How does Enguri HPP answer Tsitlidze’s accusations? / www.on.ge
18 Oct 2021 Levan Mebonia: “It is unimaginable slander and simply nonsense. How can I, an ordinary engineer, take away someone’s identity document or negotiate with Russia...
Ana Tsitlidze, one of the leaders of the National Movement, claims that the heads of Enguri HPP, Levan Mebonia and Joni Chania, are preventing internally displaced persons from taking part in the second round of the elections. Specifically, Tsitlidze asserts that Mebonia and Chania are confiscating the identity documents of displaced persons. In addition, according to her, in agreement with Georgian Dream they are negotiating with the occupiers so that the occupation line is closed on 30 October and citizens living beyond it are unable to take part in the elections.
“These people are taking part in confiscating the identity documents of displaced persons so that they cannot take part in the second round of the elections on 30 October. And what is most important and most alarming, these people are negotiating with the Russian occupiers at the government’s behest so that the so-called occupation line is closed on 30 October and displaced persons cannot cross over and take part in the elections [...]
On.ge contacted both the chairman of the Board of Directors of Enguri HPP, Levan Mebonia, and the head of the arch dam operation department, Joni Chania. They deny Tsitlidze’s accusations.
“It is unimaginable slander and simply nonsense. How can I, an ordinary engineer, take away someone’s identity document or negotiate with Russia about closing the border? Can a normal, sane person imagine that? Who would give me their identity document? What right do I have, what do I represent, what power of that kind do I have? Or how am I supposed to negotiate with Russia about closing the border?
Someone who can close a border can presumably open it too, right? That is only logical — it is Newton’s law, F = -F. An action produces an equal and opposite reaction. If I can close it, I can open it too, so why would I put our people through this? I would open the border and everyone would pour into Abkhazia,” Levan Mebonia told On.ge.
Joni Chania takes the same position:
“No such thing exists in nature, it is not an option. She says she has documents, this and that — well, if she has them, let her produce them. Let her produce them now. If she is sending them to international organisations, let her send them there and make them public here too, if she has them [...] Nor could I do it. How, in my position, could I negotiate with the occupied side about letting this one through or that one through? In that case I would tell them to open the border as well.”
Enguri HPP also responded to Tsitlidze with an official statement, calling the accusations “groundless and detached from reality”.
“We wish to state emphatically that there has been, and could have been, no confiscation of identity documents by the management of Enguri HPP LLC in order to prevent internally displaced persons from taking part in the second round of the elections. Anything of the kind is wholly unacceptable, both in terms of personal values and in terms of civic responsibility. As for taking part in an attempt to deliberately close the Enguri bridge, we wish to state categorically that this information is a complete falsehood and a slander,” Enguri HPP says.
The statement says that Tsitlidze’s accusations “go beyond all bounds” and are offensive to them.
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