Géorgie : halte à la guerre virtuelle !, par Salomé Zourabichvili

Samedi 13 mars, 20 heures, Tbilissi : journal télévisé de la principale chaîne géorgienne, Imedi. Les images défilent, choquantes, insupportables : les Russes entrent dans le pays, ils sont aux portes de Tbilissi, le président est mort ou disparu, l'armée est passée à l'ennemi, les citoyens sont appelés à récupérer des armes dans les commissariats...



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A LIRE AUSSI
Point de vue Le mollah Omar, interlocuteur décisif, par Gilles Dorronsoro
Point de vue Intenable à long terme, le "ni renfort ni retrait" désamorce le débat en France, par Louis Gautier

Point de vue "Mushtarak", le Guadalcanal afghan ?, par Daniel Korski

Point de vue Il faut savoir arrêter une guerre perdue !, par Tahar Ben Jelloun

Point de vue Afghanistan : neuf raisons sérieuses de croire encore à un succès, par le commandant Gutter

Point de vue Boycotter le juge français ou l'avocat d'Israël ? par Etienne Tête

Point de vue Birmanie : les élections voulues par les généraux mettent en péril l'avenir du pays, par Frédéric Debomy
Le cauchemar de 2008 se répète, mais, cette fois, rien ni personne pour arrêter l'avancée de l'ennemi : Barack Obama fait une déclaration formelle de soutien, Nicolas Sarkozy reste silencieux, les Russes avancent... Pure fiction, mais rien sur l'écran ne le signale ; rien pour mettre en garde le téléspectateur qu'il s'agit d'une "reconstitution... par avance".

Dans Tbilissi, c'est la panique, le service des urgences est débordé par les appels, une personne décède de crise cardiaque, le réseau téléphonique est saturé, les stations d'essence prises d'assaut. A proximité des zones frontalières et des forces russes, à Gori en particulier, la population cherche à fuir l'approche des forces ennemies... Il faut attendre la fin du "JT de crise" pour comprendre qu'il s'agit d'une pure mise en scène.

L'affaire pourrait être banale, si cette guerre virtuelle n'était infligée comme réalité à un pays qui vient d'en passer par là, voilà moins de deux ans, et qui est aujourd'hui occupé en partie et où les blessures restent à fleur de peau.

Elle pourrait être classée comme une "bévue" journalistique, si ce film n'était présenté sur la chaîne Imedi, celle-là même qui a été en novembre 2007 fermée par une opération des forces spéciales, confisquée par le pouvoir en 2008, et qui, depuis lors, est dirigée par l'ex-chef de l'administration présidentielle et un très proche de Mikheïl Saakachvili. Imedi est une chaîne "aux ordres" ; il ne fait de doute pour personne que le pouvoir a commandité ce film scandaleux, au mépris de toutes les règles de l'éthique journalistique et politique, et au mépris de l'équilibre psychique de sa propre population. Ce n'est pas une première : déjà, à l'été 2009, pour l'anniversaire de la guerre d'août 2008, les autorités avaient procédé à une répétition en direct des événements, avec chars et aviations et scènes de foule, aux fins d'un film hollywoodien de propagande financé par un fonds géorgien - dans lequel Andy Garcia prendra les traits de Mikheïl Saakachvili. Le film sortira sur nos écrans prochainement.

Plus grave encore, M. Saakachvili, dans sa déclaration du 14 mars, loin de condamner l'exercice ou de déplorer le traumatisme infligé à ses concitoyens, en a rajouté sous forme de mise en garde : "Ce film n'était pas réel, mais il pourrait bien le devenir !" Politiquement, cet épisode devrait retenir l'attention des partenaires de la Géorgie : ceux qui soutiennent la démocratie dans ce pays et ceux qui se soucient de sa fragile stabilité.

Ce film est scandaleux par la description qu'il fait de l'opposition "vendue à la Russie et prête à sacrifier l'indépendance du pays" en brodant sur les récents et certes discutables voyages à Moscou de certains des opposants, mais en englobant dans l'opprobre l'opposition tout entière ; c'est moi ou le chaos, les autres sont des traîtres ou des vendus.

