GEORGIAN LEADER CALLS FOR "CAUTIOUS BUT BOLD" APPROACH TO SOUTH OSSETIA CONFLICT
Rustavi-2 TV, Tbilisi,
18 Jul 07
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has told government members that
the country’s leadership needs to take a "cautious but bold" approach
to the settlement of the South Ossetia conflict. At a meeting of
the Cabinet of Ministers on 18 July, Saakashvili said Georgia must be
proactive and work hard towards the resolution of the conflict and hold
"serious negotiations" with Georgian-backed leader Dmitriy Sanakoyev.
He instructed the media and government officials to avoid using the
terms "Ossetian side" and "Georgian side" when speaking about the
conflict, as the separatist government consists of personnel "brought
in" from outside. He also stressed the importance of expanding
higher education opportunities for the country’s ethnic Armenian
and Azeri populations and said that the Georgian government’s lack
of organization was to blame for the fact that few of them know the
state language. The following is an excerpt from Saakashvili’s remarks
at the meeting broadcast live by Rustavi-2 TV:
[Presenter] We go live to the State Chancellery, where President
Mikheil Saakashvili is chairing a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers.
[Passage omitted]
"Serious" negotiations ahead
[Saakashvili] Yesterday Mr Petre [Tsiskarishvili, agriculture minister]
made a statement on South Ossetia’s status together with the head
of the [Georgian-backed] temporary administrative unit [Dmitriy
Sanakoyev]. I want to say that there will be serious negotiations.
This is not a formality. Our partners on the other side of the
negotiating table are not people with whom we should take a frivolous
approach.
They are serious people, serious leaders, serious representatives of
a part of Georgia’s population – a big part of ethnic Ossetians – and
we must hold serious talks and discuss serious issues with them. We
must approach this issue cautiously, but at the same time boldly. I
believe that we have the opportunity to truly restore contacts among
all villages, all communities and all people, as well as between the
Georgian state and a very important and dear part of its population.
Yesterday tractors were taken there on my order. We distributed them
to villages which are under Georgian control. I want to emphasize
that there are not Georgian villages and Ossetian villages. There
is no such thing as the Ossetian side or the Georgian side and
everyone should purge these terms from their vocabulary. If only
television stations were making this mistake, that would not be a
problem. But some government members also get it wrong and speak of
Georgian and Ossetian villages. I want to tell you that a large part
of the population of the villages which fall under our jurisdiction
is ethnically mixed. This means nothing. For us they are all equal.
And if there is such a thing as an Ossetian side, that side is the
temporary administration, which consists of representatives of the
local population. Ethnic Ossetians are far less represented in that
which some people ignorantly refer to as the Ossetian side. You know
very well where these people have been brought in from and what
connections they have with the local population. Some of them may
have Ossetian surnames, but those people have nothing whatsoever to
do with Ossetians or the Ossetian people, let alone South Ossetia.
Therefore, we must continue with our programmes. We are building
several cultural facilities there. According to what I’ve been told,
all schools there are being repaired well. We must further facilitate
the development of education, including through such programmes
that seek to restore trust between peoples, settle the conflicts and
overcome crises.
Support for ethnic minorities
I also welcome the fact that we will soon begin bringing 100
representatives of various ethnic groups each from Akhalkalaki
[town in the predominately ethnic Armenian Javakheti region] and
[the predominately ethnic Azeri-populated] Kvemo Kartli [Province]
and place them in [university] preparatory courses. It is very
important that our citizens not go to other countries to study,
but instead come to Georgia’s capital and its other cities.
It is very important that their relatively poor knowledge of the
Georgian language at this stage, which is not their fault-[changes
tack] I want to emphasize that that has nothing to do with them,
they are begging us to teach them the language. It is instead because
of the fact that up to now we have not been well organized. Under
no circumstances should a relatively poor knowledge of Georgian be
an insurmountable obstacle for those people to study in tertirary
education institutes. There are preparatory courses, technologies, and
countless other means to integrate those people and bring them here.
Returning to South Ossetia, we have created a special group at the
Chancellery that is working on the negotiating process and on joint
actions with Sanakoyev’s administration. I ask that all of you work
with this group and I also ask that we take into account the fact
that there is a certain timeframe here – we all must work day and
night and we all must work in such a way that each and every person
sees the difference.
There is now a battle on to win over people’s hearts and minds. This
battle is between much richer, but not very flexible mechanisms which
truly do not understand local problems [as heard], and the Georgian
state – Georgia, which is a state consisting of Georgians, Ossetians,
Armenians, Azeris and people of all other ethnic origins, who for us
are all part of the Georgian state and who are our most dear citizens.
In general, I believe that the process of resolving the conflicts must
become much more intensive and much more active and that the world
community should become much more involved in it than it is today.
The Georgian government needs to be much more proactive. We have
achieved success locally, throughout the Tskhinvali region[South
Ossetia], but I think this should extend to the whole of Georgia’s
territory and to all conflicts and all situations. There is still a
lot of work to do here and there are a lot of problems despite the
fact that many professionals are involved in this endeavour.
We must not be in a position where we are reacting, we must be very
proactive and alert. Once again I ask you to cooperate actively with
this group working on Tskhinvali issues. We need daily coordination
and we need to resolve issues on a daily basis. We have a budget and
we have taken the decision to finance many programmes. Practically
everything that is necessary will be funded by Georgia at an
appropriate level. Relevant decisions have been taken.
[Passage omitted]