Not only military personnel of the Georgian army and leaders of the Georgian state, but also the Georgian population of adjacent territories, resettled by the Georgian authorities to the Ossetian land, took an active part in the genocide and devastation of South Ossetia in the 20s of the last century. This is stated in the statement by President Alan Gagloev in connection with the 104th anniversary of the Ossetian genocide.
June 20, 1920 is a sad date in the history of South Ossetia and the entire Ossetian people.
On Thursday, Ossetia is marking the next anniversary of the genocide committed by Georgia. The victims of this genocide prepared and carried out at the direction and under the direct supervision of the official Georgian authorities, became tens of thousands of Ossetians, most of whom were children, women, and old people. A third of the Ossetian population of South Ossetia died at the hands of the Georgian punitive forces.
Alan Gagloev has emphasized that the genocide against South Ossetia was carried out with the full support of the absolute majority of representatives of the Georgian public.
“It was a purposeful and systematic extermination of the entire people on their native land solely on ethnic grounds - innocent people were killed only because they were Ossetians. The survived Ossetians, according to the plan developed by the Georgian government, were deported, and South Ossetia was completely looted,” the Presidential statement reads.
The head of state has reminded, that already after the Sovietization of Georgia, another crime was committed against the Ossetian people: the bloodless and torn apart South Ossetia was forcibly included in the Georgian SSR.
“Thus, the Tbilisi authorities had the opportunity to continue their policy of genocide against the Ossetians, but using other methods. They did everything to silence the tragedy of 1920, erase any memory, classify and destroy documentary evidence of the genocide. All these years they persistently tried to present the events of the Ossetian genocide as a political struggle of the leadership of the Georgian Democratic Republic against the Bolsheviks, which took on the character of the armed confrontation,” the leader of the Republic has noted.
Meanwhile, no one in South Ossetia has ever had any illusions in assessing those tragic events.
“The Ossetian people have always remembered, remember and will never forget that in their desire to destroy the Ossetians, Georgian public and political figures, both in 1920 and subsequently, always showed rare unanimity, regardless of political beliefs and party affiliation. And the fact that Georgia has not yet been held accountable for the crimes committed has only strengthened its conviction of its exclusivity and impunity, becoming the direct cause of new attempts to destroy South Ossetia in 1989-2008,” Gagloev said.
He reminded that to this day the Georgian authorities not only refuse to admit the country’s guilt for the genocide of the Ossetians, but also make enormous efforts to prevent the spread of the truth to the world about the crime against humanity committed by Georgia during the tragic events in 1920.
“The tragedies experienced in 1920 and in subsequent years did not break the people of South Ossetia. We steadfastly endured all adversity, won victory, and after more than 700 years, we revived the Alan statehood with the full support of our strategic ally and friend, the Russian Federation,” the statement says.
He has noted that today the Republic of South Ossetia is looking to the future with confidence, but time has not dulled the pain in the hearts of the people.
“We will do everything in our power so that as many people in the world as possible learn the truth about the tragic events of 1920, so that the international community recognizes them as the genocide of Ossetians carried out by Georgia,” the President has assured.