Il est scandaleux, car, faisant des prochaines élections locales et des manifestations qui pourraient s'ensuivre le point de départ du scénario de fiction qui mène à l'invasion russe, il prive par avance l'opposition de son arme la plus légitime : la protestation pacifique contre les fraudes. Il place ces élections dans un environnement de peur et d'hystérie collective, peu propice à l'expression libre des choix individuels.

Enfin, il est scandaleux surtout parce qu'il accoutume la population à l'inéluctabilité de cette guerre annoncée. Il distille un sentiment d'impuissance et le défaitisme - l'armée ne pourra rien, l'Occident ne fera rien -, qui fait le lit de la résignation. Plus Mikheïl Saakachvili vilipende les "traîtres vendus à Moscou" tout en accréditant la thèse de l'inéluctabilité de la guerre, plus il légitime paradoxalement ceux-là mêmes qu'il est censé combattre et qui cherchent un accommodement avec Moscou.

Il contribue à discréditer a contrario cette frange de l'opposition, qui, comme moi, croit en un avenir européen et démocratique de la Géorgie. Le double jeu cynique du président Saakachvili ne peut plus être toléré, car il mène le pays à sa perte et prépare cela même qu'il prétend vouloir éviter : la guerre, la perte de l'indépendance et la fin des espoirs démocratiques.

The Imedi TV hoax makes one thing clear: Georgia's president is out of control

Serious debate prior to the forthcoming elections is impossible when our media are full of spy mania and witch hunts
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Salome Zourabichvili guardian.co.uk, Monday 22 March 2010 10.00 GMT Article historyIf there is one thing we have all come to learn about Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, it is that he never knows when to stop. Like a child confronted by a mountain of candy, he will gorge himself until he is sick.

And so, when division among the opposition suggested that his United National Movement party would sweep all before it in the forthcoming Tbilisi city elections, due on 30 May, he went one huge step further.

On Saturday 13 March, any Georgian who happened to switch channels to catch the main 8pm news would have been confronted by his fantastical vision: the war has started, Russian fighter bombers are strafing the capital, their tanks are rolling towards us, while part of the opposition is actively collaborating with the invaders and ready to accept a future as a satellite of the Kremlin. Barack Obama has made a pro forma statement of support, Europe is silent and Saakashvili has sent an appeal to western partners: he might be dead or in hiding, and the army has defected…

In Tbilisi, the panic spread immediately. Emergency services and the cell phone network were overwhelmed, police could not answer emergency calls, and people tried to escape. In the towns closer to the frontline the situation was worse.

It did not matter that the faked broadcast was made from heavily edited archive material. If a national TV station tells you that you are perhaps minutes from death as a result of a stray bomb or an artillery duel, you do not notice what the weather is like in the background of the report.

Of course, just before it started and immediately after it ended the Imedi TV channel told us the whole thing was a simulation. But Georgians are like everybody else: most of them don't give the TV news their full attention until something really startling comes on. And you do not get much more startling than the claim that your country is about to be crushed under a Russian boot.

The truth is now plain, we were all subject to an experiment in collective psychology as part of an attempt to warn citizens about the disaster that would follow if we used our democratic rights to support opposition candidates in the local elections.

The whole thing was illegal. It is a criminal act in Georgia to knowingly broadcast falsehoods as though they were news. And we know that Imedi's executives considered and dismissed this, apparently on the instructions of the president himself.

Imedi is no ordinary TV channel. Whoever may own it, it is clear that the president controls it. (And the truth is we do not know who owns it, because the story we were told, that it was in the hands of a subsidiary of the state investment fund of the gulf emirate of Ras Al-Khaimah, has now been denied, in blunt terms, by that country's rulers.)

Georgians are used to propagandistic television. But Imedi takes that to a whole new level. Managed by Saakashvili's former chief of staff, in the last six months it has accused the patriarch of the Orthodox church of being a dupe for Russian intelligence, smeared our leading opera singer (using crudely edited film) in the same way, told brazen lies about the president's popularity and now, the lie of all lies, told us we are at war.

We have gone from having one or two pieces of fakery in each bulletin to faking the whole thing and whoever is responsible for this violation of journalistic ethics should be held accountable to the law.

