yes. and i want him out of office. join protests in the states and i happen to be here today so i want to join and. so that he does not represent us really former pakistani prime minister nawaz sharif and his daughter marry him have been arrested upon arrival back in the country sharif was sentenced to ten years in jail on charges of corruption last week his arrest happened on the same day that more than one hundred twenty people were killed at a campaign rally in the southwest of pakistan more news on the web site it's always there for you to do a dot com up next to talk to al-jazeera i'm back in about thirty minutes with two minutes. of i.

can. see. from president eating his time in the midst of a war getting dragged off a roof because saakashvili was once widely recognized as an advocate for reform and democracy. friend of the west and then me of russia really became president of georgia in january two thousand and four his popularity got him reelected four years later despite accusations of electoral fraud but georgia's constitution prevented him from running for a third term in two thousand and thirteen. was defeated at the polls and he left georgia for ukraine shortly afterwards where he supported the two thousand and fourteen revolution. he gained ukrainian citizenship although it meant losing his georgian passport. crane's president petro poroshenko called to the governor of the desa profits but he resigned in november two thousand and sixteen accusing

kardashian co of corruption a few days later successfully announced plans to create a new political force in ukraine but that didn't happen the government revoked his ukrainian citizenship in july last year. stateless circus really was first sent to poland then to the netherlands where he now lives under temporary asylum status meanwhile a court in georgia found him guilty of abuse of power in connection with the two thousand and six murder case he was sentenced to three years in prison absentee here. in ukraine a prosecutor accused saakashvili of having connections with a suspected criminal gang led by ukraine's former president viktor yanukovych. so where does all of this leave the man who was once hailed as a champion of democracy. i'm sami's a down in the dutch capital i've come to amsterdam to discuss with mr saakashvili his rise and fall and how he plans to continue his political career former georgian president mikheil saakashvili talks to al-jazeera.

former president of georgia a former governor of a desk in ukraine thanks so much for talking to al-jazeera thank you for inviting me so you're now here in the netherlands but on april the third you spoke about how you want to return to georgia when will that happen well be or entire region are we going to change the the present artificial situation when all garcia running the show sidelining the people sidelining democracy just making fun of the whole idea of the political process it's very artificial and there you can't return until that changes or else you would probably go by the refs except i also ball sort of change i keep i the only politician maybe well maybe in the world at least part in two different countries i have a party which i lead in ukraine and i hope party which i live in georgia and then put in permanent contact with them indeed. how did some of the campaigns there now we came up with some initiatives so i'm not standing still i'm i'm not just waiting

for the moment to come i'm trying to bring a moment closer to how how do you remove all the guards from power in places like georgia places like ukraine from here in the netherlands just. cannot last it is not sustainable these guys are going to collapse it's going to be a very. difficult transition nothing is going to be bumpy but you know you just cannot keep going like this happens if there is a collapse in ukraine or georgia i mean your personal ambitions do you want to return to power and if so whether because like you said you're running political parties in two countries at the same time i would not really compare myself to symbol of our but i have to remind you that in other historical for context that historic figure was blatz five latin american countries now different situation not that kind of an bishan but countries are similar challenges are similar like it

used to be in the times of seeing on the boulevard why we need two little glue up to that expectation but how would you respond to those who might say you're not simone believe are you lost power twice in two different countries those who say are you able to make sound political calculations for your ups of the right are not simple of our but someone who is different from what's happening in the region indeed i was i had two terms of successful presidency i finished it all and i go criticize and look at the countries around us look at armenia look at other neighbors look at belarus look at you know just wherever you look this leaders extend their terms they find other ways not to create i was the only one who had full extent of power and first of all quit had transpersonal tradition when the constitutional term expired that's quite unique which comes natural to another place in the world in our part of the world some people think you are stupid and

crazy if you do that and second i mean you're more crazy according to this cry tears because you know i left without any riches about any stealing anything and that's also unfortunately very and. usual in our part of the world and in ukraine i left from the governorship when i felt that we were no longer in business of reforming the country rather we were staying there would be just trying to whitewash something that cannot be justified by how corruption oligarchic rule in your second term as georgian president there were criticisms of your tactics accusations that you tried suppress opposition protest that you had acted in a heavy handed way do you think any of those criticisms are accusations now in hindsight justified that you would have done things look the georgia was a failed country you cannot make from a failed country just you know freule scandinavian methods over night something

