Feanor

Anti-government protest rock Tbilisi as tens of thousands of protesters take to the streets. A huge government operation involving spetznaz and MVD forces was undertaken to stop the protest. All opposition TV stations have been shut down. The subway to down town Tbilisi was shut down. Several thousand government soldiers have been brought out into the streets.

Looks like Saakashvili just used the siloviki to put down a color revolution of the same kind that put him into power. This is Americas trusted democratic ally in the Caucus, and a NATO candidate. Before blaming evil Putin for preventing the spread of democracy in the CIS, take a closer look around. Yes the AKM took part.

Georgia

President Declares State of Emergency Amid Riots

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

AP

01-Nov. 7: Riot police officers advance toward anti-government protesters down Tbilisi's main avenue.

TBILISI, Georgia — U.S.-allied President Mikhail Saakashvili declared a state of emergency Wednesday in the capital of Georgia, where six days of demonstrations have fueled a worsening crisis.

Saakashvili has blamed Russia for fomenting the unrest in the former Soviet nation. His prime minister, Zurab Nogaideli, said in a televised statement that there had been an effort to overthrow the pro-Western government.

"An attempt to conduct a coup was made, and we had to react to that," Nogaideli said.

The emergency declaration "will temporarily ban demonstrations and protests, and calls in the media for violence, and the ouster of the government by force," Nogaideli said.

He said that the presidential decree would be submitted to parliament for approval within the next two days as required by the constitution.

Riot police earlier used tear gas and water cannons to break up demonstrations, before bursting into the offices of a pro-opposition television station that went off the air moments later.

Georgia's Imedi television station describes itself as independent but is seen as a key opposition mouthpiece by authorities. It has carried statements by opposition leaders and broadcast footage of police breaking up protests Wednesday. More than 100 people were hospitalized after police drove opposition demonstrators from two protests in the capital, Tbilisi. Police used truncheons on some protesters and rubber bullets at one demonstration.
Related

*
Stories
o Riot Police Try to Quiet Government Protests in Georgia

"Riot police are here, something horrible is going on," the Imedi announcer said before the station went off the air.

The Interior Ministry said it would put out a statement on the situation at Imedi later in the day.

"Journalists aren't in danger, they will be allowed to go home," ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told The Associated Press.

Salome Zurabishvili, a former foreign minister who is now an opposition leader, said she was inside Imedi's headquarters when more than 100 police broke into the building and took control.

The demonstrations in Tbilisi have created the gravest challenge for Saakashvili since he was propelled to power in the 2003 Rose Revolution mass protests.

Saakashvili said in a televised address that Russian spy agencies were behind the protests and that three Russian diplomats were being expelled because of espionage activities.

Russia's Foreign Ministry dismissed Saakashvili's claims as an "irresponsible provocation" and said they were an attempt to distract attention from domestic problems.

Zurabishvili said that the shutdown of Imedi means that Georgia no longer has independent television because Rustavi 2 television, which is technically independent, has toed the official line.

Imedi was founded by Badri Patarkatsishvili, a prominent businessman who authorities claim is behind the protests against President Mikhail Saakashvili. Patarkatsishvili earned his fortune in Russia during the turbulent 1990s, but he returned to his native Georgia in 2000.

Patarkatsishvili recently handed over his controlling stake in Imedi to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., saying he wants to focus on supporting opposition parties.

The main demonstration Wednesday was in a street outside Parliament, where Saakashvili opponents have gathered since Friday, first to demand changes in election schedules and legislation and then to demand his resignation.

As police advanced, protesters retreated down Tbilisi's main avenue. Police fired tear gas from the beds of pickup trucks. Many wore gas masks, and live television broadcasts showed several people choking, including police. Scattered fist fights broke out between uniformed police and protesters.

Later, riot police again used tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets to break up another demonstration in downtown Tbilisi. Some police used truncheons to beat protesters who clambered over the city's walls, threw stones and taunted police.

About 360 people sought medical assistance, and more than 100 of them have remained hospitalized, Health Ministry spokeswoman Nino Kochorashvili told The Associated Press.

Saakashvili said he regretted the use of force, but argued that it was necessary to prevent the country from sliding into chaos.

FOXNews.com - Georgia President Declares State of Emergency Amid Riots - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

Ray

Unreal state with unreal people and unreal politicians!

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

braindead

There´s one for Ray !

found this on a blog . Little bit shortened by me .

AnTyx
WTF Georgia ?

----
The Tbilisi riots are far more enigmatic. The official news sources could not quote anything except the opposition's general dissatisfaction with president Saakashvili and his political party. While my esteemed colleague has forfeited attempts to figure out what the hell is going on there, I have the advantage of speaking Russian. As usual with such things, LiveJournal is a good source of perspectives and links to relevant articles. Here's what I've got so far.

Mikhail Saakashvili was elected as president in January of 2004, following the Rose Revolution. Following a long reign of ex-Soviet bigwig Eduard Shevarnadze, he was a welcome Western-minded alternative. He had the support of the people, and some very important allies - the US took a particular interest in Georgia, since its location makes it a useful platform to project power into the Middle East and Central Asia.