But the abuse of the media is merely a symptom, it is not the cause. At the root of all this is the president himself, and his increasingly erratic personal rule and elevation of caprice into a principle of government. Saakashvili is displaying his incapacity to be a reliable and trusted leader for his country and for our democratic partners in the west. Indeed the person who must admire him most is now Vladimir Putin: under Saakashvili Georgia looks irresponsible, commanded by an hysterical leader staging fake wars, seeking to hold elections in a climate of fear and generally making it plain that only fools would be willing to sign something that obligates military assistance, such as the North Atlantic treaty.

To make it worse, Saakashvili is ready to enhance the pro-Russian forces that do exist in Georgia, and to marginalise truly pro-western and democratic forces, in order to ram home his claim of "après moi, le déluge".

In this environment our elections are in serious doubt: hysteria does not allow for a normal electoral campaign; free media have been buried by this scandalous submission to political orders; spy mania and witch hunts are replacing serious debate on Georgia's political choices.

Saakashvili plans to travel to Washington DC in April to attend a summit on eliminating nuclear weapons. The US authorities should let him come. But when he gets there he needs to be told, bluntly and publicly, that enough is enough. While the US and the EU pump billions of dollars into Georgia's economy they cannot let him get away with his manipulations and maniacal behaviour any longer.

Press Release

Press Release

01/12/2009



Salome Zourabichvili, the leader of the Way of Georgia, addresses the key problems concerning the Georgian business sector and the forthcoming elections:



“The main subject of today's conference is the economy and the business environment. For the first time the Vice President of the EBRD stated that our country's business sector is in a difficult and complex state and stressed the need for the government to respect the rule of law concerning property rights.



“Although the World Bank has published statistics that portray Georgia as a reform-oriented country, this does not necessarily indicate the existence of trust in the business sector. It is common practice for the government to act in favour of certain companies or investors to the detriment of others. There are frequent reports of seizures of disadvantaged companies' assets, including property, which are later found in the ownership of the government's favoured companies.



“Turning our attention to the road construction industry, governmental business officials have done exactly that; they have taken a major construction contract from an Israeli company called Astrom and awarded it to Azerin Saatservisiis, owned by Vano Chkartishvili. Astrom was due to build the first and fourth section of the Manglisi-Ninotsminda road, yet without putting it to tender, Azerin Saatservisiis now owns the rights to that part of the project. Another example of this is the Gombori road construction project where an Arabian company, which formally won the contract, has lost out to Vano Merabishvili's company 'New Energy', which has taken over the contract. Even large, high profile companies such as Kazbegi, Elit Electronics, Geocell, Magti and Caucasus Online are subject to intense government pressure that forces them to kowtow to the government's influences.



“The government likes to draw our attention to Georgia's successes in investment; as a result of which, we are to believe that our country is to benefit from the 100 new hospitals that the government has fervently been promising us for some time now. They have laid plans to sell two hospitals – one in December and another in February – yet there has been no information on this made available to either the foreign investors or the Georgian public. It is clear that as well as an obvious lack of transparency, there is also a very tenuous and superficial relationship with legality in this sector. Therefore, perhaps unsurprisingly, investment has been significantly lower than it may otherwise have been.



“One of the key countries to benefit this legally lax approach to business is Russia. During my time in government, Zurab Jvania fought to curb the rampant spread of casinos and gambling arcades in order to inhibit the Russians' ability to launder money in Georgia. Despite his best efforts, the law was changed, and Georgian casinos are now the destination of choice for Russian money-launderers.



“The second subject I want to address today is the next elections. As the government has begun its election campaign, businesses have been pressurised into funding the ruling party at the expense of reinvestment in the Georgian economy.



“In a manner reminiscent of the Soviet era, the ruling party has plastered the capital city in propaganda, claiming success in all its promises, despite the fact that the vast majority of these dreams have never been realised. Our land has not been returned to us and we are still fighting desperately high levels of poverty. Not only is the government making claims that are untrue, they are doing so with our money.



“I want to urge every single person in the Opposition to fight this injustice with all our might during the election campaign. Elections, be they local, parliamentary or presidential, are our chance to fight against the National Movement for the Georgian people. We need to start fighting today because these elections are our last chance. We need to ask ourselves this: Do we want to continue with this system and drown or do we want to survive? The Opposition needs to prepare for a showdown with the government. Now is not the time for thought; it is the time for action!”

