Regnum, Russia
May 20 2006

Khaindrava usually gets unmasked himself: Interview of Vice Speaker
of South Ossetian Parliament Yuri Dzitsoity
Read it in Russian

REGNUM: Mr. Dzitsoity, when asked how Georgia will react to the South
Ossetian parliament’s declaration on the genocide of South Ossetians
in 1989-1992 and its political-legal assessment, Georgian State
Minister for Conflict Settlement Georgy Khaindrava said that he does
not know any such body as the parliament of South Ossetian in the
territory of Georgia. How would you comment on this statement?

I always say that one should not ask analysts to help to unmask
Khaindrava. One should just let him speak out. He usually gets
unmasked himself. And what do you expect from a man who was one of
the ideologists of the Georgian Fascism, a man who was one of the
first ardent supporters of Zviad Gamsakhurdia (first president of
Georgia, who started the Georgian-Ossetian conflict – REGNUM). Hence,
in terms of morality his hands are in blood up to the elbows.
Naturally, he looks at South Ossetia and does not see it point-blank.
But, on the other hand, he is right – there is actually no South
Ossetia in Georgia, there is no parliament of South Ossetia in
Georgia. South Ossetia is not Georgia – I absolutely agree with
Khaindrava here. South Ossetia is an independent state, consequently,
its parliament is the parliament of an independent state.

REGNUM: Why doesn’t Georgia react to such grave charges?

In fact, we did not expect Georgia to plead guilty of the genocide of
the Ossetian people. Georgia is not homogenous though: there has been
emotional reaction by Shevardnadze, who qualified the actions against
the Ossetian people as genocide. There has been prosecutor Razmadze,
who initiated a criminal action against Gamsakhurdia. One of the
charges was exactly the Ossetian genocide. That is, in Georgia too
there are sensible people. On the other hand, we don’t expect the
present Georgian authorities to give an objective assessment of what
happened. As I have already said many of the present-day Georgian
leaders were took part in those events, that is, in the genocide of
the Ossetian people. They can’t punish themselves, can they?

REGNUM: Do you expect any reaction from the international community?
For example, the head of the OSCE mission Roy Reeve just said that he
has given relevant documents to the OSCE president…

I thank him very much. In this light, I should note that not
everybody has recognized the Armenian Genocide yet. It took place 91
years ago, but neither Turkey nor many other states have officially
recognized it to date. The point is that we take the declaration on
the genocide and its political-legal assessment as a basis of our
relations with Georgia. Our position is that in the 20th century
Georgia committed two horrible genocides against the Ossetian people.
That’s why, when the international community urges us to go back to
Georgia, we say we can’t do that. All that happened is enough for the
Ossetian people to open its eyes and to see, mildly speaking, an
opponent in the Georgian authorities.

REGNUM: Do you see parallel between the genocides of Armenians and
Ossetians?

As a matter of principle, we can draw such a parallel. On the other
hand, there can’t be precise analogues in history. The situation was
different, the times were different, the scales are different. 1,000
people were annihilated in South Ossetia in the 90s: among them were
Russians and Georgians, but 98% of them were Ossetians. With the
total population of South Ossetia being 98,000, this is 1% and, with
Ossetians making up 68% of the total population, this is already 6%.