Good afternoon everyone!
I had a chance to visit a bombed port city, to see people in the streets that firmly resisted our enemy.
Everyone in Mengrelia acted like real heroes.
I think that the occupants were not expecting such civilized, but firm resistance, strength and unity, which they faced in Mengrelia and in all Georgia.
I can say that the government stood very strong during last several weeks, everyone was very nervous, practically no one had slept - I mean governors, chiefs of local administrations and ministers. Everyone was nervous - but no one was frightened.
No one fled, no one left their jobs.
The main purpose of this is not the fact that these people are born to be heroes, but that our people have heroic aspirations.
Our people gave us strength, not to step back and not to start trembling.
Mengrelia, like Gori is a part of our country where heroes live.
Our armed forces were able to stop that barbarian attack during three days. This was enough for the world to awake.
All the work I have ever done for my country was dedicated to this very moment - not to be left alone.
I want to say that the unanimous support the international community expressed towards Georgian territorial integrity, unity and statehood was even more than I ever expected.
If not our unity, there would be no support.
If there had been the difference in opinions, fear, escape, no one would think about us.
If we weren‘t ready to stand strong and united for our country, why would anyone else stood beside us?
This concerns our nearest future. Nothing has ended. Occupants are still here, on our land.
Till even one occupant stands on this side of Psou or Roki tunnel, Georgia will be considered occupied.
We must maintain our unity.
We must have democracy, we must argue, we can dissagree on some issues, but the whole world must see that we are united.
One thing is obvious - Abkhazia and South Ossetia had been under Russian occupation even before these recent events, thay had their armoment on these territories, but no one was recognizing this - except us.
Today we talk to everyone about these issues.
No one agrees with Russia, on that shameful decision they have made.
We saw it yesterday, and I am grateful to People's Republic of China for their very strong position. Also middle-east countrie‘s positions were very firm. Now we see that the whole world has one and the same position - East and West, North and South.
On September 1 there will be EU Emergency Session held in Brussels, later the Vice President of US is going to come to Georgia. Do you know that Barak Obama spoke only about Georgia and security of Georgia besides Iran and Iraq.
You all are familiar with the statements made by John McCain, you are familiar with those specific projects.
Russia gained the following by their decision - if the issue of Abkhazia was only the issue for Georgia before this and some kind of diplomatic support from our friendly states, now it became a vital issue for the whole civilized world.
This is no longer a fight between Georgia and Russia (we were told earlier that this was our internal problem only) - now it is the fight between civilized and not-civilized approaches. This is the fight of whole international community, this is the fight between the peoples of good will and those who do not care for the world.
I have already spoken with Americans about bringing in the sanctions. First of all we will adopt a law, according to which illegal investments made in Abkhazia and South Ossetia will be punished.
We have a coordination that the US government will take the same measures for any company, which will participate in it.
We speak to individually every European country on the same issues.
So illegal activities carried out by Russia against Georgia, has become a world issue.
Our peaceful integrity will be the result of attempts made by the whole world.
The world needs time to organize everything. It is very easy in Russia, because only one man makes decisions there, he intended to do it for a long time already.
First he threatened us in 2006.
I used to tell the leaders of the civilized countries about what could possibly happen. They could not believe. To be honest, we were not able to imagine this all ourselves.
The world needs time - as Condoleezza Rice stated - when the West begins actions, you will see, that they know how to act very differently.
Russia has no recourses to oppose the civilized world in West and in East.
They thought that everyone would very soon forget about their behaviors. But no one will ever forget this.
Today Russia is isolated, as never before.
Today Georgia is supported, as never before.
Our mission is the following:
We need stabilization and normalization. It means that we should not have any single homeless person till winter sets in.
We must help everyone who lost their jobs and businesses. We will get great assistance, but before this assistance arrives, it will take months.
The decisions will be made in September, before that we will do everything with our resources to help people.
A great reconstruction will start in Poti. We have big plans on free economic zone.
Our investors tell us, that they will not step back.
I can tell you more, if we continue our integration in EU, now we have some real chances and perspectives. We received new agreements, investment plans, not only financial support.
During these days, when the situation got stabilized, people went to Kutaisi, to invest money. We had several meetings on investments in Poti as well today. There are many projects going on in Tbilisi, Batumi has never stopped.
Our aim is to strengthen our country ten times more, to make it more successful and happy, than it had been before this barbarian attack.
Today thousands of people came out to strike in Chkorotsku and Calenjikha. I was very impressed with the strike in the gorge.
The Russian army experienced the same during the World War II. When the Soviet Army stepped in destroyed Europe and stepped back surprised, when during the war with Napoleon Russian army stepped in Europe, went back and arranged Decembrist's Rebellion.