Salome Zourabichvili in the USA

Georgia Teeters on the Edge
Kari Lipschutz | Bio | 25 Nov 2009

Being an opposition party leader in a country where the media doesn't pay attention to the opposition is frustrating. So when Georgia's former Foreign Minister Salomé Zourabichvili had the chance to speak at her alma mater, Columbia University, in New York, her searing criticism of the Georgian government came as no surprise. Zourabichvili's political adversary, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, also attended Columbia, but that is where the similarities between the two end. As the leader of the political party, The Way of Georgia, Zourabichvili is fighting to stop what she believes to be the demise of the Georgian state under Saakashvili's hand.

Zourabichvili says her efforts to bring attention to the mounting problems in Tbilisi have not been easy. "Nobody wants to hear. There is a Georgia fatigue in general," she said. She recognizes that Georgia has lost any bargaining power it may have once had and sees a need to work from within to stabilize the country. In her talk, Zourabichvili discussed in detail many of the same issues facing Georgia that she outlined in a New York Times op-ed piece in April: Georgia's turn toward authoritarianism, a disregard for the constitution, and the lack of legitimate state institutions (e.g., the army, the police, the entire judiciary branch).

In a conversation laden with skepticism, Zourabichvili did offer some constructive suggestions that might allow Georgia to reverse its current course.

First, private property protections. Currently there are none: The government can seize what it wants, when it wants, making it impossible for business, both foreign and domestic, to thrive. By comparison, she pointed to neighboring Azerbaijan's role as the financial hub of the Caucasus, due to an atmosphere designed to foster business. (Azerbaijan was rated one of the top 10 reformers in the World Bank's "Doing Business 2009"; Georgia was not even close to making the cut.)

Second, in areas such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia, negotiations must proceed. But to avoid scaring separatists away from constructive talks, Zourabichvili believes Georgia should avoid "reintegration" rhetoric. Having championed efforts in the early 1990s to remove a Russian base from Georgia, Zourabichvili said, "I think anything can be negotiated."

Lastly, development in conflict zones. In order to stabilize Georgia's problem areas, generate business, and develop legitimate government institutions, Zourabichvili says that building up weaker areas of the country will make them less susceptible to outside influence.

The one great hope for Georgia, Zourabichvili says, is the media. She strongly believes that the Georgian people are more democratic than their leadership. If given the right tools, such as free media, they could make informed decisions on where to go from here. (By contrast, the European Journalism Center blames Georgia's media problems on the lack of a clear opposition than on direct censorship.)

Local elections planned for May are almost certainly doomed without a media that covers both sides, Zourabichvili says. And if the elections fail, that could be the last straw for an intact Georgia. "I'm not sure that the Georgian state will survive until 2013," she said.

Memorandum

Memorandum


We have been for years using all our peaceful resources in order to protest the path taken by Georgian authorities away from the promises of Rose Revolution and against the dramatic tendency to push Georgia back towards practices and models of a past age and system.

And November 7th, 2007 proved us unfortunately right.

We have in due time warned our foreign friends about the dangers that an increasingly authoritarian government and its military populist rhetoric were creating for the peaceful resolution of conflicts, moving us towards military confrontation. We warned against the choice made during the January 2008 elections by the international community in favor of stability over democracy, when a well deserved second round of the presidential elections received no support; we were claiming that there couldnot be lasting Stability without Democracy.

And August 7th, 2008, proved us unfortunately right.

Despite having started a war, lost territories and caused tragedy, Saakashvili did not admit to be answerable. Even confronted by 114 days of peaceful demonstrations, he did not admit responsibility in the tragedy he failed to prevent.The call from his people was not enough to understand the necessity to restore by its own deeds and actions its legitimacy. The past 100 days since the visit of Vice president Biden, demonstrations have stopped and we have seen consolidation of the repressive apparatus, control over media and business, and fear has returned. The country is ruled but not governed.

