[R-G] Saakashvili says Moscow wants to oust him

[Anthony Fenton]

Saakashvili says Moscow wants to oust him

By Quentin Peel in London, Catherine Belton in Moscow, Charles Clover  
in Tbilisi, Harvey Morris at the United Nationsand Edward Luce in  
Washington

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/077576b6-670b-11dd-808f-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1

Published: August 10 2008 19:51 | Last updated: August 11 2008 15:21

President Mikheil Saakashvili on Monday accused the Russian government  
of invading undisputed Georgian territory and of seeking to depose his  
government as foreign ministers from the Group of Seven urged Russia  
to agree an immediate ceasefire with Tbilisi.

“They claim their purpose is to depose the democratically-elected  
government of the republic of Georgia,” Mr Saakashvili told a tele- 
conference before the line went down because of what the conference  
operators described as Russian aircraft “overflying” the president’s  
location.

Before he was interrupted, Mr Saakashvili said Russian aircraft were  
deliberately targeting civilians on the roads of Georgia and that  
tanks had advanced to within five km of the town of Gori – Stalin’s  
birthplace – but had then pulled back to 20km.

Mr Saakashvili said the tanks had been “firing extensively into the  
centre of Gori” and that 90 per cent of the casualties were civilian.  
“We should be crazy to want to continue this war,” the Georgian leader  
said. “But of course we are never going to give up our independence  
and freedom. We are going to fight to the end. There is no surrender.”

As Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president who occupies the rotating  
chair of the European Union, prepared to go to Moscow, a US State  
Department spokesman said G7 foreign ministers expressed support for  
mediation efforts led by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and  
Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb. ”(The G7 ministers) called  
on Russia to accept an immediate cease-fire. They expressed deep  
concern for the civilian casualties and continued attacks on civilian  
locations,” said the spokesman.

Russia meanwhile rejected Tbilisi’s latest ceasefire offer as  
president Dmitry Medvedev said Russian military operations in the  
breakaway region of South Ossetia were near conclusion.

“We have completed a significant part of the operations to force the  
Georgian side and the Georgian authorities into peace in South  
Ossetia,” Mr Medvedev said. He said the capital ”Tskhinvali has been  
taken under control by a strengthened Russian peacekeeping contingent”.
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After initially denying it had invaded or bombed Georgia proper,  
Russia confirmed later on Monday that its troops had advanced from the  
breakaway region of Abkhazia to the town of Senaki inside undisputed  
Georgian territory. The Defence Ministry justified the operation in  
Senaki, which lies outside the so-called security zone along the de  
facto Abkhaz boundary, by a need to avert news attacks on another  
breakaway region of South Ossetia.

A Russian military spokesman said Moscow was readying 9,000 troops to  
bolster its forces inside the separatist region of Abkhazia where it  
currently has a peacekeeping contingent.  On Sunday the Georgian  
government said Moscow sent 4,000 soldiers into Abkhazia, and an  
additional 6,000 into South Ossetia.

The Kremlin’s ultimate goals in its Georgia campaign remain a mystery,  
but so far the stated objective has been only to secure control of  
South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

On Monday, Vladimir Putin, the prime minister hit out at the US for  
airlfiting Georgia troops from Iraq. ”It’s a shame that some of our  
partners are not helping us, and are trying to interfere,” he said. ”I  
am talking about US military planes airlifting the Georgian military  
contingent from Iraq practically into the conflict zone.”

Like President Medvedev, he said the west was wrong to identify  
Georgia, which last Thursday launched an offensive to take South  
Ossetia, as the victim. ”I am suprised by the extent of this cynicism,  
the ability to pass off white as black and black as white,” said Mr  
Putin. The ability to present the aggressor as a victim of aggression  
and to lay the responsibility for the consequences on the victims.”

Earlier, the US, which backs the Georgian government, stepped up  
confrontational rhetoric in an effort to get Russia to back down. Vice  
President Dick Cheney telephoned Mr Saakashvili to express US  
solidarity in the conflict with Russia and told him “Russian  
aggression must not go unanswered,” the vice president’s office said  
on Monday.

“The vice president expressed the United States’ solidarity with the  
Georgian people and their democratically elected government in the  
face of this threat to Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial  
integrity,” Mr Cheney’s office said in a statement.

The comments from the vice president appeared to go further than those  
made by President George W. Bush. In a statement issued in Beijing,  
the White House said the “dangerous escalation” of conflict could have  
a “significant long-term impact on US-Russia relations”. Mr Bush, who  
is attending the Olympics, said: “The attacks are occurring in regions  
of Georgia far from the zone of conflict in South Ossetia. They mark a  
dangerous escalation in the crisis.”

In New York, the United Nations Security Council met to tackle the  
mounting crisis and the US and other western states were expected to  
press for a formal UN resolution demanding a ceasefire in what envoys  
described as the most serious world crisis in years.

At least two thousand people, including soldiers and civilians, are  
estimated to have died on both sides.

Moscow on Monday rejected Georgia’s latest proposal for a ceasefire.

”According to information from peacekeepers in South Ossetia, Georia  
continues to use military force and in this regard we cannot consider  
this document,” a Kremlin spokesman told reporters. It follows a  
proposal signed in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi by the Georgian  
President Mikheil Saakashvili, offering a ceasefire.