Transcript: Saakashvili on CNN Late Edition Today

From CNN’s Late Edition, August 17, 2008; Wolf Blitzer Interviews Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili

Original Full Show Transcript Here

BLITZER: All right, Fred. Thanks very much. Fred Pleitgen on the scene for us.

Let’s stay in Tbilisi, Georgia right now. The president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, is joining us live from his office.

President Saakashvili, thanks very much for joining us for “Late Edition.” Is the cease-fire, based on everything you know, holding?

SAAKASHVILI: Well, Wolf, we’ve signed cease-fire, we agreed to sign it several days ago. Russia has given continuous promises to hold it, but in fact, they are continuing their actions. They are creepingly (ph) widening their zone of occupation. And now, together with the international community, we ceased on the fact that it’s up to Russia now to decide whether it will continue to defy the world and to try to advance toward my capital, or to have — to accomplish its final goal of regime change in Georgia, and basically ending Georgia’s independence.

BLITZER: Because they say they will really start the withdrawal and do it on their timetable as early as tomorrow. I guess the bottom line is, do you believe your counterpart, the Russian president?

SAAKASHVILI: Well, you know, it’s — they have been continuously lying and trying to cheat the world for all this period, as well as through the whole — for the whole years leading to the conflict. You know, how — it’s not — it’s not he said/she said, I’m not in blame game now, but the fact is that Russia has broken all its promises continuous for the last several days. The foreign minister of Russia yesterday clearly said openly that they have their own goals to fulfill. It looks like these goals mean blowing up Georgia’s bridges. And you know, they said they didn’t do it. Surely, Georgians couldn’t have blown up their main railway bridge. Mining other economic objects. You know, there are still cluster bombs thrown around, and people still get blown up on them.

They are destroying our pipeline and port infrastructure. So they are just rampaging and going — looting. You know, New York Times, I was told, I haven’t seen it, but has a picture of a Russian tank carrying looted furniture, carpets, belongings of people, loaded on them, and going — and this is liberation, Russia style, you know, intervention Russian style.

These people go around, you know, there are — many of them walk around in uniforms of Georgian officers because they stole uniforms from our military base, and basically, they now — because these are American uniforms, we buy them in America, they probably parade themselves in them (ph).

But you know, Armenia is blocked now. Armenia has huge problems, because these transit communications are also for Armenia. Armenia is now in an even more desperate situation than Georgia now.

BLITZER: Is it your understanding, Mr. President, that those Russian peacekeepers who were in South Ossetia before the violence started about 10 days or so ago, will they be allowed to remain as they were earlier?

SAAKASHVILI: Well, you know, there is no such real thing as Russian peacekeeper. I mean, these are obvious Russian interventionist forces, Russian occupiers.

What we have as a temporary agenda (ph) is that the biggest force to move out from this almost 2,000 tanks, as we have them now in our territory, to leave. And for this so-called peacekeepers — and this is certainly a very, very cynical term for these people there — to be there until there will be international observers on the spot and until we have robust international peacekeeping force to squeeze them out, to make them…

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: How long will that take, for peacekeepers from the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe and other peacekeepers, international peacekeepers to come in?

SAAKASHVILI: Well, the monitors can come to this part very fast, but these are just monitors to monitor cease-fire. With regards to genuine international peacekeeping force from the European Union or other impartial countries, well, that’s up to international community to step up pressure on Russia.

Clearly, Russia’s goal was to, you know, take over the whole Georgia. Now, the international community hit back, you know, for a while. That had a big sobering effect. I can tell you that, you know, President Bush’s statement somehow coincided with the fact that they halted their advance toward the capital. That was the exact chronology in time, you know, the time connection there.

But, now, they are obviously carefully trying the patience of the world. You know, they believe that the world — that it all depends on how the world reacts to what they are doing here or what they have done here.

BLITZER: All right. The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, said this on Friday, and I’ll read it to you. He says, “After what happened, it’s unlikely that Ossetians and Abkhazians will ever be able to live together with Georgia in one state.” These are the two areas of Georgia where there has been this dispute that’s been ongoing for a very, very long time.

Are you open to the possibility of allowing the Ossetians in South Ossetia, the Abkhazians to have a free and fair referendum to decide whether they should remain as part of Georgia or get independence or do something else?

SAAKASHVILI: Well, I think the whole methodology of this question is incorrect, because that’s what Medvedev said, clearly betrays one of the goals of Russia’s aggression, the dismemberment of Georgia.

Abkhazia has been — from Abkhazia, they expelled more than 80 percent of Abkhazia’s population. So who is to decide? Those 20 percent that remain under Russian occupation? It’s like Sudetenland Germans being under German military rule and they should have decide whether they want to be part of Czechoslovakia or not. It’s like Karelia cleansed of Finns and then deciding to join the Stalin’s Soviet Union. Don’t you see the exact parallels from the history? This is a clear-cut military conquer and alienation (ph) of the territories.

With regards to South Ossetia, as we speak, there is a policy of ethnic cleansing openly proclaimed and carried out there. Can world ever live with this? Georgia will never live with it. President Bush yesterday clearly said, never, ever will the United States reconcile with territorial dismemberment Georgia and undermine its territorial integrity. Democracy has nothing to do with it because we are talking about places that were militarily taken over. We are talking about separatists that was never genuine in the first place because it was separatists financed, abated and organized by the Russians.

SAAKASHVILI: It was always part, you know, a formal territorial incursion.

So there is no — there are of course naive people out there saying, oh, what’s wrong, you know, these places don’t want to live there. But it’s not about those places. It’s about fundamental principles of international law and justice and about the future of the world.

Because if Russians get away with what they’ve done, and if they have the upper hand, as you’ve said, you know, carrying it out, and they want to leave anymore with these territories, then it will be a never-ending story of territorial conquests, breaking up countries, you know, killing people, and then justifying it with some kind of — this kind of pseudo-democratic terminology.

BLITZER: The Russian president also said this on Friday, Dmitry Medvedev. He said, “The entire responsibility for conflict, for the cruel actions committed rests upon the shoulders of the Georgian leadership.”

And other Russian officials are going one step further and accusing you of being a war criminal for your initial steps in using military action in South Ossetia, which, in effect, started this round of violence.

Do you want to respond to President Medvedev?

SAAKASHVILI: Absolutely. It was very clear from the outset that this action has been prepared very carefully for almost a year.

The entire Russian — almost the entire Russian land force and almost the entire Russian air force attacked Georgia within a few hours.

Even the United States, which is much more powerful, certainly, than Russia, can hardly mobilize this kind of force if they don’t prepare for weeks and months and months.

How could Russia — even if, supposedly, as they were saying, that Georgia initiated anything, respond within a couple of hours?

And in fact, they were already inside my territory. The truth was that we fired back at Russian incursion, to exercise the right of self-defense against the people who were already inside our territory. And these were Russian officials armed by Russia, trained by Russia, commanded by Russia, and 100 percent controlled by Russia.

And so, you know, if you want to find the reason why you should intrude other countries, you can always — they always said that. Afghanistan provoked them; Czechoslovakia provoked them in 1968; the Hungarians provoked them in 1956; and the Finns provoked them in 1939.

But the reality is the following, that basically they brutally attacked my country. They had purpose to get our territories, to throw out people from there. They’re throwing out people from there. And then they’re there to speak for the rights of the people and for the rights of — I saw, today, hundreds of children crying at the doorsteps of the presidential palace.

And, you know, the point here is that the world should recognize that, no matter what, we will never reconcile with the idea that somebody would act the way they’ve acted here.

And you know what? The world already knows. All these claims about Georgian genocide — there were human rights organizations on the spot, and there is a Human Rights Watch report, Amnesty International report, clearly saying that the Russian claims were false. They were false pretenses from the outset. And, you know, they only used them to justify their own brutality, their invasion. And now it’s clear to the world.

I mean, look at this report. These are not my words. These are their words, their studies. These are brave people. I’m grateful they got to the spot. I’m grateful they’ve obtained all this information.

And let’s make it very clear. I mean, there’s a clear case of intervention, invasion, classically taken from old history textbooks, unfortunately taking place in the 21st century and in my peaceful country.

BLITZER: We’re out of time, but a quick question and a quick answer, I hope.

Does Georgia still expect — I know you want to be a member of NATO, but do you still expect membership, at some time, any time soon?

SAAKASHVILI: Well, President Bush said, yesterday, very clearly, the free world should rally in defense of a free Georgia. And what’s the net value of the free world if it cannot stand up for its principals?

One of the goals of the Russian invasion was to deter NATO from every coming here. You know — but I think that’s exactly the way, when freedom is being hid; when freedom is being squeezed out, freedom always strikes back; freedom always stands up for its principals. And freedom always prevails.

There is no way these brutal Russian invaders, the people who hate the whole idea of freedom, who have come from a background of slavery and want to enslave the others — there is no way they can defeat the free world if the free world sticks to its principles. We all believe in it. That’s why Georgia survived. That’s why Georgia’s capital stands, despite all these attacks. That’s why most of Georgia is resisting, because we believe that we are not alone, that we will be free, but will be free because the free world also wants us to be free.

(CROSSTALK)

SAAKASHVILI: And that also concerns issues like NATO.

BLITZER: Does that mean, Mr. President, you still want to be a member of NATO? SAAKASHVILI: We will be members of NATO. We will go to it. We will stay as close allies to the United States and all the free world, so — you know, “shining city on the hill” — this is Ronald Reagan.

I mean, for Georgians here, despite all the bad hits we took because of us being friendly with the United States, because of our close ties, because of President Bush coming here and praising us, because our soldiers served in Iraq, because we wanted to be members of NATO, because we wanted to have a free market economy and values of a free society. Despite all these things, I still believe in the Reagan vision of a shining city on the hill, because I believe my people believe in that.

And that shining city would never be extinguished by any Russian tanks. And they cannot blur for us this vision. They can never overshadow it. We will stay calm. We will stay united. We will keep our territory and we will never ever surrender, never, ever give up our freedom.

BLITZER: Mikheil Saakashvili is the president of Georgia. Thanks very much for joining us.

SAAKASHVILI: Thank you so much, sir.