Translated material
"Propaganda by reality"
Russian parliamentarians will show South Ossetia to foreign colleagues
Russian parliamentarians continue to acquaint their foreign colleagues with the situation in South Ossetia. The other day, State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov spoke at the summit of heads of parliaments of the G8 countries in Japan , where he spoke about the Georgian-Ossetian conflict and handed over two albums with photographs from Tskhinvali, taken immediately after the outbreak of hostilities. And today representatives of European parliaments and public organizations will have the opportunity to see everything with their own eyes.To do this, they will make a one-day visit to South Ossetia, where they will try to understand the situation. At the end of August, representatives of European parliaments sent letters to the State Duma leadership with a request to organize such a trip at the official level. The Europeans wanted to travel through the territory of South Ossetia, communicate with citizens, in general, create their own picture of what was happening, and then convey it to their parliaments. After all, since the beginning of the political year, there has been a heated discussion of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict in European legislative assemblies.
The leadership of the Russian Duma decided to assist in this event. The “A Just Russia” faction took over the organizational part of the work. And yesterday, Oleg Morozov, first vice speaker of the State Duma from the United Russia faction, decided to join the delegation. Boris Gryzlov, announcing the future trip, said that “propaganda with truth and reality” is necessary regarding the events in South Ossetia.
Twenty parliamentarians from the CIS countries and Eastern Europe will go to the conflict zone, accompanied by 12 Fair Russian deputies. In particular, South Ossetia will be visited by the Vice-Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament Lubomir Zauralik, the Member of the Czech Parliament Peter Felegy, the representative of the People's Assembly of Bulgaria Petar Kynev, the Member of the Seimas of Latvia Nikolai Kabanov, the Member of the Moldavian Parliament Dumitro Godoroja, the President of the Slovak-Russian Society Jan Charnogursky, the representative Armenian party "Dashnaktsutyun" Yuri Navoyan and others.
The head of the delegation, vice-speaker of the State Duma from the A Just Russia faction, Alexander Babakov, assured the Vremya Novostei correspondent that the trip participants would have time to figure everything out in one day. “They will be able to meet people and socialize. And given that there are not so few of them, they will be able to visit a large number of objects,” said Mr. Babakov.
The trip program includes a meeting with the President of South Ossetia Eduard Kokoity, a visit to the territory affected by military operations, and communication with local residents.
Russian parliamentarians set themselves the goal of not only conducting “propaganda with the truth” among their foreign colleagues, but also studying the current situation directly on the spot and seeing how it develops. It is possible that the trip will result in a number of legislative initiatives aimed at providing assistance to the citizens of South Ossetia. Representatives of the State Duma intend to pay special attention to issues of reconstruction of the republic. In addition, deputies want to make such trips to South Ossetia regular in order to monitor the situation on their own and exercise parliamentary control.