Yet another new political party, the Conservative Movement, has now been founded in Georgia. Usually these parties are personal vehicles for one person, and vanish when their grievances do. This one however has a more unusual provenance, which seems to causing undue concern.

The Conservatives began life as an alternative media company, Alt-info. This is a well-known TV outlet, but is known largely by reputation, for standing its ground over Georgian values, rather than for people actually watching its broadcasts.

The station originally came to public attention for not being a proper station at all. It had the temerity to use a Facebook page to spread its views about politics and social events, focusing on this rather than its actual TV output.

This raised a number of questions about what the station was and who was behind it. But the most important was, why should an up-and-coming political movement NOT be allowed to fall in line with bigger and seemingly legitimate political parties by using FB to get its message across?

Opinions Equals Friends

Alt-info were allegedly provocateurs in the July 5, 2021 events, in which the Gay Pride rally in Tbilisi turned violent due to the actions of protesters. Arrests were made and some Alt-info associates arrested.

Many mainstream journalists, upwards of 50, were injured, and this made it easy to blame Alt-info for the violence. In fact the rest of the media, even outlets which pride themselves on their independence, seems determined to close ranks with the political establishment to trash this party.

Some, especially amongst those closest to the NGO community, allege that it is connected with the “continuing Bolshevik” Alexander Dugin, a comic book hate figure in Georgia. It is said that the new party has held talks with him about NATO bases, the plight of Mikheil Saakashvili, religion and so forth.

This and other similar Facebook and media outlets are being “investigated” by organisations such as the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council. This claims that the people behind it have attempted to conceal their identities and coordination, but “our investigation found links to individuals associated with Georgian March, a political movement in Georgia, and its youth wing.”

What exactly was this investigation, and how were these conclusions drawn? We may never know – we are not supposed to question “expert” organisations, and have to assume they know best because is it in their financial interest to pretend this.

Play on Another Field

It is easy to understand the Western perspective on a political party which has the audacity to venture from the official pro-Western, Pro NATO, standpoint. However, when the accusations against it have no real substance, they turn to figures such as the lawyer quoted in a Eurasianet article, notorious for threats against journalists who see things differently, to get their point across.

When asked if he knew what patriotism was, and “if he had even taken an Oath of Allegiance to the United States”, his response was to threaten to contact the police. He was unwilling to defend his position—unable to present anything based on fact rather than rhetoric.

Alt-inform TV is also accused of having exploited the ongoing protests in the United States against police brutality and racial injustice, selectively amplifying content that shows individuals setting fire to churches. Apparently the US doesn’t want Georgians to see attacks on churches, or draw conclusions about the nature of Western society, and the positions it imposes, from that.

But it is the fact that people with the views it holds want to gain political representation, if the populace so desire that, which is most upsetting to some. As one recent article reads, “the leaders of the Alt-info media outlet, notorious for its hard-line anti-liberal, anti-LGBT, anti-Muslim stance, inaugurated today a new political party, which they named “the Conservative Movement.”

Anyone for Pogroms?

One would get the impression that only thing that matters in Georgia any more is “incidences of violence toward LGBTQ+ activists and media” and “a long history of government inaction against radical right figures.” When the Western media claims there is a multi-party democracy in Georgia, it sets that concept on one side, the protests against LGBTQ+ activists (who are not a political party) on the other.

This in itself demonstrates that Georgia is closer to a Potemkin Democracy, as so well described by Charles King of Georgetown University. Georgia has shown how pluralist it is regarding people defending its own traditions by caving into Western criticism, sending the police to question and search the apartments of several leaders of groups alleged to be involved in organising these attacks.

These include Zurab Makharadze, the founder of Alt-info. Facebook has reported the Alt-info Facebook page many times, on the grounds of hate speech, whilst ignoring hate speech towards Christians by gay activists.

If Makharadze were a member of Bandera’s movement in Ukraine, that would be stated without comment. But to prove a point, his outlet has to be described as “a right-wing online platform that has been one of the main nodes of illiberal messaging in Georgia.”

We can interpret “illiberal” to mean anything not pro-Western, which covers a lot of territory, and is open to picking and choosing. In effect, it means anything which upsets accepted Georgian norms and standards of decency – which have a greater moral and cultural pedigree than the norms now being imposed upon the country in the name of progress.

Rallying Cry

The Conservative Movement is no more illiberal than a number of parties allowed to flourish in Western liberal democracies – its rhetoric is no worse, from that viewpoint, than that of Boris Johnson’s Brexit Conservatives or the Trump Republicans. But as these parties are in “civilized” countries, and this is Georgia, its existence is anathema to those who cannot abide the lower orders thinking for themselves.

The Georgian National Agency of Public Registry initially refused to register the party, citing Article 23 – Freedom and Political parties under the Georgian Constitution. This reads:

“The establishment and activity of a political party that aims to overthrow or forcibly change the constitutional order of Georgia, infringe on the independence or violate the territorial integrity of the country, or that propagates war or violence or incites national, ethnic, provincial, religious or social strife, shall be inadmissible. Additionally, the establishment of a political party on a territorial principle shall be inadmissible.”

The Agency gave the party ten days to change some parts of its Charter. It was finally registered on December 7, 2021. Maybe the Registry folks remembered than when Zviad Gamsakhurdia closed down one TV station for broadcasting calls for an armed revolt to overthrow the government, which the Conservative Movement has not done, he was declared a danger to the same Georgia which says in its constitution that it is exactly what should be done.

The Conservative Movement is causing concern because it has credibility in the population, and thus provides a meaningful alternative to the ruling Georgian Dream and the formerly ruling United National Movement. After long years of Western attempts to make Georgian politics anodyne and irrelevant, with parties no one is interested in talking about things that one cares about, here is a force people can relate to, either positively or negatively.

The problem with a Potemkin Democracy is that you still have to give people a vote. The disgruntled masses see nothing in the many Georgian political parties which stand only for the individuals who founded them, mostly for financial gain, at the behest of foreign interests.

The Georgian Dream are not the criminals the UNM were, but that in itself is no longer enough. With other alternatives having lost credibility by tossing in their lot with the UNM in recent elections, suddenly pretending it is a real political party which wants to help the country when they know otherwise, there is room for a third force, whose interests, for good or ill, are known and understood.

Multi-Party Democracy

Nearly 50 percent of voters vote by not voting. There are many reasons for this, from lack of interest to willful boycott, but the main one is that no one has a choice they can support with confidence – the only option is the lesser of two evils, however that is defined at a given time.

In a survey by the National Democratic Institute in July 2021, 51 percent of respondents said that Georgia is not a democracy, and the same proportion said that the country is moving in the wrong direction. Only 30 percent named a political party they would vote for. As such polling in Georgia is notoriously unreliable, because people traditionally say what they think the pollster wants to hear, the 51% figure must be much higher in reality.

The Conservative Movement seeks to have normal relations with Russia. Most political parties secure their funding by professing hostility to Russia. Yet it is the Conservative Movement which appears more patriotic in spite of this, and this is a threat the other parties and their sponsors must take seriously.

The party also understands that NATO and EU membership may mean that Georgia will have less control over its own development and political orientation. Georgians have been told the opposite for a very long time, and no one is allowed to question this mantra. If Georgian traditions and independence are believed to mean anything, a lot more questions will be asked about the past as well as the present, and the answers are not ones Westerners and their stooges want to hear.

It is Westerners themselves who make clear that in their client states, free speech only works in one direction. Take this internet report by a Western-funded site about hate speech in Georgia.

This report “Anti-Western Propaganda”, by the Media Development Foundation (MDF), is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) within “Promoting Integration, Tolerance and Awareness Program in Georgia [PITA], implemented by the UN Association of Georgia. The contents are the responsibility of MDF and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government and UNAG. The MDF conducted similar studies in 2016 and 2014-2015. The study was carried out in partnership with the UN Association of Georgia within USAID’s Promoting Integration, Tolerance and Awareness Program.