They stepped in the country of a different civilization - in the country of European development.
They were shooting machineguns - our people were applauding. I saw an old man who made a statement on TV - these people are violating norms of the International Law - this is our people. How many Germans or French could have said all this so.
We truly are a country of deep European culture and civilization.
Our people truly deserve a much better country. Our people showed the highest standards of civilization during these days.
It is obvious that their goal was not taking over Tskhinvali, which is Georgia's provincial town - only few people in Russia may know where it is located.
Their goal was to take over Tbilisi and to overthrow the government.
They were not able to take over Tbilisi. Yesterday, they once again stated proudly that they would overthrow the Georgian government with great pleasure, they will try to achieve internal destabilization and disorder. We have to oppose all this together. I offer the Parliament to adopt a Patriot Act, by which we will develop structure, according to which in terms of democracy, in terms of freedom, in terms of further development of Mass-Media, we will create sufficient terms, according to which, destabilization from foreign countries will be prevented.
Secondly, we talk about the assistance and we offer our opposition leaders to develop an anti-crisis council, in which representatives of the opposition and society will be involved.
Maybe some leaders of the opposition did not act in a very dignified manner, but mainly, these people acted very correctly and I appreciate it all.
This is why today our mission is to develop anti-crisis centers throughout Georgia. Oppositionists, society and people who were harmed during this intervention will staff these centers. This way we will be able to control the assistance that our country receives and the way how it is distributed.
For example we have received 11 million USD from Ukraine today, we will receive 20,50 million soon. In several days we are expecting 100 million from US, later we will get 900 million and we have to see how this assistance is distributed, who we need to help first, in which economic projects will this money be invested in.
I will ask the whole political spectrum and society to get involved in this process.
When Russia states today, that they are going to overthrow the Georgian government, it means that they are going to interfere in internal processes.
This is why we need to finance political parties from the state budget.
We should finance the political parties and impose a strict control to prevent any funding coming from the foreign countries - I mean from one particular country.
We will be able to achieve this in the frames of democratic society - we will not limit democracy, no matter what happens.
Our main force is in freedom and democracy - everyone saw that we did not turn off any single opposition channel, we did not close any opposition newspaper and we did not limit anyone.
If someone wants to show their negative attitude, it's their own problem.
People were able to see - who is who - during these days, not to make anyone say: we stood so strong during those days. Everything was said and written.
Our society showed an exceptional consolidation and firmness.
In happy times, in terms of democracy, people often argue, but when your main values are disgraced, people stand together.
Those, who stepped on our land, are enemies of democracy and freedom.
We will reconstruct buildings in Senaki and elsewhere. We have started our work on this issue. This problem will be solved in Senaki soon, but if there is a more difficult situation, we need to pay special attention to such places, to resolve this problem during three months at most.
I am grateful to every chief of administration, to every governor - each of them worked very hard. I want to express my gratitude to the police - their enthusiasm and will was outstanding. This structure had not stopped functioning even for a minute, and I saw it with my own eyes. I was in Zugdidi, when they came in. I knew fighting with them was impossible, but we had many other resources to resist. We left our police there and our hopes were right - they worked in an outstanding manner.
Our police stood heroically and they still work heroically. Police proved that it is worth of these people. This is very important.
This is why I want to express my gratitude to the whole personnel.
We need to reconstruct and finish every single house, and must create living conditions for people who suffered after this war. I must not see anymore that some of them have no bed or meal. I must not see somebody eating only dry food.
We must support these people as much as we can.
We give compensations to the families of those who died during the war. This process has started, but besides this we must create normal living conditions for our people.
Each of them must stay near the place of their dislocation, but in better conditions then they had before.
Of course these people went through so much tragedy, but we need to get rid of the term - refugee. These are people who suffered so much, but we must not have any homeless people in Georgia.
And this is very important.
We will invest money in constructions. For example Gori will become a town incomparable with any other town on the post Soviet territory. This is a hero-city, we must give an adequate status to it.
We have international assistance and support here as well - the Turkish government will help us build the whole block of houses, Norwegians will build several buildings, another part will be built by Germans, and of course Georgia will build much.
We need to continue development of Western Georgia - I have promised you that we will build tens of skyscrapers in Poti and this promise will be fulfilled in the nearest future.
Time will come, when the occupants aggression, will only remain in our memories.
I can say that criminal conditions became much better in several parts of Georgia - I do not know what is the reason - but this is very important as well.
Let's continue our work and everything will be fine!
Press Office
of the President of Georgia