Georgian leader stresses country’s ethnic diversity in Independence Day
address

Imedi TV, Tbilisi
26 May 07

On 26 May Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili delivered an address
at a military parade in Tbilisi to mark Georgia’s Independence Day. In
the speech he focused on Georgia’s ethnic diversity, calling attention
to the role ethnic Ossetians have played in Georgia’s history and
noting that ethnic minorities are well represented in the country’s
military. He also touched on the conflicts in the country’s breakaway
regions and stressed the need to return Georgian internally displaced
persons to their homes in Abkhazia. Saakashvili concluded by touting
the Georgia’s army, which he said had never been so disciplined,
well-trained, well-equipped and dedicated. The following is an excerpt
from the 15-minute speech, which was carried live by Imedi TV and
other major Georgian television stations on 26 May. Subheadings have
been inserted editorially:

[Saakashvili] Your Holiness [Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Ilia II],
respected ambassadors, invited guests, respected public.

Praise for Estonian officer

I would like to welcome all of you and welcome all Georgian
patriots. I welcome all ethnic Georgians and non-ethnic Georgians
throughout the world who are celebrating their country’s Independence
Day today and for whom today is a day of pride, victory, progress and
unity. I welcome all of our allies and friends who share in Georgia’s
joy and who consider Georgia’s advancement to be their own success. We
have many friends today throughout the world. I want to express
special solidarity with the people of Ukraine, where political events
have been developing in recent days. I want to express special
solidarity with the people of Estonia, who have been under great
pressure over recent weeks and months. This small nation has very
resolutely and heroically withstood all manner of pressure.

In this connection I would like to welcome one of the participants of
our parade today, Ahto Lainevool. This is an exceptional person. In
1956, this son of the newly-conquered Estonian state was serving at
the Soviet military base in Gudauta [in Georgia’s Abkhaz Autonomous
Soviet Socialist Republic]. This is a very famous base, a very famous
place. In March 1956 in the streets of Tbilisi [changes tack] – I did
not know this before, but at the same time demonstrations began in the
streets of Sukhumi as well. Their protests grew into demands for
Georgia’s independence. I know this from my grandfather and
grandmother, who told me that at that time they saw the flag of
independent Georgia in Tbilisi for the first time in decades.

In Sukhumi as well the local people demonstrated and demanded
Georgia’s independence. The military unit in Gudauta was charged with
executing the demonstrating citizens in Sukhumi. The unit was
commanded by Mr Lainevool. In 1956, under the harsh Soviet regime, he
defied orders to open fire on Georgians and execute them. He was
imprisoned for this and served an eight-year sentence in Siberia.

All these years later I want to declare that we are in debt to this
man and to his people. I want to give him the Georgian state’s highest
civilian award, the Order of Merit. He is a man with an enormous sense
of honour and a representative of a people who also have a great sense
of honour and friendship. All these years later I want to thank him
in Estonian: tanan.

[Passage omitted: Saakashvili awards medal, Lainevool addresses
troops]

Responsibility to future

Today is the day when we must comprehend the great responsibility we
have to our past and our future. To our past, because before this day
came, there was a centuries-long history of our small but great
nation’s selfless struggle for independence, there were millions of
Georgian heroes who devoted and sacrificed their lives to ensuring
that there would come a day when Georgia would celebrate its
independence.

Today, we are responsible to the living and future generations. We are
responsible for the homeland that our ancestors left us in its current
borders thanks to their great struggle and bloodshed aimed at
maintaining it in the same borders in spite of immense pressure to
fragment Georgia into small parts. We are responsible to the 500,000
of our compatriots who have been expelled from Abkhazia. These are not
only ethnic Georgians but also ethnic Ukrainians, ethnic Estonians,
ethnic Jews, ethnic Greeks, ethnic Armenians and ethnic Abkhaz. We are
responsible to everyone for ensuring their dignified return to their
own homes and their own abandoned hearths, for returning to them and
their children what they have been deprived of illegally as a result
of ethnic cleansing, in violation of all international rules and
humane principles.

Today, it is on their behalf and on behalf of our ancestors and our
current generations that we have unfurled the banners of Georgia’s
victory. This is our responsibility to the past and to history, as it
is the lot of our generation to unfurl the banner of victory. It is
also our responsibility to future generations not to allow this banner
to be lowered ever again. Our responsibility to the future is to build
a firm foundation of such a state whose generations will never have to
long for Georgia’s independence and unity, which will never be in
question. It is our responsibility to preserve the multiethnic and
multi-religious Georgia that our ancestors have left us, because many
nationalities, many ethnic origins are only riches. These are bricks
for a new state building’s large construction plan.

