administration of America expresses great support, by the way there were some speculations in previous days that America would retreat, nothing like this happened, on the contrary, they are even more active, than in April and today they all their activities are agreed with the new administration, I want to say and as far as I know. So, and I do not know whether these details were discussed, I can not swear, but in general, their foreign policy will not change. So, in general I am very optimistic. This is not about the question will it be or not, but when. What question did you have besides this one?                                   

Chairman.  Mr. Levan had a question and Mr. Dimitri after him.       

L. Vepkhvadze. Mr. Mikheil, I want to get back to your statement that you made in those days. How do you think … part of people think that the statement included a serious threat and more radicalism, who say that this statement included state secret …

M Saakashvili.  What statement.         

L. Vepkhvadze.   I’ll tell you now. On the 12^th or 13^th in the evening you made a statement that a big part of the Georgian Army, the majority of it has survived, including military equipment and they are in the forest.  

M Saakashvili.  I said they were in the forest? I cannot recollect it now.

------------------- There was a statement that the biggest part of the Georgian Army has survived and they are efficient and we have resources, including those in the forest to resist if it is necessary. Your question, I think repeats one of the questions of Mrs. Burjanadze.  

L. Vepkhvadze.  Yes it is one of the questions.

M Saakashvili.  I want to tell you that we really managed to save absolute, not absolute but almost whole our Army and fighting equipment, practically everything. Vano Merabishvili was correct yesterday, when he said that every inhabitant of Borjomi gorge knew where Georgian tanks were buried and    everybody were interrogated separately and they were offered money, everything and no one told us out. This is consolidated, integral society. Same in Zugdidi they had our "Buki” assembly and local, Samegrelo police, private policemen shoot it and blew it up on its way. And I shall never forget, for e[ample Megrelian population how they heroically resisted the occupants. With absolute dignity, they looked down at them, they came in and started now as they thought that they would greet them and they already had passports ready for the people. It was really looking down with disregard and defiance position that Megrelian population had towards them. This was really absolutely, the expression of civilian heroism from every inhabitant.

We were ready for any kind of resistance and now we are even more, if we need it. There was a very specific issue in August. Either we should consciously choose a way of Chechenisation i. e. guerilla warfare. We would destroy plenty of equipment without any problem, but they would probably occupy the biggest part of the territory of the country and now we would not be a state any more, we would be a territory, like Chechnya, like Afghanistan was at its time and actually, as a result of it, is now. That is why it was a hard decision, of cease fire, but this was a choise between statehood and no statehood. What about that we have …. and we develop many other plans in these situations, because there is one thing that Georgia can never do , to stop fighting for existence and independence. Once it happened to us and more than 70 years were needed to correct it. And let us not make another historical mistake like this. If we can compare this Russian intervention to anything, this is really Russian intervention in 1921. Because same way it intervened Poland as a result of, for reason of ethnic minority protection after the Pact of Molotov-Riebentropp and actually independence of Poland stopped to exist. It intervened with the reason of ethnic Azeries’ protection to be reinforced in Azerbaijan at that time and Georgian statehood soon stopped to exist. Always when they came to protect any ethnic minority, Georgian statehood stopped its existence. Now they had no luck in the main thing, considering many internal and external factors. With the consolidation of the society, heroic resistance of our Army, our … rhetoric, and here some people thought, whether we needed such rhetoric. But this rhetoric has clearly shown them that Georgia would not retreat and here they do not deal with cowards. And same with international response, we gave time and the response was very, very sharp. We got used by the way to such support when the President Bush said, that the whole Georgia fought for the World and now it is time for the World to fight for Georgia. World to fight for Georgia – it is not a common statement for the President of America, and it is advice for Georgia, the World’s fight for Georgia goes on. This is not only our fight. This will be a difficult fight, full with contradictions, there will be obstacles and problems. Now, let’s say what Russian policy towards Western countries is. Not that they are good people themselves. No everybody knows that Russia acted in a bad way, but even Georgians are not correct in everything. Georgians are guilty too. Tens of millions dollars are spent, only in Washington officially 15 million dollars were spent last year, and the God knows how much was spent unofficially, for propaganda, lobbying Washington is a small city, 15 million dollars and this is real and count that majority of this money is spent on articles against Georgia, bribing authors and here it is not necessary to praise Russia, the main thing is to say that Georgia is bad. Both of them are bad. Of course if any Georgian will join it, paid or unpaid, and confirm all their awful versions, they will be happy with it even more and they will take it up. But we must not be scared with it. Because we, despite all these obstacles, deal with the democratic world. The truth finds its way there. Yes articles like this and that were written. Commentaries like this and that will be made. But when we are right, and we are right, the truth will find its way and we will justify and this support will become even stronger.                                   