looking like sweden norway georgia has you know under my watch georgia's economy has quadrupled the you know georgia went from hundred twenty seven in place of the to doing business in the actual the world bank to being the ninth place the best place in the world to do business that is to say we are educated corruption we became the safest country in europe and one of the safest in the world from being one of the criminal countries to think you fight criminal you know totally criminalized country making to transform it into the safest country in europe just not doing anything and just being forced to switch to the criminals and then virtually no torvald my rule of law should abide by the head trial of law that's the rule of law but rule of law applied zero tolerance towards crime and that's that's heart is the opposition. opposition ultimately won the elections and we handed over the power we ga still has robust free media it always enjoyed on them

on my rule and don't forget some of the propaganda against us there of course there were shortcomings but it also was imposed by a very strong presence of russian propaganda that absolutely hated me that now we know that paul munna ford was hired by their pascal in two thousand and five to write articles against us specifically on democracy and or so-called absence of democracy starting from two thousand and five. so we were running against a propaganda machine now we're not perfect and of course we had our mistakes but when you have the nastiest machine specifically focused on killing the idea of a georgia success case not to give this soft power to the small nation that would transform the entire region then you should always understand why some of the treaties where what if the maffia the oligarchs are still in power in georgia in crane especially in georgia where you served his two terms as president why should

voters believe you now when you say support my party or make sure this time will unseat the oligarchs and the mafia my reform survives my presidency i think the biggest task for the reformers is that when you quit whether these figures sustainable most of it is still there so from that standpoint of public services you know absence of corruption safety i left a good legacy a legacy still intact from that standpoint you know we we come back basically we come back. we do all the experience of successes know whether you know people in georgia have trysts have seen what the success looks like that's the difference with ukraine in ukraine no government since independence has demonstrated any success whatsoever i wonder if we can go back in time a little bit and talk about some of the highlights i guess this year two thousand and eighteen is the tenth anniversary of the war between georgia and russia do you reflect back on it at all and say maybe i made

a mistake in starting that war with russia well i didn't start war with russia in first place well that was the e.u. report for two thousand and nine lowth a wrong look apps of if somebody enterprise that report they're like this this is flat wrong look this is a quote from other report found that you'd started though because of quote a penchant for acting in the heat of the moment look there is only one choice when your country gets attacked by a hundred times bigger. neighbor either to surrender or to fight and we chose not to surrender so hang on then the e.u. was wrong when they said again quote in that report of september the thirtieth there was no ongoing armed attack by russia before the start of the georgian i know your report said russian troops were already inside our territory and if you don't call it arms that have then what the hell is the armed attack ok you know there was no armed attack in crimea after that russia just came in i think they're referring to maybe the presence of russia in the south a century everyone has known but they were saying they were not an aggression are

not inside the territory just exactly the same way they were in crimea except that ukraine chose not to react and not to fight and georgia chose to fight so they were so high on your telling me very sadly the west was playing politics with your situation when they said again in the quote of the report georgian claims of a large scale presence of russian armed forces in south and said here prior to the georgian offensive could not be substantially pro with a pretending like they know it's going to be searching the chips or tape the only thing that they were turning a blind eye on then because they fought this situation will not continue now we have situation when every time they have three of the problem is the lack of leadership you know great leaders like europe had for instance like when mr was their teacher was there you know and monitors was there was there is gone we have just tacticians in europe we have lack of leadership in europe nobody wants regime response ability as a result putin was playing them at all it's not put about putting being so strong it's about this kind of leaders being so weak you know there's still you are there

is no leadership in europe of today it's so bleak and it's you know we see you know having ajman semyon gauge and now fortunately at least to resume reacted and she mobilized everybody else to react but back in two thousand and eight that was exactly the opposite back in two thousand and eight they would just they didn't want to hear anything about upcoming frets and you know now. as for who is crazy and who is not i think they were crazy when they didn't listen to me and then when they fought i was crazy and you know and the russians were playing into that look at this case actually you know his take a single all this stupid claims and who made stupid claims now everything i warned about happened and i hate to because sandra but if europeans continue to be as weak as this we are not going to always big war in europe because russian that right now even i was at the munich security conference this time generals the same generals that were downplaying the russians being intervals eight are saying well russia has

really become dangerous that's skip forward in two thousand and thirteen you decided to go to ukraine you accepted ukrainian possible a move which you knew would mean you lose your georgian citizenship i'm wondering why if as you said for the third of two thousand and eighteen that you were committed to quote not leaving the georgian people in despair and you want to end the receiving georgia's fate was also decided by what happens in ukraine i went to the region of that which is extremely important strategic region do you think you could change georgia though by being the governor of your death or this or that it would have faults but have you for that i would have fallen george it would have been finished off because or their face on the black sea fallen from whom the time to write resident it was when i went there it was very on the brink of being fall into the fold of the russians it's also obvious it's a very it's a region with a very strong separatist presence we did where we carmen's power but that's moment very precarious security situation to the point where nobody really wanted to get