The course taken by authorities that make a mockery of Democracy, of commitments and of pledges to the different organizations we are pretending to be aspiring to, is one that drags Georgia further and further away from the edification of a strong, democratic and European type state. All state institutions – Government, parliament, police, Army, judiciary- have progressively lost credibility and trust as has the government; and the ruling clanic elite is more and more intrincated in corruptive schemes designed to help it retain power at any cost. The country gets weaker and weaker.

Today, once more, Georgia is confronted to a very immediate threat that defies both its democracy and its stability, and may be its independence.


In order to compensate for the country’s weakness and for his lack of internal and international legitimacy, Saakashvili has embarked on a very dangerous path: stirring confrontation as a means to distract from internal failures and state collapse.

The official and publicly proclaimed policy of actively supporting the struggle of North Caucasian fighters is another adventure that might prove disastrous, both for Georgia and North Caucasus. For it amounts to provoking Russia on its own territory. The creation of a Russian language TV station “Caucasia” supposed to reach North Caucasian republics and preach resistance to Russsian oppression is as irresponsible as declarations made by Georgian authorities. This new “crusade” will allow Moscow to present any agression/repression as a legitimate self defense against terrorism. Accusations voiced in Moscow about Pankissi Valley and Georgian secret services fomenting Daghestani explosions are already pointing in that direction.

How Russia can exploit such a situation is only too clear. Why Georgian leaders are playing in their hand is not.

Such a policy from Georgia, can only serve those in Russia that are looking for a good occasion to start a new offensive. This new vicious circle, which might have a very high cost for North Caucasians and could threaten Georgia’s independence, causing serious regional instability, should be prevented NOW.

We are appealing to you and to your respective governments in order to adequately react to the irresponsible acts and words of a regime that is already in agony.

Only by promoting peace and not war can Georgia serve its friends in the northern Caucasus. Only a stable and democratic Georgia can help stabilize the region.



Salomé ZOURABICHVILI



“The Way of Georgia”

November 7, 2009

Salome Zurabishvili holds meetings in U.S.

Salome Zurabishvili holds meetings in U.S.
20.11.09 11:00


The leader of the opposition party the Georgian Way holds meetings in Washington. Salome Zurabishvili will attend the EU-U.S. forum in Washington today and deliver a speech regarding the democracy in Georgia. She will also hold meetings in the U.S. Congress.
Salome Zurabishvili plans to meet with the U.S. undersecretary of state, Tina Kaidanow.
Salome Zurabichvili has already held meetings with some congressional representatives and political analysts and discussed the political situation in Georgia.
`From the meetings which I held in the congress, USAID, NDI and other organizations, I made one conclusion that today they have more healthy approach to the situation in Georgia and they can see the real situation in Georgia more clearly,` Salome Zurabishvili said.

Salome Zurabishvili holds meetings in U.S.

Tuesday November 17th, 2009
15.30 : meeting at the Hotel with John Wood from the German Marshall Fund (GMF)

17h00: meeting with senior advisor for Europe and Eurasia, Majority staff, Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Mr Jason Bruder.
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
9 to 10.30 AM : Roundtable at the Brookings Institute

11.30-12.15 AM : Meeting with congressman WEXLER, House of representatives

12.30 to 1.45 : Luncheon with Paul Goble (TBC)

2 to 3 PM : Meeting with Zbigniew Brzezinski

4.30 to 5.30 : Meeting with Edmund Rhoads, Senior program Manager, NDI National Democratic Institute

6.30 PM : Dinner offered by HE the Swedish ambassador for the EU Washington Forum Keynote adress by Senator John Lugar.

Thursday, November 19th , 2009

10 AM : opening of the EU Washington Forum
http://www.iss.europa.eu/nc/actualites/actualite/article/eu-washington-forum-2009/

Friday, November 20th , 2009

10 AM: EU Washington Forum; Panel on Democracy and Human Rights (speaker Salome Zourabichvili)

1 PM : State department , meeting with Tina Kaidanow, deputy assistant secretary of state.

1.30 to 2.30: Round table with State department officials dealing with Georgia.

3 PM : Meeting with Steve Sestanovic , Council on Foreign Relations

4 15 PM: Meeting with Cory Welt,

Departure for NYC

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

1 -2.30 pm : Speech at Columbia University, Harriman Institute

What Lessons Should Georgians Draw From War Probe Findings?

