Olympic non-serenity

The UN General Assembly recently called to cease any military actions for the period of the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver. Olympic armistice is an ancient tradition established in VIII century B.C. and revived by the International Olympic Committee in the last century. Meanwhile, tomorrow the Georgian parliament will discuss the possibility of boycotting the Olympic Games in Sochi. Are the ancient traditions and international standards worth breaking, especially that Georgia is so careful about holding to any traditions?

The Georgian parliamentarians are again discussing the boycott of the Olympic Games in Sochi. According to the Georgian media, the delegates are going to convince the international community of direct parallels between the 2014 Olympics in Sochi and the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.

Consequently, the 2014 Olympics should be boycotted as well, just like it was done 34 years earlier by the western countries in respect of the Olympic Games in Moscow. Sportsmen from the USA and the Western Europe did not take part in those Olympics in protest against bringing the Soviet troops to Afghanistan.

The parliament is promoting the idea of Russia invading Afghanistatn in 1979. As the parliamentary committees underline, Georgia has got no purpose to disrupt the Olympic Games in Sochi; besides, they say that the world is dealing with the same aggressive country as in 1980.

During yesterday's meeting, Chairman of the Interim Parliamentary Commission for Resuming Georgia's Territorial Integrity Shota Malashkhia came out with an initiative, according to which an alternative sports competition, the Free Will Games, may be held in case the Olympics in Sochi are boycotted, as GHN reports.

It should be noted that the issue of disrupting the Olympic Games in Tbilisi has been already raised several times. In November 2008, in his interview to Independent newspaper, former President of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze called upon the leading world countries to boycott the winter Games in Sochi.

At the end of last year, Georgia turned to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) with a request to shift the winter Olympics 2014 from Sochi for the sake of safety but IOC refused to do it.

Then, the Georgian Parliamentary Committee for Sports and Youth Affairs appealed to Latvian sports subcommittee Seima, requesting to support the idea of canceling the winter Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014; however, Latvia did not support the boycott of the Sochi Olympics.

Last month, the parliamentarians were killing their working hours discussing the way of boycotting the Olympics in Sochi. "Olympic Games are a symbol of peace. Holding an event like this is a controversial step for a country that has altered its boundaries in the 21st century using force and ethnic cleansing", - Reuters cited Minashvili.

The parliamentarians also paid attention to the fact that holding the Games not far from the boundaries of the North-Caucasian republics, such as Chechnya and Ingushetia, may provoke a burst of terrorist activity in the region. As usual, parallels with the 1980 Moscow Olympics were drawn at this point.

However, the Georgian appeal to boycott the 2014 Olympics did not reach anyone's ears. According to Vice Prime Minister of the Russian government Dmitriy Kozak, Georgia's appeals to boycott the 2014 winter Olympic Games in Sochi will be nothing but "a voice in the wilderness". This was stated to ITAR-TASS by Vice Prime Minister of the Russian government Dmitriy Kozak.

He took part in the 121st session held by the International Olympic Committee, where he listened to the report on preparing the Games presented by the Russian organizational committee. "Both us and the International Olympic Committee have responded to the matter a long time ago. We have no intention to politicize the Olympic Games", - he underlined.

By the way, the bloody August events also started during the Olympics. The shooting in Tskhinval started on the first day of the Games. One can remember Saakashvili promising to maintain peace during the Olympic Games according to the tradition; still...

It should also be noted that once the USA also tried to derail the Olympics in Sochi. During Georgia's attack against South Ossetia and Russia's response operation on peace enforcement, the American congressmen suggested denying Moscow its right to hold the Olympics in 2014.

However, things changed since then, and the point is not only the reload between Moscow and Washington. The comprehensive report of the International Committee for Investigation of the August events in the Caucasus prepared under the guidance of Tagliavini convinced the world community that even if Russia provoked Georgia, it was Tbilisi that launched a war in August.

Now, are the tools of boycotting the Olympics in Sochi worth spending time and the people's money on? Especially considering the fact that after Tagliavini's report, no one believes in Russia's aggression any longer, parallels with 1980 thus being irrelevant.

In his talk with GeorgiaTimes' correspondent, Georgian political expert Gela Nikoleishvili underlined:

Unfortunately, PR is a ruling instrument now.

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