War with Russia: Saakashvili runs for cover

TBILISI, Georgia (CNN) -- Russia is attacking Georgia to achieve "regime change" and crush Georgia's pro-Western democracy, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Monday."We are in the process of invasion, occupation, and annihilation of an independent, democratic country," Saakashvili said at a news conference Monday. "The goal of this operation is regime change in Georgia."Saakashvili then abruptly ended his conference call with reporters, saying, "We have to go to the shelter because there are Russian planes flying over the presidential palace here, sorry."Video footage showed a chaotic scene outside the palace, with the president being rushed away under heavy security.Russia said it has no interest in interfering with Georgia's affairs but wants to protect its peacekeepers and the residents of South Ossetia, an autonomous region of Georgia. Over several years, Russia has given passports to many of those residents and declared them Russian citizens.Also Monday, Saakashvili had to run for cover during a visit to the town of Gori, where scores of people were killed in a Russian attack Saturday. The Associated Press reported that a member of his security team shouted, "Cover him!" as the Georgian president spoke to reporters next to his sport utility vehicle. Saakashvili was torn away by bodyguards and pushed to the ground. They piled extra flak jackets on top of him. Fearing an air raid, onlookers fled, looking skyward and screaming. No jets were seen or heard. In an op-ed piece in Monday's Wall Street Journal, Saakashvili argued that the conflict is about "the future of freedom in Europe."If Russia succeeds, Saakashvili said, it would mark the end of Western influence on any of the former Soviet republics."It is clear that Russia's current leadership is bent on restoring a neocolonial form of control over the entire space once governed by Moscow," he wrote.Western leaders have responded to Saakashvili's pleas for help by putting diplomatic pressure on Russia, but those efforts have so far failed to win a cease-fire.Saakashvili said last week's escalation of hostilities followed months of Russian provocations, first in the Georgian breakaway province of Abkhazia."When this failed, the Kremlin turned its attention to South Ossetia, ordering its proxies there to escalate attacks on Georgian positions," he said in the Wall Street Journal column. "My government answered with a unilateral cease-fire; the separatists began attacking civilians and Russian tanks pierced the Georgian border. We had no choice but to protect our civilians and restore our constitutional order."The long-running separatist disputes, however, are just a pretext for Russia's aggression, he argued."Yet in reality, it is a war about the independence and the future of Georgia," he wrote. "And above all, it is a war over the kind of Europe our children will live in. Let us be frank: This conflict is about the future of freedom in Europe."Saakashvili argued that Georgia was targeted because "no country of the former Soviet Union has made more progress toward consolidating democracy, eradicating corruption and building an independent foreign policy than Georgia.""This is precisely what Russia seeks to crush."Georgia, he said, has "worked hard to peacefully bring Abkhazia and South Ossetia back into the Georgian fold, on terms that would fully protect the rights and interests of the residents of these territories."Those efforts have been undermined by Russia's annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, treating the Georgian regions as Russian provinces, his column said."While we appealed to residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia with our vision of a common future, Moscow increasingly took control of the separatist regimes," he wrote. "The Kremlin even appointed Russian security officers to arm and administer the self-styled separatist governments."At stake, he argued, is much more than Georgia's future."If Georgia falls, this will also mean the fall of the West in the entire former Soviet Union and beyond," he wrote. "Leaders in neighboring states -- whether in Ukraine, in other Caucasian states or in Central Asia -- will have to consider whether the price of freedom and independence is indeed too high."

Channel: News & Politics
Uploaded: November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am
Author: MiaRossa

Length: 01:01
Rating: 4.55
Views: 28365

Tags: attack  bush  Georgia  president  Putin  Russia  Saakashvili  Tbilisi  war  

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