October 02, 2009 By Salome ZurabishviliThe conclusions of the independent commission on the August 2008 war in Georgia, released in a report on September 30, should not only be noted by the European Union, which mandated the report, but should also give all parties grounds for serious thought.
The basic question of who was responsible for the conflict has long been answered. The leaders of both Russia and Georgia are at fault: the Russians for provoking rather than avoiding armed conflict, and then for overreacting, and the Georgian leader for launching a disastrous military attack and thus triggering what ended as a disaster for Georgia and for thousands of civilians.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is personally responsible to his people for having launched the military aggression against Tskhinvali, and thereby giving Russia a free hand to enter, occupy, and formally recognize the independence of the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
This judgment was passed by the vast majority of the Georgian people months before the commission led by diplomat Heidi Tagliavini made its conclusions public. The sentence was pronounced this spring, when for some 100 days hundreds of thousands of Georgians participated in repeated demonstrations to demand that Saakashvili resign and schedule early presidential elections.
A president who brought destruction on his country because of his misguided and willful decisions should answer for those actions and be held responsible. There will undoubtedly be further mass protests with the aim of forcing Saakashvili to comply with international norms and bow to the will of his people.
What has changed with the Tagliavini commission's findings is that this judgment has been legitimized and accepted by the international community; neither the Georgian president nor the Russian authorities are immune from blame and responsibility.
Time To Move Forward
As a democratic opposition leader, I think that our duty to both Georgian and international opinion is to confront this reality and try to move on from there.
If in the future we ever want to renew ties with the populations of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, whoever succeeds Saakashvili will have to address the consequences of his actions. We shall have to ask for forgiveness for the assault upon Tskhinvali. We, the opposition -- if we are given the responsibility for Georgia's destiny -- will have to face up to the fact that, albeit to a much lesser extent, we too bear responsibility for not having more effectively opposed Saakashvili's bellicose rhetoric and instincts.
For the Georgian opposition, this entails speaking the truth about the war without fear of being branded a "Russian fifth column" by government propaganda. Trying to portray any opposition movement as a Trojan horse acting in the interest of foreign foes is and will remain a hallmark of Saakashvili's rule. We should have understood by now that such allegations typify the deceptive nature of Saakashvili's style of government.
Acknowledging Russia's share of responsibility in infringing upon Georgia's sovereignty, we should also seek ways to end this confrontation and start to rebuild a new relationship based on harsh truth, rather than on demagogic lies on both sides.
Beyond our borders, our friends too have to reconcile themselves to the report's findings, which most of them already knew, but did not fully want to admit to. The first clear lesson is that while Saakashvili may cast himself as the strongest detractor of Vladimir Putin, that alone does not make him a better democrat, or a better candidate for preserving stability in a crucial region on Europe's distant borders.
In fact, the August war was, if anything, a war between autocrats. This war took place precisely because neither country applied democratic decision-making procedures before resorting to military force.
Clear Demands Needed
Since both regimes are still in place, another disaster is not out of the question. In order to prevent such a repetition and new confrontation and destabilization, Europe and the United States should make clear what they expect and require from the two perpetrators.
From Saakashvili, nothing less than real progress towards democracy should be demanded. This is also what the vast majority of the Georgian population has been demanding since the Rose Revolution of November 2003. The demonstrations which have regularly taken place since November 2007 testify to the Georgian people's yearning for genuine democratic rule.
Western governments should make their demands clear: media freedom, a truly independent judiciary, the protection of private property. But official promises should no longer be taken at face value: Western governments should impose strict conditions on any form of financial assistance.
From Russia, respect for existing agreements should be one of the conditions for a true "reset" of relations with the West. The question of the preexisting conflict zones and their return to Georgia is not one that can realistically be addressed at the present time. It should and will be discussed at some future date as one component of a global discussion of European security. Abkhazia and South Ossetia will return to Georgian control only as part of a grand bargain between Europe, Russia, and the United States.
The same does not hold true, however, of the two regions that were "forcibly occupied and annexed" during last summer's war and kept in violation of the Sarkozy-Medvedev agreements. Russia should be called on to return to the positions it occupied before August 7. The Akhalgori/Ksani and Liakhvi valleys on the South Ossetian side and the Kodori valley adjacent to Abkhazia are currently occupied in blatant violation of the agreement Moscow signed with the EU presidency. The Tagliavini report rightly points out that Kodori was not under Abkhaz control prior to that date, nor was the Georgian side responsible for launching the aggression there.
We in the Georgian democratic opposition do not for one moment doubt that Ambassador Tagliavini and her colleagues were inspired by the quest for truth and objectivity, and the desire to promote political stability and the rule of law. But their report will effectively serve peace and stability in the region only if we regard it as offering new dimensions to think about our common future. If we do not, it will remain no more than 1,000 pages of print that mask the EU's unwillingness to engage itself with greater determination, which by partially substantiating the one-sided arguments of both Russia and Georgia could trigger a renewed confrontation in the Caucasus.
We want that report to mark a new beginning for all conflict parties. Only then will the effort and expenditure that went into the report not have been in vain.
Salome Zurabishvili served from 2004-2005 as Georgia's foreign minister. She currently heads the opposition political party Georgia's Way. The views expressed in this commentary are her own, and do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL.

