Tbilisi/Agency Caucasus – The opposition in Georgia has accused Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili of deliberately causing the tension to rise between his country and Abkhazia and South Ossetia only days before the May 21 general elections.
Although the issue of Abkhazia is not far more important today than it was yesterday, the administration has caused the tension to rise over it and thus sought to increase its share of the votes, said Tina Hidasheli, who leads Georgia’s Republican Party. "Over the past ten years, the administration has always drawn an apocalyptic picture before each election was held. Both the administration and the news media which it controls give an artificial cause to the rise of such events."
Former President Eduard Shevardnadze and his successor Saakashvili used Abkhazia as well as South Ossetia as a means of inciting the feelings of hatred towards a common enemy, said Hidasheli. "The statement that came the other day from Saakashvili about Ossetians and Abkhazians has caused me the most embarrassment I have ever had. While he has remained in office, he made numerous promises to provide protection of possession and many other things. However, he never kept them. How can Abkhazians now trust him? How popular a war without a consequence is, how popular military statements are, how many families feel ready to send their sons to the war, I don’t know; however, we favor peace and it is possible to have peace in Georgia. For a peaceful solution, we need a more reasonable and consistent government. We made it a topic for discussion many times that Georgia should neither leave the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) nor withdraw its support for the CIS peacekeeping forces; however, the administration now shouts in favor of the CIS peacekeeping forces."
In his May 3 statement, Hidasheli said that while members of his party’s youth branch were receiving threats, he was also being constantly pursued because of their different points of view.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili vowed in 2008 to bring the issue of separatism to its final resolution. KU/ÖZ/FT
