Parliamentary inquiry: UNM, Saakashvili provided Russia with legal grounds used against Georgia in 2008

Thea Tsulukiani, the Vice Speaker of the Georgian Parliament and Chair of the Parliament’s Temporary Investigative Commission examining crimes committed by the former United National Movement Government between 2003 and 2012, on Tuesday said that witnesses from the Kodori Valley - including locals who had defended Georgia’s territorial integrity with arms, as well as former officials - testified that state-led actions in the valley, initiated by the United National Movement Government as early as 2006, were deliberately aimed at depopulating the region and ultimately handing it over to Russia.

Presenting the Commission’s findings, Tsulukiani noted that the United National Movement and then-President Mikheil Saakashvili created the very legal grounds that Russia later exploited to justify its violation of Georgia’s territorial integrity in 2008.

“As witnesses, including Irakli Batiashvili, explained to the Commission, the steps taken in 2006 by Saakashvili and the UNM effectively ‘gifted’ Russia two crucial preconditions that facilitated the occupation of the Kodori Valley in 2008. In particular, the disarmament of the local, combat-capable population, whose resilience had enabled Georgia’s central Government to maintain control over this significant part of Abkhazia; and the deployment of heavily armed units into the valley, which violated the 14 May 1994 ceasefire agreement. Russia immediately raised this breach at the UN Security Council and secured a resolution that was unfavorable to Georgia”, she said.

“By doing so, the UNM and Saakashvili provided Russia with the legal justification it later used to damage Georgia’s sovereignty and occupy the Kodori Valley in 2008”, Tsulukiani concluded.