Chairman.   Mr. President I give floor to Mr. Dimitri and then I have couple of questions.  

D.Lortkipanidze.       Mr. President, I drive your attention to the issues of the National Security Concept. I have a specific question, but excuse me, I want to make a small foreword in this regard. Since, as you know the National Security Concept this is, its regulations are regulated by organic law and its cornerstone is the enhancement of the defense capacity of the country, which on its turn, includes one important segment. This is development of the civil defense system. We had possibility to interrogate before you, of course many political officials, law enforcement representatives and today I may say with confidence, bring a few points on this issue that I consider to be confirmed and I want to tell you that the education system in this regard does not exist, notification system of attack on populated points is cancelled, all the shelters are out of order and not accounted, Material Reserves Department is cancelled and is taken out of the organizational structure of the Ministry of Economics of Georgia, I’ll specify, this happened in ministerial time of Mr. Kakha Bendukidze. My question will be very specific. In these circumstances what place should Civil Defense have within the new Military Doctrine?     

M. Saakashvili.    I want first of all tell you that now there are different concept of Civil Defense. In 50-ies, 60-ies, 70-ies whole Europe was getting ready for the war with Russia of those times, with the Soviet Union. In Switzerland under every big building there were bunkers with 1 year supply of food products and cloths and different stuff. Well, they were lucky and Russia did not attack them. But it attacked us with whole its strength. Now, if we speak about serious defense, we have to dig bunkers literally under every house. I remember, in my yard I played in me childhood and there was such small bunker and mainly rubbish was there. In the Soviet times these bunkers were not used as they were assigned to. The Soviet Union dug them, but I recollect we used them as places to hide or adult neighbors used them as trash containers, as I have told you. The main thing, as I think is that Georgian economy is not down. The information system is not down mainly, Georgian journalists worked heroically and we managed to issue salaries timely, movement of transport, fuel supply, we managed to solve many issues. Now, we do not live in the closed world, our borders were open this or that way and many different countries, how many different countries border us and excluding one, all the others are ready to take part in supply and creation of back of Georgia. Of course we take into consideration your remarks and we are ready to work even better, however I do not think that only pasta quantity supply will help to make business. The toughest was not whether we had or had not pasta and buckwheat supply, the toughest was that our society has shown such calmness, people did not run to supermarkets and did not by all the products, as soon as a single person … I’ll tell you more, when several Governmental agencies bought for victims and this created somewhat panic, but at once … that people did not do it. It is enough, hundred people in Tbilisi, hundred people had gone and made supply for themselves for months, bought everything in advance, and such panic would arise that no resources and reserves would help. Our main reserve of firmness anyway, despite the fact that your remarks are to be taken into consideration turned out to be a calmness, self-discipline, orderliness of our society that many other European nations with more rich experience,  experience of statehood would not show. And this was I think the main result of the fact that we have seen how people went out into the streets, under bomb threat, how people went out into the streets on September 1, more than million of people hold each other’s hand. Is not it expression of being civilized, making chains like these, only the most refined, I repeat once again, the most refined and civilized nations, including our region, Europe. We have seen how, really even the most part of political spectrum, this everything, with consolidation, with calmness and being next to each other. Georgians broke all records of integrity and practical destroyed many skeptic forecasts, including those of foreign observers. And in future, provided this integrity, provided this common sense and calmness we shall achieve everything, we shall achieve absolutely everything. We await big challenges, we have to refine everything that you are speaking about, but let us also say that the main resource is not … not the system that we are speaking about, but the main resource is democratic self-confidence and expression of civilized, consciously made choice of freedom that our society has shown.                                          

Chairman. Mr. President, you know that we receive questions via internet and there are many questions from the population but I would extract two of them.    The first one, there is a very big interest towards that well known scene shots were security took you away in Gori. What did really happen, what was a threat for the President of Georgia at that moment?

