Georgia 2005: Rose Revolutionary Justice
Mafia shootouts, harassment of the opposition and media, political prisoners …it’s business as usual in Georgia
It is nearly two years since the republic of Georgia experienced what became known as a ‘Rose Revolution’. News media around the world heralded this development as the dawn of a new era in which the impoverished former Soviet republic sloughed off a corrupt and moribund regime to embrace young, market-orientated reformers under the leadership of Western-educated Mikhael Saakashvili who was elected the country’s president in January 2004.
A year later, in November 2004, another ‘colour-coded’ revolution took place, this time in Ukraine. Again, the media pointed to Saakashvili and Georgia as the successful model for the latest spontaneous outburst of ‘people power’. The Georgian president was a regular commentator on the stand-off in Kiev offering comradeship and support to his fellow revolutionary, Viktor Yushchenko.
However, as the Ukrainians warmed to their revolutionary theme, back home in Georgia any expectation that life might improve under the post-Shevardnadze regime had long since died. Rampant unemployment, disrupted power supplies and political infighting continued as they had done since the dawn of the country’s independence. On top of this, the judicial system was in disarray and reports of torture in the country’s prisons (whose population had doubled since 2003) were widely accepted – even by government employees.
Representatives of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group conducted two missions to Georgia in 2005. In April 2005, they visited Tbilisi as the city was undergoing frenzied preparations for the forthcoming visit of President Bush on 10th May. Fences and walls were being put up and painted to hide dilapidated buildings along his route and road surfaces along which his entourage would proceed were being re-laid. People could be forgiven for recalling past imperial visits by the likes of Comrade Brezhnev.
BHHRG interviewed media representatives, NGOs, opposition politicians and government appointed officials in Tbilisi’s town hall. They visited the main prison in Tbilisi (No.5) and the detention facility (known as prison No. 7) in the Ministry of the Interior. They also travelled to Gori and met NGO representatives from Tskinvali, South Ossetia. Finally, the Group went to Batumi, capital of Adjara, one year on from the ouster of its former leader, Aslan Abashidze, where they interviewed journalists, law enforcement officials and visited the region’s main prison.
In July 2005, the Group returned to Georgia to investigate the case of Sulkhan Molashvili whose trial opened on 28th July. The proceedings against Molashvili bore all the marks of a political trial and it was widely accepted that he had been tortured while in custody. The Group attended the opening of the proceedings in Tbilisi’s Supreme Court and conducted a long interview with Mr. Molashvili in the prison hospital.
BHHRG has followed events in Georgia closely since the overthrow of the country’s first president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, in 1991. This was the third occasion on which they had visited the country’s penitentiary system. Alarmingly, despite all efforts to improve Georgia’s law enforcement agencies, including membership of the Council of Europe, conditions have deteriorated further with corruption rife within a prison system seemingly, now run by the inmates rather than the authorities.
The New regime: Overview
Elections were held in March 2004 to Georgia’s 235 seat parliament, but only for the 150 seats contested by proportional representation. Despite claims of fraud in the November 2003 poll, the 85 majoritarian MPs who won mandates then were not obliged to seek re-election. The results of the poll effectively produced a one-party state with Saakashvili’s National Movement-led coalition winning 135 seats. At first it claimed a clean sweep but, probably under US pressure, one other party, the New Conservatives, (also known as New Rights), was allowed to surmount the 7% threshold to enter parliament with 15 seats. Government ministries were filled with new blood, many co-opted from the NGO sector which had flourished in the late Shevardnadze period when it received massive infusions of Western funds. NGO operatives also took over civil service posts after a purging of the old guard. The salaries of many of these functionaries were reputedly paid from a fund set up by philanthropist, George Soros, including that of the Ministers of Justice and Education.
As BHHRG has documented the new government immediately set out to settle scores with Shevardnadze era officials. Many former ministers, local administrators and businessmen associated with the former regime were arrested - often live on television - for abuse of office, with people being dragged away in their underclothes. President Saakashvili regularly appeared on television to denounce the suspects, condemning them before any charges were laid. At the same time, some of the more senior officials were allowed to buy their way out of prison by paying large amounts of the money into the state coffers. It was pointed out that this novel form of ‘plea-bargaining’ was lawful. However, as in most jurisdictions, the drafters of the Georgian legislation did not anticipate the handing over of money in exchange for freedom. Despite the obvious impropriety involved in all this, Western commentators lauded the new government for taking bold measures in the fight against corruption.
In July 2004, the president embarked upon a mission to retake South Ossetia, one of the regions which had broken away from Georgia as the Soviet Union collapsed. The manner in which this campaign was conducted and its manifest failure humiliated Saakashvili: several policemen and soldiers were killed in the operation and the Georgians had to retreat empty handed. Television stations were banned from showing the funerals. At the same time, Saakashvili upped the tension with Georgia’s other breakaway province, Abkhazia, again, without any tangible results .
Not everyone was happy with the president’s approach to reintegrating the renegade provinces. It was reported that the prime minister Zurab Zhvania supported a more nuanced approach to this and other government policies. Many regarded Zhvania as a moderate influence on the excitable president. In February 2005, Zhvania died in mysterious circumstances allegedly poisoned by the fumes from a faulty gas heater. Most Georgians assume he was murdered even though an investigation carried out by the authorities, and aided by the FBI, supported the official version of accidental death. In the aftermath, opposition to the government has grown both from Zhvania’s associates in parliament and from other parties. Although the New Conservatives are the only opposition party in parliament, both the Republican and Labour parties have started to co-operate to fight future elections.
As the infighting continues, Georgia’s economic plight has failed to improve with the change of regime even though foreign aid and assistance has doubled since November 2003; Georgia is the second largest recipient of US assistance after Israel. $1 billion was pledged at a donors’ conference held in Brussels in 2004 and on 16th August 2005, the US Millennium Challenge Corporation announced a 5-year grant of $295.3m. for infrastructure programmes and to eliminate poverty. The MCC specifically targets “poor countries with proper governance and realistic prospects of economic reform”. On top of this, the IMF approved a three-year, $144 m. loan.
Privatization was going to be the engine of future prosperity. “Everything is for sale” said former Economics Minister, Kakha Bendukidze. But after nearly 15 years of economic collapse, there are few entities attractive to foreign investors and the programme has been deadlocked for some time. By summer 2005, 2 large enterprises and 35 medium to small enterprises have been sold.
Unemployment continues to grow. In the aftermath of the ‘revolution’ 80, 000 were rendered jobless. Large numbers of people have been sacked from municipal jobs while a recent educational reform has led to the dismissal of numerous university teachers. The only job creation noted by BHHRG is in the booming construction industry presently underway in Tbilisi where large parts of the historic city are being demolished. In Adjara, all enterprises associated with the former president, Aslan Abashidze, have been closed and workers sacked, including tile making and boat building factories.
The quality of life for ordinary people has continued to deteriorate. Power supplies are regularly disrupted and demonstrations have taken place all over the country in protest. It seems clear that Georgia probably has plenty of electricity, but, much of it is sold to neighbouring Turkey rather than provided to the locals.
As the morlochs scrambled for a living, Saakashvili listed the regimes success stories, beginning with the opening of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline in May 2005 which is predicted to bring Georgia valuable transit fees. Otherwise, according to one of BHHRG’s Georgian acquaintances, there is little to show for the ‘Rose Revolution’ other than the upgrading of the Georgian army. People wonder, against whom is all this military paraphernalia directed? And, the answer from the government and its tame media is always the same: ‘Russia’. Accusations of plots, sabotage and evil imperialistic designs are regularly directed against Georgia’s former colonial master, even as the Russian army pulls out of the country, well ahead of its original plans for departure. Russia’s obvious complicity in removing Shevardnadze and, after him, Abashidze, is brushed aside.
Another example of Russia’s waning influence is the steady erosion of the Russian language. Russian street signs are being removed and visitors are left grappling with the impenetrable script of the Georgian language to steer themselves around the country. There is even talk of ‘Georgianizing’ the architecture in Tbilisi which has already begun with the construction of several new churches in the Georgian style, including the massive (and many think unnecessary) new cathedral. Older Tsarist buildings are crumbling and are unlikely to be restored. New text books give, according to Russian historians, a completely distorted account of Russia’s 250-year involvement in the Caucasus. Yet, behind the scenes, Russian businessmen manoeuvre, and sometimes succeed in gaining a foothold in the scramble for the few remaining attractive businesses. However, it is proving difficult for Russian companies to get hold of strategic assets in Georgia. In May 2005, the government stopped the privatization of Georgia’s main gas pipeline after Gazprom expressed an interest in its purchase. Instead, the US Millennium Challenge Fund came up with funds to ‘repair’ the facility. Privatizations of the Chiatura Manganese Plant and the Vartsikhe hydroelectric plant to Russian companies, failed.
Mikheil Saakashvili: Power Grab
“We call Saakashvili Stalin …he is good, fair and that is why” (a citizen, Imedi TV, 19th February, 2005)
“We had the first televised revolution in history. We were live on CNN for four and a half hours without a commercial” (Saakashvili – Knight Ridder Newspapers, 9th March, 2005)
To describe the November 2003 events in Georgia as a ‘revolution’ indicates a failure to understand the trajectory taken by revolutions in the past. Yet, most Georgians, including those disenchanted by the Saakashvili regime, continue to repeat this oxymoron. As BHHRG pointed out in its report on the November 2003 election , the main beneficiaries were all former ministers and leading cadres in the ex-president’s political party. Historically, a revolution has signalled a break: neither Louis XV1’s ministers nor relatives of the Tsar took power after the respective revolutions in France and Russia. People’s failure to notice any improvement in their lives in Georgia since November 2003 may be because the same people are running the country as they did during the 1990s.
The main difference between the previous regime and the Saakashvili government is one of tone and degree. And, this change of tone is personified most acutely in the person of the new president, Mikheil Saakashvili. Saakashvili was marked out for promotion at an early stage – he studied law at Columbia and George Washington Universities in the US before returning to Georgia with the appropriate Western credentials to become Justice Minister in 1999, and, later, Mayor of Tbilisi. Like his Western-educated, co-revolutionary, Viktor Yushchenko, he set himself up with a Western wife, Sandra Roelofs, a Dutch woman who had first visited Georgia in 1990.
Saakashvili took office on 25th January, 2004 in a solemn ceremony filmed by the world’s media. As he swaggered towards his formal inauguration outside parliament, people could have been forgiven for suspecting fascist leanings on the part of the new president. Such suspicions had been awoken already when, prior to his inauguration, Saakashvili decreed that the National Movement’s party banner would become the new flag of Georgia. Thus, the symbols of the state and the party became one, as was the case in Nazi Germany and the USSR. According to commentators “the changing of the flag on 14th January was so unexpected that debates in the media were possible only retrospectively” .
Constitutional amendments were rushed through parliament on 5th and 6th February, 2004 which increased the powers of the president. According to observers, these changes “were developed behind closed doors” by the triumvirate who manufactured the ‘Rose Revolution’ – Saakashvili, Burjanadze and Zhvania. “The content of the text was kept secret ..it has not even been published. The people did not even have the opportunity to discuss changes that confer unlimited powers on the president”.
Among other things, the amendments gave the president the power to dissolve parliament and appoint the prime minister by decree if it refused to accept his nomination on three occasions. Similarly, if the budget is rejected three times by parliament, the president can pass it by decree. Provisions preventing the president from holding the post of party leader are abolished. The requirement for a 50% basic turnout in presidential elections goes. The president appoints the ministers of the interior, defence minister and state security without reference to parliament. A year later, the law was changed so that the president now recommends to parliament all candidates for membership of the Central Election Committee. The first chairman of the new CEC (appointed in June 2005) is Gia Kavtaradze, a former business partner of both the prime minister , Zurab Nogaideli and the Chairman of the Adjaran Autonomous Republic, Levan Varshalomidze.
Since then, Saakashvili has further burnished his fascist credentials. In June 2005, he was interviewed opening what was described as “[Georgia’s] first summer patriotic youth camp ..children raised the flag and sang the national anthem together with the president” .. “Saakashvili toured the camp in a special patriot’s uniform” Imedi TV reported that another youth camp would open in August 2005 at Bakuriani in Western Georgia. This facility not only offered sea and sun, but “training with real guns” instructors were “teaching the children how to dismantle the weapons, maintain them, shoot, move and prepare an ambush”.
The ‘White House’: Mikheil Saakashvili was hailed as a new breed of Georgian politician, someone with clean hands and a forthright manner. On taking office he pledged that “it was unacceptable for the Georgian president to have an inflated staff or a luxurious residence” – he was referring to the former government residence in Krtsanisi on the outskirts of Tbilisi. This would be ‘sold’ and he and his wife would live in a small, two room flat in the headquarters of the Tbilisi traffic police, an old Tsarist building on the banks of the Kura river, which would be revamped for the purpose.
One year later, the commitment to sack cloth and ashes has turned to the proverbial dust. Residents of Tbilisi noted that a large structure, already dubbed the ‘White House’, was under construction. The police headquarters (which Saakashvili had claimed “something could be added to”) and a large swathe of domestic dwellings in the vicinity had been destroyed. On becoming president Saakashvili had said “I told them that I did not need more”. It is a two-storey building, it is enough. Not a single brick should be added to it and it should remain as it is now”. A row broke when MP Valery Gelashvili claimed that his construction company, Evra, had the contract to refurbish the site. On 14th July, Gelashvili was attacked in the street by, unknown assailants and badly beaten.
On 27th July, 2005, BHHRG visited the site of the new palace. Only by examining the architect’s drawing and surveying the vast construction site is it possible to fully comprehend the scale of the enterprise. For one thing, when completed, this palace will be much larger than the White House. Its nearest competitor in the Caucasus is the new US embassy in Yerevan, in neighbouring Armenia. Such a massive structure seems unnecessary and inappropriate for the president of a small, impoverished country like Georgia. The question arises: will it only house Saakashvili and his entourage? Who has paid for it? In 2004 it was reported that “the reconstruction of the traffic police building will not be borne by the state budget”.
After a few minutes photographing the building site (there were no signs to prohibit such activity) BHHRG’s representatives were detained by the police until a senior officer arrived. After a wait of nearly an hour they were allowed to go, but only after being photographed by a silent figure in the back of the police car.
George Bush’s comes to town: However, there were no misgivings on the part of President Bush who visited Georgia for a few hours on 9th and 10th May 2005. Addressing thousands of people in Tbilisi’s Liberty Square, Bush declared that: “Georgia is today both sovereign and free and a beacon of liberty for this region and the world.” In April 2005, BHHRG observed the lavish - if superficial - beautification process that was underway in preparation for the visit. Paint (which locals claimed was cheap and inappropriate for the purpose) was applied to any structure the president might pass, roads were re-laid and garbage was swept into the river to make its ecological journey down stream! BHHRG noted that highway improvements stopped abruptly when the road swept past the airport. According to one worker, “George Bush is unlikely to travel down this road, so it will not be repaved”. An office was specially designated to handle the one-day visit as well as a designated web site.
The Saakashvili regime even managed to produce its own terrorist outrage. On 11th May, the police revealed that a grenade had been thrown at Bush while he addressed the crowds, landing near the two presidents as they stood on the podium in Liberty Square. No one noticed it at the time, it failed to go off and no one was harmed. However, there was the inevitable accusations that Russia was behind the incident - if it happened at all. On 20th July, 26-year-old Vladimir Arutunian was arrested in what appeared to be a clumsy police operation, captured - as usual - live on television as was the suspect’s ‘confession’. BHHRG was told that Arutunian, a Georgian of Armenian descent, appeared to be somewhat simple if not mentally unstable. He seemed to be an unlikely candidate to implement a complex, Kremlin-inspired assassination attempt. Many Georgians failed to understand why this incident had received such wide publicity - no one had been hurt. Some concluded that a grenade had never been thrown but the alleged incident served Saakashvili’s purpose in keeping the voltage high and the public uneasy.
The arrival of George Bush was President Saakashvili’s proudest moment – in July, giant photographs of the two presidents were still prominently displayed in Tbilisi’s city centre. BHHRG recalled the president’s previous visits to Germany, Holland and England where he was less enthusiastically received. In Mannheim, members of the public were not allowed within a ten kilometre radius of Bush’s entourage; in London, in 2003, thousands of demonstrators took to streets to protest against the Iraq war.
But, Georgia was different. People told BHHRG that they were “honoured” by Bush’s visit to such a “small country”. Many held out the hope that it would herald the arrival of much-needed economic aid. One observer said some just hoped he would “feed them”. None of these things have come true. However, they do indicate that Georgia’s much-touted “national pride” and “fierce independence” are hollow and that many of its people have swapped one imperial master for another – willingly, as their desperate plight worsens.
