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4/2/2007
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili visits Senaki military base

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has delivered a speech before a group of young people undergoing training in the new reservist programme at the Senaki military base in western Georgia. He said that the programme, which aims to create a force of 100,000 reservists, would send a clear message to the country's ill-wishers that they should not seek to undermine Georgia's territorial integrity. He praised Georgians for uniting to show "dignity, restraint and respect" during the reburial of independent Georgia's first president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who ruled the country at a time of great upheaval and division. Saakashvili also said that ethnic Ossetians had long played an important role in Georgia's history and slammed Russian criticism of his administration's plans to engage pro-Tbilisi South Ossetian leader Dmitriy Sanakoyev's "alternative government" in talks on conflict settlement.

"I want to welcome all of you. It is very exciting and unusual, even for me, to see so many members of our society in uniform so organized, so disciplined, so well-dressed and so motivated after only two days of being here. It is exciting for me and for all of Georgia and, as I have observed, very irritating for Georgia's ill-wishers. Those who wrote scripts for our country long ago, those who thought and often promoted the notion inside and outside Georgia said that Georgians had no place in politics and that Georgians should sit at dinner tables, sing, feed people and entertain the rest of the world-[changes tack] You were supposed to sing Tbiliso and Suliko [Georgian songs] in several languages and be charming, but you were not supposed to think about your own country. They would take care of your country. They would decide your country's fate.

In the 1950s all Georgian officers were kicked out of the Soviet army because they did not want Georgia to have its own soldiers.

Georgians have long served in armies of foreign countries. During Russia's first Patriotic War, Georgians helped them gain victory against Napoleon. General Bagrationi fought in that war.

The Russians won the wars of the Caucasus with the help of Georgians such as Orbeliani, Chavchavadze and many others. They fought against Imam Shamil's brave and ferocious warriors.

Georgians served not only in the Russian army - they also fought on the front lines of the war for Poland's independence. The secretary-general of Poland's General Staff was a Georgian. General Shalikashvili's father fought against the Bolsheviks. The army of President Pilsudski defeated the Bolsheviks with the active participation of Georgian officers.

The same Georgian officers also fought for Poland's independence in 1921. In 1944 more Georgian officers fought against the Nazis in Warsaw. There is a special monument to the Georgian officers who fought for Poland's independence outside a museum in Warsaw.

Later, John Malkhaz Shalikashvili served as the head of the largest army in the history of the world. This shows that Georgians have military service in their blood and an instinct to protect the homeland.

Today we all have a chance to defend our country together. Today we have a chance to show them that all the fairy tales that they pushed on us over the centuries that Georgians are not capable of running a state and protecting their own country, that Georgians are no good on the battlefield and that Georgia is some kind of cultural phenomenon, as opposed to a people and a state. All of these notions are crumbling apart before our opponents' very eyes. They set all the traps they could and created all sorts of challenges and problems for us, but to their surprise, Georgia is not only not falling apart, it is becoming stronger and banding together. We have become a different country in these past few years. We are a country in which all children love their flag, where they know the words to the national anthem. This is not the case in the majority of the world's countries. This means that our people have a special sense of pride for their country.

The reservist movement is the best manifestation of this. Together with you we are creating a movement that will not impede Georgia's economic development. We must develop. We cannot create the kind of army that Israel has, where the whole population serves for two years and later has to drop everything and return to the army for one or two months a year. We must develop our economy. Each of you should achieve success in business, in the arts, in jurisprudence, in governance and in a thousand other professions. That is why we cannot take you out of the economy and keep you in the armed forces 24 hours a day. That is out of the question. Georgia needs development, progress and rebuilding. But every Georgian, every Georgian citizen should be able to take a weapon in their hand and if necessary, offer resistance to aggression against this country. This is the main message we have for all of our ill-wishers.

We have come a long way. I remember it well that three years ago, in 2004, people undergoing reservist training at a camp - in Sachkhere, if I am not mistaken - appeared on television. I watched [as they were saying:] We were promised cigarettes but not given them, they cut my pay by 20 lari, why should I serve in this army? That is what kind of country we were.

When I saw this I thought: it is time that we get those people who want to serve. And tens of thousands of people are wilfully undergoing reservist training. Now the whole country is ready for us to conscript everyone. Now the whole country is ready to ensure that Georgia has a fully armed and trained reservist force of at least 100,000 people in the near future.

There has been a lot of arguing as to whether 18 days [length of reservist training course] is sufficient. It is sufficient, because in the Soviet Army, which I served in for two years, they trained soldiers for one month. But I assure you that, according to our calculations, in 18 days we will be able to give much better training than that which we got during that one month. This is because that month often consisted of peeling potatoes, tidying up, a thousand other types of silly matters, learning various types of political information, the mindless rote memorization of the charter of the Soviet armed forces and, in many cases, a thousand kinds off non-military activities. Some soldiers were made to work on the construction of generals' summer homes and were taken to their homes to work as domestic servants and so on.