The presidential elections were followed by parliamentary elections, which Saakashvili's coalition promptly won. Georgian law states that the President is elected for five years, and the Parliament for four. So Saakashvili's first term would've run out in the winter of 2009, and the cabinet's in the spring of 2008, in other words Any Day Now.

At the end of last year, the parliament passed a constitutional amendment rescheduling the elections. The government was reluctant to hold a campaign at the same time as Russia, which is having an election season extending into next spring as well. It was thought - not unreasonably - that Georgia would be used as a propaganda cause, and it would be a great temptation for the Kremlin to try and destabilize the small country, like it's done before by supporting the separatists in the provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which are still under the control of Russian peacekeepers. So the amendments, which were found to be legitimate, but iffy by the Council of Europe's constitutional monitoring authority, extended the term of the Parliament by six months. This would allow the elections to be held long after Russia had made its decisions, for better or for worse. Saakashvili bought this extra time by voluntarily giving up three months of his own term, thus having the Georgian parliamentary and presidential elections at the same time.

This is what pissed off the opposition. As it stands, Georgia's political system is fairly heavily tilted in favour of the President, and the rescheduling is also an obvious attempt to use Saakashvili's personal popularity to strengthen the position of his supporting coalition*. With a popular incumbent president currently supported by a loyal parliamentary majority, the opposition is completely out of the loop. It doesn't help that the opposition leaders appear to include the sons of Georgia's first democratically elected president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia*.

But the opposition alone couldn't make the riots happen. Why are the common people on the streets? Different sources put the number of protesters as high as 150,000 people, and in a country about twice the size of Estonia with almost three times the population, that's still a huge number. (To compare: the marauding crowds in Tallinn on the Bronze Night are estimated at being up to 3,000 strong, by the wildest counts.) What's got them all so riled up?

Georgia was one of the first Soviet republics to make a serious attempt at independence, and the only one except for the Baltics that is not a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (a mostly pointless virtual union established after the fall of the USSR to alleviate exposure shock in countries with little experience in self-rule). At the same time, its history has been infinitely more tragic. The early 90s were marred by extensive Balkans-style bloodshed in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and the corrupt government of Shevarnadze impeded the country's economic growth. Saakashvili was supposed to change all that. But Georgians are, for most intents and purposes, Mediterraneans. The country has a long history stretching back to the pre-Roman times - it's known to have been a trading partner of Ancient Greece, and it can be argued that it is part of the same civilization. As Mediterraneans often are, the Georgians are impulsive and impatient. In two and a half years of effective rule, Saakashvili has failed to produce an improvement in living standards as drastic as was expected of him. For all its new foreign markets - you can now buy genuine Georgian wines in Tartu, and they're quite good - the country remains relatively poor. When the people are disgruntled, they blame the leader.

So, this week the protesters took to the streets, and the situation rapidly dissolved into a riot. Police used water cannons and tear gas; in an unfortunate coincidence, the worst of the clashes took place in the same boulevard where the Soviet authorities once harshly suppressed a demonstration of Georgian independence activists, and people can't help but make the painful connection. The president declared a state of emergency, which included an information blockade: foreign TV channels were shut off, the local press was confined to quarters. That is finished now, and it seems that it might have had a point: given a bit of time to catch their breath without having to worry about the media, the government and opposition leaders were able to meet and agree on terms.

Stunned by the riots, Saakashvili has gathered up his bravery and gone all-in. He has proposed a shotgun election in January of 2008, less than two months away. Ideologically, the opposition has lost its footing: they cannot accuse Saakashvili of being a corrupt, power-hungry politician if he is volunteering to cut his own term by a full year to give the people a chance to express their distrust of their leader. At the same time, the president is effectively counteracting claims that the police suppression of the riots signalled an end of democracy in Georgia - in the wake of the crisis, he's doing the most democratic, absolutely textbook thing possible, by effectively resigning. Such a short campaign also leaves the Kremlin with precious little time to influence the elections, especially as the opposition has definitively proven its incompetence by failing to turn a 150,000-strong crowd into any sort of real political advantage.

At the end of the day, despite the sheer amount of balls it took Saakashvili to call an early election, it seems to be a safe move: for all the popular disillusionment with the supposed wonder boy, there does not seem to be any other Georgian politician with a viable chance to get the popular vote. Saakashvili will most likely be re-elected, in a free and democratic poll monitored by European observers and the US advisors already in the country, and the opposition will be silenced.

Most of this analysis is based on the conversations in Georgians' LiveJournals, as well as Russian news sources, including anti-Kremlin ones. I've tried to arrange the information and pick out the scenarios that seemed most plausible to me. We'll see what happens.

