Commissioner for Human Rights under the President of South Ossetia Inal Tasoev called one-sided and untrue statements by the head of the Georgian parliamentary committee on international relations Nikoloz Samkharadze at the session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Warsaw. Samkharadze condemned Russia's actions in Ukraine and compared them with the "scenario" in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
“Georgia is trying to impose on the world community a one-sided, politicized and distorted vision of many issues. Samkharadze in his speech prefers to remain silent about the truth, which is inconvenient and unacceptable for the Georgian state. For example, that the appearance of the mentioned refugees is directly related to the wars that Georgia unleashed against South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It is also not mentioned that out of more than a hundred thousand Ossetians who fled ethnic cleansing from the territory of Georgia and found refuge in South Ossetia and the Russian Federation, few managed to return to their homes. Whereas South Ossetia and Abkhazia, on their own initiative, returned tens of thousands of Georgian refugees to their places of permanent residence,” Tasoev emphasized.
The Ombudsman noted that all Georgian politicians prefer to remain silent about the fact that on the night of August 8, 2008, Georgia was the first to carry out a full-scale armed attack on South Ossetia using heavy artillery, armored vehicles and military aircraft.
“Naturally, it is unprofitable for the Georgian political elites to talk about how the lives of civilians were exposed to a mortal threat - residential areas were shelled, even close to military facilities. They also keep silent about how their property was destroyed before the eyes of people, and they were forced to sit around the clock in cold basements, unable to feed their children, ”South Ossetia quoted Tasoev as saying.
As for the “European justice”, according to the Ombudsman, we saw what it is like by our own example, when after the Georgian aggression in 2008, the inhabitants of South Ossetia filed more than 3,000 complaints to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
“These were complaints that were accompanied by irrefutable evidence. But they showed us the full political engagement of the courts, confirming their bias and selectivity in the application of international law. Unfortunately, "European justice" remains "an obedient tool in the hands of the West," Inal Tasoev concluded.
From the OSCE PA rostrum, Samkharadze said that the bombing of civilian infrastructure and energy facilities was allegedly aimed at creating a humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine. According to him, this attempt by Russia is very similar to the “scenario it implemented” in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where it allegedly “created a humanitarian catastrophe in the form of preventing up to 250,000 ethnic Georgians from returning to their homes.”
“Georgian children are not given the right to study in the Georgian language, moreover, in the occupied regions there is a constant process of destruction of the Georgian heritage. Today, the Russian Federation has established an apartheid regime in the occupied regions, where ethnic discrimination against Georgians continues. This fact was confirmed by the European Court of Human Rights, where Georgia won the lawsuit against the Russian Federation. Georgia also won a lawsuit in the International Criminal Court of Georgia, according to which Russian citizens were found guilty of war crimes. Georgia helped Ukraine, which is not a member of the International Criminal Court, file a lawsuit against Russia,” Georgian media quoted Samkharadze as saying.
In response, the official South Ossetian newspaper recalls that until 2008 the OSCE was a mediator and observer in the JCC format in South Ossetia. Members of the organization witnessed Georgia's armed invasion of the territory of South Ossetia, and the head of the OSCE office in Tskhinval, Ryan Grist, admitted that Georgia started the war. Nevertheless, statements of an anti-Russian nature are often heard at the OSCE venues, because South Ossetia is one of the segments of pressure on Russia.
“The OSCE, like other international organizations, given the current situation in Ukraine, needs to support the information trend that Russia is an “aggressor”. However, in 2008, when an act of armed aggression against South Ossetia was committed, it was Russia that forced Georgia to peace, protecting its citizens from extermination, and did not act as an aggressor. It is nothing that Georgia and international pro-Western organizations are trying to reduce the Georgian-Ossetian and Georgian-Abkhazian conflicts to the level of Russian-Georgian relations, thus hushing up the genocide committed by the Georgian authorities against South Ossetians. And here it is worth recalling more than 100,000 refugees of Ossetian nationality from the interior regions of Georgia and some villages of the former South Administrative District, more than 170 burned villages, etc., writes South Ossetia.
At the same time, they note in Tskhinvali, the OSCE participating states call for an agreement on expanding the organization's mandate in the territory of South Ossetia.It is also noteworthy that representatives of the Georgian political elite constantly manipulate the issue of the return of Georgian "refugees", who are not refugees, since they actually left their homes on the eve of the conflict, when Georgia attacked South Ossetia, the publication recalls.
“Such statements sound inappropriate in the context of existing realities, in particular, in South Ossetia today there is the Leningorsky district, which is practically populated by almost 70% Georgians. In other words, the Georgians who wanted to stay in South Ossetia stayed, and some even returned after 2008. The Leningrad region is like a thorn in the eye of the Georgian political establishment,” Tskhinvali said.
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