Georgia post ‘rose revolution government: mixed revues
“For the first time in our history, our police have discovered you don’t have to torture people to keep crime in check” [Mikheil Saakashvili, Knight Ridder Newspapers, 9th March, 2005]
Police reform: This is hailed as one of Saakashvili’s success stories. The president’s admirers point to the abolition of the traffic cops and their replacement by a new patrol police as one of his major achievements since coming to office. Since then, it is claimed, the practice of regularly stopping motorists for bribes has ceased and the force is able to do more useful work. The police are properly paid (400-500 lari per month), new Volkswagen Passats have been donated and officers wear smart, American-style uniforms. In the process “16,000 good for nothing, corrupt policemen were fired”, according to former Minister of the Interior, Irakli Okruashvili. Only 15% of former police officers remained. This meant that if only some of these men had families, at least 34,000 people were deprived of a bread winner - something that obviously left Mr. Okruashvili and his associates untroubled.
Only regular visitors know that Georgia is a country sorely in need of traffic control. There are no pedestrian crossings and few traffic lights in the capital Tbilisi. Crossing the road is a major, life-threatening decision. Meanwhile, on the few main cross country highways, there is a permanent free-for-all as buses, Mercedes and lorries vie for control, often overtaking, three at a time, on the brow of a hill. Soon after the sackings, in August 2004, even an enthusiastic American reporter had to admit that “Georgia ..needs traffic cops”. The new patrol police does nothing to control this traffic or help pedestrians negotiate the maelstrom. BHHRG regularly passed new police Volkswagens, parked by the side of the road, inside which sat several officers reading newspapers.
As for taking bribes, by 2001 BHHRG noted that it had ceased. In 1996, it was impossible to go for more than a few hundred yards before being stopped by the police whistle. Shevardnadze brought this formerly ubiquitous practice to an end, no doubt, as his regime came under repeated criticism from Washington. Therefore, it is untrue for the new government in Georgia to claim credit for stopping it. On the subject of bribes, BHHRG was told that aspiring police officers still paid handsomely for a place in the force.
Even the US Department of State is sceptical about the efficacy of the new force. “Despite much progress in the Georgian Government’s efforts to reform police and fight internal corruption, the police remain generally ineffective in deterring criminal activity or conducting effective post-incident investigations”. Others, like the Human Rights Information Center have criticized the new recruits lack of professionalism - they only receive a fortnight’s training which might explain their reluctance to do anything but drive around in their shiny new cars.
Corruption drive:
“I can now say with a clear conscience that Georgia has the cleanest government in the former Soviet Union” [(Saakashvili – Knight Ridder Newspapers, 9th March, 2005)
A professional, non-party civil service still seems an unattainable goal in most former Soviet republics despite over 12 years of Western guidance and funding to achieve a functioning civil society; a change of regime usually heralds a change of personnel in all departments of state as well as local administrations. No doubt, in a poverty-stricken society like Georgia, patronage is easily secured this way. So, when Saakashvili became president and his party took over the reins of government personnel changes took place both in Tbilisi and around the country. Regional governors who are personally appointed by the president were replaced ( no criticism from the West, unlike Russia, where Putin has been lambasted for a much less direct system of appointing officials).
Those dismissed were often replaced by former NGO activists, several of whom became government ministers – for example, Gigi Bokaria who founded the Liberty Institute and Alexander (Khaka) Lomaia, Minister of Education were both associates of George Soros. Large amounts of Western funding had enabled the NGO sector in Georgia to mushroom in the three years leading up to Shevardnadze’s overthrow and now it was payback time. BHHRG’s representatives visited the Ministry of Culture in July 2005 where many new employees were former NGO activists. The public defender, Sozar Subari, was also a member of the, the Liberty Institute, the former mayor of Tbilisi, Zurab Chiaberashvili was director of the Fair Elections NGO. His replacement Gigi Ugulava was a member of the Association for Legal Public Education (ALPE). By 2005, all local government posts in Georgia’s second city, Kutaisi, had been taken over by former civil society activists. Locals were reported to be “disappointed”.
Immediately, the president set about punishing members of the old guard in what was called “a robust publicity campaign of symbolic aggression and bullying”. Using the mantra of the ‘fight against corruption’ opponents were smeared as “counter-revolutionaries”. No doubt, the lucky ones got away with a dismissal notice - if without a pay cheque. The more unfortunate victims were arrested and thrown into prison. On many occasions, Saakashvili himself berated the accused on television compromising, at the very least, their chances of a fair trial – his favourite media outlet being the TV station Rustavi 2 which formerly supported the opposition but had now become a regime mouthpiece.
Such public denunciations have continued. On 11th April 2005, the president promised to “break the noses” of the mafia alleged to control Georgian football. And, on 28th June, 2005 “special unit officers wearing black masks launched their operation” to arrest the chief of the Tbilisi tax department, Temur Dvali and associates, “and, as usual, television reporters were there to show the arrests”. However, it seems that not all members of Mr. Saakashvili’s team are singing from the same song sheet, so to speak. On 3rd August 2005, Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili criticized the press for naming several Georgians arrested in Dubai on suspicion of robbery, saying: “It is not ethical to report the names of people who have not even been charged yet. I would have sued you if I was their [arrested citizens’] relative”.
On 13th March, 2005, Rustavi 2 filmed a live session of the Georgian Security Council meeting to discuss yet more allegations of smuggling in the region around South Ossetia. According to the report: [Saakashvili] “publicly scolds his acolytes for ignoring their political responsibilities. Mikheil Kareli, in particular. Their heads lowered, the accused try to avoid his gaze”. The writer of this article is obviously discomforted by this reminder of the way a former Georgian politician treated his underlings, observing that “this media coup, taking place on a background of personal debasement, does not really fit in with the political traditions of the western democracies that he is aiming to emulate”.
A law was passed soon after the ‘rose revolutionaries’ came to power enabling the authorities to confiscate the property and assets of criminal suspects, before trial. Between January and November 2004 $309 m. including bank accounts, houses, flats and personal belongings was confiscated. No one knows what has happened to this money. However, the president has , unilaterally, decided how to spend some of the bounty, promising students of the law faculty at Tbilisi Sate University that “money from former high ranking officials accused of corruption would be used to pay 10 students to study abroad”. The IMF implicitly condoned the process by congratulating Georgia for its “impressive turnaround in the fiscal position that was underpinned by a decisive attack on corruption”
But, allegations of corruption are now being turned on the new government. For example, the state budget provides the president with a legal fund over which there is no control. In 2004, expenditure from this fund was three times more than originally envisaged. The Georgian Young Lawyers Association criticized the government for irresponsible spending from the presidential fund and government reserve funds. On 25th July, 2005, The Georgian Times claimed that Saakashvili himself had initiated corrupt land deals when he was mayor of Tbilisi. The article also alleged that the president-to-be took a bribe of $150,000.
The Military: No visitor can fail to notice the militarization of Georgia since Saakashvili came to power. Giant posters of soldiers straddle the main highways and troops in US-style combat gear are a regular sight on the streets of Tbilisi. Georgian forces participated in NATO’s Train and Equip programme under Shevardnadze and have served in Kosovo as part of the KFOR peacekeeping mission. The first contingent of Georgian troops to go to Iraq was authorised by the former president. The number has doubled in the past year. However, in the past, rumours abounded of a persistent lack of professionalism in the training process with recruits pocketing their daily allowances before disappearing into the night.
Georgia receives a staggering amount of military support from the United States. In 1997, it was awarded its first foreign military financing (FMF) grant of $700,000. The next year, Washington granted $5.3 million in military aid—a sevenfold increase. Since then, Georgia has received a total of $107.7 million in FMF grants and the Bush administration requested an additional $12 million for Tbilisi in the 2006 budget.
Georgia has bought weapons and military hardware from the United States for some time —a total of $21.9 million between 1999 and 2003. Additionally, it has been a recipient of the State Department’s International Military Education and Training (IMET) funds since 1994. In 2003, the funding increased another 33% to $1.2 million—similar amounts were granted in 2004 and 2005. President Bush has requested another $1.2 million in 2006, an almost 2,000 % increase in IMET aid to Georgia over the past decade.
Under Saakashvili military costs have escalated. In July 2005, the Minister of Defence, Irakli Okruashvili admitted that “Georgia has the highest budget across the South Caucasus this year; it is equal to the entire state budget under Eduard Shevardnadze”. Defence spending in Georgia increased from 79 m. lari in 2004 to 324 lari (2005).The US has spent $63 m. in a 14-month programme to train the 23rd light infantry battalion for service in Iraq as well as the fight against “terrorism”. 70 US instructors are work at the Krtsanisi base: “We want to prepare Georgians to be well trained in western style military operations” they say. Difficulties with language are brushed aside “We teach them English and they teach us Georgian. I can speak enough Georgian to be able to communicate with soldiers” pretends the US officer.
But, is all this “training” for Iraq and the “fight against terrorism” ? According to one US soldier, it is hard to say how much weaponry Georgia has received “because its so much”. And why should “crate after crate of Kalshanikov assault rifles” be necessary for an army, allegedly, updating its weaponry to accord with NATO’s requirements? It also transpires that “most deals are signed with new NATO member states desperate to sell of their old Soviet small weapons”. Suspicions arise that such caches of Soviet-era armaments, including the Kalashnikovs, might be destined for terrorist groups fighting the Russian state in the North Caucasus.
There is criticism in Georgia of the lack of transparency in defence spending. The former defence minister, Giorgi Baramidze, admitted that the Georgian authorities had been using money not allocated for in the state budget for military purposes. His successor, Irakli Okruashvili has said that some expenditure should not be open to public scrutiny as it could compromise state security. Okruashvili has been accused of “spending without any advance planning or conducting any feasibility studies” on offensive weapons purchases. “There is no acquisition or procurement process”.
During the same period the social sector received less money. Unemployment continues unchecked and spending programmes to combat it have been reduced from 2.4 m. lari in 2004 to 1.7 m. lari (2005). Back payments of wages estimated to be in the region of 100 m. lari ($55,5 m.) has been suspended until 2006.
Education reform: Sweeping reforms to the educational system in Georgia began in 2005 aiming at “breaking with Soviet tradition”. So, for example, time spent studying core subjects like science and maths will be reduced. Although the entire system is to be revamped, the initial stages were devoted to stopping corruption in the entrance procedures to both state and private universities. The main thrust of the reforms was the introduction of standard tests to enter institutions of higher education using exams based on US SATS testing procedures. These exams involve answering simple, multiple choice questions which test a student’s basic grasp of language and reasoning skills.
At the same time, the number of students has been reduced and faculties at Tbilisi State University (TSU) have been cut from 22 to 6; 600 members of staff have been sacked. BHHRG was told that people were dismissed without any warning – a notice was posted with what turned out to be the last pay cheque. Some students were also sent home without finishing their courses. To ensure an untroubled passage of these changes, the rector of TSU was dismissed and replaced by government loyalist, Rusudan Lortkipanidze. Meanwhile, the university’s autonomy was remove and over all control handed to the Minister of Education, Alexander Lomaia.
In August 2005, the results of the first tests were announced and hailed to be a great success. Parents who were quoted as being happy that cheating in the examination halls had been prevented by closer supervision nevertheless remained uneasy about the transparency of the marking procedures. The whole process was organized and overseen by the US NGO, Transparency International, and, no doubt, a private company in the US will have profited from preparing and printing the examination papers. Those sacked from their jobs will watch, ruefully, as new people are hired to staff approximately “100 so-called resource centers, designed to oversee reform implementation”.
However, even if cheating is abolished, the underlying problem with US-inspired educational reform is the lowering of standards implicit in the system. Although Soviet teaching methods were hidebound and failed to encourage independent thought, they did give a grounding in basic subjects like mathematics, science and languages. Now ,the number of subjects studied has been reduced and the emphasis is to be on ‘life skills’ or, in other words, education in Georgia is being ‘dumbed down’.
Reuniting the nation: This is one area where Saakashvili’s rhetoric has, so far, proved particularly hollow. Both South Ossetia and Abkhazia remain resolutely opposed to rejoining the ‘motherland’. In July, an Abkhaz resident told BHHRG that no one in the province wanted to be reunited with Georgia and the same applies in South Ossetia. People have not spoken Georgian in both regions for nearly fifteen years, adding to the difficulties of reintegration. A botched military operation in summer, 2004 led to the deaths of both police and soldiers in the region. This is not to say that a further attempt won’t be made, but even the president’s Western friends have underscored the need for a ‘peaceful’ resolution to the stand off. As this report is written, negotiations continue between the parties and their international interlocutors.
The South Ossetian question is complicated by allegations that the region is a major transiting point for smuggling between Russia and Georgia. The hub of this activity is the province of Shiva Kartli and its capital Gori. There have been numerous shoot outs and arrests there and the present Minister of Defence Okruashvili is widely thought to be involved in the smuggling business. In fact, some people suspect that the closed borders suit the serious smugglers.
In order to stop the smuggling and the illicit trade – anything from cigarettes to cooking oil – the Georgian government closed the Ergneti market, a sprawling conglomeration of stalls and lorries used by traders from both Tskinvali and neighbouring Georgian villages; it was reopened in August 2005. BHHRG visited the Ergneti site in April which, then, was a deserted, windswept place. Locals said that closing the market hadn’t stopped the smuggling which went on via various clandestine routes but it had damaged the local economy “they have taken the simple people’s business” – fragile at best – and also abolished a place where the two communities could meet.
Saakashvili is always hinting that the revamped Georgian army will retake South Ossetia, sooner rather than later. But, with Russian, passports, the inhabitants are likely to flee if Tbilisi regained full control of the province.
Adjara: In April 2005 BHHRG visited Batumi, capital of the autonomous republic of Adjara. The removal of its former president, Aslan Abashidze, in May 2004 was hailed universally as a ‘good thing’. The Human Rights Information and Documentation Center’s report on human rights after the rose revolution writes that the residents of Adjara “have been given the opportunity to enjoy democratic principles and general freedoms which they lacked” under Abashidze’s regime. Journalists regularly described Adjara as another ‘breakaway region’, like South Ossetia and Abkhazia, congratulating Saakashvili on bringing it (peacefully) back under central control.
Most of these assumptions are untrue. Abashidze never claimed independent status for Adjara: all appurtenances of the Georgian state were in place, including the state flag. However, he had been a thorn in Tbilisi’s side for some time. In 1999 his party, Revival, contested parliamentary elections in the whole country and many felt that in the absence of fraud it would have been the overall winner. Abashidze feared Shevardnadze, telling BHHRG in 1999 that the former president had tried to have him killed. So, he installed armed guards at Adjara’s border with Georgia proper as a precaution. There were precedents for his unease – in 1991-2 Jaba Ioseliani’s Mkhedrioni rampaged through Adjara destroying property and killing innocent people.
Adjara under Abashidze was not perfect. The infrastructure – roads, the exteriors of public buildings – was in a poor state, but unlike other parts of Georgia, there was work in local factories and enterprises and the place was clean. Abashidze also encouraged cultural activities and there were excellent opera and ballet companies in Batumi. Shevardnadze had left him alone for some time and even sought his support in the dying days of his presidency but after the November ‘revolution’ a full scale assault took place to overthrow Abashidze helped along by NGOs and opposition youth activists from Tbilisi. Despite being an ‘autocrat’ he was toppled easily. Local people understood that power was drifting away and positioned themselves behind the new regime. Abashidze did not help matters by spending his last months in power entertaining groups of Western visitors, no doubt, in the forlorn hope that they might protect him. Local people only resented the lavish attention paid to these seemingly superfluous guests.
In April 2005, Adjara seemed far from the newly liberated paradise so eloquently described by the media. BHHRG was approached by numerous beggars on Batumi’s sea front, many of whom were obviously respectable people desperate for a few lari on which to subsist. There were no beggars in Abashidze’s time. During an extended power cut on the night of 29th April, BHHRG observed armed thugs attacking a passer by outside the television station. Drunks wove their way home in the dark.
Batumi’s central food market was closed down on 2nd September 2004 and the whole structure (solidly built in concrete) smashed. Market traders were treated brutally when they protested. Now, people have to trek to the outskirts of town to buy food. Factories have shut, especially those connected with the former president. Ordinary people told BHHRG they wanted Abashidze back. Last year two juveniles were arrested for scrawling messages calling for his return on the walls of buildings in Batumi. Those who betrayed him – BHHRG interviewed a former aide to the president – tried to put on a brave face pointing to upcoming projects, like the proposed construction of a new sports centre on the ruins of the central market. But, few can afford such luxuries nowadays in Adjara.
The head of government, Levan Varshalomidze, is an old crony of Saakashvili and business partner of Prime Minister, Zurab Noghiashvili. He and other regime insiders have moved from Tbilisi to run Adjara whose autonomy was effectively removed soon after Abashidze was deposed. Complaints from the Council of Europe have fallen on deaf ears. Varshalomidze talks of beautifying Batumi and building new hotels, and, – already the cost of property has spiralled. Mass dismissals of former regime employees have also taken place in the civil service.