Sunshine Democrats by Salome Zourabichvili

09.17.2009

EMAIL ARTICLE | PRINTER FRIENDLY


The dilemma of the recent Afghan presidential election that is beguiling the West looks like a repetition to Georgian eyes.

In January 2008, we too had a very questionable presidential election. We too had a previously popular president—and yet he barely garnered 45 percent of the vote in the initial count, despite controlling all the administrative resources, and obvious and less-obvious frauds. We too had a situation where the opposition appeared less familiar and less predictable than the incumbent government. Like Afghanistan, Georgia witnessed the rise of corruption in the form of fraudulent votes, but it was said to be a benign local characteristic, not an illness that should be eradicated.

While Georgians voted, the mood in Washington was one of caution. Should America condemn Tbilisi’s poll and risk stability in the region for the sake of an ideal democracy? Especially one that might be out of reach for some time?

The answer in Georgia’s case was a blunt no. Before the votes were fully counted, the U.S. envoy congratulated the incumbent president, Mikheil Saakashvili, upon his reelection. The American head of a team of election observers followed suit, and Saakashvili’s final count went up to an unexpected 53 percent. For the Georgian opposition and public opinion alike, it meant that the game was over, despite demonstrations calling for a much-deserved second round election. There would not be a second chance for Georgian democracy.

Our Western partners, however, assumed stability in the Caucasus had been preserved, and that Georgia could have another try at democracy in its parliamentary elections the following spring. But both assumptions proved wrong. The region was thrown into chaos in August 2008, when Saakashvili walked into the Kremlin’s trap and fought a war with Russia over South Ossetia. Meanwhile, democratic freedoms were curbed throughout the country, making the outcome of the parliamentary election illegitimate. The opposition refused to take its seats, so as not to condone the mock vote.

A year and a half later, Georgia is a mess—with both permanent internal turmoil and permanent confrontation with its northern neighbor. Stability and democracy seem as far away as ever.

America should think hard on this lesson from the Caucasus and apply it to Afghanistan. Prematurely barring a second round between President Hamid Karzai and his primary challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, shows a lack of trust in the mechanisms of democracy. It prevents the political opposition from emerging as a credible alternative (which, not so incidentally, is the main criticism aimed at the Georgian opposition today). It also does little to convince the population that democracy is an effective means of governance. And it means a rising indifference and hostility to the very Western allies who preach democracy, but only up to a point—as they appear more concerned with protecting powerful friends than the promotion of the principles they claim to defend. Skepticism and cynicism of the electoral process are hardly feelings America should want to spread amongst the peoples of a nascent democracy.

Georgia went through this sordid process in the past year. Afghanistan shouldn’t have to. The lesson is clear—lasting peace and stability cannot come without democracy. Washington should be a firmer believer in the form of government it preaches, whether that be in Kabul or Tbilisi.



Salome Zourabichvili served as Georgia’s minister of foreign affairs from 2004–2005. She is now in the democratic opposition and is leader of The Way of Georgia political party.

Video

Salome Zourabichvili, former Georgian foreign minister and leader of The Way of Georgia party on the choice facing Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili after the visit of US Vice President Joe Biden

http://georgiamediacentre.com/