SAAKASHVILI SPEAKS OF S.OSSETIA

Daily Georgian Times, Georgia
Civil Georgia
July 18 2007

Georgia is engaged in a battle "to win the hearts and minds" of
the local population in South Ossetia, President Saakashvili told
government members on July 18.

Speaking at a government session, he asked the ministers to "take
into consideration that we have timeframes." "So we should work
round-the-clock," he said.

Saakashvili also underlined the political will to financially underpin
this "battle," particularly in terms of rehabilitation and social
projects in the region.

He characterized events in South Ossetia as a fight between "a rich,
but inflexible mechanism and the Georgian state, which constitutes
Georgians, Ossetians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis and other ethnicities."

He noted that a governmental commission, chaired by PM Zurab Nogaideli,
would soon be established. Its purpose, he said, would be to explore
and elaborate, along with the head of the Tbilisi-loyal South Ossetian
provisional administration, Dimitri Sanakoev, the autonomous status
of the region within the Georgian state.

"These will be serious negotiations," the president said. "They
will not be just formal talks, because our partners [Sanakoev’s
administration] are serious people, serious leaders and serious
representatives of one part of the Georgian population – the majority
of ethnic Ossetians."

Tbilisi, he said, should "adopt a cautious, but at the same time a
bold approach."

State Minister for Conflict Resolution Issues Merab Antadze said on
July 18 that the commission would contain all cabinet members and
a group of Georgian lawmakers, plus representatives from Sanakoev’s
administration.

The commission would, according to the president, provide "an
opportunity to restore links between all the villages, all the
communities and people and between the Georgian state and an important
part of its population [the Ossetian people]."

In keeping with a common theme of his, the president once again
spoke out against what he considers inappropriate terminology. He
particularly dislikes the terms ‘the Georgian side’ and ‘the South
Ossetian side.’

"Everyone should erase these terms from their vocabularies," he said.

Saakashvili said that it wouldn’t be so bad if only television
stations were using these terms. The problem, however, he said,
was that "some government members even say ‘Ossetian villages’ and
‘Georgian village’."

In any case, he said, "even if ‘the Ossetian side’ existed, that
would be the provisional administration, which represents the local
population."

"What is erroneously termed as ‘the Ossetian side’ [referring to
the Tskhinvali-based secessionist authorities]," Saakashvili said,
"doesn’t truly represent the ethnic Ossetian population."

Alluding to the fact that some top-level secessionist officials are
Russian, he added, "we all know where those people are from."

His remarks reflect Tbilisi’s attempts to portray the conflict in
South Ossetia not as "an ethnic conflict," but rather as a conflict
involving "criminal elements" in Tskhinvali being manipulated by
"certain forces" in Russia.

Tbilisi’s active and on-going promotion of Sanakoev, an ethnic
Ossetian and former defense minister in the secessionist South Ossetian
government, is the most obvious manifestation of this view and policy.

President Saakashvili finished his address to his colleagues by
calling on them to re-energize conflict resolution efforts.

"I think conflict resolution efforts should become much more intensive
and efficient," he said. "The international community should be much
more involved in the process and the Georgian government should be
more pro-active."

"We have a success on the ground in the Tskhinvali region [referring
to South Ossetia]," he said, "but we need to emulate this in the other
conflict zone [Abkhazia]. There are many flaws and we have much work
to do."