Ordinary Soldiers Punished for Red Tape Mistakes of Okruashvili’s Generals

Saba Tsitsikashvili, Gori

I overheard an out of the ordinary conversation of women who were sitting in public transport, as one of them was complaining about the plight of her soldier son in Iraq. “How can I pay 24,000 GEL have but there is a lean on my house. I regret having sent my son to Iraq in the first place. He earns his money from the army and it is his life, as he is still there. Never has he been a problem – as he always had good relationship with the commanding officer and other soldiers. But now they have appealed to the court against us.  I do not have money to hire an attorney and they may take my house,” the woman explained as she told her story to the woman sitting besides her.

The mother of the soldier was holding a verdict where Tea Dzimistarashvili, the judge at Gori court wrote: “Before the court passes final verdict, the property of soldier Mandzulashvili shall be ceased to prevent the owner from selling …” The mother Swas also holding an certificate of gratitude from Davit Kezerashvili, Georgian Defense Minister, which stated that this “Certificate is granted to Corporal Mandzulashvili for his brave participation in the Al-Kut Armi in Iraq.”

The woman was mostly concerned about the legal summons from the court which informed them that the defendant had to submit his counter appeal within 10 days after the summon was accepted.

It is strange that a person receives a certificate of gratitude for the bravery in Iraq and has at the same time forced to have to appeal against at the court. The appeal claims that in 2006 he breached the contract with military unit, and ran away from Gori unit and was then dismissed from the military.

“Eight days have passed since the summons was delivered. Everything will finish within two days; they will tale and sell my house as I am unable to pay 24 000 GEL, and my son will be arrested. I was boasting in the village I was growing up a brave son but what shall I say now? Whom should I now turn to?” said the mother of the soldier.

The Shida Kartli Regional Governor learned about the problems of the soldiers from Gori. Lado Vardzelashvili, the governor and Davit Kezerashvili are said to be friends but Vardzelashvili concluded that since the case was discussed at the court it was a closed change, and as for now, there is nothing that can be changed. However, it was rather obscure as what a closed matter actually meant?

First of all, the Human Rights Center’s Gori Office requested Kutaisi Military Unit to grant a holiday to the soldier Ramaz Mandzulashvili, and this was because of having to urgently submit a counter appeal before the court. Consequently, we applied to the court with the request to suspend the deadline for the submission of counter-appeal because the solider could not manage to arrive in time.

Afterwards, we started investigation of the situation and found out that 35 soldiers had fled from the Gori Unit in 2006 and that all their cases were discussed by the court. The court had concluded that the state had to retain 20% of soldier’s salaries in punishment.

In fact, nobody had fled from Gori Unit. Simply, they moved from one to another unit and certain people assessed it as escaping and imposed each soldier with the fine of 14,000 GEL.

Corporal Ramaz Mandzulashvili was lucky because he was always honest to Georgian army; having discovered his documents we estimated that the corporal became the victim of the lack of discipline, chaos and disorder in Georgian army. Two years ago he suffered because of the irresponsibility of his commanders and officers.

We encountered with such a complicated case that evidently the higher instances also hardly cope to find out anything about the actual facts.

The first question that begged from the story told by the soldier’s mother was how Corporal Mandulashvili joined the peace-keeping unit of Iraq where he served from July of 2007 to January 25 of 2008. Though, as it w as claimed, the corporal had breached the contract in September of 2006 and he was then dismissed from the army.

Court….

Gori district court imposed Ramaz Mandzulashvili, a resident of the village of Zegduleti in Gori District, with the fine of 24,000 GEL for having violated his service contract that was signed in 2005. Ramaz Mandzulashvili had served armed forces of the Ministry of Defense since 2003 and he has been to Iraq too. On January 25 2008 he returned from Al-Kut Provice of Iraq with the title of hero…

On May 7 Vakhtang Jorbenadze, the head of the legal department of the Defense Ministry, brought an administrative suit to the Gori District Court against corporal Mandzulashvili. The reason of the argument was that the corporal had not paid the assessed fine (the total amount of the fine 24,000 GEL).

In the Army…

Captain Z. Tskhadadze, the head of the Engineer Unit of the Third Infantry Brigade, reported that Corporal Ramaz Mandzulashvili has been serving in the armed forces since 2003. According to our information he involved the military-contract service since 2006; however, there are two decrees of Irakli Okruashvili, former Defense Minister, one of them is about the appointment of Mandzulashvili and another is about his discharge. Although the former defense minister signed the order according to which the soldier became a contracted soldier. However, Mandzulashvili did not serve his term based on the conditions set forth in the contract until September of 2006.

