Appeal of the National Parliamentary Library of Georgia to IFLA, CENL, ALA, The European Library, The Smithsonian Institution Libraries, National Library of Poland, Swiss National Library, National Library of Latvia, National Library of Sweden, National Library of Ukraine, National Library of Kyrgyzstan, National Academic Library of Kazakhstan, National Library of Belarus and the International Community
Dear Colleagues,
The National Parliamentary Library of Georgia expresses its grave concern about the disproportionate military actions of Russia and calls upon joining us in solidarity with the Georgian people and their democratically elected government in the face of this threat to Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Since August 8, 2008 the whole world has been witnessing a wide scale intervention of the Russian Federation and its open military invasion into the independent and sovereign Republic of Georgia. Russia has breached the internationally recognized borders of Georgia and has been fiercely launching a full-scale military air strikes and ground operations on both civilian and military targets and economic infrastructure inside Georgia’s sovereign territory, killing and injuring large numbers of civilians.
Russian authorities call this "a peace enforcement and precision strikes against military infrastructure in order to prevent Georgians from military attack on our peacekeepers" and in reality are executing a long-planned war to try to overthrow Georgia's democratic government, to take control over the region, which has a strategic geo-political importance and a key pipeline that carries Asian oil to Western Europe.
It is hard to believe that this happens in the 21st century, as Georgia is brutally punished by its Northern neighbor for its willingness to build free and democratic society and its aspiration to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union.
This outrageous military aggression by Russia unequivocally reveals its imperialistic ambitions that can be perceived as nothing less than Moscow’s strong nostalgia for the Soviet era and desire for "restoring” its rule in Caucasus and Eastern Europe. It is a clear message to the free world that Russia has been always ready to brutally punish any of its neighboring countries that choose to embrace the democratic and humanistic values, which the democratic societies today are standing for.