And another question, why did the President of Georgia task the Minister if the Internal Affairs to build houses for refugees?            

M. Saakashvili. In Gori we were bombed and my bodyguards acted in a completely non standard way, in what comprehension. Now bodyguards are trained, in this case not mine, but in general, to save the object of protection from bullets and attacks and when Russian aircraft flew over us very low and threw down several bombs around, they decided it was an attack. That is why, nobody asked me anything, 15 people jumped on my head. Probably you remember my surprised face, it was on every screen of world televisions, because 15 big guys in military uniform and bullet-proof vests on my head, but to say it softly this was absolutely non adequate reaction in this situation. Whether there were 15 and even 100 people piled over each other, if 500kg bomb falls down on your head, it is on the contrary. We have shown by this that we are here and come, strike. That is why I told them to leave me alone, disperse and go out of there to different directions one by one. But the main thing was not that I was bombed, the main thing was that my people were bombed, they were unprotected, and I told you about this, when I walked along that road all the citizens of Georgia and this was the biggest tragedy that happened to us. That is why, of course, we were not scared but we worried about it very much, and the fact that we were not scared reflected in the next work of our Government and performance of our people. The Government was not scared because it had, it was the Government of the heroic people and I think, the people were not also scared, because they saw that the Government was not scared and we stood by each other. Of course, in such a time you can eat your tie, because you are worried, but the enemy of Georgia did not see and will never see our fear, our scared eyes, and our back. Everybody has to realize it well and it will always be this way. We have learned a surprising lesson of maturity during the war. We received, we withstood such challenges, I repeat it once more that many, many countries that are more experienced and rich in terms of economics and statehood would not stand it. And this was it, my biggest respect is to no, just to our partners, friends, others and first it belongs to our people. I have been abroad many times and I go abroad many times and I have many times heard appreciation of Georgians’ heroism from many foreigners. And this is so indeed. Some people think that our people are daring more than enough, some may declare us crazy, what is the sense of fighting, who we are pushing, but we fight for our freedom. We did not attack anybody and we did not go over. They came to us and wanted to destroy us and here are two options. Yes, Nazi Germany occupied 80% of Europe without a single shot; this was an option for some nations. We are Georgians, who have this in our blood, no matter, how stronger the enemy is, you must fight for your freedom, fight for your independence, because we have seen what it means to loose independence and an attempt to destroy us, we experienced it very sharply. We made this second option as crazy and daredevil it may seem to anybody we do not want to have such option, that is why we want to be a member of European commonwealth, that is why we want to join NATO, that is why we all want to stand together, to develop, to construct many skyscrapers in our cities, for them not to have a desire to bomb them, to have many contacts, to make much more friends that will protect us even more in tames of threat, but these do not change our motivation – to fight for our freedom, independence, multiethnic, equal in rights, democratic, free Georgia. This is a reason, motivation of my life, and I think, it is a motive force for each of us.               

Chairman.          The second question was, Mr. President, in regards of construction, that you tasked the Minister of Interior Affairs with. Why did you task the Minister of Interior Affairs?        

M. Saakashvili. Because ... this construction to the Minister, I know that Vano gave you a different answer, but my motivation is, was, that ... there is a very big problem with security. Now, at that day, we have a very good program, the whole area free we sow grain with Americans free of charge and we shall see, and, practically we shall give peasants product worthy of tens of million dollars in the nearest months. At that day we mounted tractors, it is a place nearby village Rene and so we drive tractor and there are three kilometers there and then hills and at that time my security started to worry, because Russians were on those hills. Russians brought out mortars, well, I was told to dismount the tractor. I did not dismount, we reached the end of the ploughed field, you can see it on TV, it was filmed and we came back with the same imperturbable face. However the reality is that I was there once and our people have to live there every day in such circumstances, they every day are under such risk. When I came out I saw our local inhabitants, whose family members were kidnapped previous day for cutting firewood on those hills and in this situation, of course, the structure is needed that is organized first of all, and second is aware of maximally keeping security rules. 

Chairman.     Thank you, Mr. President. I would to Mrs. Khatuna ....   

K. Gogorishvili.     One question that probably is very interesting for our society. How do you think, Mr. President is there a threat of renewing of military activities?