More precisely:

According to the decree of March 15 2005 Ramaz Mandzulashvili was accepted at military professional service. Okruashvili stated in the decree: “Soldier Ramaz Mandzulashvili is invited to join Georgian military forces and he will be hired at the Artillery unit of Georgian Defense Ministry, based on the terms stipulated in the contract; he will be granted, and he will be granted the title of corporal…”

In parallel to Okruashvili’s decree General-Major G. Revazishvili signed a contract with Ramaz Mandzulashvili. The mother of the soldier states that they had not signed the contract with their son before 2005.

Their claim is supported by the fact that corporal Mandzulashvili did not signed the contract on March 15 2005. There is only six-page contract which is only signed by G. Revazishvili who has signed instead of the actual soldier in question.

The head of the legal department blames the Ministry of Defense for having made a mistake in the contract.  

The real situation is the following: the soldier served in Gori Artillery Unit before September of 2006 and then moved to engineer unit. In March of 2006 he had an incident while driving by a militarily vehicle and suffered injured to his backbone. He was treated at Military Hospital and that took a long time to recover. Having returned to military unit on September 27 2006, Mandzulashvili then joined up with an engineering unit, Davit Kezerashvili, a new minister, issued a decree and appoint him as the squad leader of a unit of the larger battalion.

Since then, the corporal deserved several awards; he spent 6 months in Iraq and returned with the certificate of gratitude, and this was issued on January 25 2008. In May of 2008 the soldier received a legal summon from Gori district court, which informed him that the Defense Ministry demanded 24,000 GEL in damages for having breached the military contract from two years earlier.

The Georgian Defense Ministry drew up the appeal based on Irakli Okruashvili’s decree passed on September 8 2006 where he wrote: “Corporal Ramaz Mandzulashvili is dismissed from the military forces.”

In fact former minister passed a decree where he did not pay attention to the informal contract with corporal Mandzulashvili.  As it was already mentioned, the contract based on what Okruashvili had dismissed the solder from the army, which did not in fact contain the signature of Mandzulashvili.

If Okruashvili dismissed Mandzulashvili for having breached the contract than how could the major Revazishvili sign a new contract with Mandzulashvili two weeks later. This time, the corporal read the contract and singed it. The Defense Ministry hired Mandzulashvili on September 22 2006 for the second time.

If Okruashvili dismissed the corporal from the artillery unit shamefully, two weeks later how could he join the unit? Can armed forces accept a new soldier only after two-week-consideration of his/her background? Did not the engineering unit of the third infantry battalion request the personal information on corporal Mandzulashvili where they could see the decree of former minister, Okruashvili?

These questions might be answered at the trial and the obscure situation will soon be cleared up. Everybody will understand just how complicated was situation that existed in the Defense Ministry during Okruashvili’s term of office; soldiers are still tortured by the consequences of the chaos of that difficult period. 

Mother: “I am ashamed to say something in the village; I do not want anybody to think that my son will be imprisoned. I was always boasting about how brave he was. I had brought up a brave son who was faithful to his country but now the state demands 24, 000 GEL from him; though I do not know whose fault it is. If my son had breached the contract two years ago, why have they remembered about it just now? He is still serving in the army under the terms of the earlier contract; I can show you the letters of gratitude and various awards he was granted. He has fought in Iraq too; participated in the sport contests together with other soldiers…When I received summon from the court I was shocked. They sequestered my house and we cannot pay the fine.”

Indeed, Tea Dzimistarashvili passed verdict according to which the house of twenty-seven-year-old corporal was sequestered. The Ministry of Defense ordered the court to sequester the property.

The Human Rights Center, having studied the case materials, concluded that the contract was rigged. Simply, the Ministry of Defense holds the copy of the contract prepared by Revazishvili on March 15 2005 which does not contain the signature of Mandzulashvili at all.

The Human Rights Center got hold of the contract signed between Mandzulashvili and representative of the engineering battalion on September 22 2005. The soldier has signed every page of that contract but the old contract did not have any of his signatures. The most interesting issue is that both old and new contracts were drawn up by General-Major Revazishvili.

Mother: “Evidently, they are arguing with my son because he abandoned the first unit but nobody inquires that he injured his backbone in the artillery unit; he took medical treatment at the military hospital and then at home too. When he returned to military service, he could not continue his activities in artillery and moved to engineer battalion. We collected all documents and in November of 2006 he started service again. Then he spent six months in Iraq too.”

In fact, article 9 of the Georgian Law on “Military Status” states that “a military servant can change his/her place of employment because of his/her health conditions or because of health conditions if his/her family members based on the conclusion of the medical commission  which recommends to change the place of service….”

Soldier Mandzulashvili, because of his deteriorated health conditions, and he should have moved to a less difficult military unit to serve out his tour of duty. Thus, he joined the engineer unit in the autumn of 2006.

Captain Tskhadadze, the commander of the engineer battalion, releases the following personal description of Mandzulashvili: “He is active military servant during his service in engineer-chemical battalion. He assumes all responsibilities eagerly; has sense of discipline, obeys the orders of commander rapidly, thoroughly and properly; he maintains relationship with other soldiers in the battalion.”