http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=129909&d=20&m=12&y=2009
Sunday 20 December 2009 (03 Muharram 1431)
Georgia blows up Soviet memorial
Reuters
TBILISI: A mother and her eight-year-old daughter were killed in Georgia
on Saturday when workers blew up a towering Soviet war memorial.
The demolition, to make way for a new parliament building, has already
been condemned by Georgia's opposition and by Russia, which fought a brief war
with Georgia last year.
Russia said it was "sacrilege" and accused Georgia of pursuing a "manic
drive to erase the historical memory of its own people." The victims were
killed by lumps of concrete sent hurtling into the courtyard of their home in
the country's second city of Kutaisi, local media said. Reports said four other
people were in a serious condition in hospital.
Georgia's chief prosecutor, Murtaz Zodelava, said Saturday's detonation
had "resulted in tragedy."
"According to preliminary information, security norms were violated," he
told a televised news briefing. He said the detonation was carried out by a
private demolition company.
Kutaisi city officials could not be reached by telephone.
Diggers had begun tearing into the 46-meter-high (150 feet) concrete and
bronze monument earlier in the week, at the site of the proposed new parliament
building.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili says he wants to move parliament
sessions to Kutaisi in a bid to revitalize the former industrial hub in the
west of the former Soviet republic.
But Georgia's opposition said the demolition reflected an indifference to
public opinion by Saakashvili, who has made overcoming Georgia's Soviet past
his signature policy since taking power on the back of the 2003 "Rose
Revolution."
Some 300,000 Georgians were killed while fighting in the Soviet army
during World War Two.
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