Most of what is painted as hate is different values and traditions, not hostility to the West or what it stands for. Most Georgians would prefer the West to Russia any day, but respect their own traditions above all. The question is how far they are prepared to call themselves backward and bigoted to get Western help – and what happens when they decide it isn’t worth it.

The most revealing concern amongst the so-called gatekeepers of media freedom and Georgian democracy is that there is a significant rise in something the Georgian state declares to be impossible – coverage which promotes “so-called Georgian traditional values” but is also Russian-friendly. That strikes at the heart of the state Georgians know other people, not themselves, have constructed. All these threats together will ensure the Conservative Movement is trampled – but the gates it has opened cannot be closed behind it.

Henry Kamens, columnist, expert on Central Asia and Caucasus, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

One year after the second Karabakh war, the border between the two republics is again turbulent. Periodically, the media and official representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan report about the violation – by the enemy, of course – of the ceasefire, defined by trilateral Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan statement of November 9, 2020, and sometimes even about the wounding and death of servicemen on both sides. Border incidents frequently lead to serious aggravation, but they don’t escalate into large-scale hostilities.

Another armed aggravation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border began on November 14 and escalated into open hostilities, which lasted for two days. They only stopped after Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu held talks with Zakir Hasanov, Minister of Defense of Azerbaijan.

At the same time, there was a particular disappointment in Yerevan in response to Russia’s actions, clearly expecting that Moscow would act not only as a negotiator on Armenia’s side. However, Moscow, which initiated an end to the bloody Karabakh war a year ago, has confined itself to the role of diplomatic mediator in the conflict between the two Transcaucasian republics. That being said, since the latest escalation and hostilities on the border, Yerevan has been in no hurry to officially ask for help from Russia or the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), of which Armenia is a member, and Russia is the leader.

Undoubtedly, many of the recent incidents on the border between the two countries are due to lack of regulation for the moment, as the demarcation and delimitation of the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan have not been settled yet. After Armenia lost the positions it had held for the previous decades as a result of the second Karabakh war, Azerbaijan returned to its border and began to fortify it and build engineering structures. The Armenian side perceived these actions as hostile occupation, although no physical barriers were breached.

At the same time, many experts admit that Baku is the absolute culprit in the clashes, acting in the logic of the victorious side, which is in a hurry to consolidate its success. Its main objective is to force Armenia to sign an agreement on the delimitation of borders and to refuse any discussion of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. At the same time, Azerbaijan clearly believes that the border treaty removes any question of Nagorno-Karabakh. However, a clear line should be drawn according to which the signing of a document is not synonymous with removing the Karabakh status issue from the agenda, as these issues should be kept separate. Although Azerbaijan “packs it all in,” Moscow and Yerevan are interested in unbundling this package.

Many countries and international organizations have recently tried to settle the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Turkey, in particular, was among such peacemakers, as it recently has been very actively trying to spread its expansion not only in Central Asia but also in the Caucasus. But it should be recalled that the Armenian side will not consider Turkish soldiers as peacekeepers in the region, primarily because Ankara does not recognize the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire and aggressively opposes any decision on this issue. In the circumstances outlined, it should be objectively acknowledged that the last armed incident of November 14 was ceased not by Turkey or any other party but only after Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu talked to his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts.

European Council President Charles Michel also tried to contribute to the settlement of the conflict by inviting Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to meet in Brussels in December on the sidelines of the Eastern Partnership Summit, which is notoriously and unabashedly anti-Russian.

The President of the European Council had previously demonstrated his own peacekeeping ambitions in the South Caucasus when he visited Baku and Yerevan in July this year. Despite the existence of trilateral agreements between the leaders of Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan reached on November 9, 2020, and January 11, 2021, proposing a road map for the Karabakh settlement with the participation of key regional players, Charles Michel deemed it necessary to submit his own peace plan. In response to this visit of the President of the European Council to Yerevan, there was a noisy protest rally outside the government building by the oppositional Dashnaktsutyun party. Addressing the President of the European Council with cries of “Shame!”, the participants stated that “Europe is trying to buy Armenia and impose its agenda on it,” seeing a catch in the EU plan to provide €2.6 billion financial aid to Armenia. Pointing out that “Armenia is not for sale,” representatives of Dashnaktsutyun accused the EU leadership of lack of support for Yerevan during the second Karabakh war and unwillingness to uphold European values. Notably, the clashes on the border continued even after the arrival of the President of the European Council in Yerevan, which to a certain extent may indicate the minimal impact of Charles Michel’s peacekeeping efforts.

Eventually, after another armed escalation on the border between the two states in November, Russian President Vladimir Putin set out to resolve relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and held a trilateral meeting with the leaders of these countries on November 26 in Sochi. The Russian President began this negotiation process with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, followed by a trilateral meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. The Russian President met separately with the Armenian prime minister afterward. The negotiations lasted for about three hours. As a result, the politicians made a joint statement and agreed on the mechanisms of delimitation and demarcation of the borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Specifically, the text of the statement indicates: “To take steps to increase the level of stability and security on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and to work towards the creation of a bilateral commission on the delimitation of the state border between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia with its subsequent demarcation with the consultative assistance of the Russian Federation at the request of the parties.” The parties agreed to continue to follow the 2020 peace agreements “in the interest of ensuring stability, security and economic development in the South Caucasus.” They further agreed “to intensify joint efforts aimed at the earliest possible resolution of the remaining tasks arising from the statements of November 9, 2020, and January 11, 2021,” the document states. Mechanisms for demarcation and delimitation of the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan will be established before the end of the year. Another critical, sensitive point is related to humanitarian issues. In addition, there was a detailed discussion of economic issues, development of economic ties. And as a first step, unblocking the transport corridors was determined.

The statement of the three countries’ leaders says that Russia will continue to provide all necessary assistance for the normalization of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Putin, Aliyev, and Pashinyan also stressed the need to launch projects as soon as possible to unlock Nagorno-Karabakh’s economic potential.

Further developments will show whether the recently openly hostile parties, still in the state of a simmering conflict, will be able to continue their discussions at the negotiation table on contentious issues. One must not forget that disputed territories and disputed borders have more than once in the history of mankind led once-friendly nations to fratricidal war. But it should also not be forgotten that only a diplomatic solution to the dispute will help restore peace and good neighborliness. Provided, of course, that the political forces involved in the conflict can make reasonable compromises and unless the ruling elites once again try to exploit inter-ethnic issues for their own political interests.

But despite all this, the trilateral meeting in Sochi once again clearly demonstrated that there is no alternative to Russia’s role as a key mediator in the region. This is not only due to Russia’s politico-military and economic leverage over the parties to the conflict and Russia’s military presence in the region but also due to Moscow’s measured political line. At the same time, this does not rule out that, in addition to preserving Russia’s key mediating role, it will also be possible for other centers of power to be involved in the settlement process from time to time.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

As planned by the West, the internal political crisis in this country and the crisis in Georgia’s relations with the European Union and the United States only intensified with the return of Mikheil Saakashvili to his homeland.

The EU has been trying to return Georgia to the path of democracy for over a year now. Even before his return to Georgia, Saakashvili had been warned by Brussels and Strasbourg that it was not the best idea. Hence, Viola von Cramon, MEP, openly stated that this step would only create unnecessary tension.

Saakashvili’s return is unlikely to help de-escalate the situation in the country was also stated by influential US Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the co-author of the sharpest letters from the US Senate openly criticizing the Georgian authorities and their rollback on democracy. According to Shaheen, the former president had his chance but was defeated in a free and fair election in 2012.

