Georgian President Mikhail Sahakashvili didn’t attend the non-official summit of CIS countries and dedicated his free time to regulating the Georgian government.
The cadre reforms were done based on the many demands of the people and the opposition and referred to the state minister of conflict settlement Georgi Khaindrava. His name wasn’t on the list of new government officials.
It’s amazing to see how cynical the Georgian authorities can be- you were organizing hunger strikes and demonstrations with the purpose of having a new ministry administration? Well, here you go: the ministry no longer has intelligent people like Khaindrava but rather people like Vano Merabishvili, who appointed assassins in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and who caused the uprising in Georgia.
Khaindrava, who was the special representative of the Abkhazian president during the Georgian-Abkhazian war (Edward Shevardnadze at the time), is sure of the peaceful conflict settlement, in contrast to a majority of functionaries that repeat those words without understanding how that’s possible.
The state minister (unfortunately the former state minister) has a clear picture of how that could be-communicating, negotiating, reestablishing mutual trust and then implementing huge projects with the help of investments to get the autonomous economy back on its feet. Then, after a couple of generations, perhaps people will be able to forgive and forget.
Khaindrava has always partially been in favor of keeping the agreement signed by separatists.
When the city of Tskhinvali fired bombs on the day of Osetia’s independence, the state minister announced that either a degenerate or Georgia’s enemy could fire. That was a challenge to the “vulture” of the Georgian government. However, before that, the Defense Minister and Khaindrava had got into a debate about getting back Georgia’s territorial integrity.
Khaindrava publicly went against the Georgian authorities when they removed Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili, a diplomat with experience working for the French Embassy and European structures. “It was wrong to do that,” said Khaindrava.
Georgi Khaindrava strongly criticized the Georgian authorities when they removed Abkhazian refugees from the hotel in Ajaria.
“You can’t apply force on those people. They lost everything in Abkhazia-family, friends, their homes. They have been trying to make ends meet here and there for years and the Georgian government is the one sending special police forces. I’m speechless,” said Khaindrava.
He went against the authorities again after the court’s verdict for the murder of accountant Sandro Girgvliani, organized by high-ranking Internal Affairs Ministry officials.
“Not too long ago, the Georgian government used to sentence a 14-year old criminal for one year just because he started a fight. They used to sentence professional assassins and sadists for 7-8 years in prison. The authorities aren’t democratic,” said Khaindrava.
He probably had disagreements after the event tied to the Georgian Military Police, the Russian embassy workers and General Valeri Yevnyevich, when the latter had once again come to Georgia without a visa. To be more precise, the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict zone. Khaindrava said that the police didn’t have the right to stop and check a state-licensed car.
“That goes against the Vienna Convention,” said Khaindrava.
In response to that, the Minister of Defense accused Khaindrava of political mincing manners and for some reason, treason. The next day, Khaindrava found out from journalists that he is no longer on the list of the ministry administration staff. He said that he wouldn’t want to make a big thing out of nothing and that he will demand Okruashvili to give an explanation as to why he accused him of treason later.
“The political mincing manners are not an excuse for the Georgian Military Police’s incompetence. Okruashvili’s promises to return Abkhazia as soon as possible sound like a long process. They will lead the same politics for getting the lost territories back even after I step down from office,” said Khaindrava to “168 Hours”.
In any case, politicians and analysts say that there could be some things going on in the conflict zones without the influence of foreign powers. Both Moscow and autonomous republics are worried over the resignation of Khaindrava.
If we go back a couple of years and recall the “reference” that then special representative of the Georgian president on the Georgian-Abkahzian conflict Irakli Alasani made to the Georgian UN representative, then we see that the discussions of the Georgian authorities’ “war party” and the victory sound made up. During his resignation speech Khaindrava said that there is no such party in Georgia and called on everyone not to make a big deal out of the whole thing. So, overall, this was the proper way of removing the worthy political figure.