BHHRG interviewed the new deputy Minister of the Interior, who said that there had been a 100% change in the local administration. 1500 people had been dismissed in his department but only 600 rehired – the accent now was on ‘youth’. The Group also called in on Adjara TV where there had been a mass walkout of staff on 3rd March, 2005 after complaints of political interference. The girl said that the new staff was content to work for “the government”.
BHHRG visited Batumi’s main prison where there were 430 inmates in April 2005 – twice as many as under Abashidze when the highest number was 200. The deputy governor, Yuri Dirbarian (who was appointed post – Abashidze) claimed that “no one was arrested under the former president”, surprising behaviour for a ‘tyrant’. Now, the regime was registering more crimes. He said that “robbery” was the main offence because of the bad “social conditions”. The average period of pre-trial detention is 3 months but he admitted that sometimes people waited a year to go to trial. Again, few suspects are acquitted. Several Abashidze regime insiders, including former mayor of Kobuleti, Taril Khalvashi were also incarcerated. Plea-bargaining - or ransom depending on your point of view - has also taken place over the past year and money extracted paid into something called the Adjara Development Fund although details are sparse about how much and what has happened to it.
Conditions in this prison were a considerable improvement on those seen in Tbilisi although for how much longer remains to be seen – some cells were already overcrowded. But, there were proper showers for the inmates and a functioning kitchen and exercise area. The governor admitted that all these facilities had been introduced by the Abashidze regime. Although there was no work for the prisoners, some ‘trusties’ were employed by the authorities. The mafia/former regime prisoners were held in superior conditions as was the case in Tbilisi. Again, the staff complained about their poor pay and working conditions. The deputy director earns 360 lari per month, his deputy 200 for working, they say, 7 days a week.
Although Aslan Abashidze fled to Moscow in 2004 and has not been heard from since, his future must remain uncertain. BHHRG was told that the former Adjaran president is being ‘investigated’ for the 1991 murder of a political opponent. When Vladimir Arutyunian, the grenade thrower, was arrested much was made of the fact that he was a member of Abashidze’s political party, Revival, although, according to observers, the party has effectively collapsed.
The Media: Soon after Saakashvili became president three late night discussion programmes were pulled from Imedi, Mze and Rustavi 2 television channels. Later, 2 independent TV stations – Iberia and the Ninth Channel – were closed. Action was taken by the authorities according to the (much decried) Russian method of charging media owners with ‘tax avoidance’. This practice came perilously close to shutting down Rustavi 2 when its owner, Erosi Kitsmanishvili was accused of getting above himself in business deals and Rustavi 2 was said to owe $4.5 m. in back tax to the state. Kitsmanishvili was forced out and replaced with regime insiders. Saakashvili had promised not to let what he called the “channel of the victorious” go down.
Now, most shares in the company are owned by Khibar Khalvashi, a friend of Okruashvili. 50% of the shares in Mze are owned by MP Davit Bezhuashvili, brother of Gela, Secretary of the Georgian National Security Council and another 50% by Vano Chkhartishvili, a former Shevardnadze minister. Mze itself has been censored – it was banned from showing the funerals of dead Georgian troops after the debacle in South Ossetia and, again, was “in trouble” for its reporting following Prime Minister Zhvania’s death. Its daily talk show was halted following the demonstration over the arrest of wrestlers on 30th June.
Plans were announced to revamp the state TV broadcasting station, including the introduction of rules that former Shevardnadze era employees would be ineligible to work there. Independent media owners have complained that state-run TV receives government funding while simultaneously running advertisements which gives it an unfair advantage.
Journalists from the both print and broadcast media recently appealed to international organizations to pressure the government into respecting their freedom. Somewhat bewildered, they claim to have been ‘betrayed’ as, overwhelmingly, they supported the ‘Rose Revolution’. Now, they complain that media freedom is much reduced since Shevardnadze’s day when they were allowed to criticize the government. Not everyone fell for the ‘Rose Revolution’ propaganda though: in 2004, former Georgian Times editor, Zviad Pochkhua, told BHHRG that he and the paper were harassed for asking awkward questions in the run up to the November 2003 election, calling it instead a ‘coup’. The Georgia Times remains one of the only consistently critical media voices in Georgia. Its present editor, Rusudan Kbilashvili, told BHHRG that for this reason, its circulation has risen in the past year. But, the paper has problems. It has been raided by the financial police and subjected to court proceedings over alleged copyright infringements. It has difficulty attracting advertisements, particularly in its Georgian edition. For example, the US embassy and US chamber of commerce boycott the paper.
Opposition politics: BHHRG was told that few people had any faith in Georgia’s opposition parties: “the opposition is so weak it has no electorate”. The 2004 parliamentary election resulted in only one other party - the New Conservatives - gaining seats in parliament. BHHRG interviewed officials from this party before the 2003 election. Spokesman, Irakli Arashidze (who called himself a ‘neo-con’) described the party as free market, pro-business and pro-NATO. It is difficult to see how this recipe can appeal to poverty-stricken Georgians. In a normal country the disadvantaged tend to favour a leftist political agenda to defeat unemployment, energy shortages and unaffordable health care. Perhaps the New Conservatives were regarded as sufficiently unthreatening to the status quo to be allowed some seats in parliament. Otherwise, some supporters of former prime minister Zurab Zhvania, are rumoured to be sufficiently disenchanted to consider joining the opposition Republican Party. However, defecting has its risks: on 14th July 2005, MP Valeri Gelashvili, who joined the Republican Party was attacked in the street by masked men.
In April 2005 BHHRG interviewed a group of New Conservative MPs in the Georgian parliament. In the preceding weeks the party’s leader, David Gamkrelidze, had launched a series of withering attacks on the government, in particular, on the defence minister Irakli Okruashvili for misappropriating ministerial funds. BHHRG was told that apart from the official budget in the ministry money was raised unofficially. There were allegations that government-inspired heavies had broken in to the New Conservatives’ party offices and stolen information “damaging for the government”, evidence “of senior government officials involvement with crime”. On a mundane level the party complained to BHHRG that they only had representation on two parliamentary committees – Human Rights and Healthcare and that they had ongoing difficulties getting information about legislation.
The New Conservatives have good connections in the US political establishment - Gamkrelidze and Arashidze are always asking the US to crack down on the Saakashvili government’s perceived excesses. Arashidze even appealed to Bush in an article published to coincide with the president’s visit to Tbilisi to provide Georgia with the “morally clear leadership” he has shown in Iraq! For the moment, the party has be content to play the ‘loyal opposition’. It has also received the green light to cooperate with the anti-Putin opposition, Union of Rightist Forces, in Russia, a relationship that also involves economic co-operation on privatization issues.
Former Saakashvili supporters in the NGO sector – the Liberty Institute and Young Lawyers – are now in opposition. David Usupashvili was elected Chairman of the Republican Party in July 2005. They have recently joined the Conservatives to protest recent changes to the law i.e. changes that enable the president to chose all members of the Central Election Commission. Later, Saakashvili refused to accept demands for direct elections for mayors (including of Tbilisi) and other district heads. However, the New Rights MPs “didn’t participate in the vote boycotting the session” that passed the new measures which some voters might think was a questionable way of using their parliamentary mandates.
The opposition’s aim, in the short – term is to contest 5 parliamentary by-elections scheduled for October, 2005. Several have joined up to fight ‘primaries’ as a unified bloc, but not the election proper. The only party to have opposed Saakashvili from the outset – the Labour Party led by Shalva Natelashvili - has also joined the new, opposition coalition.
The most publicised act of the opposition came on 30th June when activists from, among other parties, the New Conservatives joined people protesting in the street against the arrest and pre-trial detention of 2 well-known wrestlers for alleged racketeering. The riot police were called and dispersed the demonstration with (what opponents call) excessive force. Fisticuffs followed in parliament bringing the chamber into further disrepute.
As one commentator put it: “The actual opinion of the people seems to matter less to politicians than their rank in terms of popularity among other prominent public figures”. According to a poll conducted by the International Republic Institute, the National Movement is still supported by 57% of the public. This seems incredible to BHHRG who found total disillusionment with most politicians during their two visits to Georgia in 2005. But, if the opposition does look like coming to power it will be when organizations like the IRI decides (sic) that it is time for a change. In other words, change is not in the hands of the electorate.
BHHRG also met Malxaz Guluashvili who founded a new movement, Forward Georgia, in 2004. Guluashvili echoed other opposition parties’ complaints about the difficult business climate in the country and its continuing, woeful situation for the poor and unemployed. He said that the new movement had “good relations” with the New Conservatives but, unlike them, he had been associated with Georgia’s dissidents – Gamsakhurdia and Merab Kostava - in the late 1980s. The Zviadist opposition has almost imploded as many of the former president’s followers supported the ‘Rose Revolution’ and were even thrown some (minor) scraps when jobs were handed out by the new government. No doubt, many of them were enticed into cooperating with Saakashvili by his cynical use of the Gamsakhurdia name to whip up Georgian patriotism.
However, Gamsakhurdia’s widow, Manana, remains implacably opposed to the new regime. She and a small band of followers hold small, but regular, meetings to oppose everything they see as anti-Georgian from the Soros Foundation to President Bush’s visit. They refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the new Georgian flag and resolutely cling to the old, Menshevik red, white and black banner. BHHRG talked to Mrs. Gamsakhurdia in the burnt-out ruins of the house of Konstantin Gamsakhurdia, Zviad’s father and a Georgian literary hero. The government is seeking to take the house into state control and turn it into a national monument. Manana Gamsakhurdia hasn’t been seduced by the blandishments of any political party. Unlike many of her late husband’s followers who gloat over the misfortunes of imprisoned members of the Shevardnadze regime she condemned torture of anyone whatever their past loyalty, including Sukhan Molashvili. However, as the media tells people to regard her as exasperating and eccentric, her often penetrating understanding of what is going on in Georgia is unappreciated and misunderstood.
Law and Disorder
Attacks on the Judiciary:
The legal system in Georgia has been tinkered with on numerous occasions since independence. In 1999 a new system of exams was introduced which had to be taken by both new and serving judges. Judges told BHHRG at the time that this was a way of sacking people who offended the government.
Perhaps, observers assumed that Mikheil Saakashvili’s legal training would impact positively on the rule of law, but, according to observers: “The level of justice has seriously deteriorated since the rose revolution”. Lawyers told BHHRG that Sakkashvili knew nothing about the nuts and bolts of Georgian law - his courses in the US were most likely the typical, content-less melange of ‘modules’ in subjects like human rights and international justice.
The president has attacked the judiciary on numerous occasions and lawyers told BHHRG that the level of competence and trust was at its lowest level. In 2004, the law was changed and the president now puts forward the names of all judges, including the 15 constitutional court judges, which have to be approved by 3/5 majority in parliament. The president also heads the Council of Justice which not only selects judges but also deals with disciplinary issues. In the circumstances, it is unsurprising to learn that the two presidents of the Supreme Court appointed by Saakashvili – Konstantin Kublashvili and Kote Kemularia - are his associates and members of the National Movement. The president’s lawyer was appointed president of the Georgian Association of Advocates.
Judges no longer serve until retirement but are subject to renewable terms of office which means that their independence may be compromised by the prospect of dismissal if they fail to reach the right conclusions. In February 2005, amendments were passed to the criminal procedure law so that a person charged could simultaneously have his property seized. The legislation can also be applied retrospectively – the burden of proof is on the defendant. The law applies to crimes committed by public officials.
According to lawyers spoken to by BHHRG there has been a “mass sacking of judges” who are required to write letters of ‘resignation’. Since 2003, financial support for the nation’s courts has decreased by 1.5 m. lari. There are now three courts in Tbilisi were once there were 5, meaning that one judge often has to handle 400-500 cases. Trials can go on for several years. The criminal law is amended almost on a daily basis – they cited one week when there were 200 amendments. These can be reversed a week later. According to his lawyers, the judge in Mr. Molashvili’s case was appointed one month before the case started. This is his first case. Several days before the trial commenced he was given 25 bundles of material.
In 2004, the EU set up a 7 month rule of law mission to Georgia which came to an end one week before Molashvili’s trial commenced. Belgian judge, Sylvie Pantz, was less than complimentary about the state of affairs she witnessed saying that “The sacking of judges in Georgia appears to be politically motivated” … “every day she was informed about someone being asked to resign”. The capricious nature of the system is well illustrated by the case of the Arbitration Court established to settle issues between businesses and the authorities in January 2005 but abolished two months later “after it made several decisions in favour of businessmen”.
USAID has spent $2.6 m. on Saakashvili’s ‘rule of law’ campaign but it has not yet promoted a stable, predictable system.
The Prison System
BHHRG visited Tbilisi’s main prison (No.5, previously No.1) in 1992 and again in 1996. In 1992 they met Zaza Tskiklauri, a supporter of former president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, arrested on terrorism charges who had been tortured at the hands of the police. In 1996 they toured the prison, including the prison hospital. Over 40 men were held in the same filthy, airless cells; TB was rife. Conditions in the hospital were, if anything worse. Food ( which has to be provided by patients’ families) was left, half-eaten, in bowls on the floors of the wards where they attracted flies in the searing heat. Emaciated men lay dying in bed provided with the minimum amount of medical care – many were beyond it. The smell of urine and unwashed bodies was so pervasive that a prison official who showed BHHRG around nearly vomited himself as he left the building.
Six years later, Georgia’s prisons and law enforcement bodies have got, in many respects, worse. Since 2002, the number of prisoners has doubled. According to officials at Prison No. 7 (in the Ministry of Interior) “there have never been so many people in prison”, due to, according to an official in the public defender’s office, the country’s “woeful social situation”. It appears that Victor Hugo’s hapless hero, Jean Valjean, condemned to years in the galleys for stealing a loaf of bread is alive and well in Georgia. BHHRG was told of one boy who received an 11-year sentence for stealing a bottle of beer.
There are plans to build two new modern facilities in Kutaisi and Rustavi and to close prison No.7. But, for now, the population of prison No. 5 has doubled. There is a new remand prison for women, something of a show case for the Georgian authorities but conditions for most inmates – as in all jurisdictions, most prisoners are male – have not improved.
No one denies that suspects are mistreated, often tortured, usually during and immediately after arrest. Officials in prison Number 7, claimed that the police were the culprits although they hadn’t heard of any cases for one and a half months! Torture was “100% prohibited” in their facility but they “look after them when they’ve been tortured”. The public defender, Sozar Sobari, a former National Movement activist, and therefore a government employee also confirmed that suspects were tortured. But Sobari and others rightly point out that the conditions of detention are torture in itself. It seems incredible that after years of Western assistance, including involvement by Council of Europe experts, universally accepted standards for the running of a humane and efficient prison system are ignored.
For example, 98% of those arrested are held in custody; bail is almost non-existent and few people are acquitted. “No one gets off” said the officials at Prison No. 7, adding that “they weren’t as tough on people under Communism”. The law was changed early in 2005 to reduce the period of pre-trial custody from 4 to 3 months. But BHHRG met prisoners who had been in jail for a much longer period. There seems to be no quick, efficient means of dealing with petty offenders so that, for example, a first time offender who steals a carrot will spend at least three months in custody before receiving a minor penalty, usually a small fine – sometimes more. Nor is there any kind of probation system whereby offenders can be reintegrated under supervision into the community. In fact, BHHRG was told that elderly prisoners transferred to civilian hospitals can be stuck there indefinitely as there is nowhere in the outside world for them to go. When the Group questioned staff about the need to incarcerate elderly men, several of whom were staggering around the prison hospital yard on walking sticks, they were told that these prisoners were ‘murderers’ and not as old as they looked although they admitted that some were “in their seventies” ! Prisoners on remand are not allowed any visitors further dislocating relationships with the outside world.
Following Council of Europe recommendations, supervision of prisons in Georgia has been removed from the Ministry of the Interior to civilian control under the Ministry of Justice. In April 2005, BHHRG interviewed the new director of prison Number 1, Merab Chachaia. Whatever the shortcomings of the old system, the previous (uniformed) governor had facts and figures at his fingertips, unlike Mr. Chachaia who had to make several phone calls before confirming that there were 3,500 prisoners in custody at that time, 80% were on remand. Convicts spend an average of 10 days there before going on to serve their sentences in colonies. The main offence seems to be street robbery although he did mention the presence of ‘mafia bosses’.
