Mikheil Saakashvili, President of the Republic of Georgia

Taking Power Peacefully: Reflections on the Post-Communist Revolutions of 2000–2004

September 14, 2005 04:00 PM


Q & A

by Lisa Anderson, Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs

00:00:06
Lisa Anderson: The optimism and generosity of your remarks were very
compelling and you talked very briefly at the end about the notion that there may
be a few obstacles or a few impediments in a few places. And yet there are vast
swathes of this earth that have yet to become stable democratic countries. So I
wondered whether you'd be willing to expand a little bit on the kinds of things that
from your experience represented surmountable obstacles, in other words, things
that people would say, "Well, this is really an impediment; Georgia will never
become democratic," and yet questions of corruption, questions of development,
so forth and so on, how exportable is the Georgian experience?

00:01:00
Mikheil Saakashvili: I think first of all I mean, all of these are universal, I mean,
accountable government, transparency, control by the people, I mean, daily
control, checks and balances, these are the things that you cannot invent the
bicycle. I mean, that's how it is. You have independent media. You have civil
society. You have checks and balances within government. You have
transparency and accountability and you have the result. Now, of course there is
always, I mean, there are all different models that could be, I mean, for instance,
if you have too many special interests (inaudible) purely parliamentary
government where parliamentary groups have to come together and help to
make a coalition government can be detrimental at the initial stage.

00:02:00
I mean, U.S. model is much more adjustable to such situations with strong
executive but a strong parliament, a strong legislature because what it brings, it
brings the system of checks and balances where executive within its functions is
less limited but the legislature can have strong oversight. I think for societies in
transition this model is better from many points of view because special interests
will not prevail and basically swallow all the resources of the society, because
direct rule of the people can often be kind of overshadowed with the special
interests that do exist and we know it from ourselves. You know, how we pulled
ourselves from month to month with our old shoestrings was initially I came in.
We didn't have cash to pay any salaries. I mean, I came into my office and two
weeks after being President they brought me my paycheck in an envelope and
guess how much the President of Georgia was making before me?

00:03:00
It was 20 U.S. dollars per two weeks, so 40 dollars per month. And when they
brought me I didn't know what it was and when they told me it was my salary I
thought they were making fun of me because my predecessor was very rich. He
is still one of the richest men in our country. His ministers, who used to get even
less, their houses are the biggest ones still in the capital and they enjoyed nice
lifestyles, I mean, with all these meager salaries. But there of course was
nothing left to the government and to the people so for 15 years nobody thought
about paving roads, nobody thought about constructing schools, nobody thought
about, I mean, propping up at least some kind of a military. Nobody thought
about, I mean, like, the way how police functioned in our case was that the police
were told, "We are not going to pay you any salaries.

00:04:06
You have to earn your own living with bribes. We are not going to put gasoline
into your cars but you need to have some kind of cars, which we are not going to
provide. You need to wear some kind of uniform, which we are not going to
provide but you should buy it from your corrupt income. And not only we are not
going to pay you anything but you have to bring us back monthly payments for
what you get from your poor population." Of course in such a system everybody
was corrupt. But the point is that there are many countries in the world where
there is such a system in different forms and when basically the government is
licensed to live at the expense of their people. Now, when we came in we said
we needed initial cash to pay salaries. So we asked money from the United
Nations Development Program to pay initial money for salaries to a few dozen
anti-corruption investigators and a few hundred tax collectors.

00:05:12
It enabled us to basically double our tax collection within a very short period.
And then we started to pay to the others. Now, no official in Georgia gets lower
than minimum survival rate and some of the salaries are rather high, I mean,
considering the (inaudible) per capita. I think one of the high--highest in some
cases in Eastern Europe, I mean, in terms of salaries, because this is essential.
The first stage was to fix the government, the bureaucracy. The second stage is
to do wider projects. Now, because we have higher tax collection then people
should see the difference. They were tolerant for the first year. I mean,
somebody who has been getting $20 as a pension was tolerant to see that some
minister is getting three to four to five thousand dollars a month. But they are
tolerant. We explained to them that it's necessary to improve their life (inaudible)
later. Later we have to show the results and we are now building roads.

00:06:05
The whole country is under reconstruction. We are building new power stations
to curb power shortages and this something very visible already. People can
touch it, I mean, it's there. We are building schools, we are building hospitals
and this is something else. At the same time, by liberalizing the system and
moving the government away from the way of business, because I don't believe
in any government interference in business frankly. I mean, there was this
temptation among some of my friends as well with noble intentions to say, "You
know, now we are going to go and get them. We are going to get all these
greedy oligarchs. We are re-privatize, we are going to, you know, change things,
you know, take over the business community. Well, this is the worst thing you
can do because it's none of government's business.

