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Georgia at the crossroads – time for the West to resolutely resist losing an ally on its eastern frontier

The Republic of Georgia is now at the crossroads between democracy and authoritarianism. On the morning of February 23, the head of the largest opposition party (United National Movement – UNM) was arrested at the party’s headquarters. The coming weeks will decisively impact the country’s democratic and transatlantic trajectories.

Without proactive engagement by the U.S. and its European allies, the remarkable strides Georgians have made since the country’s independence in 1991 might be undermined. To help democratic Georgians realize their aspirations, leaders of the transatlantic community need to resolutely redefine their approach toward Georgia to prevent its drift into autocracy and away from the West. A good start would be a genuine political dialogue as well as respecting the rule of law and judiciary independence.

We, the West, should put Georgian citizens’ legitimate interests in living in a democratic and prosperous country at the center of our policies. We should, first and foremost, think about them as well as our own reputation and trust that they are aligned with the West.

Georgia deserves high praise as the frontrunner among the Eastern Partnership countries. Significant progress was made with democratic reforms, crucial to its long-standing transatlantic agenda. For example, the 2012 elections resulted in a peaceful government transition for the first time in the South Caucasus’ history, exemplifying how a post-Soviet state can escape the Russian sphere of influence, stand on its own and integrate with the West, although this progress was taken for granted by states supporting Georgia’s westward direction.

Having said that, the tide turned against Georgia: the U.S. and US’s European partners failed to respond to the first signs of its democratic regression. Therefore, Georgian political elites have gradually curtailed basic civil and political rights in exchange for short-term political gains.

These developments raise worries about Georgia’s democratic credentials and – ultimately – its geopolitical orientation. International and local NGOs warned of state capture by Georgia Dream founder and billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose clout affords him leverage in domestic politics. As a result, Georgians witnessed the growing politicization of the judiciary, deinstitutionalization of governance, and the arbitrary application of the law.

The corruption of the judiciary for political ends is incompatible with the values to which Georgians and their government aspire. It is now necessary, more than ever, that both the ruling party and the opposition resume talks toward resolving the crisis and implement the March 8 Agreement for electoral reform. This and other actions, ensuring electoral integrity, were achieved with the involvement of U.S. and European diplomats empowered by political support in their respective capitals. Still, they can do more.

Georgia’s course needs to be righted. Failure to resolve the differences between these political rivals will further democratic backsliding, diminishing Georgia’s transatlantic ambitions. The transatlantic community’s failure to prevent further regression would endanger our strategic interests in the region and leave our democratic Georgian allies isolated and justifiably embittered.

We call on the U.S. and the EU to intervene-to help freedom-loving Georgians curb the government’s trend toward authoritarian behavior. Washington and Brussels should demand resolution of the current political standoff through genuine political dialogue in line with the spirit of the rule of law.

We contend that these actions, coupled with concentrated diplomatic engagement and renewed transatlantic integration withWestern leaders, will incentivize Georgia’s political elites to uphold the rule of law, thus ensuring equality before the law and justice for all Georgia’s citizens.

SIGNATORIES:

• Andrius Kubilius, Member of the European Parliament, Former Prime Minister of Lithuania
• Marketa Gregorová, Member of the European Parliament, Czech Republic
• Rasa Juknevičiené, Member of the European Parliament, Former Minister of Defence of Lithiuania
• Ambassador Paata Gaprindashvili, Director of Georgia’s Reforms Associates (GRASS), Georgia
• Ambassador Žygimantas Pavilionis, Chair of Foreign Affairs Committee, Lithuanian Parliament
• Ambassador Jan Piekło, former Ambassador of Poland to Ukraine
• James Nixey, Director, Russia-Eurasia and Europe Programmes, United Kingdom
• Edward Lucas, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, United Kingdom
• Hana Hopko, Chairwoman of ANTS Network, Head of the Foreign Affairs Committee the Ukrainian Parliament (2014-2019), Ukraine
• Tamar Kintsurashvili, Executive Director, Media Development Foundation, Georgia
• Tinatin Khidasheli, former Minister of Defence, Chairperson, Civic Idea, Georgia
• Kamil Basaj, INFO OPS Poland Foundation, Poland
• Alyona Getmanchuk, Director, New Europe Center, Ukraine
• Roland Freudenstein, Policy Director, Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, Belgium
• Giedrius Sakalauskas, Res Publica – Civic Resilience Center, Lithuania
• Mykhailo Gonchar, President of the Centre for Global Studies “Strategy XXI”, Ukraine
• Egor Kuroptev, Director, Free Russia Foundation in South Caucasus, Georgia
• Matej Kandrik, Director, STRATPOL, Slovakia
• Peter Koles, Director, Slovak Security Policy Institute, Slovakia
• Brian Whitmore, Nonresident senior fellow, Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, USA
• Mark Voyger, Senior Fellow, Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA)
• Eto Buziashvili, Research Associate, Atlantic Council, Georgia
• Mariam Tsitsikashvili, Project Manager, Georgia’s Reforms Associates (GRASS),  Georgia
• Leo Litra, Senior Research Fellow, New Europe Center, Ukraine, Moldova
• Jan Paďourek, former Deputy Director of Czech external intelligence service, Czech Republic
• Pavel Havlíček, Research Fellow, Association of International Affairs, Czech Republic
• Jakub Janda, Executive Director, European Values Center for Security Policy, Czech Republic
• David Stulík, Senior Analyst & Head of Eastern European Program, European Values Center for Security Policy, Czech Republic
• Juraj Mesík, Slovak Foreign Policy Association, Slovakia
• David Naroushvili, Project Coordinator, Georgia’s Reforms Associates (GRASS​), Georgia
• Ani Kintsurashvili, Lead Researcher, Civic Idea, Georgia
• Scott Cullinane

link: ?

https://europeanvalues.cz/en/open-letter-of-international-experts-community-on-the-current-situation-in-georgia/?fbclid=IwAR3Gm3y94tUgI9-aNsB1Ztv2Bj_4_GgQxpa1usy-C8HnQeDxBkVj1i3jKsk

Caucasian Journal has interviewed two female defense ministers – Tina KHIDASHELI (Georgia) and Kristin Krohn DEVOLD (Norway). They are discussing a wide range of topics, such as gender and minority issues, compulsory military service, NGO and Civil society, military cooperation, and NATO.  
The interview can be watched or read in both Georgian and English languages.

On Military Cooperation and NATO
All it started obviously in Prague during the NATO summit when then President Edward Shevardnadze has knocked on NATO doors, and declared Georgia’s aspiration of joining NATO. Now after almost 20 years from that day we are still aspiring to achieve that goal.

In 2008 was a very important cornerstone in Georgia-NATO relations when in Bucharest during the summit NATO took a decision about unavoidability of Georgia’s actual membership to NATO together with Ukraine, and for the first time in NATO’s history we’ve got a declaration which clearly states that eventually Georgia and Ukraine will become members of NATO. Again, it’s been 12 years ago, we are still under this promise but unfortunately there is no clear perspective as to when it is going to happen.

In 2014-2016 we’ve been experiencing very important developments in Georgia-NATO relations during the Wales summit. We’ve got a package that we call an alternative to a MAP [Membership Action Plan – CJ].  Absence of MAP is the main impediment to our membership to NATO. NATO substantial package that was averted to Georgia during the Wales summit identified the fields and areas where concrete NATO member states would have contributed for the success of the reforms, success of the institution-building, and success of the eventual membership of Georgia. The project actually started in 2015 – exactly at the time when I became the minister.

And we should say that the country which contributed the most, filled all its promises entirely, and where we celebrated the first success of Georgia-NATO actual real-life cooperation, was Norway.

