State Service of Veterans Affairs: State institution should investigate and determine facts

“We agreed that acting on raw emotion is not the best course; rather, we must approach this process with a cool head, and that is precisely what our appeal to the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia was intended to achieve,” stated Koba Kobaladze, Head of the State Service of Veterans Affairs.

The matter concerns a statement made by Gia Baramidze, one of the leaders of the United National Movement, according to which “during the war in Abkhazia, Georgian military personnel executed prisoners, which is why the Abkhaz side refused to hand captives over.”

As Kobaladze noted, Baramidze’s statement is an anti-state, malicious act and a slap in the face to war veterans.

“War veterans asked us to respond to these irresponsible statements and submit an appeal to the Prosecutor General’s Office as early as yesterday. You saw the intensity of the emotional reaction; therefore, it is far better for a state institution to act as the investigating authority to establish when, where, and to what facts this individual was referring, and what he actually intended to convey.

It is one thing for us to hold assumptions, but quite another to establish what factual circumstances he relied upon when making these claims. Clearly, he spoke before he thought. He tried to style himself as both a grand fighter and a strategic analyst, but the conversation completely ran away from him, and he couldn’t claw it back.

Veterans reached out to us yesterday and asked to register their participation by signature. It was decided that we would all gather today, primarily the commanders whose personnel saw active combat. We agreed that emotion is not the best way forward; rather, we must pursue this process with a cool head, and that is precisely what the appeal to the Prosecutor’s Office was meant to accomplish.

This is an attempt to slap every veteran and every family member of the fallen in the face; it is an anti-state, malicious act. We want to know what lies behind it,” Kobaladze stated.

For context, the Prosecutor’s Office has launched an investigation into allegations of high treason and sabotage regarding Giorgi Baramidze’s statement.