ESTONIA: Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili urges Estonians to fight "mirror propaganda"

Record ID: 240872

  • Title: ESTONIA: Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili urges Estonians to fight "mirror propaganda"
  • Date: 22nd January 2010
  • Summary: TALLINN, ESTONIA (JANUARY 21, 2010) (REUTERS) (CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY!) EXTERIOR OF ESTONIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY BUILDING ENTRANCE INTO FOREIGN MINISTRY ESTONIAN AND GEORGIAN FLAGS GEORGIAN PRESIDENT, MIKHEIL SAAKASHVILI ENTERING LECTURE ROOM LECTURE ROOM (SOUNDBITE) (English) GEORGIAN PRESIDENT, MIKHEIL SAAKASHVILI, SAYING: "This strategy has a name: it is called mirror propaganda, or accusations in a mirror. It consists in blaming your victim for committing the very crimes that you are about to commit or are already committing. It has been the main communication tool of every totalitarian regime of the last century." PEOPLE IN LECTURE ROOM MAN LISTENING TO SPEECH CAMERA CREWS FILMING SAAKASHVILI SPEAKING JOURNALIST ASKING QUESTION PEOPLE IN LECTURE ROOM (SOUNDBITE) (English) GEORGIAN PRESIDENT, MIKHEIL SAAKASHVILI, SAYING: "We need you, my friends, to fight this mirror propaganda. We need you to prevent this propaganda effort from hiding the fact that there is an occupying power and an occupied nation. What else do you call it, is it a military tourism what Russians are doing in Georgia? But unfortunately nobody really dares to call it loudly, except some parliaments, "occupation". Call a spade a spade, that there are ethnic cleansers and IDP's, that Russian behaviour is a threat to stability in the region and not Georgian reactions to this behaviour." SAAKASHVILI EXITING LECTURE ROOM SAAKASHVILI WALKING ALONG CORRIDOR SAAKASHVILI STANDING AT THE EXIT OF MINISTRY BUILDING SAAKASHVILI'S CAR DRIVING AWAY
  • Embargoed: 6th February 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Estonia
  • Country: Estonia
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA1O6YQR8SKFV9FEQU76ZS44EXT
  • Story Text: Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili told an Estonian audience that Georgia needed help in fighting Russian "propaganda" in relation to its military activities against his country, during a speech in Tallinn on Thursday (January 21).
    Saakashvili was speaking on diplomacy and foreign policy at Estonia's Foreign Ministry, during a two-day visit to the Baltic state.
    His address concentrated on Russian policy since the Georgia-Russia conflict of 2008, in which Saakashvili said Russia employed "mirror propaganda", comparing it to the tactics of Nazi Germany.
    "This strategy has a name: it is called mirror propaganda, or accusations in a mirror. It consists in blaming your victim for committing the very crimes that you are about to commit or are already committing. It has been the main communication tool of every totalitarian regime of the last century," he said.
    Georgia severed diplomatic relations with Russia in August 2008 over the Kremlin's decision to recognize the two breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.
    The recognition followed the five-day war in which Russia crushed a Georgian assault on pro-Russian South Ossetia, which like Abkhazia threw off Georgian rule in wars in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
    Saakashvili said it was not only Georgia that should be concerned, saying that if Russia repeated its actions of 2008, Ukraine and the Baltic states could also be at risk.
    "We need you, my friends, to fight this mirror propaganda," he said.
    "We need you to prevent this propaganda effort from hiding the fact that there is an occupying power and an occupied nation. What else do you call it, is it a military tourism what Russians are doing in Georgia? But unfortunately nobody really dares to call it loudly, except some parliaments, "occupation". Call a spade a spade, that there are ethnic cleansers and IDP's, that Russian behaviour is a threat to stability in the region and not Georgian reactions to this behaviour," he added.
    Saakashvili has met with Estonian leaders on his working visit, as well as visiting Tallinn's Old Town and the Estonian Centre of Information Technologies.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register