Cells are horribly overcrowded and the facilities are what the British would call ‘Victorian’: brick walls, iron bedsteads, wooden floors and basic toilet facilities . In winter they are freezing cold and in summer unbearably hot. Prison officials told BHHRG that it was impossible to be in the cells when the temperatures soar – during BHHRG’s July 2005 visit the thermometer in Tbilisi never dropped below 32_. No doubt, the fact that they are only allowed one shower per week adds to the squalor. There were 66 juveniles in the prison at the time of BHHRG’s visit who are kept apart from adult males - in one cell holding 27 youths, the youngest was 15. But, there were even worse situations: 57 inmates were crammed into a 3x3 m. cell designed to accommodate 27 (there were 27 bunks). This means that inmates have to take it in turns to sleep. No doubt, if normal camaraderie prevailed, the system might function but, BHHRG was told that a pecking order exists whereby the more ‘senior’ or ‘influential’ prisoner gets to sleep, when and for how long he likes, regardless of how tired the other prisoners might be. So it came as no surprise to hear that fights and other acts of violence are regular occurrences and that many attempt suicide. Mr. Sobari said that deaths in custody had dropped to 43 (2004) from 52 (2003). However, others pointed out that sick prisoners are transferred to civilian hospitals and their deaths are not recorded in the prison statistics.
A very different state of affairs prevailed in a cell block referred to by the authorities as the ‘hospital wing’. BHHRG knew that this facility was not the main prison hospital which they were unable to visit, despite repeated requests. On the ground floor were smaller cells accommodating three or four men. BHHRG learnt that these were ‘white collar’ (or mafia depending on your point of view) prisoners. The Saakashvili fight against corruption has delivered probably hundreds of former regime officials into the hands of the law as well as corrupt ‘businessmen’. This category of prisoner was not prevalent on BHHRG’s previous visit to the prison – such people were integrated with the other inmates. Presumably, some of them were held in custody for failing to pay the approved sum at the plea bargaining stage of their arrest.
The conditions of detention were very different here. Cells were furnished with the prisoners’ belongings, including TVs. Everyone seemed to have a mobile phone. And, in one cell supper was cooking on a small range. One prisoner invited BHHRG to join him in an empty cell where “they would be more comfortable” to talk. Under a picture of the president and his wife Sandra, he told BHHRG that he was serving a 20 year sentence for murder but had been removed from the colony where he was serving his sentence after Rustavi 2 investigated his case in 2001. In a later interview, in the public defender’s office BHHRG was told about a mafia boss, transferred to the municipal hospital, but still officially in custody, who threw a birthday party for 200 guests.
According to the officials, the upper floor of this block acted as a ‘hospital’ although there was no sign of any medical facilities i.e. doctors’ consulting rooms, nurses etc. These cells contained about 12 beds on which male prisoners were resting, watching the television. Several complained about their ailments, but it was hard not to conclude that they had somehow ‘earned’ their way out of the overcrowded, mainstream facilities. For how long it was impossible to say, but the conditions were vastly superior to the block previously visited and it is easy to believe that a prisoner would pay or do anything to spend some time here.
Having seen this part of the prison, BHHRG was not surprised to learn from NGOs and officials in the public defender’s office that Prison No. 1 is run by the big “thieves-in-law” - to use Solzhenytsin’s terminology - rather than the authorities. One young lawyer called the governor a “marionette” saying that he was too frightened to go out of his office when the big criminals walk around the prison. There is an elaborate system whereby each cell, even the most dilapidated, has a ‘representative’ working for the ‘thieves’. A prison guard will transfer messages between the ordinary criminal and the ‘boss’. The obshchyak (general fund) a prisoner has to pay into has increased since the prison filled up with former Shevardnadze officials who have more cash. Funds of between $200,000 to $500,00 were mentioned to BHHRG.
The officials who showed the Group’s representatives around prison No. 5 displayed no loyalty to the regime. The deputy director who had been co-opted from the civilian sector told BHHRG he hadn’t realised “how horrible the system was”. He is paid 200 lari per month (a block director gets 100 lari) and said that he was leaving as he “wanted to go into business”. No doubt, he has made plenty of contacts to help him on his way. At prison No. 7 the director earns $150 per month and says he has 6 people at home who depend on his salary. BHHRG was told that the treatment of prisoners in itself has not got any worse but the corruption in the system is rampant. Officials from the Public Defender’s office who visit prisons are treated with contempt. Georgi Oniani told BHHRG how his video camera had been torn from his hand and mobile phone broken when he visited prison No. 7 after he received a complaint that a prisoner needed insulin. Oniani went on to explain to BHHRG how the system worked and how crimes were planned in prison.
BHHRG also visited Prison No. 7 located in the Ministry of Interior. At the time, 52 prisoners were being held in custody: 47 were on remand, the rest are prisoners serving their sentences in the colonies who have been sent there for ‘misbehaviour’ as well as ‘troublesome’ prisoners from No. 5. The corridor visited by BHHRG contained two room cells populated by, among others, several Shevardnadze-era officials charged with corruption, including Zurab Chankotadze, former head of Georgia’s civil aviation administration. 2 prisoners occupied a room with proper furniture, fridges and televisions. No one complained about the conditions and these men looked well fed and their rooms were clean and ‘homely’. However, the Group was not shown the basement cells where suspects are taken after arrest and where there are no windows, seats or beds.
The case of Sulkhan Molashvili
Sulkhan Molashvili, interview conducted in the Deputy-Governor’s office in the hospital wing of Prison No. 5 (formerly No1) c. 5.00 - 6.45 pm, 29th July, 2005.
The facts surrounding the trial of Sulkhan Molashvili are a perfect illustration of the ‘black hole’ that is Georgia’s legal and penitentiary system today. Only the tenacity and perseverance of Molashvili’s lawyers and the work of one local NGO, “Former Political Prisoners for Human Rights”, have brought the abuses into the open. When BHHRG’s representatives asked to see Mr. Molashvili while visiting Prison No. 1. in April 2005 they were told that “he didn’t want to see them”. The following chronology contains facts generally agreed by all parties, Mr. Molashvili’s lawyers’ account of events leading up to his trial and Mr. Molashvili’s own version of events described to BHHRG during an interview conducted on 29th July, 2005 in the prison hospital. The Group wishes to thank the trial judge who granted permission for the interview and to the prison authorities who vacated their offices and who did not impose restraints or a time limit on the meeting.
Molashvili, a trained lawyer, was appointed president of the Chamber of Control in 2000 for a 5-year term. The chamber was tasked with auditing government spending. Molashvili thinks there were two reasons for his arrest: Firstly, Mikheil Saakashvili had been Minister of Justice during the period when the Chamber of Control conducted its audit of the ministry. Many violations and maladministration of funds were revealed while Saakashvili was minister, including expensive foreign trips. Friends and journalists had been taken on these trips at public expense. Molashvili called this “A criminal waste of money”. His second problem concerned the activities of Nina Burjanadze’s father, Anzor Burjanadze, known in Georgia as the ‘bread czar’. “We checked his company - it had received state credits including a credit from the Ministry of Finance. These credits were supposed to be used to feed the people”. A number of different credits were involved – the largest was US$9 m.; the final amount came to US$27 m.. When Saakashvili came to power his new government cancelled Burjanadze père’s obligation to repay the sums owed.
These controversial audits were prepared in 2001-02 and sent to the Prosecutor-General because the Control Chamber has no right to prosecute – it only conducts audits. Saakashvili was still Minister of Justice. Later Molashvili led an inspection of the town hall (Sakrebulo) of Tbilisi when Saakashvili was mayor (2002-3). There were irregularities in the city’s budget, including money spent on party flags etc. Because of these inquiries, Molashvili incurred the personal enmity of Saakashvili. In his annual audit reported to the Georgian Parliament he had reported Burjundadze’s father’s failure to repay the credits. Each year these people had to listen to his report in Parliament. Molashvili says that he spoke to the US ambassador, Richard Miles a year before the “Rose Revolution.” Miles said that Saakashvili was “a crazy guy” however, a year after the Revolution, Miles refused to see him although they had had “warm relations” in the past. Parliament approved this audit.
Inevitably, there were scores to settle after the ‘Rose Revolution’ when Saakashvili and Burjanadze took over the reins of government. Public denouncements of Molashvili started soon afterwards and, on 4th January 2004, he resigned.
Four months later, on 23rd April, Molashvili was arrested on charges of abuse of office and embezzlement after walking into the procurator’s office to give himself up. The prosecution alleges that he took bribes from companies which he audited favourably to lower their tax burden. He was held in the Ministry of the Interior prison for a day before being moved to Prison No. 5. Due to a variety of ailments he was taken to the prison hospital, however, on 2nd June, 2004 he was put in the ordinary cells by “men in masks who came to the prison hospital and took me back to the main prison, on the third floor reserved for hardened criminals, recidivists” where he was kept for a month.
On 2nd July 2004, he was visited by human rights activist, Nana Kakabadze who had been informed on the ‘grape vine’ that Molashvili had been tortured. Molashvili revealed this to her for the first time, claiming that he had been mistreated in prison No. 7 on his arrest. Using her mobile phone, Mrs. Kakabadze photographed scars on Mr. Molashvili’s back that were commensurate with cigarette burns as well as cuts to the feet and bruising to the ankles. Molashvili told BHHRG that he thinks he recognised the voice of one of the men who tortured him but since the person was masked he could not see the others he cannot name him for certain. He claimed that he failed to publicize these facts earlier as he hoped that by keeping quiet he would be allowed to see his family. Although an independent medical examination corroborated the torture accusations, the authorities blamed the doctors for causing his injuries.
Molashvili told BHHRG that on the first night of his arrest he was pressured “to sign a ‘confession’ alleging that that his audits of Saakashvili and Anzor Burjanadze had “been ordered by Shevardnadze to attack the opposition.” Maybe Molashvili would have been released - and Shevardnadze put inside if he had agreed to sign. For a time, in the months following the revolution, it looked as though Shevardnadze might be arrested.
Perhaps because of Mrs. Kakabadze’s visit Molashvili was punished and returned to the basement cells in Prison No. 7. His lawyers, Ioseb Baratashvili and Shalva Shavgulidze, told BHHRG that “the stench in these cellar cells was intolerable after being there for half an hour”. The cell was tiny and only contained an iron bed and a lavatory which didn’t function – it had no flush and there was no water tap. At the height of summer, Molashvili was kept for two weeks in that cell, without daylight and with poor ventilation. He remained until the Council of Europe’s co-rapporteur for Georgia, Matyas E_rsi, visited him and publicly stated: “I’m shocked by the conditions in which the detainee has been kept. This is a serious violation of human rights ..No human being however serious the charges against him might be, may be kept in such conditions ..Unlawful acts are unacceptable, especially if those acts amount to torture”. After that Molashvili was moved back to the hospital in prison No. 5 where he remains – his trial commenced on 28th July, 2005.
Mr. Molashvili is convinced that without the Council of Europe’s intervention he would have been kept in the punishment cell longer. He has also endured one and a half years of a different kind of torture. During this time, he has only been allowed two visits from his family which only happened after the CoE intervened. However, his three children are not allowed to visit him together as the authorities say he has “too many children”. He is told to choose which child he wants to see! The authorities now see E_rsi as an ally of Molashvili and: “they have become more aggressive towards the Council of Europe.”
Molashvili told BHHRG that the staff in the prison hospital behave “properly”. However, no food is provided by the authorities. As was the case in 1996, BHHRG saw relatives delivering provisions for prisoners at the entrance to the building. They also saw food packages stored in a stair well in the hospital bloc - the coolest but hardly cleanest place. Molashvili said that packages of food brought by family members are routinely crushed and damaged on inspection. Prisoners without families are fed by the other inmates. Drugs and medicines also have to be provided by families. Molashvili’s family pays for his medicines: Imovan, Serdoxin and the sleeping pill, Xanax.
During this period, Molashvili’s lawyers have made numerous attempts to have him released on bail. Their problems have been compounded by the fact that the trial has bounced back and forth between the local Tbilisi courts and the Supreme Court. Mr. Molashvili has no previous criminal record and is unlikely to abscond as he has a young family in Tbilisi. Also, as the lawyers point out, he was aware that he might be charged months before his actual arrest. Molashvili told BHHRG: “A few days after the revolution took place, the Prosecutor-General criticised me at a televised press conference”. Molashvili called his own press conference and said that he was answerable to the law and not afraid. In the intervening months, he did not flee neither are there any allegations that he interfered with witnesses
He also handed himself over voluntarily to the authorities. His family even gathered funds to provide a surety to guarantee his compliance with bail conditions. In modern, Western jurisdictions and under the case law of the European Court of Human Rights it is recommended that white collar criminals be granted their freedom in the pre-trial period. All bail applications, to date, have been turned down.
On 10th June, many well-known figures in Georgian public life, including writers, musicians, sportsmen and MPs, appealed to the president to show clemency and release Molashvili on bail. Saakashvili turned down the request. At a meeting held on 11th July with Supreme Court judges, he claimed that the signatories of the letter were championing Molashvili because “someone invited you for a drink ..No way, we won’t buy that …Either these people (indictees like Molashvili) will pay fully for the harm they have done, or we will come after them till the end”. On 2nd July, on Imedi TV he called the petition’s signatories “shameless people” who had been “paid”.
In fact, Saakashvili has regularly gone on TV to pronounce Molashvili and other suspects ‘guilty’, thus prejudicing their chances of a fair trial. He also read out a Human Rights Watch report on TV saying HRW is “the organization with the highest authority and it praises me for my protection of human rights”! The Procurator General has also opined. Worst of all, on 1st November 2004, the judge hearing the Molashvili case, Bejan Khimishiashvili, gave an interview to the “202” TV company about the matters connected with the trial, including the bail application.
Council of Europe
In 1999 BHHRG urged caution when it became clear that Georgia was on course to join the Council of Europe as there were no signs that many shortcomings in Georgia’s human rights record had been addressed. Apologists claimed that membership of the organization would provide much-needed oversight of institutions, like the prison service. In 2002/3 the CoE did conduct an investigation into Georgia’s prisons although its report was ‘sat on’ by the Georgian authorities and only appeared in July, 2005. Although its criticisms of the system are harsh, the medicine prescribed is always tame, namely, more ‘human rights education’ and ‘training’. Nevertheless, many ‘political’ prisoners now in custody in Georgia are pinning their hopes on the outcome of their appeals to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). As well as Molashvili, former Minister of Energy, David Mirtskhulava who was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in March 2005 for abuse of power, has launched an appeal as has Zurab Chankotadze.
The CoE’s legal arm, the Venice Commission, has also criticized Georgia over the government’s unilateral reduction of Adjara’s autonomous status as well as the decision not to allow direct election of local mayors, including the powerful post of mayor of Tbilisi. It has also raised the issue of the high (7%) threshold for parties to enter parliament. But, Saakashvili has always treated the CoE with contempt, ever since its previous director-general, Walter Schwimmer, tried to diffuse the row over Adjara’s status and the best way to handle Aslan Abashidze in 2004. BHHRG reported at the time:
“What the president had said was that Schwimmer was an “arrogant bureaucrat” with a “bloated salary.” Soon it became clear that Saakashvili had, in effect, declared the CoE’s permanent representative in Georgia, Plamen Nikolov, “persona non grata” and expelled him from the country. Days after the 20th June Adjaran parliamentary elections, the CoE announced Schwimmer’s replacement as Secretary General by Terry Davis, a British New Labour politician. Presumably Washington viewed Davis as more reliable, despite, or rather because, he was the rapporteur who had ushered Shevardnadze’s (corrupt and fraudulent) Georgia into the Council of Europe in 1999 over Abashidze’s objections to its human rights record.”
Since then, Saakashvili has upped the rhetoric even more, boosted by the Bush visit: “Georgia has been recognized as a democratic country by the leader of a superpower and it does not need anyone else’s recommendations”. That is how the Georgian president commented on a Council of Europe recommendation for Georgia to have elected mayors. “We do not need anyone else’s recommendations. What did the leader of the free world say? Georgia is an example to everyone, a beacon. Let us stop being provincial, living according to someone else’s recommendations. Second, our democratic system is developing. We are currently one of the most democratic states in the region and one of the most democratic in the world. As regards local self-government, we will have one of the best systems in Europe.”
Meskhetian Turks. One of the conditions imposed upon Georgia when it entered the Council of Europe in 1999 was to allow the return of c. 400,000 Meskhetian Turks and their descendents who had been deported from Georgia by Stalin in 1944. The Meskhetians were dispersed all over the USSR but many were sent to the Ferghana Valley region of Kyrgyzstan from where they were expelled in 1990 after violent rioting; many moved to Krasnodar in the Russian north Caucasus region. At the time, there was no indication that significant numbers wanted to return to Georgia – apart from anything else, their former places of residence were in some of the most impoverished areas of the country, near the Turkish border. This is an area populated by ethnic Armenians who suffer severe economic deprivation and are less than eager at the prospect of an influx of people.