Chairman.  And I would add one question. It is about, Mr. President, what  measures do you conduct and will conduct for the families of those, those warriors killed in action who sacrificed themselves to the territorial integrity of Georgia. For the peaceful population, what kind of improvement of social issues is planned?            

M. Saakashvili. I think that with the arrival of European observers and a serious economical crisis in Russia, Threat of renewing of military activities is comparatively low today, than it was let’s say two month earlier. But there is an existential threat to our existence and this threat is not over. We have to be careful, aware, integral. This does not mean that we do not continue to live normal life, to develop, but we have to continue constant seeking for additional warranties of our security and for our future peaceful integration.

What about the care for families, I have met families of several killed servicemen including when I passed orders to them. This is a big tragedy but also a history if big dignity. These are people who causes different parties’ ... taking them out into the streets. They did not allow anyone to get close to them, because their sons made a conscious choice to sacrifice themselves to Georgia. When great number of Russian troops intervened Tskhinvali, several warriors refused to come out, they were sitting there till their last bullet, they resisted till they were killed, because this was a land of Georgia. They did not intervene; they were protecting their own houses, their own society from the over mountain conquerors. Over mountain is the very precise word, they came over mountains here and these people need to be specially praised. We’ll not be a society, if we do not praise them and also those people, innocent peaceful population, who were killed. We’ll continue to assist them, continue to assist their children. Their children must be proud that they are their children and must also be proud with the state they live in, with that state, because of that this state must create for them adequate, worthy conditions for life and existence. I shall do everything, to use even the last resource for this. And I want to tell you, that I listened here to television anchorman, I switched it also, that very day was when we buried several our guys, heroically dead and who fought till the last drop of blood and…We really know they turned back in haste, our warriors. You must really must be reserved, but really blood pressed my neck. It is easy to speak being lay down in a studio, how your warriors ran out, when at the same day we lost our boys, who sacrificed themselves, for him to mumble stuff there, excuse me for this expression. And I think, that all of us should be more responsible for our freedom, our independence and appreciate, from now on we’ll appreciate what we have much more. I have often heard, how well it developed… how did it do to us. This will develop tough again, we’ll overcome the world crisis, and we’ll much more advance. But we’ll advance in the circumstances when we are together, when we realize that this everything, what we have today, has its price, nothing is given and gifted, nothing is warranted and this is a constant fight for existence for all of us.           

Chairman.          Mr.  ……. the last question. After this already…..   

-------------- Mr. Mikheil, there were very many questions, among them the questions, that are heard in the society and by media, we hear them often. Today, here in the newspaper "Versia” is published "7 questions to the President Saakashvili”. We have spoken about the majority of those, one is left, the 6^th question, this one, I would confirm, and your answer would be interesting. And there is information that Marat Kulakhmetov promised to Georgian side for big fee, that Russian peacekeepers would not take part in a conflict. How real is this information and whether this was a Russian trap.  

M. Saakashvili. This is approximately the same like Condoleezza Rice and Bush called me and told that, go on now, push, get in, do everything, while we, that, how it is called, …..

Chairman.  Mr. President ….

M. Saakashvili. I’m busy with that, how it is called, in Olympics. Now one can write himself everything and invent everything. The truth is that there was intervention in Georgia, peaceful population in Georgia turned to be under strike and Georgian Government and me as elected President of the country, took the measures, that were risky, that were, may be, almost hopeless, but there was no other way. I took measures, to protect historical integrity of the country, save the statehood of the country.    

Chairman.  Mr. Nikoloz has a short question.

N. Laliashvili.   Mr. President you have fairly mentioned, that during the work of the Commission we really head to listen to any true things, also had to listen to lies and false stuff, and now, despite this, of course is fully a prerogative of the Commission and I understand it well, I’m just interested in your personal opinion, will the work of our Commission be a full-fledged, will we be able to define the full, objective picture, in case, if the Commission will not listen to the former Ambassador of Georgia in Russian Federation, I mean Mr. Chubinishvili, the Acting Representative of Georgia in the UN, former Speaker of the Parliament and considerations of some military experts that are authoritative for the society in regard of the August events?