In August 2015 we have opened the doors of JTEC – the joint NATO-Georgia training center, which is considered to be the one and, unfortunately, still the only platform, where NATO and Georgia’s paths cross on the ground in this country. After that obviously lots of other developments have happened. We’ve opened also the NATO defense school, which is another cornerstone of our cooperation, but JTEC still stands as the most vivid example of the success on this path of integration.

On Compulsory Military Service
it’s a very legalistic issue, to put it this way. I did not abolish military service – I did not have power for that. It’s up to the parliament because it is regulated by the legislation. What I did was I found a loophole for showing the way how to deal with this very serious problem for the Georgian society.

I have canceled request by the Ministry of Defense on bringing the young people under the old species of the compulsory military service. So we basically denied our quota and said that we don’t need it. We moved to the fully professional army which is actually the case. When I was a minister, the recruits were only 2 percent of the entire army, which proves the case. I mean, I don’t think I need any additional arguments to say that it’s a history for the Georgian military.

But they needed recruits in army in order to put it “under the sauce” of the army, because otherwise big majority of them are used for completely different purposes than military service in Georgia. They would be assigned to the Ministry of Interior, to the police forces, and most importantly to the corrections services, which is basically guarding the prisons.

And this is one of the major problems for the 18-19-years-old guys, who’ve never had any experience with the guns, or with any kind of security action, and suddenly they found themselves standing on those high castles over the prison cells, monitoring prisoners. That gives lots of trouble to them, and definitely they are not prepared for that.

Anyway the idea was two-fold: first of all not to allow anything that equals to slavery in Georgia, (and this is my understanding of the type of compulsory military service Georgia exercises today: It is a modern-day slavery), and, two, was to propose to a country an alternative to the actual needs of the military, and use for the defense of the country that is the constitutional requirement in Georgia.

On Gender and Minorities
one thing which is obviously to be mentioned is that men or women serving military is the most honorable job one can have, because every day you wake up and realize that a couple of thousands of your guys are right now waiting for actual death, because they are on the frontlines of the war, and there is nothing more honorable than being in service for those people, their families, being in support of their kids and serving your country.

I think this is what makes the position of a minister of defense so important, and not the fact that whether you’re a woman or man. I think it’s equally honorable for anybody. In my case, unfortunately, I cannot say that it has dramatically changed any culture or attitudes towards this issue, because I became the minister of defense being a woman. Because I was a human rights lawyer in my first life for 15 years, defending the most problematic of all: prisoners tortured, detainees abused at the police departments, the journalists abused by the police, actually fighting police in the courtrooms or in front of the cameras, because there were lots of instances when they would deny me as a lawyer – entrance to my client and then they would physically fight me not to enter the building..

It created this image of me of a human being – regardless of gender – who was on the frontlines of a fight. And when I became the minister of defense, I don’t remember anybody being particularly surprised, because for them I was this warrior – not necessarily a woman – they were used to the fact that I was always on the in the frontlines.

So someone with less fight and more women-associated profession probably wouldn’t make much bigger difference, if becoming the minister of defense.

I think that it’s kind of a duty of all women in charge – whether they run big businesses, or NGOs, or media, or they are in government –  to empower other women, to give opportunities, to use this chance to prove that equality is real and it works, and it’s practical and normal, and there is nothing special about it. And we’ve tried our best to bring that culture and attitude at the ministry.

For the first time when I was a minister we have created opportunity for girls to go into the military lyceums, which was not the case before. We had only this opportunity available for boys. It’s a full state-funded wonderful school where, together with great education, kids are also getting sports and physical training different from the ordinary public schools, and getting used to overcoming the obstacles in life that in ordinary schools you don’t get.

We have been naming things after the famous Georgian women from the first Republic, just to prove the fact that it’s not for the first time, and those things were happening: Women were fighting for this country and sacrificing their lives that everybody forgot, and only men and their names were always out there. So that was another part of our campaign to introduce those women to the Georgian public and to prove that it was a part of our history – not something brought by the UN declarations or European conventions, but it was part of our culture and social life over the centuries.

And also we’ve been helping women outside the army as well. For example we had this social project. Usually over the Christmas, or Independence Day, or Easter (I guess it is the same in most of the countries) different agencies give out gifts – packages for employees or colleagues, to say “Happy New Year” or “Merry Christmas”. What we were doing was instead of buying goods produced in China and distributing them, we were contracting social enterprises run by women, and therefore supporting them to develop, and also to feel important and useful in this society.

On Civil Society and NGOs
The organization was created with a very particular purpose. As I said most of the reforms we started within the ministry were changed after we left, and we felt a need of continuing them at least on the societal level as much as possible. Of course we could not bring minorities or women to the army, but we could encourage them to be part of it.

So what we basically do is – again on a societal level, as much as you can have an influence on public opinion – to do necessary work for raising resilience of the Georgian society, for supporting creation of a Georgian one united civic nation, regardless of belonging to religious or ethnic backgrounds, for supporting the dialogue on big issues in a society and reaching agreement on the big issues.

For example, we can kill each other daily on particular domestic policy directions, like what kind of vaccine we should be using, or what kind of lockdown we should have during pandemics. But when it comes to national security issues, any political party in this country, particularly the ones who are in parliament and who are in charge of decision-making, should have a full consensus, without any “but” and “in case”.

So we have a very clear agenda: we fight the concept of “neutral Georgia”, we fight the concept of “Eurasian union” in Georgia, we fight dominance in the Georgian political area of the forces who support any influence from the foreign powers towards supporting totalitarianism, supporting one-party rule, supporting non-democratic behavior, fighting liberal democracy. These are the things that are important to us, the values we carry the values – fundamental values of a liberal democratic society. It defines our agenda when we go on a daily basis with whatever work we do – education, or research, or anti-corruption monitoring, or any direction that we that we carry.

So there are lots of groups fortunately in Georgia who do similar job in different directions, there are lots of media players who are interested in bringing this message to the wider public, and I believe that together with all the players around – being it political parties or media outlets or just average Georgian citizens who voluntarily take a lead on various issues related to anti-occupation movement or fighting foreign influence operations, at the end of the day we can build a resilient society that is capable of identifying all those threats and defeating them for the benefit of the sovereignty of this country.

Because there are lots of organizations doing a brilliant job on the agenda that I’ve just described but related Russia, we have decided to do a similar job but not to intervene in the area which is well researched and structured.

We took an initiative on working with other foreign actors who influence or try to influence Georgian politics, Georgia societal culture, and culture of democracy in this country – those being China, Iran, Turkey, and any other country that might fall under the rudder of any of those issues.

So I think that the research that we’ve been doing for these last three years, particularly on China, and the Chinese state companies operating in Georgia, the corrupt deals they are involved with my government’s representatives, or my government’s representatives involved in corrupt deals with those Chinese companies is a completely new concept in the in the Georgian public discourse.

Regardless of resistance from the beginning and less interest to it, after three years of our work it’s changed completely. There is a huge interest, there are lots of organizations now who come for the advice and consulting to us, and also media is very much engaged and interested.

The other initiative that we started two years ago, right before the pandemic (people were joking that we’ve “predicted” the online education), was that we’ve established online democracy education platform – the first one in Georgia. Now it’s working pretty well: we have over 67 different programs, including on Azeri and Armenian languages as well.

Hopefully we will continue it, with more interaction, more interest, and also more courses added on a wider understanding of democracy, and not limited to only human rights or democratic institution-building – involving security and human security issues as well, like health care and so on. So we have big plans towards this platform, and with the support from the donors hopefully it will be much more successful than it is now.

You can check the Full Interview ?

https://english.caucasianjournal.org/2021/03/tina-khidasheli-and-kristin-krohn.html

The video version of the Interview

Statement of the organization “Civic IDEA”

The organization “Civic IDEA” strongly condemns the raid operation carried out following the Prime Minister’s order. The assault and the arrest of the leader of an opposition political party is a direct blow even to the smallest remnants of democracy that still existed in the country early in the morning of February 23, before the events occurred. These actions were not legally justified. Moreover, they have nothing to do with the rule of law and basically eradicate the country’s chances of further success.

Today, there is still a chance to find a way out of the situation and to save the country. Fortunately, this chance is in the hands of other people, not in the hands of the extremist prime minister appointed yesterday, who is the representative of the retrograde and corrupt clan.

1. We appeal to the President of Georgia to realize her constitutional responsibility and, instead of empty words, to ease the crisis through guaranteeing the unity of the state. The occurrence related to Nika Melia is entirely in her hands today.

2. We appeal to the people in the parliament, who still feel the political self-esteem and, particularly, in the week devoted to the occupation realize the severity of the problem, to create the parliamentary crisis in order to call the new parliamentary elections. Considering the current composition of the parliament, even a little heroism is enough for this to happen.

Without civil peace, there is no rule of law, no development, and no progress. Without civil peace, we will be further weakened by the pandemic and by the fight against poverty. Eventually, 100 years after the occupation, the same questions will remain unanswered as to how our ancestors allowed the occupation of the country.

With the reversal of history, today, this choice is up to you.

Appeal to the Prime Ministerial Candidate and the Parliament of Georgia

Civic IDEA responds to the nomination of Irakli Gharibashvili as the Prime Ministerial candidate of the “Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia” party and considers it necessary to address: the Parliament of Georgia, the society and the PM candidate.

It is known that Mr. Gharibashvili was a well-paid employee of the Chinese state-owned company “CEFC China Energy” for a long time after resigning from Prime Minister’s post in 2015. The company was particularly notorious worldwide for corruption, various types of illegal machinations, bribery of high-ranking officials and other criminal offenses. A large number of senior officials of the company are still under investigation.

Nowadays, Georgia is in a challenging situation, and one of the significant crosslines of the state’s national security runs through the Chinese-Russian interests in Georgia. To date, CEFC still owns 75% of the Poti Free Industrial Zone. Although the Chinese company itself has already gone bankrupt, it has not yet fulfilled its obligations and is in the process of paying off its creditors. Up to now, the Georgian government has not started the process of the state property return. The problem is augmenting day-to-day, as the strategic objects of Poti may become the property of the Russian state VTB bank, the bank to which the Chinese company owes a huge debt.

We appeal to the PM candidate: to explain what decision he intends to make on this issue – regarding the return of the property to the Georgian state by his former and currently bankrupt employer company that has been exposed to a number of criminal offenses?

Also, we appeal to the Parliament of Georgia to pay special attention to this issue in the following decision-making process. The abovementioned circumstance has already been a controversial matter during Mr. Gharibashvili’s assignment as a Defense Minister. Now, it is emerging as a special state security concern under his possible appointment as a Prime Minister of Georgia.

“Georgia’s NATO integration is long-awaited and expected here in Tbilisi,” former Minister of Defence Ms. Tinatin Khidasheli told Brussels Morning. NATO must confirm that membership is a realistic possibility rather than merely an aspiration, not least to deter Russia’s overtures to the region, she said.

Focusing on the strategic rationale, Khidasheli pointed out that Georgian membership is strategically important. “NATO needs to deliver at least on its Black Sea Security agenda and keep the promise of the Warsaw Summit,” she maintained, making clear that dalays undermine NATO’s credibility and embolden Russia.

Link:

https://brusselsmorning.com/2021/01/25/georgia-committed-and-ready-for-nato-membership/

https://www.nzz.ch/international/georgien-tatkraeftige-frauen-greifen-maennerbastionen-an-ld.1585051?reduced=true

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