In 1999, BHHRG interviewed Guram Sharidze, an MP and chairman of the parliamentary migration committee who opposed the resettlement project. Mr. Sharidze’s suspected that the death of his son in mysterious circumstances was somehow connected with this campaign. The Group interviewed Mr. Sharadze again in April 2005. He said that while Walter Schwimmer had been in charge of the Council of Europe the issue had died down – apart from anything else there was no funding for such an undertaking. Sharadze claimed that millions of dollars which had been given to Georgia already for the project had disappeared. However, when Terry Davies took over from Schwimmer in 2004, demands that the Georgian government implement the resettlement policy returned to the top of the agenda – Davies was the rapporteur who recommended that Georgia be admitted to the CoE. Recently, the policy has been altered – for the worse. Now, those returning will be able to live anywhere in Georgia and not confined to their former places of residence – to sweeten the pill, the returnees are now referred to simply as Meskhetians – the ‘Turk’ label has been dropped.
The Council of Europe’s demands seem completely unrealistic. Georgia has a massive level of unemployment which has actually increased since the Saakashvili regime came to power. Recently, Foreign Minister Salome Zourabishvili begged Western countries not to return failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrant workers to Georgia as the country couldn’t absorb them. In July 2005, BHHRG was told that Meskhetians living in Azerbaijan are not poor and had “everything there”. On the other hand, returnees would be “peasants” who would just work the land and make no claims on the government.
Some, like Sharadze, harbour darker conspiracy theories about the policy – for example, that it is deliberately designed to dilute Georgia’s ethnic, Orthodox identity. However, the Council of Europe is a formalistic body, obsessed with politically correct notions - like ethnic inclusion. The actual impact of such policies is often ignored, while the host country’s bureaucrats are able to claim millions of dollars for their implementation.
While the CoE promotes the rights of the Meskhetians who, at present, do not live in Georgia other minorities are having their rights reduced. For example, future candidates for membership of local electoral precincts will have to speak fluent Georgian. This will mean that Georgia’s Armenian and Azeri minorities (who have been educated in their own languages) will be unable to have representatives on local commissions in Samtskhe Javakheti (where Armenians make up c. 90% of the population) and Kvemo Kartl where there is a large Azeri minority.
Conclusion
During the 1990s, BHHRG regularly criticized the Shevardnadze regime for human rights abuses and electoral fraud. However, by 2001, this darling of the West was unexpectedly feeling the heat and the message was clear: regime change was in the air. Paradoxically, by this time, some things were improving in Georgia. All political prisoners (mainly supporters of former president Zviad Gamsakhurdia) had been released, the media was free and television, in particular, regularly broadcast exposés of the regime’s perceived wrongdoings. Finally, in 2003, no doubt aware of the vultures circling above, the government conducted clean parliamentary elections for the first time since 1992. Those who repeatedly point to fraud in this poll overlook the fact that by ‘cheating’ the Citizen’s Union (the government party) only claimed 21% support of the electorate. There was no criticism from the West when Mikheil Saakashvili won a Stalin-style 96% of the vote in the presidential election held in January 2004 and, later in March, when the National Movement party won nearly all the seats in parliament.
Shevardnadze had followed all the Western-imposed ‘reform’ policies since coming to power. Presumably, it was decided that a ‘rotation’ of the cadres was necessary to ensure the succession as the president was, by 2003, in his late seventies. It was disenchanted Shevardnadze insiders who took over and the battle lines were drawn between the old and new elites. Most ordinary Georgians had long ceased to believe in change from the top – this is best reflected by Saakashvili’s changes to the law which removed the need for a 50% turnout in future presidential elections. By 2004, few people were interested in going out to vote any more.
However, the ferocity with which the new regime pursued its enemies has surprised even those predisposed in its favour. Whatever Shevardnadze’s faults, he showed some respect for the niceties of due process and the rule of law. He never went on television to berate suspects awaiting trial nor did his regime take ransom payments to enable alleged criminals to escape justice. From the remarks made by Sulkhan Molashvili to BHHRG, it seems that Shevardnadze himself could have faced arrest in the early days of the Saakashvili government. After the coup, the ex-president (no doubt feeling betrayed by his former patrons) blamed both Soros and the US ambassador, Richard Miles, for facilitating his removal from power. Since then, he has become more circumspect as illustrated by a bland interview he conducted with Russia’s Argumenty i Fakti in July 2005.
Georgia is the home to hundreds of Western-funded NGOs and some human rights groups, notably, Nana Kakabadze’s “Former Political Prisoners for Human Rights” and the Human Rights Information and Documentation Center – have been vocal in their criticism of the new government. Others, like the Young Lawyers and Liberty Institute have begun to add their voices, especially over changes to the organization of elections and abuses of public finances. But few NGOs interact with ordinary people and their bona fides have been damaged by the mass defection from the non-profit sector (where they criticized the Shevardnadze regime) to government where they have become apparatchiks, and even ministers; the Georgian Young Lawyers Association and Liberty Institute are the most obvious examples. However, NGOs have proved to be a very lucrative milch cow for many children of the elite in Georgia and elsewhere in the former Communist bloc. With $70 m. promised to Georgia by the US in 2006 for “democracy assistance” there is no sign that this agreeable (but, unproductive) way of life will cease.
There is also some cooperation between opposition parties although, again, parties like the Republicans contain members who supported the ‘Rose Revolution’. There is no reason to believe that life for ordinary Georgians would improve if they were to come to power even if they leant on the president to tone down some of his more florid rhetoric and wayward behaviour. All are committed to the Western-imposed, reform agenda.
The European Union and the Council of Europe have criticized the Georgian government’s ham-fisted approach to law and order, but in a nuanced way. Without the political backup from senior member governments they can only indulge in periodic hand wringing. Georgia is a member of the Council of Europe; unlike Russia, for example, there have been no calls for its suspension for abuse of power, abandonment of due process and cruel and inhuman treatment of prisoners.
Sulkhan Molashvili and his lawyers are understandably grateful for the intervention of the CoE’s Matyas E_rsi. But, when Mr. Molashvili’s trial started on 28th July, E_rsi had left and the CoE had no representative in Tbilisi. Similarly, the EU’s rule of law project ended a week before the trial commenced. Many ‘political’ prisoners, including Molashvili, have appealed to the ECHR over their treatment by the Georgian authorities and seem confident of success. But, BHHRG would urge caution: to date, the ECHR has ruled in only two cases (out of 57) from Georgia. Both of them had a distinctly political tinge – one ruling backed a case brought by an opponent of Aslan Abashidze and the other criticized Georgia for deporting Chechen refugees to Russia where they were deemed to be terrorists.
Establishing proper democracy in Georgia seems to be of no concern whatsoever to the main players, the US and UK. Their real concerns revolve around advancing and protecting Western energy interests in the Caspian region while positioning themselves to further corrode the power and influence of Russia, even within Russia itself. The real story since Saakashvili came to power is the militarization of Georgia; the increase in defence spending that has led to the importation of military hardware, including large numbers of Kalashnikov rifles as well as other Soviet-era equipment. Every day there are reports of terrorist activities in the North Caucasus region, especially in North Ossetia, Dagestan and Chechnya. The arms bazaar in Georgia means that there is an unlimited amount of weaponry which can be made available to insurgents who conduct destabilizing operations around and within Russia’s border.
Mafia shootouts, harassment of the opposition and media, political prisoners …it’s business as usual in Georgia
It is nearly two years since the republic of Georgia experienced what became known as a ‘Rose Revolution’. News media around the world heralded this development as the dawn of a new era in which the impoverished former Soviet republic sloughed off a corrupt and moribund regime to embrace young, market-orientated reformers under the leadership of Western-educated Mikhael Saakashvili who was elected the country’s president in January 2004.
Sulkhan Molashvili in prison photographed by Nana Kakabadze
A year later, in November 2004, another ‘colour-coded’ revolution took place, this time in Ukraine. Again, the media pointed to Saakashvili and Georgia as the successful model for the latest spontaneous outburst of ‘people power’. The Georgian president was a regular commentator on the stand-off in Kiev offering comradeship and support to his fellow revolutionary, Viktor Yushchenko.
However, as the Ukrainians warmed to their revolutionary theme, back home in Georgia any expectation that life might improve under the post-Shevardnadze regime had long since died. Rampant unemployment, disrupted power supplies and political infighting continued as they had done since the dawn of the country’s independence. On top of this, the judicial system was in disarray and reports of torture in the country’s prisons (whose population had doubled since 2003) were widely accepted – even by government employees.
Representatives of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group conducted two missions to Georgia in 2005. In April 2005, they visited Tbilisi as the city was undergoing frenzied preparations for the forthcoming visit of President Bush on 10th May. Fences and walls were being put up and painted to hide dilapidated buildings along his route and road surfaces along which his entourage would proceed were being re-laid. People could be forgiven for recalling past imperial visits by the likes of Comrade Brezhnev.
BHHRG interviewed media representatives, NGOs, opposition politicians and government appointed officials in Tbilisi’s town hall. They visited the main prison in Tbilisi (No.5) and the detention facility (known as prison No. 7) in the Ministry of the Interior. They also travelled to Gori and met NGO representatives from Tskinvali, South Ossetia. Finally, the Group went to Batumi, capital of Adjara, one year on from the ouster of its former leader, Aslan Abashidze, where they interviewed journalists, law enforcement officials and visited the region’s main prison.
In July 2005, the Group returned to Georgia to investigate the case of Sulkhan Molashvili whose trial opened on 28th July. The proceedings against Molashvili bore all the marks of a political trial and it was widely accepted that he had been tortured while in custody. The Group attended the opening of the proceedings in Tbilisi’s Supreme Court and conducted a long interview with Mr. Molashvili in the prison hospital.
BHHRG has followed events in Georgia closely since the overthrow of the country’s first president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, in 1991. This was the third occasion on which they had visited the country’s penitentiary system. Alarmingly, despite all efforts to improve Georgia’s law enforcement agencies, including membership of the Council of Europe, conditions have deteriorated further with corruption rife within a prison system seemingly, now run by the inmates rather than the authorities.
The New regime: Overview
A street full of decaying buildings in old Tbilisi
Elections were held in March 2004 to Georgia’s 235 seat parliament, but only for the 150 seats contested by proportional representation. Despite claims of fraud in the November 2003 poll, the 85 majoritarian MPs who won mandates then were not obliged to seek re-election. The results of the poll effectively produced a one-party state with Saakashvili’s National Movement-led coalition winning 135 seats. At first it claimed a clean sweep but, probably under US pressure, one other party, the New Conservatives, (also known as New Rights), was allowed to surmount the 7% threshold to enter parliament with 15 seats. Government ministries were filled with new blood, many co-opted from the NGO sector which had flourished in the late Shevardnadze period when it received massive infusions of Western funds. NGO operatives also took over civil service posts after a purging of the old guard. The salaries of many of these functionaries were reputedly paid from a fund set up by philanthropist, George Soros, including that of the Ministers of Justice and Education.
As BHHRG has documented the new government immediately set out to settle scores with Shevardnadze era officials. Many former ministers, local administrators and businessmen associated with the former regime were arrested - often live on television - for abuse of office, with people being dragged away in their underclothes. President Saakashvili regularly appeared on television to denounce the suspects, condemning them before any charges were laid. At the same time, some of the more senior officials were allowed to buy their way out of prison by paying large amounts of the money into the state coffers. It was pointed out that this novel form of ‘plea-bargaining’ was lawful. However, as in most jurisdictions, the drafters of the Georgian legislation did not anticipate the handing over of money in exchange for freedom. Despite the obvious impropriety involved in all this, Western commentators lauded the new government for taking bold measures in the fight against corruption.
In July 2004, the president embarked upon a mission to retake South Ossetia, one of the regions which had broken away from Georgia as the Soviet Union collapsed. The manner in which this campaign was conducted and its manifest failure humiliated Saakashvili: several policemen and soldiers were killed in the operation and the Georgians had to retreat empty handed. Television stations were banned from showing the funerals. At the same time, Saakashvili upped the tension with Georgia’s other breakaway province, Abkhazia, again, without any tangible results .
Not everyone was happy with the president’s approach to reintegrating the renegade provinces. It was reported that the prime minister Zurab Zhvania supported a more nuanced approach to this and other government policies. Many regarded Zhvania as a moderate influence on the excitable president. In February 2005, Zhvania died in mysterious circumstances allegedly poisoned by the fumes from a faulty gas heater. Most Georgians assume he was murdered even though an investigation carried out by the authorities, and aided by the FBI, supported the official version of accidental death. In the aftermath, opposition to the government has grown both from Zhvania’s associates in parliament and from other parties. Although the New Conservatives are the only opposition party in parliament, both the Republican and Labour parties have started to co-operate to fight future elections.
As the infighting continues, Georgia’s economic plight has failed to improve with the change of regime even though foreign aid and assistance has doubled since November 2003; Georgia is the second largest recipient of US assistance after Israel. $1 billion was pledged at a donors’ conference held in Brussels in 2004 and on 16th August 2005, the US Millennium Challenge Corporation announced a 5-year grant of $295.3m. for infrastructure programmes and to eliminate poverty. The MCC specifically targets “poor countries with proper governance and realistic prospects of economic reform”. On top of this, the IMF approved a three-year, $144 m. loan.
Privatization was going to be the engine of future prosperity. “Everything is for sale” said former Economics Minister, Kakha Bendukidze. But after nearly 15 years of economic collapse, there are few entities attractive to foreign investors and the programme has been deadlocked for some time. By summer 2005, 2 large enterprises and 35 medium to small enterprises have been sold.
Unemployment continues to grow. In the aftermath of the ‘revolution’ 80, 000 were rendered jobless. Large numbers of people have been sacked from municipal jobs while a recent educational reform has led to the dismissal of numerous university teachers. The only job creation noted by BHHRG is in the booming construction industry presently underway in Tbilisi where large parts of the historic city are being demolished. In Adjara, all enterprises associated with the former president, Aslan Abashidze, have been closed and workers sacked, including tile making and boat building factories.
The quality of life for ordinary people has continued to deteriorate. Power supplies are regularly disrupted and demonstrations have taken place all over the country in protest. It seems clear that Georgia probably has plenty of electricity, but, much of it is sold to neighbouring Turkey rather than provided to the locals.
As the morlochs scrambled for a living, Saakashvili listed the regimes success stories, beginning with the opening of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline in May 2005 which is predicted to bring Georgia valuable transit fees. Otherwise, according to one of BHHRG’s Georgian acquaintances, there is little to show for the ‘Rose Revolution’ other than the upgrading of the Georgian army. People wonder, against whom is all this military paraphernalia directed? And, the answer from the government and its tame media is always the same: ‘Russia’. Accusations of plots, sabotage and evil imperialistic designs are regularly directed against Georgia’s former colonial master, even as the Russian army pulls out of the country, well ahead of its original plans for departure. Russia’s obvious complicity in removing Shevardnadze and, after him, Abashidze, is brushed aside.
Another example of Russia’s waning influence is the steady erosion of the Russian language. Russian street signs are being removed and visitors are left grappling with the impenetrable script of the Georgian language to steer themselves around the country. There is even talk of ‘Georgianizing’ the architecture in Tbilisi which has already begun with the construction of several new churches in the Georgian style, including the massive (and many think unnecessary) new cathedral. Older Tsarist buildings are crumbling and are unlikely to be restored. New text books give, according to Russian historians, a completely distorted account of Russia’s 250-year involvement in the Caucasus. Yet, behind the scenes, Russian businessmen manoeuvre, and sometimes succeed in gaining a foothold in the scramble for the few remaining attractive businesses. However, it is proving difficult for Russian companies to get hold of strategic assets in Georgia. In May 2005, the government stopped the privatization of Georgia’s main gas pipeline after Gazprom expressed an interest in its purchase. Instead, the US Millennium Challenge Fund came up with funds to ‘repair’ the facility. Privatizations of the Chiatura Manganese Plant and the Vartsikhe hydroelectric plant to Russian companies, failed.
Mikheil Saakashvili: Power Grab
“We call Saakashvili Stalin …he is good, fair and that is why” (a citizen, Imedi TV, 19th February, 2005)
“We had the first televised revolution in history. We were live on CNN for four and a half hours without a commercial” (Saakashvili – Knight Ridder Newspapers, 9th March, 2005)
To describe the November 2003 events in Georgia as a ‘revolution’ indicates a failure to understand the trajectory taken by revolutions in the past. Yet, most Georgians, including those disenchanted by the Saakashvili regime, continue to repeat this oxymoron. As BHHRG pointed out in its report on the November 2003 election , the main beneficiaries were all former ministers and leading cadres in the ex-president’s political party. Historically, a revolution has signalled a break: neither Louis XV1’s ministers nor relatives of the Tsar took power after the respective revolutions in France and Russia. People’s failure to notice any improvement in their lives in Georgia since November 2003 may be because the same people are running the country as they did during the 1990s.
