Saakashvili: ‘Struggle for Liberation Continues’

Two years after the August war Georgia’s struggle for “complete liberation” continues on daily basis, President Saakashvili said in a brief recorded televised address to the nation from Colombia aired on August 7.
 
Russia started aggression against Georgia much earlier than August, 2008 and there is no need to consider separate dates out of context, he said.

“And this aggression has not slowed down till now and it is not over yet. Our struggle will continue unless last occupant leaves the Georgian land, unless justice is restored towards hundreds of thousands of our citizens of various ethnicities, who were forced to leave their homes,” Saakashvili said.

He said that in August, 2008 Georgians had to defend “dignity, freedom and its future” with arms in their hands. “Each of us is obliged to carry out this struggle on daily basis to honor memory of those fallen [in the August war]; to carry out this struggle within the country to further develop it and throughout the world to defend our positions everywhere,” he said.

“It is a historic task of our generation to accomplish this struggle and to liberate Georgia; we will accomplish this struggle and completely liberate our country,” Saakashvili added.

Meanwhile, Georgian State Minister for Reintegration, Temur Iakobashvili, said in an interview with the Georgian daily, 24 Saati, published on August 7, that the most important achievement on diplomatic front since the August war had been international community’s refusal to follow Russia’s suit in recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

“It is obvious now that [Tbilisi’s] counter efforts turned out to be more effective: if previously it was about recognition of these territories as independent states, now it is about recognition of these [regions] as occupied territories,” Iakobashvili said.

“I think it’s a complete failure of the Russian diplomacy and a real chance for us to return back these territories, to reintegrate them into the Georgian jurisdiction and to return those people back to Georgia,” he said.

“The war has demonstrated something that was not clearly evident before – our main problem is not relations with Abkhazians and Ossetians… Our major problem is Georgian-Russian relations. Russia is using separatists and separatism against the Georgian statehood,” Iakobashvili said.

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