Now the US State Department, which planned and implemented the operation for the return of the ex-president to his homeland, is trying to provide Mikheil Saakashvili with propaganda and other support, referring to the pressure on the Georgian authorities on “international obligations of this country and the Convention on Human Rights.” Meanwhile, at an apparent prompting from Washington, the European People’s Party has already named the ex-president a political prisoner. At the same time, as Georgian Dream Chairman Irakli Kobakhidze said the other day, the West is simply forgetting that several European parliamentarians, in particular Anna Fotyga, who in August 2008 headed the office of Polish President Lech Kaczyński, and later served as Minister of Foreign Affairs Republic of Poland, has long been lobbying for Saakashvili’s United National Movement. Even as this ex-president’s regime murdered, raped, robbed businesses, and kidnapped independent media. According to the Georgian Dream Chairman, “lobbyists of the radical opposition” promote polarization in Georgia since oppositionist Gigi Ugulava, the shareholder of shareholders of Mtavari Arkhi TV, Giorgi Rurua and Nika Melia, chairman of the United National Movement, were released from prison between 2020 and 2021 thanks to the efforts of these people. The opposition has claimed all three as political prisoners. Hence, politicians in the EU and the USA have called for their release.
“Everyone can see that today these ’perpetrators,’ along with the main criminal Mikheil Saakashvili, are playing the most active role in the polarization harming the interests of society and Georgia. Together with the radical opposition, the direct responsibility for all this, of course, is placed on all those persons who actively demanded the release of criminals,” Kobakhidze said. Under the circumstances, the condemnation of foreign support for Saakashvili by the head of Georgia’s ruling party is quite understandable and justified.

But appeals by the West to stop persecuting political opponents, according to many experts, will be ignored by the ruling Georgian party, which understands that the release or relaxation of the Saakashvili Factor will hit the foundations of the ruling party. So the Georgian Dream will resist this in every way it can for as long as it can. In particular, it was demonstrated by the annulment of the compromise agreement.

Kelly Dagnan, the US Ambassador to Georgia, also blatantly stood up for Saakashvili to continue directing the situation in Georgia and not to cease meddling in Georgia’s internal affairs.

It is worth noting that Kelly’s predecessor in the position of US Ambassador to Georgia, Ian Kelly made rather harsh remarks on Twitter about incumbent Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and the prisoner Mikheil Saakashvili. “They are both poisonous to the political body. Like all politicians, including in my country, who prefer conflict and personal power to national interests.“

The European Union needs to find some healthy forces in this country, in its parliament, with which a dialogue can be held. It is impossible to build a dialogue with either the ruling party or the opposition, says an MEP from Germany, Viola von Cramon-Taubadel, who tried to lead the work on the Charles Michel’s Agreement (the Agreement failed, as we recall).

At the same time, another MEP and former prime minister of Lithuania, Andrius Kubilius, said the presence of the Georgian Dream party in power could hinder the country’s integration into the EU and NATO, clearly putting pressure on the current authorities of the country.

As for Saakashvili, on November 10, the Tbilisi City Court resumed the criminal case hearing on the violent dispersal of the opposition rally on November 7, 2007, and the pogrom of Imedi TV station with the appropriation of its property. By the evening of the same day, it became known that Saakashvili had agreed to end his hunger strike, as reported by his lawyer Nika Gvaramia. The video shown by the Georgian authorities demonstrates the apparent absence of Saakashvili’s “loss of strength” from the alleged hunger strike. This decision of the ex-president was likely influenced by the answer of the European Court of Human Rights, which did not satisfy the demand to transfer Saakashvili to a private hospital. Instead urged the plaintiff to stop his hunger strike, Georgian Justice Minister Rati Bregadze said.

But the West has not yet decided what to do with the current government and how to implement the Saakashvili factor further. On the one hand, they demonstrate their tension with the actions of the Georgian authorities, which they do not hide. On the other hand, they give a favorable evaluation of the October 2 local elections and the opposition’s failure. It is felt that such confusion can not last much longer, and some ordering signal is expected from Washington. There may be a further development of a political crisis in Georgia, previously prepared by the United States, and solution of Saakashvili’s fate, and the whole of Georgia. For its part, official Washington has only shown its role in further development of the situation in Georgia. In addition to continued active haranguing of Kelly Dagnan, US Ambassador to Georgia, a massive military allied presence of the US Sixth Fleet ships, USS Mount Whitney flagship and destroyer USS Porter in the Black Sea, and a port call in Batumi. Continuing to nudge Kyiv to strengthen its role in playing the Saakashvili Card, Washington is clearly pursuing the goal of achieving worthwhile aims in Georgia using Ukraine.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

As you know, Georgia is in a major political crisis, and its acute phase has lasted for more than a year now. The government accuses its opponents of preparing a political coup, while the United National Movement (UNM), the pro-Western coalition of former president Mikheil Saakashvili’s opposition to the current government, orchestrated by Washington, works hard to unleash unrest in Georgian society.

The results of the elections were not unexpected, as the ruling party Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia won 19 out of 20 places where elections were held.

Despite the fact that the results of the second round, as well as the first one, were not falsified (otherwise, the ruling party Georgian Dream would have won in the first round already), the opposition does not recognize the results, announcing permanent large-scale protests and “unfolding of the front across the country.” Georgian politicians have not yet been able to eliminate the disease of denying someone else’s victory, even when it is obvious. The opposition demands an early parliamentary election, although, under the so-called document of Charles Michel, President of the European Council, which, after a long delay, all opposition parties signed, the authorities would have to agree to an early vote if they could not get 43% of the vote. And they got more, though not as much as they hoped.

As for the Georgian Dream’s expectations from the future composition of the local authorities, the ruling party was less fortunate here. It failed to get a one-party majority in 6 municipal assemblies, including the second-largest city, Batumi. This is fraught with continued chaos on the ground, with all the unpleasant consequences that follow.

However, the opposition is doomed to failure as long as it is led by the United National Movement and the scandalous, in many ways, Saakashvili, whose clout has long been undermined despite the active efforts of Washington and the US Embassy to “revive” him in Georgia’s political scene.

In these circumstances, the indisputable conclusion from the second round of local elections held on October 30, 2021, in 20 of 64 municipalities of Georgia becomes obvious. Georgians turned out to be more reasonable than their ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili and those who sent him to “blow up Georgia,” hoping that this “messiah” would ensure the success of Washington’s plans in the country. The election results confirmed that Saakashvili’s factor of influence on the Georgian situation was overestimated in Washington, even though he played a well-planned and orchestrated from overseas gamble with his return, the subsequent arrest and a dramatic hunger strike designed to melt Georgians’ hearts with sympathy and compassion. The opposition needs a leader to unleash a new protest movement, and it has no one else but Saakashvili, who has already failed and disappointed to meet Western expectations.

However, not everything is rosy for the Georgian Dream coalition either: the society is split almost in half in the country, as the voting margin is minimal, averaging around 10%. In such a situation, quite prone to shifting the balance of support of the population, one should bear in mind that it was Georgia that began a series of color revolutions in the post-Soviet space, experiencing two successful coups d’etat – first in 1992 when Eduard Shevardnadze was placed on the Georgian presidential seat, and then in 2003, when the same trick was repeated with Saakashvili.

The readiness of the opposition to make another coup d’etat supported by the West is also confirmed by the investigation launched by the State Security Service of Georgia into the fact of a conspiracy to overthrow the government. Bacha Mgeladze, Deputy Head of Counterterrorism Center of Georgian State Security Service, announced this during an emergency briefing on October 29.

In other words, the so-called “critical mass,” the driving force of the coups, has already been accumulated, and only the virtuosic actions of the current Georgian authorities can disband it. At this stage, it is evident that the Georgian authorities have confirmed their legitimacy, but this does not mean that they will be so lucky in the parliamentary elections of 2024, which will only take place if there is not another coup in the country. The ghost of which is already haunting Georgia. To stop another coup, the Georgian Dream will need to begin and complete the job of righting wrongs as soon as possible to regain at least some of its former electorate.

The current situation in Georgia is that two forces are vying for power in the country: The Georgian Dream and the United National Movement. Many small parties go to parliamentary elections, but they do not spend resources on municipal elections, which explains the situation with the dominance of two parties. However, both parties are interested in the confrontation as this allows them to mobilize their supporters: opposition mobilizes its own, while, in contrast, the ruling party has shifted the focus of voters’ attention from their actions to the issue of attitude towards Saakashvili. Both parties are definitely pro-Western, but the West does not know how to reconcile them. Both the EU and the US are now in an awkward situation. Meanwhile, the United National Movement behaves like a spoiled child denied candy, threatening to refuse to work in parliament, lead its supporters out into the streets, and demanding that the Georgian voters reconsider their choice.