The main difference between the previous regime and the Saakashvili government is one of tone and degree. And, this change of tone is personified most acutely in the person of the new president, Mikheil Saakashvili. Saakashvili was marked out for promotion at an early stage – he studied law at Columbia and George Washington Universities in the US before returning to Georgia with the appropriate Western credentials to become Justice Minister in 1999, and, later, Mayor of Tbilisi. Like his Western-educated, co-revolutionary, Viktor Yushchenko, he set himself up with a Western wife, Sandra Roelofs, a Dutch woman who had first visited Georgia in 1990.
Mikheil Saakashvili, the latest Georgian leader to court the ‘cult of personality’
Saakashvili took office on 25th January, 2004 in a solemn ceremony filmed by the world’s media. As he swaggered towards his formal inauguration outside parliament, people could have been forgiven for suspecting fascist leanings on the part of the new president. Such suspicions had been awoken already when, prior to his inauguration, Saakashvili decreed that the National Movement’s party banner would become the new flag of Georgia. Thus, the symbols of the state and the party became one, as was the case in Nazi Germany and the USSR. According to commentators “the changing of the flag on 14th January was so unexpected that debates in the media were possible only retrospectively” .
Constitutional amendments were rushed through parliament on 5th and 6th February, 2004 which increased the powers of the president. According to observers, these changes “were developed behind closed doors” by the triumvirate who manufactured the ‘Rose Revolution’ – Saakashvili, Burjanadze and Zhvania. “The content of the text was kept secret ..it has not even been published. The people did not even have the opportunity to discuss changes that confer unlimited powers on the president”.
Among other things, the amendments gave the president the power to dissolve parliament and appoint the prime minister by decree if it refused to accept his nomination on three occasions. Similarly, if the budget is rejected three times by parliament, the president can pass it by decree. Provisions preventing the president from holding the post of party leader are abolished. The requirement for a 50% basic turnout in presidential elections goes. The president appoints the ministers of the interior, defence minister and state security without reference to parliament. A year later, the law was changed so that the president now recommends to parliament all candidates for membership of the Central Election Committee. The first chairman of the new CEC (appointed in June 2005) is Gia Kavtaradze, a former business partner of both the prime minister , Zurab Nogaideli and the Chairman of the Adjaran Autonomous Republic, Levan Varshalomidze.
Since then, Saakashvili has further burnished his fascist credentials. In June 2005, he was interviewed opening what was described as “[Georgia’s] first summer patriotic youth camp ..children raised the flag and sang the national anthem together with the president” .. “Saakashvili toured the camp in a special patriot’s uniform” Imedi TV reported that another youth camp would open in August 2005 at Bakuriani in Western Georgia. This facility not only offered sea and sun, but “training with real guns” instructors were “teaching the children how to dismantle the weapons, maintain them, shoot, move and prepare an ambush”.
The ‘White House’: Mikheil Saakashvili was hailed as a new breed of Georgian politician, someone with clean hands and a forthright manner. On taking office he pledged that “it was unacceptable for the Georgian president to have an inflated staff or a luxurious residence” – he was referring to the former government residence in Krtsanisi on the outskirts of Tbilisi. This would be ‘sold’ and he and his wife would live in a small, two room flat in the headquarters of the Tbilisi traffic police, an old Tsarist building on the banks of the Kura river, which would be revamped for the purpose.
The new presidential palace in Tbilisi now under construction
One year later, the commitment to sack cloth and ashes has turned to the proverbial dust. Residents of Tbilisi noted that a large structure, already dubbed the ‘White House’, was under construction. The police headquarters (which Saakashvili had claimed “something could be added to”) and a large swathe of domestic dwellings in the vicinity had been destroyed. On becoming president Saakashvili had said “I told them that I did not need more”. It is a two-storey building, it is enough. Not a single brick should be added to it and it should remain as it is now”. A row broke when MP Valery Gelashvili claimed that his construction company, Evra, had the contract to refurbish the site. On 14th July, Gelashvili was attacked in the street by, unknown assailants and badly beaten.
On 27th July, 2005, BHHRG visited the site of the new palace. Only by examining the architect’s drawing and surveying the vast construction site is it possible to fully comprehend the scale of the enterprise. For one thing, when completed, this palace will be much larger than the White House. Its nearest competitor in the Caucasus is the new US embassy in Yerevan, in neighbouring Armenia. Such a massive structure seems unnecessary and inappropriate for the president of a small, impoverished country like Georgia. The question arises: will it only house Saakashvili and his entourage? Who has paid for it? In 2004 it was reported that “the reconstruction of the traffic police building will not be borne by the state budget”.
Architectural drawing of the palace. Police detained BHHRG for photographing this plan
After a few minutes photographing the building site (there were no signs to prohibit such activity) BHHRG’s representatives were detained by the police until a senior officer arrived. After a wait of nearly an hour they were allowed to go, but only after being photographed by a silent figure in the back of the police car.
George Bush’s comes to town: However, there were no misgivings on the part of President Bush who visited Georgia for a few hours on 9th and 10th May 2005. Addressing thousands of people in Tbilisi’s Liberty Square, Bush declared that: “Georgia is today both sovereign and free and a beacon of liberty for this region and the world.” In April 2005, BHHRG observed the lavish - if superficial - beautification process that was underway in preparation for the visit. Paint (which locals claimed was cheap and inappropriate for the purpose) was applied to any structure the president might pass, roads were re-laid and garbage was swept into the river to make its ecological journey down stream! BHHRG noted that highway improvements stopped abruptly when the road swept past the airport. According to one worker, “George Bush is unlikely to travel down this road, so it will not be repaved”. An office was specially designated to handle the one-day visit as well as a designated web site.
A poster showing a triumphant Saakashvili with President Bush in Tbilisi on 10th May 2005. Sandra is there, but, where is Laura?
The Saakashvili regime even managed to produce its own terrorist outrage. On 11th May, the police revealed that a grenade had been thrown at Bush while he addressed the crowds, landing near the two presidents as they stood on the podium in Liberty Square. No one noticed it at the time, it failed to go off and no one was harmed. However, there was the inevitable accusations that Russia was behind the incident - if it happened at all. On 20th July, 26-year-old Vladimir Arutunian was arrested in what appeared to be a clumsy police operation, captured - as usual - live on television as was the suspect’s ‘confession’. BHHRG was told that Arutunian, a Georgian of Armenian descent, appeared to be somewhat simple if not mentally unstable. He seemed to be an unlikely candidate to implement a complex, Kremlin-inspired assassination attempt. Many Georgians failed to understand why this incident had received such wide publicity - no one had been hurt. Some concluded that a grenade had never been thrown but the alleged incident served Saakashvili’s purpose in keeping the voltage high and the public uneasy.
The arrival of George Bush was President Saakashvili’s proudest moment – in July, giant photographs of the two presidents were still prominently displayed in Tbilisi’s city centre. BHHRG recalled the president’s previous visits to Germany, Holland and England where he was less enthusiastically received. In Mannheim, members of the public were not allowed within a ten kilometre radius of Bush’s entourage; in London, in 2003, thousands of demonstrators took to streets to protest against the Iraq war.
But, Georgia was different. People told BHHRG that they were “honoured” by Bush’s visit to such a “small country”. Many held out the hope that it would herald the arrival of much-needed economic aid. One observer said some just hoped he would “feed them”. None of these things have come true. However, they do indicate that Georgia’s much-touted “national pride” and “fierce independence” are hollow and that many of its people have swapped one imperial master for another – willingly, as their desperate plight worsens.
Georgia post ‘rose revolution government: mixed revues
“For the first time in our history, our police have discovered you don’t have to torture people to keep crime in check” [Mikheil Saakashvili, Knight Ridder Newspapers, 9th March, 2005]
Police reform: This is hailed as one of Saakashvili’s success stories. The president’s admirers point to the abolition of the traffic cops and their replacement by a new patrol police as one of his major achievements since coming to office. Since then, it is claimed, the practice of regularly stopping motorists for bribes has ceased and the force is able to do more useful work. The police are properly paid (400-500 lari per month), new Volkswagen Passats have been donated and officers wear smart, American-style uniforms. In the process “16,000 good for nothing, corrupt policemen were fired”, according to former Minister of the Interior, Irakli Okruashvili. Only 15% of former police officers remained. This meant that if only some of these men had families, at least 34,000 people were deprived of a bread winner - something that obviously left Mr. Okruashvili and his associates untroubled.
Only regular visitors know that Georgia is a country sorely in need of traffic control. There are no pedestrian crossings and few traffic lights in the capital Tbilisi. Crossing the road is a major, life-threatening decision. Meanwhile, on the few main cross country highways, there is a permanent free-for-all as buses, Mercedes and lorries vie for control, often overtaking, three at a time, on the brow of a hill. Soon after the sackings, in August 2004, even an enthusiastic American reporter had to admit that “Georgia ..needs traffic cops”. The new patrol police does nothing to control this traffic or help pedestrians negotiate the maelstrom. BHHRG regularly passed new police Volkswagens, parked by the side of the road, inside which sat several officers reading newspapers.
As for taking bribes, by 2001 BHHRG noted that it had ceased. In 1996, it was impossible to go for more than a few hundred yards before being stopped by the police whistle. Shevardnadze brought this formerly ubiquitous practice to an end, no doubt, as his regime came under repeated criticism from Washington. Therefore, it is untrue for the new government in Georgia to claim credit for stopping it. On the subject of bribes, BHHRG was told that aspiring police officers still paid handsomely for a place in the force.
Even the US Department of State is sceptical about the efficacy of the new force. “Despite much progress in the Georgian Government’s efforts to reform police and fight internal corruption, the police remain generally ineffective in deterring criminal activity or conducting effective post-incident investigations”. Others, like the Human Rights Information Center have criticized the new recruits lack of professionalism - they only receive a fortnight’s training which might explain their reluctance to do anything but drive around in their shiny new cars.
Corruption drive:
“I can now say with a clear conscience that Georgia has the cleanest government in the former Soviet Union” [(Saakashvili – Knight Ridder Newspapers, 9th March, 2005)
A professional, non-party civil service still seems an unattainable goal in most former Soviet republics despite over 12 years of Western guidance and funding to achieve a functioning civil society; a change of regime usually heralds a change of personnel in all departments of state as well as local administrations. No doubt, in a poverty-stricken society like Georgia, patronage is easily secured this way. So, when Saakashvili became president and his party took over the reins of government personnel changes took place both in Tbilisi and around the country. Regional governors who are personally appointed by the president were replaced ( no criticism from the West, unlike Russia, where Putin has been lambasted for a much less direct system of appointing officials).
Those dismissed were often replaced by former NGO activists, several of whom became government ministers – for example, Gigi Bokaria who founded the Liberty Institute and Alexander (Khaka) Lomaia, Minister of Education were both associates of George Soros. Large amounts of Western funding had enabled the NGO sector in Georgia to mushroom in the three years leading up to Shevardnadze’s overthrow and now it was payback time. BHHRG’s representatives visited the Ministry of Culture in July 2005 where many new employees were former NGO activists. The public defender, Sozar Subari, was also a member of the, the Liberty Institute, the former mayor of Tbilisi, Zurab Chiaberashvili was director of the Fair Elections NGO. His replacement Gigi Ugulava was a member of the Association for Legal Public Education (ALPE). By 2005, all local government posts in Georgia’s second city, Kutaisi, had been taken over by former civil society activists. Locals were reported to be “disappointed”.
Immediately, the president set about punishing members of the old guard in what was called “a robust publicity campaign of symbolic aggression and bullying”. Using the mantra of the ‘fight against corruption’ opponents were smeared as “counter-revolutionaries”. No doubt, the lucky ones got away with a dismissal notice - if without a pay cheque. The more unfortunate victims were arrested and thrown into prison. On many occasions, Saakashvili himself berated the accused on television compromising, at the very least, their chances of a fair trial – his favourite media outlet being the TV station Rustavi 2 which formerly supported the opposition but had now become a regime mouthpiece.
Such public denunciations have continued. On 11th April 2005, the president promised to “break the noses” of the mafia alleged to control Georgian football. And, on 28th June, 2005 “special unit officers wearing black masks launched their operation” to arrest the chief of the Tbilisi tax department, Temur Dvali and associates, “and, as usual, television reporters were there to show the arrests”. However, it seems that not all members of Mr. Saakashvili’s team are singing from the same song sheet, so to speak. On 3rd August 2005, Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili criticized the press for naming several Georgians arrested in Dubai on suspicion of robbery, saying: “It is not ethical to report the names of people who have not even been charged yet. I would have sued you if I was their [arrested citizens’] relative”.
On 13th March, 2005, Rustavi 2 filmed a live session of the Georgian Security Council meeting to discuss yet more allegations of smuggling in the region around South Ossetia. According to the report: [Saakashvili] “publicly scolds his acolytes for ignoring their political responsibilities. Mikheil Kareli, in particular. Their heads lowered, the accused try to avoid his gaze”. The writer of this article is obviously discomforted by this reminder of the way a former Georgian politician treated his underlings, observing that “this media coup, taking place on a background of personal debasement, does not really fit in with the political traditions of the western democracies that he is aiming to emulate”.
A law was passed soon after the ‘rose revolutionaries’ came to power enabling the authorities to confiscate the property and assets of criminal suspects, before trial. Between January and November 2004 $309 m. including bank accounts, houses, flats and personal belongings was confiscated. No one knows what has happened to this money. However, the president has , unilaterally, decided how to spend some of the bounty, promising students of the law faculty at Tbilisi Sate University that “money from former high ranking officials accused of corruption would be used to pay 10 students to study abroad”. The IMF implicitly condoned the process by congratulating Georgia for its “impressive turnaround in the fiscal position that was underpinned by a decisive attack on corruption”
But, allegations of corruption are now being turned on the new government. For example, the state budget provides the president with a legal fund over which there is no control. In 2004, expenditure from this fund was three times more than originally envisaged. The Georgian Young Lawyers Association criticized the government for irresponsible spending from the presidential fund and government reserve funds. On 25th July, 2005, The Georgian Times claimed that Saakashvili himself had initiated corrupt land deals when he was mayor of Tbilisi. The article also alleged that the president-to-be took a bribe of $150,000.
The Military: No visitor can fail to notice the militarization of Georgia since Saakashvili came to power. Giant posters of soldiers straddle the main highways and troops in US-style combat gear are a regular sight on the streets of Tbilisi. Georgian forces participated in NATO’s Train and Equip programme under Shevardnadze and have served in Kosovo as part of the KFOR peacekeeping mission. The first contingent of Georgian troops to go to Iraq was authorised by the former president. The number has doubled in the past year. However, in the past, rumours abounded of a persistent lack of professionalism in the training process with recruits pocketing their daily allowances before disappearing into the night.
Georgia receives a staggering amount of military support from the United States. In 1997, it was awarded its first foreign military financing (FMF) grant of $700,000. The next year, Washington granted $5.3 million in military aid—a sevenfold increase. Since then, Georgia has received a total of $107.7 million in FMF grants and the Bush administration requested an additional $12 million for Tbilisi in the 2006 budget.
Georgia has bought weapons and military hardware from the United States for some time —a total of $21.9 million between 1999 and 2003. Additionally, it has been a recipient of the State Department’s International Military Education and Training (IMET) funds since 1994. In 2003, the funding increased another 33% to $1.2 million—similar amounts were granted in 2004 and 2005. President Bush has requested another $1.2 million in 2006, an almost 2,000 % increase in IMET aid to Georgia over the past decade.
Under Saakashvili military costs have escalated. In July 2005, the Minister of Defence, Irakli Okruashvili admitted that “Georgia has the highest budget across the South Caucasus this year; it is equal to the entire state budget under Eduard Shevardnadze”. Defence spending in Georgia increased from 79 m. lari in 2004 to 324 lari (2005).The US has spent $63 m. in a 14-month programme to train the 23rd light infantry battalion for service in Iraq as well as the fight against “terrorism”. 70 US instructors are work at the Krtsanisi base: “We want to prepare Georgians to be well trained in western style military operations” they say. Difficulties with language are brushed aside “We teach them English and they teach us Georgian. I can speak enough Georgian to be able to communicate with soldiers” pretends the US officer.
But, is all this “training” for Iraq and the “fight against terrorism” ? According to one US soldier, it is hard to say how much weaponry Georgia has received “because its so much”. And why should “crate after crate of Kalshanikov assault rifles” be necessary for an army, allegedly, updating its weaponry to accord with NATO’s requirements? It also transpires that “most deals are signed with new NATO member states desperate to sell of their old Soviet small weapons”. Suspicions arise that such caches of Soviet-era armaments, including the Kalashnikovs, might be destined for terrorist groups fighting the Russian state in the North Caucasus.
There is criticism in Georgia of the lack of transparency in defence spending. The former defence minister, Giorgi Baramidze, admitted that the Georgian authorities had been using money not allocated for in the state budget for military purposes. His successor, Irakli Okruashvili has said that some expenditure should not be open to public scrutiny as it could compromise state security. Okruashvili has been accused of “spending without any advance planning or conducting any feasibility studies” on offensive weapons purchases. “There is no acquisition or procurement process”.