to go into that business of becoming so that said governor well i well i wanted to go there after several high profile ukrainians declined that office and because they fought all there so to fall why did president petro poroshenko ask you do you think and give you citizenship was it down to a personal relationship with no i think because russian called before running for ukraine president he said that his role. a model for reforms who are two countries singapore and georgia on their might rule and he he thought that by bringing me into ukraine he would. bolster his reformers credentials in the eyes of the west and in the eyes of the frame public now what he did is what went wrong because he was not serious about their force because ultimately he had to make a choice whether to get into crane's historic textbooks or to become higher to be able higher on the list of forbes billionaires list he decided to get into billionaires list rather than the tax the textbooks i'm wondering how you

personally feel though now looking at the time actually because this is the man who brought you to you he'd given you citizenship made you a governor and then you say felt at some point that he wasn't living up to the reformist ideals did you feel conflicted any point in turning against the man who yes i think it took from him quite some time to make that decision it is a hard decision to make not because of personal loyalty but just admitting that you know our expectations were high and with we just failed to basically they failed to materialize it's hard to imagine it's hard to live through it because you know the it's not i never create i don't believe in personal loyalties of that sort in the you know i never brought my family members or my classmates or anybody for that purpose in ukraine or georgia to to power that was never my goalie iow i believe in matter talk receive believe in recruiting new people and showed i never had my

client tried to press him to maybe saw me as part of his clan and obviously that was a big be misreading of what i stand for and that certain moment when he told me let's just like go and fundraise that's what he scored with the ukrainian local businesses fundraise that's to say get bribes how would you respond to those as you know there are allegations against you thing you've mentioned some of them involved . criminal activities in ukraine those charges against you in georgia are for misspending public money ordering the break up of protests ordering the beating up of an opposition lawmaker is even a conviction for you related to a murder klux look any truth to any of those allegations look first of all freedom house just published a report saying that this is a pure political but that and that's what it is even georgian though the government that basically hired ten best retired western investigates to look for my offshore

accounts properties viewers whatever couldn't find anything and came up with the ridiculous charges that every penny i spent as a president on presidential on performed presidential functions were money misspent when georgia's economy quadrupled in the basically or you know my former defense minister whom i fired for corruption testified that i ordered him to beat up somewhat because the and the guy said beforehand i'll just give anything to many gays are really because i hate him and that's the only witness so that's why traditional going to zation are not taking this serious that's why i'm really moving around the world let's go forward to december two thousand and seventeen when we have those very dramatic pictures of you on the rooftop of your home. it's not often that you have an axe president standing on a rooftop threatening to jump take us through the minutes in the hours that led up to that moment something like six in the morning one hundred something of heavily

armed security troops broke into my apartment. and obviously they could have arrested me anywhere else i'm over there out without guards you know just to walk into public affairs and just arrest me or or so why do you think they're trying to move on that's what you're intimidation to show everybody who supported us that if they could go in after me they could go out to everyone so and then when they did it i needed to in time and you went where you really going to jump from none absolutely none i'm not suicidal i've never been suicidal that what happened is that. what i told them it was a threat no what i told them if they approach me would bowl full because it was basically a slippery roof with but by the way i went there because they generally telephone and we need we need time to mobilize and so i went to the roof where i could from which i could text my messages. i text my message to our supporters thousands of people mobilized but it took them time to get there and in the end they freed me

from police cars were you surprised when people opened a police van and managed to i wasn't because people knew the whole arrest was unjust later the local judge went against the system and she ruled and she suffered that she was reprimanded after that for that that it was pure kidnapping we've managed to upset a lot of authorities in georgia ukraine's lied to me at putin do you ever think that your personal safety might be an issue look like they were put in promise to hang me by a softer parts of my body. as we know this guy always when i last met him he told me your best friends give you lots of nice promises they never deliver i don't promise you anything nice but remember i always deliver i remember these words coupled with his friend to kill me but on the other sunlight a man who you have to you directly absolutely and then he says publicly what it was this that was there february of two thousand and eight our last meeting with him and actually. and that was this is

a guy who likes to do the labor and he wanted to understand from that did you feel like you're being i thought that and we know that according to when we came out. i was less worried about personal threats towards me i thought i told my people this is his menacing us with war and war happened a few months later and though i told the western flood you're putting medicines with war and he says well you know he just menace is now the same people that say he's just manatee he's just you know it that's his way of cajoling words have to you know have to resign themselves to the realities that i was right and they were wrong about warning about putin put in always create new red lines cross' them and then create new ones now having said that it's not about me that doesn't make you a personal target as you said for not letting me through to absolute saying holding to an advisor to the french president two thousand and eighteen. he will hang you by the janet taylor yet and i think that he was and then i when i was asked by

