The Moscow Times, Russia
July 28 2005
Georgia Frets Over Ethnic Tensions
By Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili
TBILISI, Georgia — President Mikheil Saakashvili warned Georgians
against stoking ethnic tensions as authorities continue investigating
the man who confessed to throwing a live grenade during a rally where
U.S. President George W. Bush spoke.
Speaking in a meeting with law enforcement officials Tuesday evening,
Saakashvili scolded Georgian media for focusing on the ethnicity of
Vladimir Arutyunyan, a Georgian citizen of Armenian ancestry who has
admitted throwing the grenade during the May rally in Tbilisi where
Bush and Saakashvili spoke.
Saakashvili said media and politicians were overemphasizing
Arutyunyan’s Armenian background.
“For me, it makes no difference what nationality the children of our
homeland are,” he said.
“If someone doesn’t love Armenians, then I am an Armenian. And if
it’s Ossetians, then I am an Ossetian,” he said, “because Georgian
patriotism is valued not by blood, but by the deeds of such people.”
Arutyunyan’s lawyer said Tuesday that the man had intended to kill
Bush, but not other Georgians.
Georgian authorities, working with the FBI, were still trying to
figure out Arutyunyan’s exact motives. The Interior Ministry said
that Arutyunyan, who was formally charged with terrorism on Tuesday,
was believed to have been a member of a political party that supports
the former leader of a region largely outside central government
control.
Last week, Arutyunyan was shown on local television admitting to
throwing the grenade, which landed about 30 meters away from the
stage where Saakashvili and Bush were standing behind a bulletproof
barrier. It did not explode, and investigators later said it
apparently had malfunctioned. No one was harmed in the incident.
Saakashvili also warned against overemphasizing the fact that three
men detained on suspicion of carrying out a Feb. 1 car bombing that
killed three policemen and wounded 26 in the town of Gori were
Ossetians. “Yesterday, all I heard all day on television was
‘Ossetians, Ossetians,'” he said.
He said Ossetians had served with honor in Georgia’s air force and
its police agencies.
Relations between Georgians and Ossetians have long been tense; South
Ossetia broke away from central government control during a war in
the 1990s. Tensions spiked earlier this month in a mostly ethnic
Armenian region when a Georgian-language school was vandalized and a
group of Georgian university students were beaten up.
Residents of the region are angered over the planned withdrawal of a
Russian military base, which is a mainstay of the local economy.
Ethnic Armenians make up more than 5 percent of Georgia’s 4.7 million
people.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress