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Bakradze Testifies Before War Commission

During his hour and a half testimony before the parliamentary commission studying the August war Davit Bakradze, the parliamentary chairman, comprehensively overviewed and recalled developments that was taking place before the August war.
 
In his testimoney on Novemeber 24 Bakradze mainly focusing on Georgia’s, as he put it, huge efforts to resolve conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia peacefully. Bakradze, who was state minister in charge of the conflict resolution issues in 2007 and then held a post of Foreign Minister in January-April, 2008, was stressing in his testimony that Tbilisi had done everything at its disposal to avert military confrontation, but Russia was “blocking” Georgia’s all the peace initiatives.

But the key issue, which was generating the most of the interest towards Bakradze’s testimony, was related to his August 10 televised address to the nation made at the time when fighting was not yet over.

In a statement, which was later slammed by the opponents, Bakradze called on the Georgian citizens “to resist the enemy forces everywhere with all the means available.”

“We call on you to be organized and firm and to resisting the enemy at every place, where it will be needed after the enemy forces enter our territory [at that time Russian troops were not yet deep inside the Georgian territory],” Bakradze said in an appeal to the nation made on behalf of the President and the government. Opponents later lashed out at Bakradze for making that statement calling it irresponsible.

Speaking before the parliamentary commission, Davit Bakradze said that the context and timing in which the statement was made should taken into consideration while judging the appeal.

“This statement was made by the noon on August 10. At that time we had received a reliable information about movement of Russian armed forces towards Zugdidi [a town at the Abkhaz administrative border] – that is the time, when Georgian forces retreated from Tskhinvali and returned to Gori and at that time the conflict was still localized only within the conflict zone [inside South Ossetia]; at that time the entry of Russian armed forces [deep inside the Georgian territory] would have meant the launch of a full-scale annexation,” Bakradze said.

He also said that the Georgian government at that time received, although unconfirmed, but credible information that not only the Russian troops, but the Abkhaz militias were also intending to cross the administrative border and enter Zugdidi.

“Eventually it [advance of the Abkhaz militias] did not happen – maybe because the Abkhaz authorities could not dare to do that, or maybe because lack of coordination with the Russian forces, but the threat of such scenario was real at that time,” Bakradze said, adding that one could easily imagine what could have happened in Zugdidi if the Abkhaz militias advanced towards the town.

“Some may criticize me today saying that my statement has made the Zugdidi population perplexed triggering them to flee the town. I agree – they were perplexed and they left their homes; but who the authorities could have kept silence when we had information that Russians were planning to enter Zugdidi accompanied by the Abkhazians raiding the local population?” he said.

Bakradze said that his statement also aimed at Russians.

He said that such a statement was a clear warning towards the Russian troops that in case of targeting the civilian population, the launch of “a guerrilla war and Afghanistanization of the process” by Georgians would have been inevitable.

“Just this was one of the deterrent factors that helped to avoid targeting peaceful population,” he said.

Below are other key points of the Bakradze’s testimony:

This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)