Now for the Western perspective. The US seems very interested in having Georgia as a satellite nation; it is at once fervently anti-Islam, having a very strong Orthodox tradition (in fact along with Armenia it is one of the oldest consistently Christian countries in existence), but it is also fervently anti-Russia. For the US's interests in the region, Georgia shows a potential of loyalty second only to Israel. America might be a bit busy with other things in the Middle East/Central Asia region right now, but Georgia would definitely be a very good ally to have. Which is why the Georgian army is re-tooling with US equipment and training with US military instructors, and the government lends an ear to US advisors. There is even persistent talk of Georgia getting NATO membership. If Estonia could join NATO without a border treaty with Russia, Georgia can join NATO without resolving the issue of its breakaway provinces - as long as the US wants it bad enough.

For the EU, Georgia is a sweet piece of property as well, and you only need to look at the map to see why. With the last round of expansion, Europe has the use of Bulgarian and Romanian ports on the western shore of the Black Sea; with Georgian ports on the eastern shore, the EU is only one short skip away from having access to the Kaspian oil reserves - completely bypassing Russia. Hell, if they can extend the pipework to Turkmenistan, it would render Nord Stream redundant!

At the same time, Georgia is a far easier mark than Turkey. The EU is more or less done in the north and its own immediate vicinity; like all the major powers today, it is most interested in Central Asia. If it has a serious interest in access to the Caspian - and it damn well has to - it will have a far easier time integrating little old Georgia, than the enormous, barely secular mess that is the former Ottoman Empire. If the Georgian people's main complaint with the Western-minded Saakashvili is that he's not making the economy grow quickly enough, well, that's easy. The EU has more than enough experience in pulling up destitute post-Soviet economies by the ears.
---------


Georgia has a long way to go, but it's still on the right track. Let's see what happens.

--------


*The opposition leaders seem to include Tzotneh and Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, who seem to be brothers; there have been leaks of their phone conversations with Russian foreign intelligence officers. Zviad Gamsakhurdia's biographies mention that he had three sons, but I haven't found one that lists their names. Correct me if I'm wrong.

__________________
....

emergency

Feanor

Emergency. You might want to make an introductory thread, in the introductions forums, and fill out your public profile.

Braindead, I'd be careful with the optimistic predictions. Georgia is in a unique position to go in either direction. It could end up virtually collapsing and succumbing to pro-Kremlin influence, or it could become a part of EU and NATO like you suggest. It could also play the two off against each other and reap the best of both, as the anti-Russian part of Georgia is primarily in politics. The population is not big on these attitudes.

Ray

Braindead,

With all due regards to you, I find all these new states of ex USSR too pesky and very unstable for comfort.

Sooner gone, the better!

If Kosovo comes, then there shall be more problems in this area!

braindead

Feanor , Ray - this analyis was not mine , I copied it from a blog . Why I did find it interesting is because it used peoples own blogs and LiveJournal entries for it´s analysis . Therefore little bit background info that usually doesn´t get any attention . I guess it might be a little optimistic , but that is exactly the main problem - I haven´t seen an article yet that describes WHY they are so against Shaakashvili RIGHT NOW .

And Ray - about the clusterfyck of former Sov.Union - that reminds me a quote from an article - ´With all it´s troubles and anger we (former SU territories and East Eur. in general - BD) are still lightyears away from India-Pakist. where a mere sneeze could set off a nuclear war . While we are throwing insults , they´ve had 3 1/2 wars since their break from another Empire´

Ray

Braindead,

You have to have the military might and an economy to wage war with every sneeze!

But, if you are mere satellites and riding pickaback as the ex Soviet SSRs are currently doing, then you have to listen to your masters!

Feanor

Braindead, even the Ukranian military, by far the most capable of the ex-republics, wouldn't stand up to the modern Russian military in an open conflict.

Consider that Georgians were never really fond of Saakashvili. He didn't really come to power on a wave of people power, but rather a fairly large and well organized, but nonetheless minority, group of people. Add to it that he is suppressing the autonomy of various regions of Georgia and refuses to recognize S. Ossetia and Abkhazia independence, he's asking for trouble. Consider Abkhazia and S. Ossetia have already won wars of independence. Militarily, Georgia can't subdue them. They're setting a very tempting example.

braindead

Well , if there are really elections coming , then it´ll show just how much people have faith in him . Anyway a rather courageous step from a politician in his situation .

Feanor

What other choice did he have? assuming he's remotely intelligent and has SOME competent advisors?

Oh and the emergency state has not yet been lifted. Even though the protest are long over.

Ray

The news reports internationally is using the word 'besieged President".

I wonder if it will be a free and fair election with no vested interests interfering with money or muscle power!

What is alarming and which is what got my first comment going, is:

It means a whole lot of new conflicts in the Balkans and here in the Black Sea area. And it will have a domino effect is what I fear since no ex USSR or Soviet Bloc country has true roots into democracy!

braindead

true roots - well , depends , what is called a true democracy - Poland , Czech, Slovaks , Baltic States Hungary all had at least some experience with elections and democracy .
Hell even Russia had a strong , centuries-old democraticly-governed state , Novgorod , until Moscovia smothered it in 1478

Feanor

No. If only Putin had the balls to recognize and accept requests for anexation by Abkhazia, S. Ossetia, and Pridenestrovye. The regions are no longer in open conflict. There are few destabilizing factors there.