00:06:57
What freedom means that you should leave them alone and you should give
them guarantees that they will be left alone except that you should keep
guarantees that if they have debates with each other, if they have disputes to be
settled, judiciary will be efficient enough to help them, to provide remedy. So
these are the stages of the way we are working. And again, it's extremely
important to have assertive, efficient government with strong cultural (inaudible)
legislature and from the media. But on the other hand it's very important to
understand that there are some cases where government should stay behind,
should not intervene in order for the country to be successful. And that's another
lesson we learn. This is a very tough lesson by the way. If you are coming from
Soviet past you always have this temptation to go into the micromanagement of
private citizens' activities.

00:07:56
And even the most noble intentions usually bring us to very bad results. I think if
you look at our experience we had 8.7 percent growth last year. This year we
are expecting 10 percent growth. But the main thing that happened is that the
income got re-stabled and the middle class emerged. And that's my main result I
would say because, I mean, it's not so much the increase of GDP per capita as
the increase of people who can already be well off. I mean, 45 percent of our
population described in the polls themselves identified their condition as fair
economically. Ten percent said that they are doing very well. Now, two years
ago it was only five percent, and this is self-identification. I am not saying that.
They are saying this. Which means that people have got some economic
optimism and middle class is emerging. And I think the middle class in the long
run is the main stability force for democracy and for sustainable democratic free
development for every society where it emerges.

00:09:03
And I think this is another thing that's coming in the world in general. Middle
class is getting larger and larger. I mean, you can see it, you can see by
consumer spending. And the higher class has been shrinking. I mean, really the
wealthiest ones their number is not growing anymore and it's even shrinking.
And this is a very important process. That's what makes the whole thing
universal.

00:09:32
Lisa Anderson: I must say this is a fascinating lesson in how one constructs a
democracy and not entirely consistent with some of the platitudes, in any event,
that the democracy promoters often argue. Because you are insistent on actually
building government capacity and then saying that there is a distinction between
the government and the private sector is a fairly sophisticated way of
approaching this and clearly reasonably successful. In a way you are playing
two roles right now. On the one hand it's called the Rose Revolution. You are a
revolutionary. On the other hand you want to sort of institutionalize this and
become merely a democratic leader. Is that a difficult tension?

00:10:24
Mikheil Saakashvili: Yes, yes, it is. Because what I am saying is that on the
one hand revolution itself was just the initial stage. I mean, what followed was
cultural revolution, and the cultural revolution is the continued changing
perceptions. And for that we need to constantly be creating framework. I mean,
we are a small country of a little bit less than 5 million people but it's still a
country where we basically have this role of framers. And when you are framing
something you also want to be part of that system. And of course this is always
a tough challenge because on the other hand it's just a regular democratic
process. You get elections, you get criticism, you respond to criticism and you
cannot play really, I mean, the founding father role. No. You are just down on
the ground and it's like it's not being part of great gallery of historic heroes.

00:11:22
I mean, at least for the time being. I mean, this is something that is business as
usual, right? But on the other hand, yeah, I think the main thing that will stay
behind us is Cultural Revolution and this will make the whole process irreversible
and I think this is happening in Georgia, this is happening in Ukraine but also in
the former Soviet Union. Even if there was no regime change in other places,
attitudes and perceptions also ruling (inaudible) is changing. I mean, the first
reaction was that of fear and panic, I mean, "What's going on? It's going to come
also to our countries. We are going to have Mass." But I think now people
started to understand that first of all, revolutions and upheavals cannot be
provoked by opposition only.

00:12:21
I mean, it's a both-way street. If the government is stupid enough to all the time
make mistakes and basically respond to even provocations from the opposition
then it's doomed. But if government is smart enough to pre-empt and to adjust
and to make changes then, I mean, why should somebody be changing regimes
taking hundreds of thousands of people to the streets and standing there in
freezing rain for many weeks or months? No. I mean, so what's really
happening, we are seeing that reform process I am sure will become universal in
many places. And I have been meeting with four other (inaudible) leaders and
they have been very realistic about it. You look what happened in Egypt. I
mean, people are critical about some aspects of Egyptian political system but for
the first time the reality is that for the first time there was an open debate there. I
mean, there were candidates. They could speak on television. They could get
their views known and that was normal.

