Georgia’s glorius leader will surely go down in the annals of history alongside other great men of his calibre like Dubya…
Aug 13 (Reuters) – Following are some of the various statements made on Wednesday by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili:
TO CBS TELEVISION
“In Georgia’s far region of South Ossetia… Russian tanks are going through villages inhabited by the Georgian population and throwing people out of the houses, pushing people into concentration camps that they are setting up in those villages and separating men and women and doing worse kind of atrocities I’ve heard of since the Balkans or the war in Chechnya.” “…Several hundred kilometres or miles removed from south Ossetia, where (villages) are again inhabited by Georgians, they are throwing out every single Georgian man or woman and children.”
“…They moved into the town of Gori and they ransacked the town, looted the town. These are regular Russian troops, they go into houses, they destroy houses, there is all this documentary footage around that can prove it….they are taking things like furniture, toilet seats, killing people, terrorising people.”
He compared the situation with the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia and appeasement.
“This is freedom in general at stake. This is not about some far away remote country about which we know little.”
TO CNN TELEVISION
Saakashvili lashed out at a suggestion that Georgia started the conflict by entering South Ossetia last week.
“I’m sickened, sickened of this cynical and absolutely unfounded allegation.”
“We only responded after 150 Russian tanks moved into Georgian territory and started open aggression.”
“You know what? Germany told the world they were attacked by Poland in 1939. The Soviet Union was attacked by Finland in 1939. Soviet Union was attacked by Afghanistan in 1979.”
“Didn’t the world learn enough? I am really sickened that there are people in the West asking these questions because that’s exactly what the Russians want. It’s our territory for God’s sake. They’re killing our people.”
ON THE CEASEFIRE
“The Russians never meant any ceasefire. This is a kind of ceasefire that I don’t know they had with Afghanistan in 1979 or that Germany had with Poland in 1939. There is no ceasefire. They are moving.”
ON WASHINGTON REACTION
“Frankly, some of the first statements from Washington were perceived by the Russians almost as a green light for doing this because they were too soft.”
“Everything the Americans had achieved from the Cold War is being undermined and destroyed right now.”
“America is losing the whole region.”
“I know America is overstretched. I know there are many other things. But realise what we are heading toward now. Russians have been very brutal, very deliberate, and they been showing everybody, ‘We don’t give a damn.'”
(He said Russian bombs bear inscriptions that say “This is for President Bush, this is for the United States, this is for NATO”).
“They are by proxy trying to fight war with the West.”
ON PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE MCCAIN COMMENTS
“Yesterday I heard Senator McCain say we are all Georgians. Well very nice … but of course it’s time to pass from words to deeds.”