During the same period the social sector received less money. Unemployment continues unchecked and spending programmes to combat it have been reduced from 2.4 m. lari in 2004 to 1.7 m. lari (2005). Back payments of wages estimated to be in the region of 100 m. lari ($55,5 m.) has been suspended until 2006.
Education reform: Sweeping reforms to the educational system in Georgia began in 2005 aiming at “breaking with Soviet tradition”. So, for example, time spent studying core subjects like science and maths will be reduced. Although the entire system is to be revamped, the initial stages were devoted to stopping corruption in the entrance procedures to both state and private universities. The main thrust of the reforms was the introduction of standard tests to enter institutions of higher education using exams based on US SATS testing procedures. These exams involve answering simple, multiple choice questions which test a student’s basic grasp of language and reasoning skills.
At the same time, the number of students has been reduced and faculties at Tbilisi State University (TSU) have been cut from 22 to 6; 600 members of staff have been sacked. BHHRG was told that people were dismissed without any warning – a notice was posted with what turned out to be the last pay cheque. Some students were also sent home without finishing their courses. To ensure an untroubled passage of these changes, the rector of TSU was dismissed and replaced by government loyalist, Rusudan Lortkipanidze. Meanwhile, the university’s autonomy was remove and over all control handed to the Minister of Education, Alexander Lomaia.
In August 2005, the results of the first tests were announced and hailed to be a great success. Parents who were quoted as being happy that cheating in the examination halls had been prevented by closer supervision nevertheless remained uneasy about the transparency of the marking procedures. The whole process was organized and overseen by the US NGO, Transparency International, and, no doubt, a private company in the US will have profited from preparing and printing the examination papers. Those sacked from their jobs will watch, ruefully, as new people are hired to staff approximately “100 so-called resource centers, designed to oversee reform implementation”.
However, even if cheating is abolished, the underlying problem with US-inspired educational reform is the lowering of standards implicit in the system. Although Soviet teaching methods were hidebound and failed to encourage independent thought, they did give a grounding in basic subjects like mathematics, science and languages. Now ,the number of subjects studied has been reduced and the emphasis is to be on ‘life skills’ or, in other words, education in Georgia is being ‘dumbed down’.
Reuniting the nation: This is one area where Saakashvili’s rhetoric has, so far, proved particularly hollow. Both South Ossetia and Abkhazia remain resolutely opposed to rejoining the ‘motherland’. In July, an Abkhaz resident told BHHRG that no one in the province wanted to be reunited with Georgia and the same applies in South Ossetia. People have not spoken Georgian in both regions for nearly fifteen years, adding to the difficulties of reintegration. A botched military operation in summer, 2004 led to the deaths of both police and soldiers in the region. This is not to say that a further attempt won’t be made, but even the president’s Western friends have underscored the need for a ‘peaceful’ resolution to the stand off. As this report is written, negotiations continue between the parties and their international interlocutors.
The South Ossetian question is complicated by allegations that the region is a major transiting point for smuggling between Russia and Georgia. The hub of this activity is the province of Shiva Kartli and its capital Gori. There have been numerous shoot outs and arrests there and the present Minister of Defence Okruashvili is widely thought to be involved in the smuggling business. In fact, some people suspect that the closed borders suit the serious smugglers.
In order to stop the smuggling and the illicit trade – anything from cigarettes to cooking oil – the Georgian government closed the Ergneti market, a sprawling conglomeration of stalls and lorries used by traders from both Tskinvali and neighbouring Georgian villages; it was reopened in August 2005. BHHRG visited the Ergneti site in April which, then, was a deserted, windswept place. Locals said that closing the market hadn’t stopped the smuggling which went on via various clandestine routes but it had damaged the local economy “they have taken the simple people’s business” – fragile at best – and also abolished a place where the two communities could meet.
Saakashvili is always hinting that the revamped Georgian army will retake South Ossetia, sooner rather than later. But, with Russian, passports, the inhabitants are likely to flee if Tbilisi regained full control of the province.
Adjara: In April 2005 BHHRG visited Batumi, capital of the autonomous republic of Adjara. The removal of its former president, Aslan Abashidze, in May 2004 was hailed universally as a ‘good thing’. The Human Rights Information and Documentation Center’s report on human rights after the rose revolution writes that the residents of Adjara “have been given the opportunity to enjoy democratic principles and general freedoms which they lacked” under Abashidze’s regime. Journalists regularly described Adjara as another ‘breakaway region’, like South Ossetia and Abkhazia, congratulating Saakashvili on bringing it (peacefully) back under central control.
Most of these assumptions are untrue. Abashidze never claimed independent status for Adjara: all appurtenances of the Georgian state were in place, including the state flag. However, he had been a thorn in Tbilisi’s side for some time. In 1999 his party, Revival, contested parliamentary elections in the whole country and many felt that in the absence of fraud it would have been the overall winner. Abashidze feared Shevardnadze, telling BHHRG in 1999 that the former president had tried to have him killed. So, he installed armed guards at Adjara’s border with Georgia proper as a precaution. There were precedents for his unease – in 1991-2 Jaba Ioseliani’s Mkhedrioni rampaged through Adjara destroying property and killing innocent people.
Adjara under Abashidze was not perfect. The infrastructure – roads, the exteriors of public buildings – was in a poor state, but unlike other parts of Georgia, there was work in local factories and enterprises and the place was clean. Abashidze also encouraged cultural activities and there were excellent opera and ballet companies in Batumi. Shevardnadze had left him alone for some time and even sought his support in the dying days of his presidency but after the November ‘revolution’ a full scale assault took place to overthrow Abashidze helped along by NGOs and opposition youth activists from Tbilisi. Despite being an ‘autocrat’ he was toppled easily. Local people understood that power was drifting away and positioned themselves behind the new regime. Abashidze did not help matters by spending his last months in power entertaining groups of Western visitors, no doubt, in the forlorn hope that they might protect him. Local people only resented the lavish attention paid to these seemingly superfluous guests.
In April 2005, Adjara seemed far from the newly liberated paradise so eloquently described by the media. BHHRG was approached by numerous beggars on Batumi’s sea front, many of whom were obviously respectable people desperate for a few lari on which to subsist. There were no beggars in Abashidze’s time. During an extended power cut on the night of 29th April, BHHRG observed armed thugs attacking a passer by outside the television station. Drunks wove their way home in the dark.
Batumi’s central food market was closed down on 2nd September 2004 and the whole structure (solidly built in concrete) smashed. Market traders were treated brutally when they protested. Now, people have to trek to the outskirts of town to buy food. Factories have shut, especially those connected with the former president. Ordinary people told BHHRG they wanted Abashidze back. Last year two juveniles were arrested for scrawling messages calling for his return on the walls of buildings in Batumi. Those who betrayed him – BHHRG interviewed a former aide to the president – tried to put on a brave face pointing to upcoming projects, like the proposed construction of a new sports centre on the ruins of the central market. But, few can afford such luxuries nowadays in Adjara.
The head of government, Levan Varshalomidze, is an old crony of Saakashvili and business partner of Prime Minister, Zurab Noghiashvili. He and other regime insiders have moved from Tbilisi to run Adjara whose autonomy was effectively removed soon after Abashidze was deposed. Complaints from the Council of Europe have fallen on deaf ears. Varshalomidze talks of beautifying Batumi and building new hotels, and, – already the cost of property has spiralled. Mass dismissals of former regime employees have also taken place in the civil service.
BHHRG interviewed the new deputy Minister of the Interior, who said that there had been a 100% change in the local administration. 1500 people had been dismissed in his department but only 600 rehired – the accent now was on ‘youth’. The Group also called in on Adjara TV where there had been a mass walkout of staff on 3rd March, 2005 after complaints of political interference. The girl said that the new staff was content to work for “the government”.
BHHRG visited Batumi’s main prison where there were 430 inmates in April 2005 – twice as many as under Abashidze when the highest number was 200. The deputy governor, Yuri Dirbarian (who was appointed post – Abashidze) claimed that “no one was arrested under the former president”, surprising behaviour for a ‘tyrant’. Now, the regime was registering more crimes. He said that “robbery” was the main offence because of the bad “social conditions”. The average period of pre-trial detention is 3 months but he admitted that sometimes people waited a year to go to trial. Again, few suspects are acquitted. Several Abashidze regime insiders, including former mayor of Kobuleti, Taril Khalvashi were also incarcerated. Plea-bargaining - or ransom depending on your point of view - has also taken place over the past year and money extracted paid into something called the Adjara Development Fund although details are sparse about how much and what has happened to it.
Conditions in this prison were a considerable improvement on those seen in Tbilisi although for how much longer remains to be seen – some cells were already overcrowded. But, there were proper showers for the inmates and a functioning kitchen and exercise area. The governor admitted that all these facilities had been introduced by the Abashidze regime. Although there was no work for the prisoners, some ‘trusties’ were employed by the authorities. The mafia/former regime prisoners were held in superior conditions as was the case in Tbilisi. Again, the staff complained about their poor pay and working conditions. The deputy director earns 360 lari per month, his deputy 200 for working, they say, 7 days a week.
Although Aslan Abashidze fled to Moscow in 2004 and has not been heard from since, his future must remain uncertain. BHHRG was told that the former Adjaran president is being ‘investigated’ for the 1991 murder of a political opponent. When Vladimir Arutyunian, the grenade thrower, was arrested much was made of the fact that he was a member of Abashidze’s political party, Revival, although, according to observers, the party has effectively collapsed.
The Media: Soon after Saakashvili became president three late night discussion programmes were pulled from Imedi, Mze and Rustavi 2 television channels. Later, 2 independent TV stations – Iberia and the Ninth Channel – were closed. Action was taken by the authorities according to the (much decried) Russian method of charging media owners with ‘tax avoidance’. This practice came perilously close to shutting down Rustavi 2 when its owner, Erosi Kitsmanishvili was accused of getting above himself in business deals and Rustavi 2 was said to owe $4.5 m. in back tax to the state. Kitsmanishvili was forced out and replaced with regime insiders. Saakashvili had promised not to let what he called the “channel of the victorious” go down.
Now, most shares in the company are owned by Khibar Khalvashi, a friend of Okruashvili. 50% of the shares in Mze are owned by MP Davit Bezhuashvili, brother of Gela, Secretary of the Georgian National Security Council and another 50% by Vano Chkhartishvili, a former Shevardnadze minister. Mze itself has been censored – it was banned from showing the funerals of dead Georgian troops after the debacle in South Ossetia and, again, was “in trouble” for its reporting following Prime Minister Zhvania’s death. Its daily talk show was halted following the demonstration over the arrest of wrestlers on 30th June.
Plans were announced to revamp the state TV broadcasting station, including the introduction of rules that former Shevardnadze era employees would be ineligible to work there. Independent media owners have complained that state-run TV receives government funding while simultaneously running advertisements which gives it an unfair advantage.
Journalists from the both print and broadcast media recently appealed to international organizations to pressure the government into respecting their freedom. Somewhat bewildered, they claim to have been ‘betrayed’ as, overwhelmingly, they supported the ‘Rose Revolution’. Now, they complain that media freedom is much reduced since Shevardnadze’s day when they were allowed to criticize the government. Not everyone fell for the ‘Rose Revolution’ propaganda though: in 2004, former Georgian Times editor, Zviad Pochkhua, told BHHRG that he and the paper were harassed for asking awkward questions in the run up to the November 2003 election, calling it instead a ‘coup’. The Georgia Times remains one of the only consistently critical media voices in Georgia. Its present editor, Rusudan Kbilashvili, told BHHRG that for this reason, its circulation has risen in the past year. But, the paper has problems. It has been raided by the financial police and subjected to court proceedings over alleged copyright infringements. It has difficulty attracting advertisements, particularly in its Georgian edition. For example, the US embassy and US chamber of commerce boycott the paper.
Opposition politics: BHHRG was told that few people had any faith in Georgia’s opposition parties: “the opposition is so weak it has no electorate”. The 2004 parliamentary election resulted in only one other party - the New Conservatives - gaining seats in parliament. BHHRG interviewed officials from this party before the 2003 election. Spokesman, Irakli Arashidze (who called himself a ‘neo-con’) described the party as free market, pro-business and pro-NATO. It is difficult to see how this recipe can appeal to poverty-stricken Georgians. In a normal country the disadvantaged tend to favour a leftist political agenda to defeat unemployment, energy shortages and unaffordable health care. Perhaps the New Conservatives were regarded as sufficiently unthreatening to the status quo to be allowed some seats in parliament. Otherwise, some supporters of former prime minister Zurab Zhvania, are rumoured to be sufficiently disenchanted to consider joining the opposition Republican Party. However, defecting has its risks: on 14th July 2005, MP Valeri Gelashvili, who joined the Republican Party was attacked in the street by masked men.
In April 2005 BHHRG interviewed a group of New Conservative MPs in the Georgian parliament. In the preceding weeks the party’s leader, David Gamkrelidze, had launched a series of withering attacks on the government, in particular, on the defence minister Irakli Okruashvili for misappropriating ministerial funds. BHHRG was told that apart from the official budget in the ministry money was raised unofficially. There were allegations that government-inspired heavies had broken in to the New Conservatives’ party offices and stolen information “damaging for the government”, evidence “of senior government officials involvement with crime”. On a mundane level the party complained to BHHRG that they only had representation on two parliamentary committees – Human Rights and Healthcare and that they had ongoing difficulties getting information about legislation.
The New Conservatives have good connections in the US political establishment - Gamkrelidze and Arashidze are always asking the US to crack down on the Saakashvili government’s perceived excesses. Arashidze even appealed to Bush in an article published to coincide with the president’s visit to Tbilisi to provide Georgia with the “morally clear leadership” he has shown in Iraq! For the moment, the party has be content to play the ‘loyal opposition’. It has also received the green light to cooperate with the anti-Putin opposition, Union of Rightist Forces, in Russia, a relationship that also involves economic co-operation on privatization issues.
Former Saakashvili supporters in the NGO sector – the Liberty Institute and Young Lawyers – are now in opposition. David Usupashvili was elected Chairman of the Republican Party in July 2005. They have recently joined the Conservatives to protest recent changes to the law i.e. changes that enable the president to chose all members of the Central Election Commission. Later, Saakashvili refused to accept demands for direct elections for mayors (including of Tbilisi) and other district heads. However, the New Rights MPs “didn’t participate in the vote boycotting the session” that passed the new measures which some voters might think was a questionable way of using their parliamentary mandates.
The opposition’s aim, in the short – term is to contest 5 parliamentary by-elections scheduled for October, 2005. Several have joined up to fight ‘primaries’ as a unified bloc, but not the election proper. The only party to have opposed Saakashvili from the outset – the Labour Party led by Shalva Natelashvili - has also joined the new, opposition coalition.
The most publicised act of the opposition came on 30th June when activists from, among other parties, the New Conservatives joined people protesting in the street against the arrest and pre-trial detention of 2 well-known wrestlers for alleged racketeering. The riot police were called and dispersed the demonstration with (what opponents call) excessive force. Fisticuffs followed in parliament bringing the chamber into further disrepute.
As one commentator put it: “The actual opinion of the people seems to matter less to politicians than their rank in terms of popularity among other prominent public figures”. According to a poll conducted by the International Republic Institute, the National Movement is still supported by 57% of the public. This seems incredible to BHHRG who found total disillusionment with most politicians during their two visits to Georgia in 2005. But, if the opposition does look like coming to power it will be when organizations like the IRI decides (sic) that it is time for a change. In other words, change is not in the hands of the electorate.
BHHRG also met Malxaz Guluashvili who founded a new movement, Forward Georgia, in 2004. Guluashvili echoed other opposition parties’ complaints about the difficult business climate in the country and its continuing, woeful situation for the poor and unemployed. He said that the new movement had “good relations” with the New Conservatives but, unlike them, he had been associated with Georgia’s dissidents – Gamsakhurdia and Merab Kostava - in the late 1980s. The Zviadist opposition has almost imploded as many of the former president’s followers supported the ‘Rose Revolution’ and were even thrown some (minor) scraps when jobs were handed out by the new government. No doubt, many of them were enticed into cooperating with Saakashvili by his cynical use of the Gamsakhurdia name to whip up Georgian patriotism.
Manana Gamsakhurdia in the ruins of Konstantin Gamsakhurdia's house in Tbilisi
However, Gamsakhurdia’s widow, Manana, remains implacably opposed to the new regime. She and a small band of followers hold small, but regular, meetings to oppose everything they see as anti-Georgian from the Soros Foundation to President Bush’s visit. They refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the new Georgian flag and resolutely cling to the old, Menshevik red, white and black banner. BHHRG talked to Mrs. Gamsakhurdia in the burnt-out ruins of the house of Konstantin Gamsakhurdia, Zviad’s father and a Georgian literary hero. The government is seeking to take the house into state control and turn it into a national monument. Manana Gamsakhurdia hasn’t been seduced by the blandishments of any political party. Unlike many of her late husband’s followers who gloat over the misfortunes of imprisoned members of the Shevardnadze regime she condemned torture of anyone whatever their past loyalty, including Sukhan Molashvili. However, as the media tells people to regard her as exasperating and eccentric, her often penetrating understanding of what is going on in Georgia is unappreciated and misunderstood.