00:13:24
I mean, and even nobody was so much surprised by this. We were, like, normal.
Three, four, five years ago it was unimaginable. What happened in Lebanon, I
mean, the way they conducted (inaudible) campaign it was unimaginable a few
years ago. So what I am seeing is that people everywhere started to understand
that, you know, it's not so simple anymore. Life will never be the same anymore.
And those that don't understand that, they are on their way out.

00:13:55
Lisa Anderson: Well, I certainly hope so. I have one more set of questions, so
those of you who are beginning to think of your questions should prepare
yourselves. You have talked in your introductory remarks about the role that the
democracy promotion of the Bush Administration has played and even now you
have talked about the notion that Georgia represents something of a model or an
example to other countries. What is the role that outsiders can play promoting
democracy?

00:14:29
Mikheil Saakashvili: I think the main outsider that helps us a lot was CNN and
television in general and media exposure and the moral support that it generates
among other people. I don't think you can artificially provoke anything. You
cannot pay for people to be in the street. It's not possible. You can sometimes, I
guess, but, you know, those people to whom you pay whatever amount you pay,
they won't stay there for a long time. I mean, if people don't feel like being very
desperate even if you pay them like $100 an hour will stay there for a couple of
hours in the rain and they'll say they had enough and they'll go home, I mean, be
happy with the money that they got. And so the whole idea is that, you know,
they were paying the money, they were trained in special camps. I think even
people who kind of circulated those ideas no longer believe in that.

00:15:31
They themselves understood that it's a much more profound process and the
process is based in natural human longing for freedom and for alternatives and
for debates and for their own participation and empowerment. No matter how
prosperous societies are, no matter what's the GDP per capita, no matter what's
the level of retirement benefits, pensions, you know, unemployment benefits, if
people don't feel that they are asked they are going to revolt in protest. That's
the rule. And even in the poorest societies if people feel that they can express
themselves, their views can be heard, that their views do matter, revolutions are
not going to happen. Even (inaudible) or mass protests are not going to be that
often because people feel that they are being...

00:16:34
Recently I met some young person from a very well-off country, I mean, in Asia
that's doing very well. I mean, like, when I heard that he was from there I told
him, "Well, good for you. I mean, the country is doing very well. I mean, I have
seen on television nice new skyscrapers (inaudible)." He said, "Who cares? We
want democracy. I mean, we want more democracy. I mean, it's not about all
these things." And this is true. I mean, if you are a young person it's not all
about the benefits you get. You want to be part of it. You want to have
ownership in it, not to be just some kind of personnel hired by somebody else.
And I think that's the main driving force behind the change.

00:17:23
Lisa Anderson: Can other governments support democracy? Are there things
that governments should or should not do to say, "Yes, we want to help the
democratic forces"?

00:17:34
Mikheil Saakashvili: Well, of course, it is always important to express position.
I think what counts is moral support and political position. And I don't believe, I
mean, some people were saying the fact that Secretary Rice said something in
support of democracy in the Middle East. Some democrats in the Middle East
were damaged as a result. I don't think it's true. I don't believe it's true. I mean,
yes, those people who thought that they were damaged, I mean, they are the
enemies of freedom anyway. I mean, they would look for any reasons to think
that way. But otherwise, I mean, any kind of disposition is also always very
helpful.

00:18:20
Lisa Anderson: Okay. Wonderful. There are microphones in both the aisles so
those of you who would like to ask questions should prepare yourselves. Sir, you
were there first.

00:18:30
Unknown: Thank you. Mr. President, thanks so much for your presentation.
My name is (inaudible). I am a student here at school of international affairs from
Kyrgyzstan.

00:18:39
Mikheil Saakashvili: Sure.

00:18:40
Unknown: I know Kyrgyzstan was the country that following the example of
Georgia had also such a revolution. But the problem I think now with our
government is that if you get rid of the old corrupt government you have new
corrupt officials that are apparently coming to the power. How is Georgia fighting
this problem of corruption and how sustainable are your reforms? For example,
if you get to all the officials like the police you have to find jobs for these people
who are fired and how do you make sure that the new people are not taking
bribes and are honest?