I served for two years in the elite Soviet army. I assure you that in the ten days I spent in a reservist camp last year I got a much better knowledge of how to use weapons - because they taught me using much better technologies - and learned how to dig trenches, which they did not teach us at all there and I learned much better how to deal with field conditions.

Despite the fact that I served in an army of the highest Soviet standard for two years, they did not teach us anything like that. That is what these 18 days are for. However, at some point we will certainly have the opportunity to return people to reservist service, depending on the development of events. But these 18 days are absolutely necessary for every person.

We have become a different country. We have become a country where people have learned to agree on the most important issues, where people have learned to find a common language with each other in times of happiness and misfortune.

Yesterday Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the first president of Georgia after it regained its independence and the first president who was directly elected, was buried. It was shameful that we did not even know the location of the grave of a Georgian president. On my very first day I issued a directive that the grave must be found and the remains of Georgia's first president must be returned and laid to rest in this country, just like any other Georgian citizen, any other compatriot of ours who falls victim to such a tragedy.

The main thing for me in the past few days was this: Gamsakhurdia had his supporters and his opponents, but during these past few days, when this ceremony was taking place, all people were united - that is, if we do not count a few politicians who are always on a level much lower than that of our society.

Our society showed great dignity, great restraint and most importantly, great respect for the country, its symbols and its statehood. This is a different Georgia. This is a Georgia capable of moderation and unity in all situations, on all issues concerning our country's fundamental values and prospects for its future. Many people find it very difficult to have relations with such a country.

I often get a strong feeling that we are on the right path. They imposed upon us a conflict in and around Tskhinvali [South Ossetian capital]. These people are our Ossetian population - that's who they are, nothing else - our Ossetian population. Ossetians who fought for Georgia during the course of many centuries, when Georgia's last queen was captured by the imperial army in the 19th century and was being taken through the Daryal Gorge, when everyone had given up on saving her, an Ossetian detachment in the Daryal Gorge, which consisted entirely of local Ossetians, launched an attack against a much larger detachment that had been sent from St Petersburg and fought to the last drop of blood in order to save the Georgian queen. All of them were killed, but this was the last attempt following Georgia's annexation [into the Russian Empire] to save the symbols of the Georgian state. And they were Ossetians.

Kakutsa Choloqashvili's [anti-Bolshevik resistance leader] leading detachment in Kartli [region in central Georgia] consisted of Ossetians.

They are trying to force upon us the idea that Ossetians cannot live in an independent Georgia. This is being said by some [separatist prime minister Yuriy] Morozov, some (?Yarovoy), some [former separatist defence minister Anatoliy] Barankevich, some Ivanov and the representatives of some other agencies who have no ties whatsoever to this territory. And now representatives of the local Ossetian population have emerged and said: we want peace, we want our children to grow up in a normal country and we want to leave all this tragedy behind us. These are people who fought against us, fought against the Georgian state with weapons in their hands. [They are saying:] We want to return - in conditions where our dignity, our rights and our status are protected - to our historical environment.

This has caused extraordinary irritation and bitterness and left extraordinarily stunned those people who had written scripts for Georgia's fragmentation. They thought that since they no longer had any support in Tbilisi they had to find some other territory from which they could uproot Georgia and blow it up.

You should see what kind of statements they are making. Two or three days ago a certain agency issued a hysterical statement in regard to our attempt, our decision - this is no longer just an attempt - to adopt a law creating a temporary administrative unit in whose framework we will work on restoring [South Ossetia's] autonomy and restoring Georgia's territorial integrity. Look at the hatred and hysteria that this has caused. When I read these hysterical comments I truly see that we are on the absolute right path. We will continue on this path to spite those people and to thwart their plans and schemes. Georgia will no longer fit into their schemes. In their mind, a united Georgia is very dangerous, but a Georgia that is not divided into regions and into ethnic groups - a Georgia which stands together to protect its honour, its symbols and its future - is impossible to bring to its knees.

I remember well that back in 1993, when they invaded, seized and destroyed our most holy of cities, Sukhumi, the world press was full of headlines like "Sukhumi has fallen, Georgia is on its knees". At that time I was studying abroad. I cut out those articles and I put them on the wall at my dormitory and later in my office when I served in the Georgian parliament. No-one will ever again be able to bring Georgia to its knees again and no-one will ever again publish articles like that. We do not want to rise from our knees in order to bring someone else to their knees. We are not rising to our feet in order to belittle ethnic Abkhaz.

