War Commission Chair Clarifies ‘War’s Start’ Remarks

MP Paata Davitaia, who chaired the parliamentary commission studying the August war, said his remarks aired by the Tbilisi-based Kavkasia TV on the launch of war, were misunderstood and needed clarifications.

Kavkasia TV has aired few days ago a footage in which MP Davitaia tells the television station’s journalists that the wrong policies of the Georgian authorities resulted into war.

“They [the Georgian authorities] started the war; what else should they find out? They have started it, because of the wrong policies they have been pursuing throughout these years; that’s all,” MP Davitaia, a member of the parliamentary minority group, says in the remarks.

It was clear from the footage that MP Davitaia was speaking with the journalist privately and his remarks were captured by the TV camera as the cameraman was simply picking up images, not recording an interview.

MP Davitaia convened a press conference on December 20 to clarify the remarks.

“While speaking about the start of the war, it was said in the context of entry of the Georgian armed forces in Tskhinvali; and it was confirmed by the President himself while he was speaking before the commission and it is also reflected in the conclusions of the commission; I spoke about the start of the war in this context. Our conclusion states that it was a self-defense war and I meant exactly what the President himself admitted,” MP Davitaia said.

President Saakashvili told the commission on November 28 that his decision on August 7 to launch a military operation was “inevitable” because the Russian troops were already advancing into breakaway South Ossetia and because the Georgian-controlled villages inside the breakaway region were under heavy shelling.

The commission’s report released on December 18, backs the government’s official version of events that led up to the August war.

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