00:19:15
Mikheil Saakashvili: Very simple. I mean, first of all the main recipe here is not
to be afraid. Because we fired the whole traffic police. Now, most of them had
savings because they were corrupt and, you know, like, my ideal is a policeman
opening a grocery store in the streets and taking off his uniform. Now, the
problem is that we had a police officer having a grocery store or controlling a
grocery store and being a policeman. Now, we separated those two. I don't
think to become a police officer you need ten years of extensive training at
Columbia (inaudible) or somewhere. No. Two months of police academy would
do in a proper system. And I think there are many checks and balances. First of
all, their salaries were increased 12 times at least, in some cases, 40 times, 50
times in terms of high-level officials.

00:20:16
Second, the whole climate in society changed. Every night we have a show like
Cops on Georgian television. Police love it because they are heroes. They are
covered on television. People know about them and it's really becoming
shameful to be corrupt because you are out of system. I mean, it's no longer
fashionable. This is important. I mean, no matter how much you pay, unless you
create this climate it's not going to work. So this is the issue and in terms of
corruption it's not only about, like, hearsay, like, I am saying, we have no
corruptions. Someone said maybe they are corrupt. There are lots of people
who are saying in Georgia, "I'm from the opposition. No, this government is ten
times more corrupt than the previous." However, Georgia's overall aggregate
budget for the last two years grew eight times, eight times.

00:21:13
This is the figure of index of reduction of corruption, local budgets and central
budgets together. No matter who says what that's the reality, eight times more
money is going to the government instead of going into the pockets. And of
course we are a free country. There are people who say that, I mean,
"Saakashvili is worse than anybody else (inaudible), I mean, everything is
corrupt," but the results are here. We for the 15 years of rule of my predecessor,
seven kilometers of roads were built in Georgia, seven kilometers. This year only
we are building 350, next year we'll build 600 to 800. This is the difference. I
mean, this is the first year where Georgia, theoretically at least, will not have any
shortages.

00:22:00
We had huge shortages. This was a country, you know, in darkness for many,
many years. And this is the result and many, many others and many, many other
things. And it's just, the reality is if you are a…and I don't believe that, you know,
like, if we don't get experienced officials from previous government the country is
going to collapse. I think there are enough knowledgeable people in societies.
You just need to find them. I mean, you go back and they should take you and
appoint as some minister, or maybe prime minister. I don't know. I mean, we
have been doing some experiments like this. Sometimes they were good,
sometimes not. I am one of these experiments. So I think Kyrgyzstan has some
good prospects. I just spoke to your President, by the way. I think he
understands what should be done.

00:22:58
Zicanda Biari: My name is Zicanda Biari. I am a doctoral student in economics
and education here and I am Albanian, so I know a little thing or two about the
evilness of the communist regime. I was in Georgia the summer of 2004, and I
really want to congratulate you because I already witnessed Georgian people
being a lot more enthusiastic about their future and the country had already
started to reconstruct. My question is about China, one of the last strongholds of
communism in the world right now. And there has been an editorial piece by a
newspaper. It's called (Inaudible) Times and its Chinese edition actually
published a piece called "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party." In brief,
what this is is an uncensored account of the violence and deception the Chinese
communist party has used to keep itself in power.

00:23:57
And inspired by this article, to date there are 4.2 million Chinese people inside
and outside China renouncing their membership to the communist party or other
communist organizations. And a lot of China observers think that this is the
beginning of the end of the communism in China and the Chinese communist
party will dissolve soon. And it seems like you were optimistic about that in
general. So I have two questions. One is about what is your prediction about
communism in the world today, particular with reference to China, a country
which is also supporting oppressive regimes in I believe it was Kyrgyzstan there
were reports that they were trying to help the government there escape the
(inaudible).

00:24:46
Lisa Anderson: We have long lines of questioners so--

00:24:49
Zicanda Biari: Okay. I'll cut it short. And restating actually the question of
Dean Anderson about what can the government of democratic countries do to
support these democratic movements in these countries? It seems like we have
double standards. We have embargo for Cuba but we have foreign investment
for China, and it seems that suddenly foreign investment seems like a way to
help the democracy in a country like China but not in other countries. And
looking at the history of eastern communist countries it was that economic
isolation that really brought down these communist governments. So what is
your comment on that?

00:25:28
Mikheil Saakashvili: Well, thank you. I mean, first of all I don't believe that
communism has any future. I don't believe in it in general. I mean, I grew up in a
family where communists were always hated but because of that most of that
family has been destroyed in communist purges. And my great-grandfather who
died when I was 17 years old and I grew basically his home, spent 12 years in
Siberia, his brother was 20 years there, all brothers of my grandmother were shot
and her father was killed. So, I mean, we know it first-hand. I mean, and you
know that last year there was the poll. I don't know whether it's I mean, the poll
is right whether you share the same experience but Georgians were second most
optimistic people in Europe but the Albanians were first most optimistic people in
Europe. I mean, if you are coming out of the country of (inaudible) it's no wonder
that you might be optimistic.

