The FINANCIAL — Since August 7, 2008 the Russian army has invaded Georgia’s sovereign territory, bombing its civilians and destroying its major infrastructure, causing catastrophic human and material losses; all those acts of war are committed under the fallacious pretext of protecting a handful of Russian citizens in South Ossetia to whom the Russian Government has intentionally distributed Russian passports in the last few months.
This is the recent chapter of a series of systematic Russian aggressions and attacks since several years on a peaceful, democratic and Western oriented country.
Since three years the Russian Federation has completely closed its markets to Georgian exports, denying Georgian businessman entry visas to Russia, in a clear attempt to destroy the Georgian economy that was largely dependant on the Russian market and to put Georgia on its knees.
Despite this aggressive stand, the Georgian government has welcomed and is still welcoming Russian investments in the country where most of the large Russian companies are present and operational.
Georgian businesses, in a very short time were able to diversify their export markets, therefore shortcutting the traditional Russian market, which resulted in the failure of the asphyxiation strategy, put in place by Russia.
Today’s military occupation and bombings are the next level of aggression to which Russia has committed, in a fresh attempt to remove President Saakashvili, the democratically elected president of Georgia. The Russian Government is not hiding its goal anymore and has formally and officially informed Western mediators of its demand in this respect. Such an unprecedented request in today’s world is a remnant of the dictatorial Soviet mentality that unfortunately still prevails in the minds of the Russian Government.
ICC-Georgia strongly condemns the ruthless and brutal Russian invasion and bombing of Georgia, and calls on the leaders of the G7 and the civilized world to take immediate action compelling Russia to stop the killing of innocent civilians and to withdraw immediately within its already large borders.