During the time of the muhajirs [mass expulsion of Abkhaz Muslims to Turkey and the Middle East by the Russian Emprire] part of the Georgian intelligentsia did all it could to save the Abkhaz - they changed their names, converted them to Christianity, entered them into the church records. In short, they did everything they could to keep the Abkhaz from being deported. Our goal is not to belittle them.

There were almost 600,000 people in Abkhazia while now there are fewer than 100,000.

Not only ethnic Georgians were expelled from there, but also Greeks, who were evacuated at the time by the Greek Navy; Estonians, who for weeks on end were evacuated to Estonia on special flights; tens of thousands of Georgian Jews, who now live in Israel but still yearn to return to Abkhazia and Ukrainians - during the war Ukrainian pilots evacuated both Georgians and Ukrainians from the area.

When the embargo was imposed on Georgia last year Abkhazian Estonians - Georgian Estonians - held demonstrations in the capital of Estonia and throughout Europe in support of Georgia and the Georgian people. These people were expelled from Georgia in 1993 and to this day they are fighting using all peaceful means at their disposal for the prestige of the Georgian state and are thanking the Georgian people. We must bring these people back.

Not only Georgians must return to Abkhazia (this is not a Georgian-Abkhaz problem). Others must also return, including Abkhazian Estonians who lived in Sukhumi and other places; Georgian Jews from Israel, whom I met during my visit there (they have money and homes, their children are studying at good universities, but they all want to return to Sukhumi. I promised them during meetings in Tel Aviv and Ashdot that I would bring them back); Greeks, Ukrainians, Russians and Abkhaz, because a large number of Abkhaz were expelled from there as well, their rights impinged, their property confiscated.

We are ready to return these people through peaceful means. We are ready to do this within the framework of our peace plans. But if someone, God forbid, happens to set to fragmenting Georgia and tries somehow to cut off parts of our territory from outside, it will be interpreted by the entire Georgian people as absolute insanity and aggression. We will always be ready to respond to all aggressive actions by remaining resolute and united. This is what is most important to us. We are resolving our domestic problems peacefully, but no one will be able to force upon us the fragmentation of our territory, no-one will be able to force upon us new Yalta deals or Munich deals - deals under which our fate would determined not here, but in some foreign capital or at some negotiating table.

We have great support from the international community. Georgia is no longer some undistinguishable place on the map, as it was in 1992. Everyone is familiar with our problems and we hope that all international organizations will continue to approach these issues objectively. I think that as a whole, everything is going as we planned. But God forbid anyone take steps towards the abyss. They will have to deal with a different Georgia, a more motivated people. Not with the people who in 1992-93 were divided into camps and were waging civil war, not with the Georgia where bridges had been blown up and where the government was engaged in stealing from the people as opposed to building up the country's army.

This is now a different Georgia, a Georgia where there are queues of people wishing to sign up for reservist service.

I heard from a reliable source that there is one young man serving here who was turned away by the medical commission three times, but on his fourth try they let him in and he is standing here with you today. You, together with this young man, will manage to accomplish everything.

We had motivation before, but we did not have training, equipment and, most importantly, we did not have a proper state.

Now we have hundreds of new officers with a university education who now want to serve in the armed forces. They know how to use the equipment, they know how to think and take independent decisions. We need people who can take decisions in the most difficult circumstances in accordance with their own personal credo. Every officer will be provided with a flat from the Georgian state in addition to receiving a salary. The best of the best have entered officer training courses, with seven or eight people getting top scores.

We plan to increase the salaries of our army personnel serving on contract. We plan to build the best bases and equip our soldiers with the best equipment.

The modernization of our armed forces is going forward at an accelerated pace. We will create a very modern armed forces, but the main thing is not equipment, not aircraft and tanks (though this is also very important), but rather your preparation, your attitude and your comprehension of what it is you have to protect and what we will never concede to anyone.

This is the driving force that keeps us going.

I want to thank your families, your parents and your teachers. They can see that you are in quite good conditions here. Let me repeat that I served in the Soviet army and I can tell you that the difference between our military bases and those of the Soviet times is like night and day. This is truly an army of the highest European and American standard in terms of living conditions.

We can learn much from our time in the army, but bravery and patriotism are learned based on the examples of our families and ancestors. No other country can teach us this. The fact that you are here is the result of this patriotism and the great support of your families. I want to congratulate Georgia on the creation of this new combat reservist force.

This is not only a reserve for our armed forces, but also a reserve for our future. A new, bold generation has emerged in Georgia which despite the doubts of sceptics from other generations believes that no-one will be able to bring Georgia to its knees. I believe this and I know it to be true. No-one will ever think, say or write that Georgia is on its knees!

This is no longer the case and it shall never be the case again!

Thank you!

Includes BBC Monitoring material



Press Office
of the President of Georgia




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