00:26:32
Nothing can be worse or everything looks better than under (inaudible), that's
obvious, I mean, and but the reality is that I don't think communism has any
future because it kills competition, it kills freedom (inaudible) and what it really
brings is that mediocre people succeed. It kills talent because the way it is, you
know, when I was first year student at the University they put me on the blacklist
of KGB and I was finished. I would have never got a job. Maybe I wouldn't have
been arrested but I would be unemployed. I would be always under the watchful
eye of the communist party or KGB and, you know, if they notice that you are
kind of out of mainstream, I mean, you were finished. And normally educated
and talented people that's how they normally are, right?

00:27:33
Communism cultivates these mediocre personalities. That's the reality. And
that's something that was proved many times in examples of many countries.
Now, how to treat concrete countries, it's very hard to say, I don't believe in, say,
isolating China, I don't believe in it. How can you isolate China? I mean, China
can isolate anybody else if it wants to. This is a huge economy, very rapidly
growing one, very dynamic, I mean, and I would say that I wouldn't agree on
assessment of Chinese foreign policy. My understanding is China has been
behaving in foreign policy in a very moderate way in many respects, unlike some
other countries. I don't really know anything about Kyrgyzstan. Now, talking
about views about general political systems I already told you. I mean, I believe
that still liberal democracy has no alternative for anybody in the world. And as I
told you, you'll witness that every country will live within such system in the
foreseeable future.

00:28:45
Lisa Anderson: Sir.

00:28:47
Chris Baldwin: Sir, Chris Baldwin, graduate school of journalism, sir, the
(inaudible), the international research and exchange board, an NGO instrumental
in cultivating democracy in the Former Soviet Union by providing educational
opportunities for outstanding scholars from these countries among other things,
including yourself here at Columbia with the Muskie Fellowship, has been kicked
out of Uzbekistan. Systematically the (inaudible) regime is eliminating the very
institutions that were key in Georgia and Ukraine and Kirkistan. What options are
left to the Uzbek people and how important are these civil society and
democracy-building institutions?

00:29:24
Mikheil Saakashvili: Well, I mean, first of all, I'd really agree about on the
important role to be played by actors like (inaudible) especially educational
institutions because without them I would have stood no chance to come here,
no chance, I mean, I came here and I kept complaining in the beginning of my
speech about, you know, toughness of the New York environment but on the
other hand (inaudible) in absolutely exclusive environment. I mean, the name of
my professors included not only for instance, Kofi Annan, who is the present
secretary general of the U.N., but also Oscar Schachter who wrote the charter of
the U.N. who just died two years ago unfortunately but, I mean, people who
made history, who were historians themselves.

00:30:27
And I remember (inaudible) was teaching me international law and he was also
himself a living memory of everything that happened here. I mean, it was '93 and
he would go talk about some topic, say about '50s. And he would say, "But the
fact that this convention was not signed then was their fault," and point at me like
I was former Soviet student. Why should I take the blame for Kruschev,
Brezhnev and Stalin? Sorry, I mean, I was (inaudible) and I said, "Professor, I
mean, please leave me alone. I mean, I have nothing to do with that." But the
reality is that education is the key and what's happening now for instance in
(inaudible) they set up a university for students from Belarus, and lots of young
activists from (inaudible) are coming there to study.

00:31:32
And I think this is the thing, we should spread information. We should give them
the education. We should cultivate civil society. We should talk more about this.
I mean, all international channels are available everywhere else. I mean, BBC
World can be seen everywhere, CNN is everywhere, you know, Voice of America
is everywhere. You just talk about that, you know. There might be that we were
desperate when in Georgia for some days. Georgia was covered better. I'll tell
you why, because when Georgia things were happening people were expecting
violence. So CNN immediately arrived on the spot, BBC was on the spot,
everybody was on the spot waiting when we would start to kill each other. In
case of Ukraine, I mean, for weeks nobody would show up except the Georgians
who cashed in on renting out their equipment later because when the Westerners
finally understood that something is happening they came in with one suitcase
without any special equipment.

