Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Ethnic Cleansing of Georgian Polulation

Starting from 8 August 2008 to date, the Russian Federation has been engaged in carrying out the occupation of the Georgian territory. In this process the Russian side makes an active use of illegal bandit gangs and so-called North Caucasian volunteers present in Georgia’s conflict regions.

To our great regret, representatives of Abkhazia’s separatist authorities took advantage of the escalated situation in the Tskhinvali region and, in violation of all agreements and treaties signed up to this day and with the assistance of Russian ‘peacekeepers’, made an attack on Upper Abkhazia and invaded its entire territory. Just like in the 1990s, separatists, with the support of Russian troops, conducted a mass cleansing of the local population of ethnic Georgians.

Developments are following an analogous scenario in the Tskhinvali region as well, where ethnic Georgians are slaughtered daily with utter brutality.

Given the inertness of the international community, separatists and their ‘ally’ – the ‘brave’ Russian army - went on the rampage conducting ethnic cleansing and pillaging houses throughout the whole territory of Georgia. As a result, the casualty toll among the peaceful population in the city of Gori and its adjacent villages of Tedotsminda, Nikozi, Dzveri, Tkviavi, Karaleti, Berbuki, Argo, Ditsi, etc keeps rising day by day. Property is also being destroyed.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia calls on the international community, UN and OSCE in particular, as well as other international humanitarian organizations to employ all resources at their disposal to put an end to this atrocious crime against humanity raging throughout the territory of Georgia and immediately assign their experts to carry out monitoring on the ground.