For Russia, both Georgian political forces are the same. There are shades, but they are not essential. The situation with Russia, with which Georgia broke off diplomatic relations in August 2008, will remain as it is now: without insulting rhetoric towards representatives of the Russian authorities, but with constant demand, including at the international level, for Moscow to withdraw its recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Therefore, the political crisis will not end with these elections, the protests will continue, and the United National Movement will be looking for new reasons for aggravation. And the Georgian Dream will undoubtedly provide these reasons.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Now the votes are counted in the Georgian municipal elections there are no surprises, and the reactions are what you would have expected.

Georgians didn’t have much of a real choice between the two main political parties on Election Day, or during the runoff held on October 30. Those who came out to cast their ballots held their noses and voted for the lesser of two evils, which the voters decided was the ruling Georgian Dream (GD).

However, many more voters just stayed home, totally disillusioned. The sad reality in Georgia, once touted as a beacon of democracy by the West, is that the flickering beacon is burning out.

As one article summed up so well prior to the run-off elections (second round):

“Vote, and you’ll regret it; don’t vote, you may also regret it; whoever you vote for, you are likely to regret it either way.”

If It’s Stable It Still Doesn’t Matter

The results were very one sided, which raises many flags but was to be expected. With 100% of precincts counted, results published by the Central Election Commission show Georgian Dream candidates victorious in 19 mayoral runoffs, including in the self-governing cities of Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Batumi, Rustavi and Poti.

The United National Movement’s mayoral candidate won in Tsalenjikha, an isolated town in West Georgia far removed from the political mainstream, as per the preliminary results. Just as the opposition were confined to a few rural outposts in the UNM’s time, so the UNM are the new vehicle for making people who don’t matter appear backward, and not deserving of the attention of the majority.

The UNM, the party of former president Saakashvili now in prison in Tbilisi, is “screaming foul” as it has in every recent election.

Nika Melia, the head of the main opposition party United National Movement and a mayoral candidate in Tbilisi, claimed that “the victories gained by the opposition in many municipalities were taken away…like they never happened.”

The UNM claims widespread election fraud and vote rigging. They should know, as they turned such practices into a fine art when they were in power.

The US Embassy is making similar allegations -

(The elections were) well-administered, but allegations of intimidation and pressure on voters persisted, and continued polarisation, coupled with the escalation of negative rhetoric, adversely affected the process. Sharp imbalances of resources and an undue advantage of incumbency further tilted the playing field. There was also concerns noted over the persistent practice of representatives of observer organisations acting as party supporters, at times interfering with the process, and groups of individuals potentially influencing voters outside some polling stations,. The impartiality of the lower-level election commissions persisted. It is [worth noting] that the U.S. Embassy election observation teams witnessed similar interference and bias at several precincts.

Much of this may be true. However, a double standard is being applied. When Saakashvili and his party were in power the US government and international organisations turned a blind eye to most, if not all, such allegations, and these same generic language can be used of any election, anywhere, and was brushed off as such during Saakashvili’s time..

Georgians have become numb. They understand elections are futile, and will never be free and fair, as all the politiciansneed to be replaced. Totally new blood needs to be brought into government, as both the GD and UNM have failed and betrayed the Georgian people.

Much of the election campaign was more a focus on the legal fate of Mikheil Saakashvili than real issues. He had been smuggled back to Georgia in the back of a truck on 1st October, and was immediately arrested. His political antics, and legal accountability for at least some of his many crimes, are finally catching up with him.

It would have rather entertaining to have seen him parachuted in, or delivered by a German U-boat, something a little bit more bizarre, or riding a camel. But now he is back, the question remains for how long … and for how long will he stay locked up in a Georgian prison.

Saakashvili served a useful purpose for the Georgian Dream, as a sideshow, distraction and whipping boy. He will continue to be a distraction from their own failure to deliver on their many promises, including how they are dealing with the COVID pandemic.

Saakashviliis also being used by everybody else, even some in the UNM. But the new generation of educated and patriotic Georgians would rather he stay away- out of sight and out of mind!

It is time for Georgia to move forward, and stop living in the past. Saakashvili’s billing is running out. The GD was elected because Saakashvili was a crook, but that has ceased being a good enough reason to support it. Blaming him for everything wrong with the country wears increasingly thin when you’ve had nine years to sort it out, and failed to offer a credible vision of what a non-criminal future would look like.

Not the Prodigal Son

Saakashvili knew he would be detained should he return to Georgia. His return is at the behest of larger geopolitical interests. Having worn out his welcome elsewhere, he has no choice but to bend to the will of his former friends, who let him think he was as clever as they.

It is just a matter of time before those who supported him for their own reasons totally abandon him. He has a record of not being wanted as his political stock value goes up and down. Tossed from one country to another, Ukraine to Poland and then back under the new government, Saakashvili’s checkered past precedes him wherever he goes now, and not before time.

Saakashvili still hopes that his inside knowledge of the sins of the West, especially those connected with the 2008 Georgian-Russian war, arms and drug trafficking, can be used to blackmail it, and he will somehow be able to get out of jail and pick up where he left off. But that is not going to happen, at least now, in the wake of this last ditch effort to get the UNM back into government.

He may have showed up on his own to face Georgian justice, a six year prison term, but this will not make a martyr out of him. Many locals are predicting that, once the runoff election dust settles, he will be released and then immediately tossed back to Ukraine, either on a pretext or to face his crimes there to give Georgia greater leverage to bring its own long overdue charges.

To get more attention, Saakashvili has been on a prison hunger strike for the last 30 days. But no one has noticed, other than a few foreign missions and the US Ambassador. You can read US Ambassador to Georgia Kelly Degnan say that she is concerned about Saakashvili’s wellbeing, but the fact that all she does is talk about it tells Saakashvili, and his countrymen, all they need to know.

All for Show!

Georgian PM Garibashvili dismissed the question about Saakashvili’s hunger strike by saying “the law says an individual has the right to suicide”. This comes after comments from other ruling party officials, saying that Saakashvili is not, in fact, on hunger strike and is “doing it for the show.”

In a way however, such comments play into Saakashvili’s hands. He can’t survive thirty days without food no one can. So if not a martyr, he is immortal—a leader anointed with superhuman powers that alone can save the country from itself. He may also be able to get a more regular cocaine supply in prison, which he tried to disguise while president with the same sort of logic.

But sadly, there are people who wish to believe him. Georgian elections are modeled on US elections, so they are full of media spin, falsehoods and echo chambers.

PBS is already putting spin on the elections here, trying to make it look like the UNM has hundreds of thousands of protestors filling the streets, complaining about rigged election. Friends in USA are sending such links unsolicited, as if now they are deeply informed on Tbilisi politics.

Saakashvili has an American lawyer, John Sandvig, allocated as part of a cleanup operation. Sandvig is definitely not in Georgia to protect Saakashvili’s interests but to try to put a lid on Georgia’s involvement in drug trafficking during his regime, and prevent revelation of how many in the US government, intelligence agencies and DoD were actively involved.

Georgia was then the perfect conduit for drugs and weapons, many of them coming out of Afghanistan. But policies can change overnight, and denying any involvement with all this will ultimately result in Saakashvili’s US friends suddenly discovering his crimes and leading the charge to prosecute him themselves, when Sandvig has found the way to spin this.

One respondent in researching for this article shared how he had personally provided undercover tapes about some of the crimes associated with weapons trafficking to the Georgian authorities several years ago – and if Georgia wants to understand why the American lawyer John Sandvig is getting involved in the case of Mikheil Saakashvili, it is all a matter of official record, supported by his sworn testimony.

Sandvig served as Director of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency between 2013 and 2014, and he knows these details. If not, he can get into the files of ICE, Immigration and Customs; it (the documentation) is all there. The respondent is under the order of a US Federal Judge from the State of Arizona not to reveal additional details, based on a matter of US National Security.