00:32:33
And Georgian equipment was already there. But we were desperate because
things are happening, they are faking elections and nobody speaks about it.
"What's going on?" So in this, things really do matter about this specific situation
there should be more discussion and I am sure that will inevitable, did such a
moral thing value that I mean, you sit somewhere you think the world has
forgotten about you and suddenly somebody comes out, some expert like you
from Columbia and speaks about the situation in their ex-country. I mean, every
freedom-loving person in that country would immediately cheer up and say, "We
have hope." So that's the things that should be done. I will take only one last
question.

00:33:19
Lisa Anderson: I am sorry to all the rest of you.

00:33:21
Mikheil Saakashvili: I am really sorry.

00:33:24
Lisa Anderson: He has things to do, as you can well imagine. You have the
opportunity here.

00:33:29
Andrew Carter: My name's Andrew Carter. I am a student at the school of
international public affairs. You already eluded to this earlier in your remarks but
I am curious if you can elaborate on what you would like your own legacy to be
and specifically, I mean, to what extent does your ideal legacy involve a re-
imagining of Georgia's international policy, perhaps reorientation towards
Europe, perhaps eventual membership in the European Union, many years off,
but in general just a more independent international personality for your country
and then how are you hoping to go about doing that over the coming years?

00:34:08
Mikheil Saakashvili: Well, we don't have global ambitions. We are a small
country trying to survive in a very complicated geopolitical environment.
However, I mean, Georgian example inspired lots of people all around the world,
and that's inspiring for us as well. I mean, President Bush came to Georgia and
spoke about Georgia like it was beacon of liberty. He said for the whole world
and, "You Georgia," he told us, "created one of the most important moments of
history." I mean, what small nation would not be proud of such remarks? I
mean, we were proud. We are still very proud. So this is one thing. The other is
Georgia is a European country. Now, it's a matter of recognizing it, it's a matter
of getting there. I believe that there is a realistic chance within my presidential
term, I mean, under constitution I might have two terms, I'm talking about first
term that ends by the end of 2008 to speak about Georgia's integration into
NATO.

00:35:13
I mean, we are speaking about it. We have realistic expectations about it. And I
think things are going to move much faster than people would imagine. Now,
once we solve the problem with NATO we also regard this as entry ticket to other
European institutions because it's a guarantee for further economic development,
for democratic development, for further empowerment of our people and for more
enthusiasm and hope. And I think today many things appear to be very bleak
and unresolved, of course. But a few years ago when they started to speak
about extension of Baltic countries to NATO people thought that it was a joke.
Former Soviet countries in NATO, it was inconceivable for 90 percent of the
Europeans.

00:36:14
It happened, not only to NATO but then the European Union it happened.
Nobody thought about Romania and Bulgaria just a few years ago. It's
happening, it's happening and no matter what it's going to matter. They are
already in NATO and they will also join the European Union and so are we. We
are in the region of whom most of the people have never heard before, right? As
I told you, when I was here we were fighting bloody war with forces that came
into Georgia from Russia, basically Russian troops. Nobody cared about it
because I remember very well Gary Hart whom you might remember, I mean, I
certainly remember him very well because when I was a child he was a big
superstar in American politics.

00:37:12
And he came to speak to this…not to this hall, to the other one, the other building
it was. He was invited by the school of political science. And it was '93 and of
course he was kind of very critical of Clinton at that time, you know, like, it was
visible that he was saying that Clinton basically took his role. He said Clinton
was junior aide (inaudible) my campaign. This guy has no brains. I mean, his
wife is guiding him, things like that. I mean, he was pretty nasty. And this was
like my hero. I always thought he was a big charismatic figure. At certain
moment by criticizing Clinton he went so far as to say this was the moment when
Georgia is fighting war and I'm nervous and nobody cares. And Clinton made
some statement about us a few days before. He was the only one even then that
made a statement. No European leader cared about Georgia at that moment.

00:38:12
And he said he went he is so unserious that he even made this stupid statement
and he said, "Why in the world should we care about territorial integrity of some
Republic of Georgia?" And this was, like, I mean, the very second he died for me
as a person. I mean, he got totally destroyed. He committed political suicide in
my eyes. And I was like, what? I mean, we are some certain country that
nobody should care about? That's what he said. By the way, when I met Clinton
I wanted to thank him but I was like, "Thank you for making that statement that
Gary Hart didn't like." But the reality was such that 12 years ago saying that one
day the President of the United States will go to this certain country of Georgia
and proclaim that it's example for the whole world is unimaginable. So after that
nothing is unimaginable anymore. I mean, definitely we'll get to the European
union faster than people will go to Mars. And they are going to go to Mars quite
soon. Okay. Thank you very much for seeing me.


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