M. Saakashvili. I want to tell you, that it is your prerogative. If you have noticed, I have never interfered, I was never interested beforehand, whom you listened for. All your sittings go live on different channels, including this sitting. The most uncomfortable questions are asked, the most inappropriate questions are heard live and this is our strength. I, solely, appeal to you, that, more correctly, Commission, sooner it puts results, the better. Most of all I was glad to hear that you are going, as far as I know, to meet with people, with victims. Because for me, the main measurement is not officials. I, after this everything has happened, did not base any more only on my military commanders and conducted anonymous interrogation, made foreigners to conduct it, among injured population with several questions. 

First. Who has started the war? I was interested in their opinion because they were there. Everybody said in one voice that this war was started by Russia. They did not blame our Ossetian brothers, however, Ossetians shot them too, of course, Ossetians were on the both sides. They said this war was started by Russians. Then they said, did our Army come in too early. Most of them said the Army came later then it should come. I. e. on the contrary, they blamed us for being late and for that. This is the most truthful witness of what happened there. No international investigations there, international journalistics, internal journalistic, different officials will not be able to give answers like these people will. These people are people, grown up in the democratic society, for them it is not difficult to express their opinion, all the more, people, who have lost everything. They are the strictest our evaluators and the main measurement of all our activities and the main destination of all our activities are they again. That is why I think that that the last word, in my opinion people must say, people, who were injured most of all, who lost their relatives  and lost their  belongings acquired with such difficulties. We grieve about cinema and outpatient facilities and hospital and even those, how are they called, attraction amusements that were constructed there, but they, they have lost much more, they have lost graves of their ancestors, for a while, temporarily, and their and lost forever, because the property is destroyed there and has to be made over again, their property acquired with pain, property acquired by generations, because it was burnt, destroyed, this everything was pressed over by bulldozers and indeed, no one will tell you the truth, I assure you, better than these people.                     

Chairman.  Thank you, Mr. President, thank you very much for coming, which …. You know that this was your desire and received much information, we tried to ask all the questions and thank you for the patience that you had during this time. We, the Commission will discuss these activities, will in the shortest term try to elaborate conclusion and those recommendations, that will be developed by the Commission, during the work of the Commission many issues were revealed that are important, issues of state importance, the response to these issues is urgent and important. All this will be reflected in the recommendations. Once again thank you very much for coming and the sitting is closed, it’s over.

M. Saakashvili. Mr. Paata, I want to tell you, that it was, what was today, it was a 5 hour test. I have not pass test like this since I studied at the Institute and it was, I prepared myself thoroughly, to tell you the truth, I’ve read many materials, I had to renew many things, but I know well, everything that we are speaking about stays with history. All of us together, this is important for the coming generations, this is important for the present of Georgia and for evaluation of the past. Naturally, it is your merit, that you created such a body, once again I repeat, that we, I have heard many, among them, unpleasant questions, painful questions, there were no easy questions at all, I want to say, to the attention of our majority members, I have not heard easy questions from you too, but this is correct, this is, what we all, have to create together. This way we’ll gain profit. Today we do not have a contest of number of tanks, aircrafts and ammunition, we have a contest of ideas. Freedom, democracy will always be stronger, than even armed with tanks, unfair authoritarian idea and the highest cathedral of democracy is this. I could never imagine, I have been many times in this hall as a member of Bureau of Georgia, Chairman of the legal Committee, member of Bureau of the Parliament, of fraction, Chairman of the Majority fraction among them. Here, as a rule, low rank officials were sitting, higher than them did not come here. Khatuna remembers it well, because despite young age of Georgian parliamentarianism …. itself is a chronographer. And this is unique indeed. You, including opposing …. representatives are sitting at the end of the table and strictly ask strict questions to the President of Georgia. I want to thank you, this was a big experience for me, I hope I gave comprehensive answers. I am sure I’ll leave this place and regret, I could answer something in a different way, may be more, provide more information, but I’m not going to die indeed.  So I am at your full disposal and we can implement it as a constant practice. You know that according to the new changes, that I have offered, the President does not come annually, but, according to the new version of the Constitution, I’m ready to come to the Parliament quarterly or, my be even monthly and take absolutely equal part in Governmental question-answer process. Not be somewhere high and far, but be close to the appropriate body. Also be close to the Georgian people. Thank you for everything.         

Chairman.          Thank you very much.  

GEORGIAN VERSION