Nor is it only the Americans trying to whitewash Saakashvili’s crimes by blaming him alone. One of Saakashvili’s Georgian lawyers, Beka Basilaia, says his health condition is worrying. But how he expresses this concern reveals he couldn’t care less about protecting his client’s health, merely the official line of his time.

“It is the duty of the Georgian people, the Georgian society, and we must fulfill this duty in order to release Mikheil Saakashvili, the third president of Georgia, the main reformer of Georgia, from being Putin’s prisoner, and use the Strasbourg court,” Basilaia said. So his release would not be because he is innocent or sick, but because he was on the “right side”, and that side, rather than him, has to be protected.

Will Saakashvili be returning to the Ukraine?

Saakashvili’s plan for returning and jacking up the political temperature ended with a clear cut victory for the GD. Georgians do not suffer from complete memory lapses, and whatever the GD has failed to do, it is still better than reverting to what Saakashvili actually did.

Many people who still vote for the UNM actually hate it. They vote just out of protest at the failures of the GD, as a scare tactic rather than an indication of preference. In their minds, it is “just a crying shame that someone has to win.”

Where Georgia goes from here, nobody knows. The GD is a coalition of people who fell out with Saakashvili, but the only reason the UNM is still around is because it leads an unholy alliance, based on the enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend, invented purely to vote the GD party out of office.

Neither side has any ideology people believe in or listen to, and this cannot be coincidental, as Georgia has had this imposed upon it ever since the president with demonstrable popular support, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, was removed with the connivance of the West. Georgians aren’t allowed to have anyone they can believe in for too long, for then they will start believing in themselves, and expecting better, and only Georgians want that to happen.

The GD still trades on “good versus evil”, and has thus become more deeply rooted than ever. But what happens when someone else without negative connotations comes along, and insists the dynamic should be “works versus doesn’t work”?

Georgia’s elections are always about what sort of rubber stamp should be given to the US, and that in turn depends on what the US wants to present itself as at the time. Little wonder that Georgians themselves will, as usual, wearily put up with it all, until the system is not even worth trying to second guess, let along defend.

Henry Kamens, columnist, expert on Central Asia and Caucasus, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

]]> https://journal-neo.org/2021/11/03/election-outcome-in-georgia-leaves-many-asking-and-what-now/feed/ 0 https://journal-neo.org/2021/10/06/why-is-saakashvili-in-georgia-now/ https://journal-neo.org/2021/10/06/why-is-saakashvili-in-georgia-now/#comments Wed, 06 Oct 2021 04:25:58 +0000 https://journal-neo.org/?p=167495

Mikheil Saakashvili’s theatrical return after eight years in exile and flight from Georgia, where he has been convicted twice for various criminal offences, has attracted increased attention not only in this Caucasus country. The very moment of his appearance in Georgia – on the eve of the local elections in which more than 40 political parties will participate, as well as the arrest of the politician and his transfer to the jail of Rustavi, located near the Georgian capital, has added zest to the event.

According to the Georgian prosecutor’s office, law-enforcement agencies are investigating Saakashvili for illegally crossing the state border. Saakashvili is also known to have been convicted in absentia in the murder case of banker Sandro Girgvliani and the beating of MP Valeriy Gelashvili. He was sentenced to three years in prison in the first case and six in the second. Saakashvili is also a defendant in the cases of dispersing an opposition rally, pogroming Imedi TV and embezzling state budget funds. Mikheil (Mikheko) Saakashvili faces a total of nine years in prison for these convictions. But other criminal cases are still pending and have not been filed, so he may still receive more sentences.

Saakashvili is well known for his active involvement in the “color revolutions” in the former Soviet Union. He led Georgia from 2004 to 2013, at a time when the country had an ignominious “war with Russia” following Mikheko’s attempts to carry out an armed provocation on the border with Russia at the behest of Washington. After his retirement, Saakashvili lived in Brooklyn for a while before turning to politics in Ukraine after Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in 2014 and was by no means the only Georgian politician to hold senior positions in Kyiv with outright US sponsorship.

Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili issued a statement on October 01 regarding the detention of Mikheil Saakashvili and ruled out the possibility of pardoning him. She admitted that she would never forget the eyes of the people who had suffered during Saakashvili’s rule and “who waited for justice and did not live to see it today.” She recalled that she herself had fought the Saakashvili regime, which “trampled on human rights, free business and the law, and sacrificed human health and lives to maintain its power.”

Saakashvili’s return to Georgian soil – like much of his time in office – looked like “political theatre”, even The New York Times noted. In particular, the former president spent several days openly mocking the Georgian government, which is now controlled by his political opponents.

There is no doubt that Saakashvili was aware of his impending arrest. Therefore, the reasons behind his openly theatrical return to Georgia and his contemptuous and mocking attitude towards the current Georgian authorities are not difficult to guess, if we consider that Washington and the US intelligence agencies are behind all his actions, as well as his nomination to the post of the head of Georgia back in the day. They decided to play the “Mikheko card” and thus directly influence internal political events in the country during the election period.

This is confirmed by the accusations the Georgian authorities received the day before from the West who accuses them of “deviating from democracy and changing their foreign policy course.” The statements from Washington and Brussels hint at a revision of the attitude to Tbilisi, allegedly “changing its set of values”. This sudden aggravation in relations between Georgia and the US together with its Western allies is largely the result of the ruling Georgian Dream (GM) withdrawal from the Charles Michel Accord to end the domestic political crisis.

The US Embassy in Georgia stated that Washington is “very angry at the Georgian Dream, which has strayed from the principles of democracy.” As usual, a group of congressmen and senators from both major parties criticized the GD, interspersing their criticism with wishes and readiness to help Georgia return to democracy. Finally, European Parliament member Viola von Cramon, who arrived on a special mission to Tbilisi, announced that “the GD’s decision benefited … only the Kremlin.” As a clear pressure on the ruling GD party and an attempt to force it to pursue policies that favor the West, the European Union plans to consider suspending visa-free travel for Georgian citizens on 13 October.

In the meantime, the Saakashvili show continues to be played out publicly by the West. “We urge Georgian authorities to ensure that Mr Saakashvili is afforded fair treatment in accordance with Georgian law, and Georgia’s international human rights commitments and obligations,” the US Department of State said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba pledged “not to leave the former Odesa Governor to his fate,” clearly hinting at Kyiv’s possible active participation in Washington’s theatrics with Mikheil Saakashvili. Mikheko has already hastened to declare himself not an ordinary criminal in his homeland, but a political prisoner, and to make it more theatrical, he announced the start of a hunger strike. In doing so, he obviously counts on the support of the United States, which since 1991-1992 has firmly settled in Georgia, built a huge embassy in Tbilisi and feels very at home there. It was the US who brought up ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili, as well as many Georgian politicians. In addition, together with the Europeans, Washington has brought non-governmental organizations to Georgia, which have been trying to rule in this Caucasian country for a long time. Meanwhile, US Ambassador Kelly C. Degnan is imposing the US external administration on Georgia, trying to take control of internal forces in the country in “her iron hands” and establish close supervision over the activities of political movements that Washington assesses as undesirable.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Two years ago, former Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze, during the August 12, 2019 celebration of the Georgian holiday of Didgoroba, thundered to all in attendance that “the Battle of Didgoroba continues for every one of the Georgians.” To make these words clear to everyone, we recall 1121, when the King David IV of Georgia defeated the Seljuk Turks’ winning the Battle of Didgori, which led to the subsequent liberation of the future capital Tbilisi, as well as the general unification of Georgia. This year marks the 900th anniversary of the Didgori victory. The ultranationalist movement “Georgian March” has already sent a letter to the government demanding to establish a public holiday on August 12. The preparation of nationalists, frankly anti-Turkish actions can not be excluded.

