10Aug08

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Bagapsh puts responsibility for South Ossetian war on West and Ukraine

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Abkhazian President Sergei Bagapsh laid responsibility for the bloodshed in South Ossetia on “Western countries and Ukraine which supplied arms to the Saakashvili regime”.

“The moral responsibility for what has happened in South Ossetia rests with Western countries and Ukraine which armed the regime whose policy was aimed at antagonism and hostility to the Ossetian and Abkhazian peoples,” Bagapsh told a news conference on Sunday.

According to the president, “both Saakashvili and those who abetted him, should bear responsibility for all evil deeds”.

Bagapsh called cynical statements by the Georgian leadership and Western reporters that Tskhinvali was destroyed by Russian bombs. “All kept mum when the city was pounded with howitzers and multi-barrelled launchers; when women and children were killed. The West kept mum, NATO countries kept mum and all who armed Georgia over the past years and about which we always said at various meetings,” Bagapsh emphasised.

“We constantly stated and warned the world community, addressing our friends in Russia that this would end in war, since we understood the purpose, for which many countries were arming Georgia. What has happened in South Ossetia is a result of the treachery of the Georgian leadership,” Bagapsh said.

The president noted that Abkhazia has its own obligations before South Ossetian people. “We shall fulfil them,” Bagapsh underlined. “To achieve our aims, we shall possibly break up the Moscow Agreement of May 14, 1994, but we are not the first to start violating them,” Bagapsh continued.

“The humanitarian disaster, caused by the Saakashvili regime in South Ossetia, is an indicator of who is now in power in that country,” the Abkhazian president stated.

[Source: Itar Tass, Sukhumi, 10Aug08]

The Question of South Ossetia

This document has been published on 10Aug08 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.