a car a journalist what i felt about it i thought i joked that you know. he he's not tall enough to get to me but but that's obviously not a nice thing to joke about when you hear of cases like sergei script in the u.k. does that not make you stop and think look i i ride around cinnamon a bike i don't have any particular i was asked by dutch police whether i needed special protection and i told them no i declined it look i believe that whatever happens you know we made my impact on the history of this region for sure nobody can dispute that putin wants to physically get me i don't think any bodyguards can protect it anyway you know every time i would board presidential plane in georgia after twelve eight every time we would be on there like. target list of russian air defense system and the switch on our systems so when it happens

first time. you know i my father had of my bodyguard said what are we doing are we just drive because i know we. succumb to their frat they're going to paralyze us we fly even if we just we're one button push a push away from going down and they never push the button so you know i'm still around you thought it could have been a real possibility absolutely because putin you know look at what's happened to present a polland whatever you say but many people including myself believe that it's connected with his support of georgia the only war with him coming to tbilisi into follows a august of two thousand and eight so it catchin ski or as many poles believe. died because of that you can imagine that he came to support me and of course the russians no doubt would deny that and wondering how do you respond to the allegation that would come from the other side that says you are simply a tool of change on the part of the west look i think that's

overblown i think what we have two different forces here we have. on the one hand we have russia that export chaos in the entire region you know i'm sure there were first of all they generated scholars in our case in our part of the world they generated chaos in syria because they want syrian refugees to go to europe and that's double as europe put in this calculated this very shrewdly did you ever receive support as they say from. all the other hand i don't know non-governmental organization on the one hand we have russia that has very clear policy of exporting chaos and implementing on the other hand we have rather chaotic policy on the part of the west. so russia is exporting chaos and the west and very very uncultured to glee and very diligently and the west this is responding in a very chaotic way do you think any of these friends in the west today support you making a political comeback. or not that i've been i've been asking for

instruction for anybody i've been uncomfortable for many people criticize it for the reasons that i'm not look for instance like obama administration wanted me to agree to agree to rush to membership and we've been refusing for almost two years president obama called me sent me a letter my friend hillary pushed very hard i said wait a minute you are a big country you solve their issues where a small country you have small the issues but until their salt even if the president of the united states keeps me calling every day i'm not going to do it because that's legitimate that these are legitimate claims and in the end you know what has happened there has russia's had to give in and so from that standpoint i not been comfortable even for france now i wouldn't equate those two from my wear loose i wear loose with life here where you know where whatever. the western

world this exists but on the other hand you know we'll i will always stand up for my national interests and that's it's i'm not just an easy person to be around weight even for big players you know once henry kissinger told. sarah palin sexually is like a very. uncomfortable player coming to a poker player coming to big players table all the time without carts in his pocket well that's his mission it's not about games it's not about carts it's about your heart where it lies and it lies lies with justice and with my own national interest in this case two nations interest ukraine and georgia and georgia and ukraine. thank you very much thank you dr saakashvili talking to all bases so much. when diplomacy fields and fear sweeps in our borders are wide open wide open to

drugs terrorists we've proven the barriers are built to impose division and it's ill to sixty's instead of being an obstacle or do a whole wastes into became another obstacle to peace in a four part series al-jazeera revisits the reasons for divisions in different parts of the world and the impact they have on both sides walls of shame on al-jazeera. where were you when this idea popped into it whether on line it's undoubtedly chief cold all over the inequality in our society today or if you join the sunset criminal justice system is dysfunctional right now this is a dialogue what does it feel like for you to go back for the first time everyone has a voice about allow refugees to flee the speakers for change join the conversation on our. history is so often told through the eyes of leaders but in amritsar india

just thirty kilometers from the border with pakistan where this old building is being transformed into a new museum mallika ahluwalia is the driving force behind sars partition museum it's really shocking because if you think about the fact that within a few years of nine eleven happening nine eleven museum was there and they are now numerous museum this is not beautiful a museum so countries around the world have walked a memorialize these events that have shaped them by dition is not about the political events that led up to partition it's about the impact on each person who went through it it's really important that we highlight the stories of humanity hopefully one outcome on this would be that we remember our shared humanity and the shared history.

fearing for their lives the students course in military gunfire during protests in nicaragua. logan pieces over here in doha you are watching al-jazeera also coming up there should be no one on one meeting between this president and mr there needs to be other americans in the room the u.s. government says the trumpets and summit will go ahead despite the indictment of twelve russians for allegedly hacking the u.s. election in twenty six state. bank a spreads in iraq over a lack of jobs and rising costs raising.