Two years ago, the above-mentioned words of Mamuka Bakhtadze were perceived by the majority of the Georgian population as a response to the problem of Turkey’s ongoing expansion throughout the South Caucasus. The fact that Georgian lands are in Turkey’s sphere of particular interests was very clearly stated by the current Turkish President Recep Erdoğan on October 15, 2016, speaking at the University in Rize, Turkey. According to him, the Turkish state considers those territories located near the current “illegitimate” borders of Turkey as its own. “Our areas of interest include Iraq, Syria, Libya, Crimea, Karabakh, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, and other brotherly regions. Many historians believe that Turkey’s borders should include Cyprus, Aleppo, Mosul, Erbil, Kirkuk, Batumi, Thessaloniki, Varna, Western Thrace, and the Aegean islands,” the Turkish president said.

As for the Georgian regions of Adjara, Samtskhe-Javakheti, Kvemo Kartli, and Kakheti, they face Turkish expansion more than others, primarily due to their actions Ankara’s “soft power,” trying to be discreet and not expecting an immediate return on investment. Turkey’s main emphasis is on the religious, economic, and educational components of its influence. In addition, Ankara makes extensive use of the assistance of “brotherly Azerbaijan” in the regions of Kvemo Kartli and Kakheti, where the Azerbaijani community is concentrated. As a result, we can see today that the entire network of pro-Turkish civil society organizations and humanitarian projects operates under the auspices of the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency TIKA, often acting as a front for MIT, Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization.

In 2002, with Turkish financial support, an Islamic madrasa was opened in the village of Meore-Kesalo in the Marneuli district, on the border with Azerbaijan, in Kvemo Kartli, a significant number of local youth who soon began pro-Turkish propaganda outside the walls of the school. Turkey hosted the most active trainees for further training.

With a $17.5 million grant from Turkey, Georgia has begun modernizing the Marneuli military airfield 40 km southwest of Tbilisi, which was destroyed during the Georgian aggression against Russia in 2008. Georgia has already received 47 military transport vehicles from Turkey under this grant. According to Georgian media, the strengthening of the Turkish presence in the region after the war in Nagorno-Karabakh could also mean that Turkey would use the airstrip as an alternate one.

Today, Turkey is Georgia’s largest trade partner. Foreign trade turnover in the first quarter of 2021 increased by 3.7% compared to the same period last year and amounted to about 419 million dollars – 15.1% of the total foreign trade turnover of Georgia. Last year, the volume of trade between Georgia and Turkey amounted to about $1.6 billion.

Ankara has already practically seized the Georgian domestic market. Turkey accounts for 80 percent of foreign investment in Georgia, which, as a result, is increasingly tied to the Turkish economic complex as part of transnational projects.  Tbilisi is also tied to Ankara in geopolitical terms by such vital projects as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil and gas pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki-Kars railway. In addition, dozens of other small projects are underway. The very close economic ties between the two countries show that 75% of imports to Georgia are Turkish products. Georgia’s current financial and political elites are linked to representatives of the Turkish capital, which is highly criticized in Georgian society.

Thus, the protests against the Turkish expansion have not subsided in Kutaisi. In particular, over the past two months, several rallies and demonstrations have been conducted to stop constructing a cascade of hydroelectric power plants on the Rioni River, which was attended by tens of thousands of people with a population of only 135 thousand in Kutaisi. The Save Rioni Gorge movement has been continuously protesting against the construction of the 433 MW Namakhvani HPP Cascade for more than six months, despite the declared importance of the project for the country’s energy sector by the Georgian and Turkish authorities. However, the protest movement does not subside; its participants talk about the environmental problems associated with the project. The protesters say that if the future dam is breached, the entire Imereti region will be flooded.

A severe factor in this protest movement is the dissatisfaction of the local population. With the fact that the hydroelectric power plant is being built by the Turkish company ENKA, which under the project can get the use of the largest river in western Georgia – Rioni – with its valley of 320 km for 90 years. The Turkish management company will also be able to exploit the 13.4 thousand square kilometers of the river basin, all flora, and fauna, at its discretion. The border zone between Georgia and the Russian Federation, the Edena glacier in the Greater Caucasus Mountains, where the Rioni River has its source, is allegedly being transferred to Turkey.

The protesters demanded that the Georgian government cancel the contract with the Turkish company ENKA, calling this investment project of Ankara a synthesis of Turkish economic expansion in the Caucasus region and a corruption scheme of the Georgian political and financial elites jointly with the Erdogan administration. As follows from several reports in the Georgian media, the financial elite of Turkey, Erdogan’s inner circle, and representatives of the American elite, together with Georgian politicians, are accused of owning several large, in fact, illegal bitcoin farms on the territory of Georgia. To get solid dividends and a fully functioning bitcoin industry needs cheap and high-quality electricity. This is allegedly why Washington, Ankara, and the current Georgian authorities insist on building the Namakhvani HPP Cascade as soon as possible.

Against the background of large-scale protests, the Georgian government declared a one-year moratorium on hydropower plant construction on April 24. The dam construction project will be re-examined and confirmed by ecologists, geologists, and seismologists.

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili paid a state visit to Turkey on June 1 to settle the problems with Ankara and discuss areas for future cooperation. The Georgian delegation included Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia David Zalkaliani, Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development Natia Turnava, Minister of Environmental Protection and Agriculture Levan Davitashvili, Chairman of the Adjara Government Tornike Rizhvadze, and Head of Government Administration Ilia Darchiashvili. This visit to Ankara was of particular importance. During a joint press conference with Prime Minister Ilham Garibashvili, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan even said that Turkey sees Georgia as a key to regional cooperation. “Turkey has been Georgia’s number one trading partner for 14 years. We aim to increase the volume to $3 billion as soon as possible. Negotiations and consultations are also underway to expand the free trade agreement,” Erdogan said, confirming that in the energy sector, as in all other areas, there are Turkish investments in Georgia, which amount to $214 million.

Vladimir Odintsov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook“.

As part of the competitive struggle throughout the history of mankind, individual countries have already fallen under the external control of others, losing their sovereignty. This has been expressed since the controlling power unilaterally exerted a direct influence on the vassal state, prescribing certain managerial decisions to it, equivalent to the transfer of power in favor of the dominant state.

In recent history, we have all witnessed more than a few such facts with Washington. For example, actions in Ukraine, Venezuela, and Latvia, where the United States tried to demonstrate to the world how they can control their vassals through their “appointees.” As a rule, Washington’s technology is no longer new: first, the country is drained of blood through sanctions or loans, financially and economically destabilized, after which the prerequisites for a “color revolution” are created through NCBs implanted by the American intelligence agencies, and at the final stage, the American authorities declare official support for another “revolutionary” puppet, born and raised in the United States. According to such patterns already tested by the United States, for example, Georgia with Saakashvili, Ukraine with Yushchenko and Poroshenko, Latvia with Krišjānis Kariņš, Washington introduces external control of such countries through pushing an American to the position as Prime Minister or President of this country. And for further “control on the ground,” the US Ambassador is usually appointed with solid experience of either “color,” or military coups, or working with the US intelligence agencies. Moreover, Washington’s advantage in selecting such Ambassadors has recently been given to representatives of the US military authorities.

This can be traced in detail to events in Georgia: both “appointees” with American citizenship to the country’s leadership, and a network of implanted NCBs, and indeed, the appointment of Kelly Degnan as the American Ambassador to Tbilisi at the end of 2019.

Already happening in 2020, Degnan’s “service record” drew attention to her not only in Georgia but also outside this small Caucasian country, whose citizens have always been characterized by being independent of external pressure and imposition of foreign policies and will.  Although the White House and the State Department actively emphasized “career belonging to diplomacy,” Washington failed to disguise Degnan’s “career path” in another department, the military, which is NATO, and its representative offices. As an expert on the policy of NATO and the promotion of this military bloc to the East, Kelly Degnan has repeatedly given various media interviews. She has shared her experience working in NATO and discussed what role “soft power” should play in the strategic concept and initiatives of the Alliance, especially with candidates for NATO membership, which includes Georgia.

Therefore, the tasks set by the White House and the Pentagon for Kelly when she was sent to Tbilisi were clearly visible. In particular, the strengthening of the US position in this country, the creation of Georgia’s Cooperative Security Locations (CSL) with logistics stocks, and some US military personnel. After all, this allows you to organize an American presence on the territory of another state and, if necessary, immediately deploy shock and logistical support bases of the army in any region. At the same time, Washington deliberately proceeded from the fact that, unlike the “classic” US military bases, such a designation will not cause discrepancies among ignorant Georgians, since here you can maneuver, calling them anything, but not openly “US military bases.” Moreover, the program for the development of the Georgian state has been written and approved, as it has been previously noted by NEO, not in Tbilisi but in the USA. This program involves participation in various “operations” of the CIA and the Pentagon in the region, including turning against Iran, buying up obsolete American weapons, and creating as many problems as possible for its big neighbor — Russia.

Furthermore, from the very first days of her stay in Georgia, Ambassador Kelly Degnan decided to take control over domestic political movements in this country in “her iron hands,” establishing close monitoring over political forces unacceptable to Washington. For this purpose, the telephone conversations between one of the country’s leaders and Chairman of Georgian Dream — Democratic Georgia party Bidzina Ivanishvili were tapped by the US Embassy in Georgia, and not only their conversations.

However, since Georgia fought a failed war with Russia, hosted the US secret bio weapons on its territory at Lugar laboratory, and has not received anything from the United States, even the Western media state the same, apart from the external management from the United States, and a “Washington beholder”, Ambassador Kelly.

As AgoraVox, a French citizen journalism site, rightly states, “after the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO has become an instrument of American colonial policy and nothing more. It is much more profitable for Washington to act in Georgia without involving it with the Alliance. Even without a membership, the United States has many opportunities to use the small republic. In addition, the Georgian authorities themselves dutifully allow Washington to conduct its affairs in Georgia”.

Against the background of the recent growth of national consciousness resulting in an internal political crisis in Georgia with inter-party battles, Ambassador Kelly has actively joined the alignment of political forces in this country that’s beneficial to Washington, openly interfering with recent parliamentary elections. The USA and Ambassador Kelly still believe that when they talk about Georgia, they are talking about their state of Georgia.

The Georgian politician, Chairman of the Labour Party, Shalva Natelashvili, recently expressed that the self-consciousness is becoming more apparent in Georgia, and external governance of the country from the United States is being rejected. He referred to the US Ambassador to Georgia, Kelly Degnan as “a dictator who participated in the falsification of the results of the parliamentary elections.” The politician claimed that “the whole scheme of election fraud, especially against the Labour Party, was personally agreed and approved by her.” According to Natelashvili, that is why the US Ambassador “forced the opposition to sign a shameful ultimatum.” An agreement between the Georgian authorities and the opposition, prepared by President of the European Council, Charles Michel, under the control of Washington.

The elections to the Parliament of Georgia of the tenth conference were held in two rounds — on October 31 and November 21, 2020. Still, eight opposition parties refused to recognize their legitimacy and demanded repeat elections. US Ambassador Kelly Degnan actively joined the negotiations between the authorities and the opposition, taking on the functions of a mediator and then EU Ambassador to Georgia Carl Hartzel joined in. Following several unsuccessful rounds of negotiations, on April 18, President of the European Council presented a new document “A way ahead for Georgia” to the Georgian authorities and opposition to overcome political crisis which this time they signed (except United National Movement, European Georgia, and the Labour Party).

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook“.

In the wake of COVID and the current economic crisis you would think a country that has staked so much on tourism would not bite the hand that could [potentially] feed it. But conventional wisdom does not work when political parties will stoop to any level to spin the visit of a foreign journalist for political gain.

This was definitely the case with American-French journalist Vladimir Pozner, labelled as “Russian” by the Georgian media. The poor man ended up with an unexpected birthday surprise when he decided to celebrate in Tbilisi Georgia.

Vladimir Pozner had his hotel in Tbilisi egged by so-called civil society activists operating under the guise of standing up for Georgia’s honour and claim to territorial integrity. This justification was done in a context where not a word is ever mentioned in the local media about the Kosovo precedent, other than in a few academic sources.

As one such source says,

It shall be mentioned here that even the intention to apply the Kosovo case as a precedent to the breakaway regions of Georgia – Abkhazia and the so-called South Ossetia has been openly declared by Vladimir Putin as early as in 2006, when the possibility of granting independence to Kosovo had been discussed: “If someone considers that Kosovo should be granted full independence, then why the peoples of Abkhazia and South Ossetia should not have the same right to statehood?”

According to NED funded sites, the ruling Georgian Dream government came under fire for allowing the visit of Russian-American, as described in the Georgian media, journalist Vladimir Pozner, following what were claimed to be controversial remarks about the country’s territorial integrity.

Little mention was made that he was born in France and is US citizen, and was considered the preferred guest concerning all things Russian and Russian-US relations on TV and radio programmes for many years, much like Stephen F, Cohen, who died this last year. During the 1980s, Pozner was a favourite guest on Ted Koppel’s Nightline.

The Georgian opposition, especially the United National Movement of former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili (now exiled and on the run in several countries) have not been able to make political gains on the election battlefield, and are still screaming foul over their dismal performance in the last election. They and other fringe political parties are now resorting to other ways of getting attention, and Pozner was a prime target, especially considering his age.

Media Rewrites Literature

A vocal minority of Georgians came out tossing eggs in response to the visit; however, they did not commit this act of rage for free, at least the ones tossing the most eggs. They collectively demanded that Vladimir Pozner and his birthday party attendees immediately leave the country, as if freedom of opinion is not guaranteed in the Georgian Constitution.

Some foreign sponsored media sites have also joined in, so much so that it distracts from their credibility. Take this example:

The curfew-busting visit of veteran Russian TV personality Vladimir Pozner and his high-powered birthday party (apparently including propaganda top-brass from TASS and Sputnik) caused some rioting. Pozner & possee retreated rather quickly, leaving some Georgians fuming at who gave a crew patently less than respectful of Georgian sovereignty a clear pass to hit Tbilisi’s restaurants.

It is unfortunate that Georgians are forgetting the basis of their history, which describes how a guest is from God, and must be respected, even if he is your enemy. But that is now a politically moot issue, as BIGGER moves are in play.

Radio Free Europe/VOA describes Pozner’s ordeal as a “Russian journalist’s birthday bash a bust after he’s friven out of Georgia by eggs, power cuts”, but it fails to fact check that he is an American journalist. However, it later mentions that he arrived in Georgia on his American passport, rather undercutting everything which went before.

This is all smelling of a political false flag, which many in Georgia are well experienced in. Take the 2008 Khurcha Incident, which was used to distract attention from the Georgian government stealing an election. There the Georgian government itself organised a terrorist attack and blew up two buses, allegedly being used to transport voters for parliamentary elections, unless rockets can turn 360 degrees in midair.

RFE’s Georgian Service claims to be “a trusted source of politically and financially independent journalism in a country where much of the media is aligned with the government or the opposition.” However it and other media sources have a track record of supporting an agenda which is not always in the interest of Georgia, its territory integrity or the rule of law.

It becomes only too apparent, reading the coverage of it, that this birthday trip was more of an ambush than a knee jerk reactionary protest, as claimed by Western supported media outlets. The basis for the attack on Pozner’s party was a claim that back 2010, Pozner said that “Georgia has lost [Abkhazia] forever” and the area “will never be Georgia’s territory again.” He also blamed Tbilisi for the 2008 Russian-Georgian conflict.

Such claims are often repeated in the Georgian media, and especially among those who know the history of Georgia and its breakaway regions, and how negotiations to regain territory integrity have been handled. These included the ill-planned and ill-delivered 2008 war, prompted by hawking US Senator John McCain, now deceased, who thought his presidential run would be helped by a little shooting war in Georgia.

Ugly Head of anti-Semitism

But those closer to events suggest that attacking Pozner could be a symptom of the stoking of anti-Semitism in Georgia. In recent years there has been a tendency amongst those in the opposition camp to move towards extreme political views, having seen too many global trends. Not that they are Jew hating, but they cannot miss an opportunity to find ways to stir the larger political pot, no holds barred.

Georgia in general can claim with pride and accuracy that there is little to no anti-Semitism in the country, and how Jews and Georgians have lived in peaceful harmony for 26 centuries, as Jewish scholars themselves happily point out. Such un-Georgian attitudes are being fomented now to divide an already divided population even further.

It does not stop there. A variety of efforts are being made on other fronts to divide Georgians: identity politics, sexual orientations and religious views. The only thing uniting Georgians now is that everyone can easily become a target of such abuse.

But none of the reasons Georgians give for lambasting or attacking Pozner and his crew is credible or rational or logical, or even sensible. This adds to the argument that the motive for the attack was a combination of latent anti-Semitism and dangerous nationalistic hatred of Russia, which is used as a cover for everything.

Biting the hand that feeds

Members of the opposition, including those in the banking sector, are willing to destroy the potential for Russian tourism for the sake of short term political gain, and to gain control of properties in the tourism sector which are faced with problem loans.

The reason for putting on such a horse and pony show is that if someone of his level is not safe, ordinary Russians who want to visit Georgia had better not bother. A few years ago Putin banned flights to Georgia, but that didn’t stop Russians from coming for their summer vacations; they have money and love Georgia as a preferred destination. But that in itself is the problem, if you are in the Georgian opposition.

Some are willing to do anything to create problems for the elected government, even if it means taking the whole country down with it. They are still trying to force another round of elections, thinking that if people vote often enough they might regain power, and not only domestic players but outsiders as well.

In the Georgian culture these people claim to respect it would be considered shameful to go after an 87-year old like Vladimir Pozner. If those who claim they are really angry over his proffered stance on Georgian territorial integrity want to change the situation on the ground, they are hardly demonstrating that Georgia is a place their Abkhaz and Ossetian brethren would want to align themselves with.

Knowing Their Lines

All things considered, the political stunt was purposeful. However not only the Georgian opposition are making hay with it.

Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, has now announced that travelling to Georgia is unsafe for Russian citizens. In response, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said that “a group of citizens decided to protest, and this was seized on as an opportunity by that most destructive force, the [United] National Movement.”

“Such a way of protesting by the leaderships of the [United] National Movement and their [proxy] groups clearly goes beyond civilized norms and Georgian standards, and was completely inadmissible,” said the Prime Minister. He contends that that the UNM “has collected an absolutely degraded and radical group with whom a civilized dialogue is simply impossible”.

However its conduct has made the Georgian government seem civilized by comparison, which is what it might be presumed to want. Maybe those who gave Pozner’s party a free pass supplied just as many eggs as the opposition and their media backers.

Who cares back in the US?

Georgia is very much in the news in the US, where news reports about Pozner are ultimately aimed. But it is the other Georgia, the US state, which is the focus of discussion. The State of Georgia is changing its voting laws to make it extra difficult for African Americans to vote. They will not be allowed to vote with an absentee ballot. It will force people to wait in long lines within a 12-hour period and it will be illegal for anyone to bring water or food to anyone waiting in line to vote, even if they have to stand there for hours.

This action and its fallout have prevented the other Georgia even being mentioned in news reports in the US. Average working class people cannot conceive of there being another Georgia besides the land of cotton, peanuts and contested elections – which one reason why the UNM, media darlings then as now, got away with so much that any civilized person would be demanding action over.

The Game is still on, and we can expect more of the same, as the both the current and former leadership in Georgia wants to bleed the country into NATO but not to be involved in greater regional conflicts, including those in Iran and Ukraine, and will not be pressured into it by either the US, EU or NATO members.

It would be too simple to write this incident off as the puerile antics of a few Georgian nationalists, who can never grasp that what they claim Russia does to their independence is the same thing Georgians do to Abkhazians and other minorities, time and time again.

When histories are written, it is often found that events considered unimportant at the time had far greater significance than was then realised. The statements made by this action may prove louder than words are able to grasp at the moment.

Most of the free media in Tbilisi has handled the latest Georgia incident less than professionally, and that on its own accord speaks louder than the repercussions of tossed eggs.

Henry Kamens, columnist, expert on Central Asia and Caucasus, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

When Russia recently succeeded in bringing peace between the warring Armenia and Azerbaijan, it sent shockwaves across the West, particularly France and the US, the other two members of the Minsk Group. That Russia was able to mediate negotiations and peace single-handedly and swiftly meant that it was in full control in the South Caucasus. Not only was peace achieved, but the Minks Group, too, was left rudderless. It was a regionally oriented solution, offering no room for extra-regional powers to step in and manipulate the situation to their advantage by pushing for placing an outside “peace-keeping” force in the region.  However, while Russia was able to end the war, the outside powers effectively continue to seek ways to exploit the delicate situation by inserting and projecting so-called “ambiguities” and “uncertainties” and the need for “long-lasting” peace. In other words, France, and the US, are trying to re-ignite the war machine to continue their “peace-business.”

On November 17, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told French parliament that Russia must “remove the ambiguities over refugees, the delimitation of the ceasefire, the presence of Turkey, the return of fighters and on the start of negotiations on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh.”

On the same day, the US State Department unleashed its own rhetoric to demonize Russian brokered peace as fragile and “in-complete.” The November 17 statement showed that the US would accept only such solution as achieved through the Minsk Group. It said,

“Ending the recent fighting is only the first step toward achieving a peaceful, negotiated settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.  We urge the sides to re-engage as soon as possible with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group Co-Chairs to pursue a lasting and sustainable political solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict based on the Helsinki Final Act principles of the non-use or threat of force, territorial integrity, and the self-determination and equal rights of peoples.  As a Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, the United States remains fully engaged in this effort.”

On November 20, keeping with their previous statements, the office of the French president said that “We want the Minsk Group to play its role in defining the surveillance”, adding also that “The end of the fighting should now allow the resumption of good faith negotiations [through the Minsk Group] in order to protect the population of Nagorno-Karabakh.”

It is evident that the idea of “protecting” the population and deliberate projection of “humanitarian crisis” is only a way to show how fragile the situation is [under Russian watch] and that conflict can break-out once again.

The US and France, by pushing for international supervision of the ceasefire, are only tying to reduce Russia’s role in the region and enhance their own. In other words, France and the US are playing a zero-sum game whereby a Russian brokered and Russian supervised peace can only be mean a strategic loss for them.

Unlike Turkey, the US and France have no direct stakes in South Caucasus other than their desire to minimize Russia’s role and keeping the so-called “Russian under-belly” unstable. Turkey, on the other hand, is a close ally of Azerbaijan and has been involved in the conflict since it began in September. Turkey, which is already at odds with France over Libya, sees in Azerbaijan a territory of its influence.

While Russia does have concerns about the presence of Turkey-backed militias in the Caucasus, Putin is still coordinating with Erdogan. This is crucial in so far as the Russians want to keep the region free from militant activity.

For the US and France, Russia’s coordination with Turkey could also be the beginning of something the Astana process, which was highly instrumental in pushing Western powers out of Syria, massively reducing the US ability to manipulate Syrian peace process. The Astana process made sure that Syrian peace process was not a ‘made-in-America’ thing.

French officials have said that “We understand that the Russians are talking to the Turks regarding a possible formula, which we don’t want, that would replicate the Astana (process) to divide their roles in this sensitive region.”

Their opposition is not difficult to understand given that a replication of Syrian peace process in South Caucasus will effectively end the relevance of Minsk Group and brush Western powers aside permanently.

As it stands, Iran, too, is coordinating with Russia to speed up the process. It remains that the peace agreement was in many ways influenced by Iran’s idea of ‘regional approach’ to the conflict. Iran’s foreign minister already has made plans to visit both Moscow and Baku to supplement Russian diplomacy to give traction to the peace agreement. Unlike the Minsk group, Iran is suitably placed as a peace-maker. It has friendly ties with states in the Caucasus, and has been closely coordinating with Russia and Turkey through the Astana peace process. It is not an extra-regional power and deeply shares Russian and Turkish interest in keeping the West out of the region.

As a Russia-Turkey-Iran configuration matures and takes shape, the room for the proponents of internationalizing the conflict and peace agreement will shrink. We can expect both France and the US to continue their diatribe in coming weeks and months.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.