Saakashvili Speaks on ‘Collaborationists’ on Red Army Invasion Anniversary

President Saakashvili said on February 25 that Georgia “will never kneel down” before its enemy and what happened 89 years ago, when Bolshevik Red Army occupied Georgia, will not be repeated.

February 25 marks 89th anniversary of occupation of Tbilisi by the Red Army, putting an end to Georgia’s three-year independence in 1921.

Speaking to journalists late on February 25 after a ceremony commemorating Georgian soldiers fallen in a battle with the Red Army in Kojori, outside Tbilisi, President Saakashvili spoke of “collaborationists”, who “kneel down before the enemy”.

“I pity these people,” he said. “What one can do more undignified than to kneel down before your enemy and kiss your enemies’ feet? What can be more indignity than that?” he said.

Although not naming directly anyone, he was apparently alluding to ex-PM Zurab Nogaideli, leader of Movement for Fair Georgia. Saakashvili made frequent allusions of this type in his recent speeches.    

“The best parts of our country are occupied and 500,000 people expelled from their homes. Cooperation with the occupying force was shameful in occupied France and occupied Europe. Those cooperating with occupants can not have any dignity,” he said.

“Georgia is a free country and enemies of freedom will not be able to take Georgia back in past,” he said, adding that a small group of “collaborationists will never darken free Georgia.”

He also said that throughout its history “Georgia outlived most of its invaders”.

“We have endured Shah Abbas [Abbas I, the Shah of Persia notorious in Georgia for his invasion of Georgia’s eastern region of Kakheti in the early 17th century] and we will endure Putin too,” Saakashvili said.

This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian)