Georgia

It is always a great honour for me to address the annual gathering of the General Assembly. In uncertain times such as ours, cooperation is more necessary than ever. Unless we stand together and invent new approaches to the global challenges we all face, we shall be torn apart by fear and self- destructive interests. Gatherings such as this, therefore, are valuable only if they allow us to shape a common vision for concrete action towards peace, development, solidarity and justice. This month, thanks to the coordinated efforts of the international community and the leadership of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, direct peace talks have resumed between Israelis and Palestinians. This is a very important moment, because they resume precisely when many people had given up hope for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. The road to peace, security, and justice is still a long one. The remaining obstacles are enormous. But the goal is so noble and necessary that no effort should be spared. That is why today I would like to pay tribute to all those who are taking risks for peace. Yes, risks. Because peace is never obvious, never easy. That is certainly true in the Middle East, and it is true in my region as well. One of our common goals, then, must be to enable those risk-takers who have the courage to defy conventional wisdom and forge new paths to peace. Peace is not an easy way. But peace is the only way. As the President of a young democracy that recently suffered from war and invasion and is still under partial occupation of an important part of its territory by a nuclear super-Power, I can say this: peace is our most precious common goal and, at the same time, our only path towards the other goals we share. To those here and in my own country who see no way to reverse the armed occupation or reduce regional tensions, I say: peace is not only the goal, it is also the means to any goal. Today my region is at a crossroads. For too long, it has suffered from division, injustice, conflict, colonization and violence. Today, however, change is possible. In fact, change is already taking place. I came 10-54833 2 here to speak about this change and to promote a specific vision — a vision of a free, stable and united Caucasus. From the times of Pushkin, Lermontov or Tolstoy to the present day, the Caucasian mountains have been a symbol of wilderness and paradoxes, a region where individuals and souls were fundamentally free, but where citizens were brutally oppressed; where people and cultures were deeply tolerant, but where Governments and authorities created artificial divisions; where shepherds would cross 5,000-metres- high mountains, but where rulers erected walls nobody could cross. I have come here today to tell the Assembly that those times are vanishing, that the dream of unity and peace is possible. When I addressed the Assembly two years ago — in the aftermath of a full-scale invasion, and when the Russian Foreign Minister was openly discussing with foreign diplomats and the international community the possibility of Georgia’s total annihilation — few people believed that our country would survive as an independent and democratic State. Few people thought that our Government would endure, that our economy would survive the war and the global crisis, that our reforms could continue with renewed vigour, or that we would make steady progress towards the European Union and Euro-Atlantic structures. Well, I am proud to tell the Assembly, two years later, that we have succeeded against all the odds, thanks to the commitment of the Georgian people and to the support of friends and allies. Today, Georgia is back. Georgia is back, first, as a laboratory for political reform and social transformation. More than ever, we are committed to the promise at the heart of the Rose Revolution to turn a failed State into a modern European one. Our local elections last May were proof of that transformation and a milestone for our democracy, the result of seven years of patient, constant, tireless reform. Our objective is clear: to create a more institutionalized system of liberal democratic governance. My term as President ends in 2013. These changes will survive my presidency and the current Government, because we are not speaking only about changes of leadership or reforms of institutions; we are speaking about something deeper and stronger — something that The Economist of London recently branded as Georgia’s “mental revolution”. The Georgian people have tasted freedom, the absence of corruption, the fruits of economic development, the emergence of a true meritocracy. They have changed their behaviour, their vision of the world, their dreams even, and they will mightily resist any attempts to reverse those changes — no matter whether those attempts come from inside or from abroad. This is our great victory: we helped to create something that goes far beyond the leaders and parties that led the Rose Revolution. We helped to create a revolution of the heart and the mind. Once one of the most corrupt countries of the post-Soviet world, Georgia has made greater gains in the fight against corruption, as witnessed by Transparency International, than any other country over the past five years. Once a place where foreign investors were kidnapped by gangs and mafias, Georgia is now ranked by the World Bank as number 11 for ease of doing business in the world — a ranking we hope to further improve this year — and the number 1 in Eastern and Central Europe. These rankings make clear why Georgia’s only interest is a peaceful resolution of conflicts: Georgia is winning the peace — Georgia is winning through peace. Our northern neighbour expected us to change our path when it imposed on us a full embargo in 2006, invaded us in 2008, ethnically cleansed Georgian regions and illegally occupied 20 per cent of our territory, an occupation that continues to this day. All these actions had one objective: to destroy the Georgian laboratory of political, economic and social reform — to prevent the region from changing. We answered those relentless attacks by reinvigorating our reforms, opening our economy even more, and accelerating our social transformation. This is our policy, and no provocation will ever make us change it. Thanks to this commitment to reform, Georgia is now a responsible international player. I am proud that my nation is fighting international terrorism in Afghanistan. I pay tribute here to our nearly 1,000 soldiers who are risking their lives every day in the south of Afghanistan to help the Afghan people secure a stable, terror-free future. I pay 3 10-54833 a special tribute today to company commander First Lieutenant Mukhran Shukvani, who died earlier this month. Mukhran was killed in the cause of peace, while serving alongside NATO forces in the dangerous Helmand province of Afghanistan. We are fighting other common scourges, now focusing especially on the terrible danger of nuclear trafficking. Many times over the past seven years we have intercepted criminals who had in their possession the essential ingredients for nuclear devices. Every step of the way, we have cooperated with our allies in the international community to ensure that Georgia is doing everything possible to confront this global danger. Here I must pause to draw attention to a grave problem that resulted from the partial occupation of my country — a problem that everybody should worry about, even those who overlook and do not care too much about violations of international law, who forget 500,000 internally displaced persons and refugees; even those who dismiss repeated assaults on basic human rights, civil liberties and the environment. I am speaking of the lawlessness bred by the Russian occupation. Our two occupied regions exist in a black hole of governance. Today, in those lands, criminals act with impunity. The most elemental human rights are abused. Drugs and weapons are smuggled. People are trafficked. And potential weapons of mass destruction are moved in and out of the territories, posing a threat to us all. Three days ago, we met in this very place to discuss the Millennium Development Goals and our progress in meeting them over the past decade. I shall not tire the Assembly with a recitation of our efforts to achieve the Goals, the strides we have made in halving our poverty rate and decreasing by two thirds our extreme poverty, reforming our educational system and improving health care. But I will tell the Assembly that all those successes remain bittersweet for me, because they cannot be savoured by all the people of Georgia — not by those who live in fear for their basic rights in the occupied territories, nor fully by the 500,000 internally displaced persons and refugees who were expelled from their homes and cannot go back and regain their property. For the last two years the Russian Federation has been violating the ceasefire agreement brokered in August 2008 by my good friend French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was acting at the time on behalf of the European Union. The Russian army has not withdrawn as required by the ceasefire. European Union monitors cannot enter Russian-occupied areas of Georgia, where a constant military build-up is taking place. Hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons, victims of the ethnic cleansing campaign led by the Russian forces, are still prevented from entering their homes. How did Georgia respond to those violations of international law and human rights? We answered with patience and calm. We implemented — fully — the ceasefire agreement and went beyond our obligations, without ever using as a pretext Russia’s refusal to comply. Last month, the head of the European Union Monitoring Mission in Georgia, Ambassador Haber, publicly praised Georgian policy as “constructive unilateralism”. What does constructive unilateralism mean? It refers, for instance, to our calm when militias supported by Russia’s federal security service (FSB) killed our policemen at the occupation line, or to our willingness to free criminals working for the occupation regime when the other side was kidnapping teenagers who wanted to visit their empty house just after their school time. Constructive unilateralism means that we behave in a civilized and patient way, even when our enemy uses barbaric methods or implements an impulsive and irrational policy. It means that — even if peace requires both sides to come to the negotiating table — one can pave the way to peace on one’s own, without the other side’s cooperating. This constructive unilateralism is based on the idea that peace is in the supreme interest of Georgia, that peace is the only path to the de-occupation of our country. It forms the substance of the strategy on occupied territories that my Government has put in motion to engage the populations held hostage by the Russian occupiers, on the other side of the new Iron Curtain that illegally divides our country. Like the Berlin Wall, walls like the one dividing Georgia will be brought down not by bombs, but by the commitment of citizens to build a free, united country — and by the commitment of the world 10-54833 4 community to enforce international law and the principles of the Charter. This commitment is expressed in the refusal of nearly the entire world to legitimize the Russian occupation and the result of ethnic cleansing by recognizing the so-called independence of Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region, a de facto annexation of Georgian territories by the Russian Federation. It is noticeable that, despite enormous pressure and multiple threats from Moscow, not a single former Soviet republic has recognized this dismemberment of Georgia. It shows — to the great surprise of those who describe the fall of the Soviet empire as the worst catastrophe of the twentieth century — that the old times are definitely over. It shows that the change I evoked earlier has already taken root. It shows that all the former captive nations of Soviet times are now independent States that can determine their own policies. It is noticeable — and it is noticed in Moscow. I solemnly call today on those three, isolated Member States that recognized Russia’s de facto annexation of our territories and legitimized the Russian-led ethnic cleansing of around 500,000 citizens, to acknowledge that it is never too late to reverse a bad policy. The dismemberment of Georgia has failed categorically — and even the Russian Federation will one day need to reverse its disastrous policy. Imagine how uncomfortable those leaders from faraway countries will be when Moscow itself chooses to comply with international law and withdraw its troops. Because that day will come. Those who claimed a military victory in 2008 now face a diplomatic and political defeat. And in Moscow the occupation and annexation will soon be debated. They are in fact already debated in the corridors of the Kremlin, because this situation is not sustainable, even for the Russian leadership. We have now in our country Russian soldiers deserting their units and fleeing to the Georgian side through the wall erected by their superiors, just as Soviet soldiers did in Berlin during the cold war. In which direction is history moving? Certainly not in the direction of those who can deploy thousands of tanks in a very short time, but who cannot even take care of their soldiers or prevent them from fleeing. Those who refuse to modernize their society and to open their political system may have an interest in war and instability. But in Georgia we know, and we have always known, that peace is our interest — the very precondition of our survival and our success. I have three calls to make today. My first call is addressed to my fellow citizens, ethnic Abkhaz and Ossetian, who live behind the new Iron Curtain that divides our common nation. I want to tell them once again: We will protect your rights, your culture, your history — we will work with you, we will work for you. You are part of a common history, a common culture and a common future. Your differences enrich our proud national tapestry. Rather than see you succumb to annexation by the emerging Russian empire, we invite you to build together with us a multicultural and multi-ethnic society that will be a regional model for tolerance and respect. I dream about the day when — as has happened several times in our common history — an Abkhaz or Ossetian citizen of Georgia becomes President and leader of a democratic and European Georgia. And this dream will become possible in a reunited and free Georgia, a Georgia that will build positive relations and even intense cooperation with the Russian Federation, a Russian Federation acting as a rational international player and not as a revisionist or revanchist Power; a Russian Federation that will have chosen cooperation instead of confrontation and has dropped the politics of embargoes and intolerance, and instead of imposing crackdowns will be a good partner to cooperate with. My second call is, therefore, to the Russian leadership, to whom I say: You face a choice. Either you take a major part in the ongoing transformation of our common region, accepting that other countries are your partners and not vassals, or this transformation will happen without you. We all want — I personally want — Russia as a great partner and not as an enemy. That is why the Georgian Government supports the reset policy of the United States and the European Union’s engagement with Russia. Nobody has a greater stake than we have in seeing Russia turn into a country that truly operates within the concert of nations, respects international law and — this is often connected — upholds basic human rights. I want to tell the Russian people that they will always be welcome in Georgia, as tourists, as students, 5 10-54833 as businessmen, as journalists or simply as friends, but never as occupation forces. And I want to tell the Russian leaders that they should care more about their citizens and less about our diplomatic orientation, more about developing the Northern Caucasus — a region that is exploding as I speak — than about undermining our development. They are welcome to come too if they want, in order to understand how a post-Soviet society can turn into a European one. We invite them to come, with notebooks rather than with missiles, with iPads rather than Kalashnikovs. I was pleased to note that some of our reforms inspired a few recent presidential speeches in Moscow. Instead of fighting each other, we should excel together in modernizing our common region. And instead of secretly copying or envying our reforms, they should cooperate with us in building a stable and free region, building stable and free countries. Because by looking over the best pupil’s shoulder one might not get the full picture of what modernization means. The complete picture is rather simple: lasting stability and prosperity cannot be achieved without respecting some basic principles. Modernization without freedom is not sustainable. One cannot hope to diversify and develop one’s economy when one sends one’s most talented and successful businessmen to the Gulag, as happened to Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Computers are not enough without free minds to use them. So let us free our minds from our common Soviet past in order to build a common future. My third and final call is to every member of the international community: help us to secure peace — in Georgia, but also in our broader region. We Georgians have learned tragically how a so-called frozen conflict can very quickly become a hot one. If there is clear support from the international community, I am convinced that a lasting peace can be secured in the Caucasus. I am convinced that if the world shows the same commitment to a peaceful resolution of conflicts in my region as in other parts of the world we can accomplish wonders. It is in everybody’s interest to see this strategic region, this crossroads of civilizations, become more stable, prosperous and open. History has taught us that wars can erupt quickly — but also that brave leaders can secure peace where nobody would ever believe that conflicts could be resolved. History has taught us that regions that were torn apart by armed conflicts and contaminated by hate — starting with Europe — can achieve lasting peace through cooperation, interdependence and unity. History has taught us that dreams are often more realistic than resignation. I strongly believe that a common market, shared interests and political and economic interdependence will one day give birth to a united Caucasus. That is what I call for today. We share a similar history of oppression, but we have also in common a deep, essential and undefeated aspiration for freedom. Let us capitalize on this aspiration. Our region will never be truly free if it is not united. It will of course require a long and difficult series of efforts and gestures, from all of us, but the objective is worth every sacrifice. As happened a long time ago with the European Union — that amazing geopolitical revolution we aspire to join one day — the historic move towards Caucasian unity will start with concrete projects, in the energy sector, in the education and the cultural fields and in the civil society sphere. We should begin with more people-to-people exchanges. It is time we got to know each other and forged links that will bring us together without changing existing inter-State borders. My birth town and our capital, Tbilisi, is inhabited by Caucasians of every religion and every ethnicity. Together they form a living example of tolerance and cooperation. So it is possible. We leaders have to learn from this cohabitation of peoples and translate it into geopolitics. Our unity would not be directed against anyone. Once again, we will not aspire to change any borders. That needs to be emphasized. We may belong to different States and ethnic groups, and live on different sides of the mountains, but in terms of human and cultural space there is no North and South Caucasus; there is only one Caucasus, which belongs to world civilization and Europe and will one day join the big European family of free nations, following the Georgian path. We, the Caucasians, driven by legitimate or imaginary threats of assimilation or attacks from other Powers, or from each other, hoped too often to be 10-54833 6 protected by neighbouring empires. This anxious search for foreign shelter led us to subjugation, assimilation, annexation and historical tragedy. It authorized foreign leaders to artificially emphasize and manipulate our divisions. We — Caucasian people — all made the same mistake through history. It is time to change. It is time to stick together, to help each other to survive and progress. It is time to understand that our region has sufficient resources and potential for all of us. It is time to rely on ourselves, on the human potential of our citizens, on development of our own education system, and time to organize our own development. The Caucasus is one of the birthplaces of world civilization. It is time to show that the energy of our ancestors does not belong only to an iconic past, and that we have something to give to our children and to the world. It is time to stop fighting and weakening each other and to realize that our strength consists in unity. It is time for unity and peace. It is time to stop being prisoners of the past and to move towards our common future. In the past, Georgian citizens perceived our border with the Ottoman Empire as an absolute threat. Today, we have passport-free customs; we can enter each other’s country without passports and visas. We have a joint airport and free trade with Turkey, and very friendly relations. Tomorrow, the citizens of Armenia and Azerbaijan will be able to cross our borders without passports. Even today there is a very simplified procedure; they do not even have to leave their cars. Recently, a foreign diplomat told me that after crossing our only legal crossing point with Russia he encountered dozens of roadblocks where dangerous- looking, unshaven local militiamen and FSB agents kept blocking the passage from one valley to another, from one village to another, aggressively preventing individuals from circulating in their own country. There is also talk about the eventuality of, and preparation for, a new war with Georgia. It is time to replace those people, barbed wire and roadblocks by open borders and passport-free customs, to replace camps for internally displaced persons by joint schools and universities, to replace the Kalashnikov by computers, and to replace missiles by books or television sets. In 2008, thousands and thousands of tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery platforms, troops and militias crossed the Caucasian mountains, bringing destruction, death and hatred. Now it is time for ideas — the ideas of freedom and unity that we all cherish — to cross the same mountains, bringing hope, life and even love. As I speak, thousands of tanks, armoured vehicles and missile platforms are entrenched or moving all across the Caucasus. If we remain on our own, isolated from each other, they surely will prevail. But if everybody holds his neighbour’s hand, if tens of millions of unarmed people peacefully stand together, shoulder to shoulder, being the continuation of each other, just like the Caucasian mountains, then no brutal force will ever break through this chain of awakened human spirits and this irresistible thirst for freedom.