As we informed our readers, since October 1st, experts of our Associaiton, Dr. Borys Babin and Olena Stadnik make systematic activities at Warsaw Human Dimension Conference, as a key annual event of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, with active communication with democratic states’ delegations, side-events’ discussions and reports on plenary dessions.
Among side-events of Warsaw Conference some were organised by international institutions or by democratic governments or by recognised NGOs of international level. Other side-events, as usual, were imitated by “civil society structures”, controlled by autoritarian regimes from some OSCE participating states, and they have traditional real goal just to imitate the “human rights activities” or disseminate relevant propaganda.
One of extremely controvercial side-events of Warsaw Conference was organised of October 2nd by State Security Service of Georgia with title “Restrictions of Freedom of Movement and Murder Cases as Consequence of Russian Occupation”. Organisers declared the presenting “updated information on the current security environment in Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region, occupied by Russia”, and that “the discussion will focus on the grave human right violations in the occupied regions of Georgia and consequent humanitarian challenges”.
Of course, such specific organisers initiate extremely simple and logic question from any independent observer: why, when in Warsaw special services of modern Georgian government describe in OSCE challenges of Russia-Georgia war of 2008, their Moscow-loyal bosses in Tbilisi discuss on the alleged “Georgian guilty” in that war.
But, with respect to OSCE and Polish hospitality, our expert asked, during the event, its key rapporteur, Irakli Antadze on more detailed issue, regarding illegal activities of International Settlements Bank (MRB BANK), “registered” by Kremlin-related beneficiaries, in Tskhinvali.
Let us remind, that as before 2022 so in first months of Russian broadscale aggression the International Settlements Bank was a key tool of Russian financial aggression at occupied mainland areas of Ukraine, and it has ties with Crimean illegal “financial system” also. We informed on this issue international institutions, democratic governments and also demanded Georgian authorities to react legally on those illegal activities, tied with Tskhinvali regime.
Now, from September 19, 2024, International Settlements Bank is under U.S. sanctions for transactions to Northern Korea, but as it was too easy to guess, we did not hear the correct answer regarding official Tbilisi reaction on this story. Anyway we hope to hear more interesting talks from Georgia representatives at Warsaw Conference next year.