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Mikheil Saakashvili: “Prosecutor Proved By Investigation That Explosion in Tkibuli Mine Resulted From Illegal Activities of Administration”

January 24, 2011

Aleksi Bezhanishvili

According to the official website of the Georgian president’s administration, President Saakashvili responded to the tragedy in Mindeli Mine in Tkibuli during his visit in Armenia. He said the accident will be investigated by the international commission. The President requires punishing all those high officials, who are responsible for the security at Tkibuli mine.

"Yesterday a blast took place in Tkibuli mine, one person died and several are wounded. The condition of one wounded is heavy. I was informed about this occasion at 3 AM this morning, as soon as the blast happened. First conclusions were already made and as always I have heard that everything what happened was the fault of that miner, who was working and who is dead now. I remember that exactly the same conclusion was made after the previous blast - the miners were blamed in everything. The Prosecutor's Office investigated the case then and I have information that the blast was not the fault of those people who died, but the result of the criminal actions carried out by the leadership of the mine. The leadership switched the ventilation system off and saved money on the lives of their employees. Later, the supervision service that was obliged to make conclusions on this case. They wrote a conclusion based on principle - "a hand washes another hand". Exactly the way the mine leadership and owners of this business wanted,” the statement of Mikheil Saakashvili.

According to the statement, the president regrets that the investigation of the last accident in the mine (August 27, 2010) did not come to the logic end. “I am very sorry that this case didn't come to the logical end, in order to make specific persons pay for their behaviors. Specific people were supposed to be sent to the court and if the court would have decided to the jail. If it happened so, then we might have avoided yesterday's blast. People, who do this directly participate in assassination, and those who hide them are participants of the assassination. It is very good that if Tkibuli works and several thousand people have income this way. But we are not going to pity those persons, who are guilty just because people are afraid to lose their jobs and incomes. The participants and copartners of the assassination must take full responsibility. I declare full distrust to those services that made and published this conclusions regarding the first case. Now we have to task other people to investigate this case and not those who just takes money from the owners of the mine and have no problems in writing thousand foolish things in the conclusion. We must task serious people, among them foreign specialists, we must punished the criminals.”

It is interesting after the accident in the Tkibuli Mine in August of 2010 the president said: “I will order the government to employ security inspectors in the mine to permanently control the situation here,” It is also interesting that if the prosecutor’s office provided the president with the impartial conclusion about the previous tragedy, why the offenders were not punished before the new tragedy.

According to Georgia’s Trade Union, the 22 January mine explosion in Tkibuli was feasible and the mine-owner company officials were aware of the threat as well . The statement was made by the TU Head Irakli Petriashvili at a briefing today.

He stated that a 5-person group of miners went into the pit as a result of the supervisor’s pressure. According to Petriashvili, the miners knew that the methanol level in the 3rd section of Mindeli Mine was equal to 6%. In similar situation, not only explosion even presence in the mine is dangerous.
 
“There had been similar command by the supervisors a couple of days before the occurrence. The miners hadn’t followed the instructions resulting in a clash between the sides. Later, the Brigade #3 was threatened to be fired unless they obeyed the command. Thus, they went into the pit”, Petriashvili said.

He added that Georgian TU permanently requests companies to guarantee security norms in the mines. However, the owner company of the Mindeli Mine - Georgian Industrial Group (GIG) - has never taken their request into account.

According to the News Agency Interpresnews, the TU requests involvement in the investigation process. Besides, they request the GIG to stop blaming miners in the incident.

According to TU data, 9 have been killed and tens injured in Tkibuli mines for the last 9 months. After similar statistics, only extremely desperate miners will dare to enter the Tkibuli mine.

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