I made a mistake when I spoke about the multinational nature of this
country because, although there are many ethnic groups, the nation and
the nationality are only one – Georgian, and it consists of Georgians,
Azeri-Georgians, Abkhaz-Georgians, Ossetian-Georgians,
Armenian-Georgians and so forth. I would like to greet our people in
Tskhinvali, Java, Znauri, Akhalgori, the Didi Liakhvi and Patara
Liakhvi gorges [places in South Ossetia], and many other settlements,
and I would like to tell them that the Ossetians have not only always
been a part of Georgian history, but they have been a heroic part of
Georgian history. The Ossetians have been a very important part of our
history. They have been, they are, and they will without fail be in
the future because this is one of the most important tasks of the
Georgian state. I would like to tell them on behalf of the Georgian
state and myself: [pronounces phrase in Ossetian, repeats in Georgian]
We love them. We respect them.

Clenched together

I would also like to say about today that it is a day of our pride,
because up to now Georgia has never been so strong, Georgia has never
had such an ability to protect its freedom and unity as it has today,
and because Georgia has never has such a disciplined, well-trained,
well-equipped and dedicated army of patriots. I would particularly
like to welcome those youths who are serving in our patriotic forces
with great enthusiasm, motivation and zeal. It was a surprise even for
me how they go there to enlist, how eager they are, what long queues
there are, and how enthusiastic they are, how often they demand that
they receive more intensive training, how many more of them would like
to enlist. Such a thing would have been absolutely unimaginable a
couple of years ago. It must pain Georgia’s ill-wishers greatly to
hear this information.

Georgian society has never been so free. It has never had such a sense
of dignity as today. However, today is first and foremost the day of
our unity because our strength is in unity, because when we are
clenched together as a single fist, no one and nothing will ever be
able to defeat us.

The main thing that our enemy is dreaming of is dividing us and
splitting us apart. It knows that Georgians are an ambitious and proud
people and that there are people among us who are greedy for fame and
they want to take advantage of this. They want to use certain people
with such ambitions to divide our society. This has been the only
method that has proven successful for our opponents in the course of
its efforts to fragment and divide Georgia.

They could not beat us by force even when they were a hundred times
stronger than us. They could not beat us even when they tried to
destroy our economy. Last year Georgia received what for any other
country would have been an economic knockout.

But because they could not divide us, we managed to save our economy
and are experiencing a rate of economic growth among the fastest in
the world. We have become the number-one reformer country in the
world. We have become one of the least corrupt countries in the
world. When we are united, this is how we respond to the challenges
that face us. They could not beat us by threatening us, not by
gnashing their teeth, not by sabre-rattling. Whenever we remained
united, it was impossible to defeat us, but as soon as we became
divided, that is when we faced problems and hardships.

Great challenges

Today as well we are faced with great challenges, very great
challenges. Sometimes I think some of our citizens do not understand
the scope of the tasks facing our nation, though 99 per cent of our
people understand perfectly well just what challenges we face, what
hurdles we must overcome and the fact that we must neutralize the
enormous force that is aimed against us.

But if we are clenched together as a single fist we will manage to
overcome anything. In a Georgia that bands together as a single
nation, a Georgia that belongs equally to all Georgians, all
Ossetian-Georgians, all Abkhaz-Georgians, all Armenian-Georgians, all
Azeri-Georgians, all Russian-Georgians, all Greek-Georgians, all
Georgian Jews, all people who were born in this land and live here,
all for whom this country is home, all will equally defend Georgia’s
unity and equally rejoice in Georgia’s victory. Now representatives of
all nationalities and all ethnic groups are serving in the ranks of
the Georgian military and are ready to defend Georgia from any
possible outside danger.

I want to say that our armed forces today are strong and that they are
becoming stronger every day, better equipped every day, more motivated
every day. Time is working in our favour. We have a precise vision of
how events should develop. We have precise tasks, very great tasks,
and we have utmost confidence that with God’s help and with St
George’s guidance we will fulfil these tasks.

We all must know and bear in mind that our main strength is not only
this army, which I am very proud of – and I am one of its soldiers –
not only in the weaponry that Georgia has, not only in our economic
development – last year we built more roads, more hospitals and
schools than were built in the past 25 years, and we will do much more
this year, not only in the investments being placed in Georgia – there
will be over 2bn dollars of direct foreign investment in Georgia this
year, which is a very high indicator – our main strength is in our
motivation and in our unity. Our strength is in unity [Georgia’s state
motto] and we will be united.

I congratulate all of you on this day. May God protect our Georgia,
our homeland. Gentlemen I congratulate you on Georgia’s Independence
Day.