Law and Disorder
Attacks on the Judiciary:
The legal system in Georgia has been tinkered with on numerous occasions since independence. In 1999 a new system of exams was introduced which had to be taken by both new and serving judges. Judges told BHHRG at the time that this was a way of sacking people who offended the government.
Perhaps, observers assumed that Mikheil Saakashvili’s legal training would impact positively on the rule of law, but, according to observers: “The level of justice has seriously deteriorated since the rose revolution”. Lawyers told BHHRG that Sakkashvili knew nothing about the nuts and bolts of Georgian law - his courses in the US were most likely the typical, content-less melange of ‘modules’ in subjects like human rights and international justice.
The president has attacked the judiciary on numerous occasions and lawyers told BHHRG that the level of competence and trust was at its lowest level. In 2004, the law was changed and the president now puts forward the names of all judges, including the 15 constitutional court judges, which have to be approved by 3/5 majority in parliament. The president also heads the Council of Justice which not only selects judges but also deals with disciplinary issues. In the circumstances, it is unsurprising to learn that the two presidents of the Supreme Court appointed by Saakashvili – Konstantin Kublashvili and Kote Kemularia - are his associates and members of the National Movement. The president’s lawyer was appointed president of the Georgian Association of Advocates.
Judges no longer serve until retirement but are subject to renewable terms of office which means that their independence may be compromised by the prospect of dismissal if they fail to reach the right conclusions. In February 2005, amendments were passed to the criminal procedure law so that a person charged could simultaneously have his property seized. The legislation can also be applied retrospectively – the burden of proof is on the defendant. The law applies to crimes committed by public officials.
According to lawyers spoken to by BHHRG there has been a “mass sacking of judges” who are required to write letters of ‘resignation’. Since 2003, financial support for the nation’s courts has decreased by 1.5 m. lari. There are now three courts in Tbilisi were once there were 5, meaning that one judge often has to handle 400-500 cases. Trials can go on for several years. The criminal law is amended almost on a daily basis – they cited one week when there were 200 amendments. These can be reversed a week later. According to his lawyers, the judge in Mr. Molashvili’s case was appointed one month before the case started. This is his first case. Several days before the trial commenced he was given 25 bundles of material.
In 2004, the EU set up a 7 month rule of law mission to Georgia which came to an end one week before Molashvili’s trial commenced. Belgian judge, Sylvie Pantz, was less than complimentary about the state of affairs she witnessed saying that “The sacking of judges in Georgia appears to be politically motivated” … “every day she was informed about someone being asked to resign”. The capricious nature of the system is well illustrated by the case of the Arbitration Court established to settle issues between businesses and the authorities in January 2005 but abolished two months later “after it made several decisions in favour of businessmen”.
USAID has spent $2.6 m. on Saakashvili’s ‘rule of law’ campaign but it has not yet promoted a stable, predictable system.
The Prison System
BHHRG visited Tbilisi’s main prison (No.5, previously No.1) in 1992 and again in 1996. In 1992 they met Zaza Tskiklauri, a supporter of former president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, arrested on terrorism charges who had been tortured at the hands of the police. In 1996 they toured the prison, including the prison hospital. Over 40 men were held in the same filthy, airless cells; TB was rife. Conditions in the hospital were, if anything worse. Food ( which has to be provided by patients’ families) was left, half-eaten, in bowls on the floors of the wards where they attracted flies in the searing heat. Emaciated men lay dying in bed provided with the minimum amount of medical care – many were beyond it. The smell of urine and unwashed bodies was so pervasive that a prison official who showed BHHRG around nearly vomited himself as he left the building.
Six years later, Georgia’s prisons and law enforcement bodies have got, in many respects, worse. Since 2002, the number of prisoners has doubled. According to officials at Prison No. 7 (in the Ministry of Interior) “there have never been so many people in prison”, due to, according to an official in the public defender’s office, the country’s “woeful social situation”. It appears that Victor Hugo’s hapless hero, Jean Valjean, condemned to years in the galleys for stealing a loaf of bread is alive and well in Georgia. BHHRG was told of one boy who received an 11-year sentence for stealing a bottle of beer.
There are plans to build two new modern facilities in Kutaisi and Rustavi and to close prison No.7. But, for now, the population of prison No. 5 has doubled. There is a new remand prison for women, something of a show case for the Georgian authorities but conditions for most inmates – as in all jurisdictions, most prisoners are male – have not improved.
No one denies that suspects are mistreated, often tortured, usually during and immediately after arrest. Officials in prison Number 7, claimed that the police were the culprits although they hadn’t heard of any cases for one and a half months! Torture was “100% prohibited” in their facility but they “look after them when they’ve been tortured”. The public defender, Sozar Sobari, a former National Movement activist, and therefore a government employee also confirmed that suspects were tortured. But Sobari and others rightly point out that the conditions of detention are torture in itself. It seems incredible that after years of Western assistance, including involvement by Council of Europe experts, universally accepted standards for the running of a humane and efficient prison system are ignored.
For example, 98% of those arrested are held in custody; bail is almost non-existent and few people are acquitted. “No one gets off” said the officials at Prison No. 7, adding that “they weren’t as tough on people under Communism”. The law was changed early in 2005 to reduce the period of pre-trial custody from 4 to 3 months. But BHHRG met prisoners who had been in jail for a much longer period. There seems to be no quick, efficient means of dealing with petty offenders so that, for example, a first time offender who steals a carrot will spend at least three months in custody before receiving a minor penalty, usually a small fine – sometimes more. Nor is there any kind of probation system whereby offenders can be reintegrated under supervision into the community. In fact, BHHRG was told that elderly prisoners transferred to civilian hospitals can be stuck there indefinitely as there is nowhere in the outside world for them to go. When the Group questioned staff about the need to incarcerate elderly men, several of whom were staggering around the prison hospital yard on walking sticks, they were told that these prisoners were ‘murderers’ and not as old as they looked although they admitted that some were “in their seventies” ! Prisoners on remand are not allowed any visitors further dislocating relationships with the outside world.
Following Council of Europe recommendations, supervision of prisons in Georgia has been removed from the Ministry of the Interior to civilian control under the Ministry of Justice. In April 2005, BHHRG interviewed the new director of prison Number 1, Merab Chachaia. Whatever the shortcomings of the old system, the previous (uniformed) governor had facts and figures at his fingertips, unlike Mr. Chachaia who had to make several phone calls before confirming that there were 3,500 prisoners in custody at that time, 80% were on remand. Convicts spend an average of 10 days there before going on to serve their sentences in colonies. The main offence seems to be street robbery although he did mention the presence of ‘mafia bosses’.
Cells are horribly overcrowded and the facilities are what the British would call ‘Victorian’: brick walls, iron bedsteads, wooden floors and basic toilet facilities . In winter they are freezing cold and in summer unbearably hot. Prison officials told BHHRG that it was impossible to be in the cells when the temperatures soar – during BHHRG’s July 2005 visit the thermometer in Tbilisi never dropped below 32_. No doubt, the fact that they are only allowed one shower per week adds to the squalor. There were 66 juveniles in the prison at the time of BHHRG’s visit who are kept apart from adult males - in one cell holding 27 youths, the youngest was 15. But, there were even worse situations: 57 inmates were crammed into a 3x3 m. cell designed to accommodate 27 (there were 27 bunks). This means that inmates have to take it in turns to sleep. No doubt, if normal camaraderie prevailed, the system might function but, BHHRG was told that a pecking order exists whereby the more ‘senior’ or ‘influential’ prisoner gets to sleep, when and for how long he likes, regardless of how tired the other prisoners might be. So it came as no surprise to hear that fights and other acts of violence are regular occurrences and that many attempt suicide. Mr. Sobari said that deaths in custody had dropped to 43 (2004) from 52 (2003). However, others pointed out that sick prisoners are transferred to civilian hospitals and their deaths are not recorded in the prison statistics.
A very different state of affairs prevailed in a cell block referred to by the authorities as the ‘hospital wing’. BHHRG knew that this facility was not the main prison hospital which they were unable to visit, despite repeated requests. On the ground floor were smaller cells accommodating three or four men. BHHRG learnt that these were ‘white collar’ (or mafia depending on your point of view) prisoners. The Saakashvili fight against corruption has delivered probably hundreds of former regime officials into the hands of the law as well as corrupt ‘businessmen’. This category of prisoner was not prevalent on BHHRG’s previous visit to the prison – such people were integrated with the other inmates. Presumably, some of them were held in custody for failing to pay the approved sum at the plea bargaining stage of their arrest.
The conditions of detention were very different here. Cells were furnished with the prisoners’ belongings, including TVs. Everyone seemed to have a mobile phone. And, in one cell supper was cooking on a small range. One prisoner invited BHHRG to join him in an empty cell where “they would be more comfortable” to talk. Under a picture of the president and his wife Sandra, he told BHHRG that he was serving a 20 year sentence for murder but had been removed from the colony where he was serving his sentence after Rustavi 2 investigated his case in 2001. In a later interview, in the public defender’s office BHHRG was told about a mafia boss, transferred to the municipal hospital, but still officially in custody, who threw a birthday party for 200 guests.
According to the officials, the upper floor of this block acted as a ‘hospital’ although there was no sign of any medical facilities i.e. doctors’ consulting rooms, nurses etc. These cells contained about 12 beds on which male prisoners were resting, watching the television. Several complained about their ailments, but it was hard not to conclude that they had somehow ‘earned’ their way out of the overcrowded, mainstream facilities. For how long it was impossible to say, but the conditions were vastly superior to the block previously visited and it is easy to believe that a prisoner would pay or do anything to spend some time here.
Having seen this part of the prison, BHHRG was not surprised to learn from NGOs and officials in the public defender’s office that Prison No. 1 is run by the big “thieves-in-law” - to use Solzhenytsin’s terminology - rather than the authorities. One young lawyer called the governor a “marionette” saying that he was too frightened to go out of his office when the big criminals walk around the prison. There is an elaborate system whereby each cell, even the most dilapidated, has a ‘representative’ working for the ‘thieves’. A prison guard will transfer messages between the ordinary criminal and the ‘boss’. The obshchyak (general fund) a prisoner has to pay into has increased since the prison filled up with former Shevardnadze officials who have more cash. Funds of between $200,000 to $500,00 were mentioned to BHHRG.
The officials who showed the Group’s representatives around prison No. 5 displayed no loyalty to the regime. The deputy director who had been co-opted from the civilian sector told BHHRG he hadn’t realised “how horrible the system was”. He is paid 200 lari per month (a block director gets 100 lari) and said that he was leaving as he “wanted to go into business”. No doubt, he has made plenty of contacts to help him on his way. At prison No. 7 the director earns $150 per month and says he has 6 people at home who depend on his salary. BHHRG was told that the treatment of prisoners in itself has not got any worse but the corruption in the system is rampant. Officials from the Public Defender’s office who visit prisons are treated with contempt. Georgi Oniani told BHHRG how his video camera had been torn from his hand and mobile phone broken when he visited prison No. 7 after he received a complaint that a prisoner needed insulin. Oniani went on to explain to BHHRG how the system worked and how crimes were planned in prison.
BHHRG also visited Prison No. 7 located in the Ministry of Interior. At the time, 52 prisoners were being held in custody: 47 were on remand, the rest are prisoners serving their sentences in the colonies who have been sent there for ‘misbehaviour’ as well as ‘troublesome’ prisoners from No. 5. The corridor visited by BHHRG contained two room cells populated by, among others, several Shevardnadze-era officials charged with corruption, including Zurab Chankotadze, former head of Georgia’s civil aviation administration. 2 prisoners occupied a room with proper furniture, fridges and televisions. No one complained about the conditions and these men looked well fed and their rooms were clean and ‘homely’. However, the Group was not shown the basement cells where suspects are taken after arrest and where there are no windows, seats or beds.
The case of Sulkhan Molashvili
Sulkhan Molashvili's lawyers confer with their client in his 'cage' in the courtroom prior to the commencement of his trial, 28th July, 2005
Sulkhan Molashvili, interview conducted in the Deputy-Governor’s office in the hospital wing of Prison No. 5 (formerly No1) c. 5.00 - 6.45 pm, 29th July, 2005.
The facts surrounding the trial of Sulkhan Molashvili are a perfect illustration of the ‘black hole’ that is Georgia’s legal and penitentiary system today. Only the tenacity and perseverance of Molashvili’s lawyers and the work of one local NGO, “Former Political Prisoners for Human Rights”, have brought the abuses into the open. When BHHRG’s representatives asked to see Mr. Molashvili while visiting Prison No. 1. in April 2005 they were told that “he didn’t want to see them”. The following chronology contains facts generally agreed by all parties, Mr. Molashvili’s lawyers’ account of events leading up to his trial and Mr. Molashvili’s own version of events described to BHHRG during an interview conducted on 29th July, 2005 in the prison hospital. The Group wishes to thank the trial judge who granted permission for the interview and to the prison authorities who vacated their offices and who did not impose restraints or a time limit on the meeting.
Molashvili, a trained lawyer, was appointed president of the Chamber of Control in 2000 for a 5-year term. The chamber was tasked with auditing government spending. Molashvili thinks there were two reasons for his arrest: Firstly, Mikheil Saakashvili had been Minister of Justice during the period when the Chamber of Control conducted its audit of the ministry. Many violations and maladministration of funds were revealed while Saakashvili was minister, including expensive foreign trips. Friends and journalists had been taken on these trips at public expense. Molashvili called this “A criminal waste of money”. His second problem concerned the activities of Nina Burjanadze’s father, Anzor Burjanadze, known in Georgia as the ‘bread czar’. “We checked his company - it had received state credits including a credit from the Ministry of Finance. These credits were supposed to be used to feed the people”. A number of different credits were involved – the largest was US$9 m.; the final amount came to US$27 m.. When Saakashvili came to power his new government cancelled Burjanadze père’s obligation to repay the sums owed.
These controversial audits were prepared in 2001-02 and sent to the Prosecutor-General because the Control Chamber has no right to prosecute – it only conducts audits. Saakashvili was still Minister of Justice. Later Molashvili led an inspection of the town hall (Sakrebulo) of Tbilisi when Saakashvili was mayor (2002-3). There were irregularities in the city’s budget, including money spent on party flags etc. Because of these inquiries, Molashvili incurred the personal enmity of Saakashvili. In his annual audit reported to the Georgian Parliament he had reported Burjundadze’s father’s failure to repay the credits. Each year these people had to listen to his report in Parliament. Molashvili says that he spoke to the US ambassador, Richard Miles a year before the “Rose Revolution.” Miles said that Saakashvili was “a crazy guy” however, a year after the Revolution, Miles refused to see him although they had had “warm relations” in the past. Parliament approved this audit.
Inevitably, there were scores to settle after the ‘Rose Revolution’ when Saakashvili and Burjanadze took over the reins of government. Public denouncements of Molashvili started soon afterwards and, on 4th January 2004, he resigned.
Four months later, on 23rd April, Molashvili was arrested on charges of abuse of office and embezzlement after walking into the procurator’s office to give himself up. The prosecution alleges that he took bribes from companies which he audited favourably to lower their tax burden. He was held in the Ministry of the Interior prison for a day before being moved to Prison No. 5. Due to a variety of ailments he was taken to the prison hospital, however, on 2nd June, 2004 he was put in the ordinary cells by “men in masks who came to the prison hospital and took me back to the main prison, on the third floor reserved for hardened criminals, recidivists” where he was kept for a month.
On 2nd July 2004, he was visited by human rights activist, Nana Kakabadze who had been informed on the ‘grape vine’ that Molashvili had been tortured. Molashvili revealed this to her for the first time, claiming that he had been mistreated in prison No. 7 on his arrest. Using her mobile phone, Mrs. Kakabadze photographed scars on Mr. Molashvili’s back that were commensurate with cigarette burns as well as cuts to the feet and bruising to the ankles. Molashvili told BHHRG that he thinks he recognised the voice of one of the men who tortured him but since the person was masked he could not see the others he cannot name him for certain. He claimed that he failed to publicize these facts earlier as he hoped that by keeping quiet he would be allowed to see his family. Although an independent medical examination corroborated the torture accusations, the authorities blamed the doctors for causing his injuries.
Sulkhan Molashvili displays the bruising and scars on his ankles which he says were caused during interrogation o his arrest (photographed by Nana Kakabadze on her mobile phone)
Molashvili told BHHRG that on the first night of his arrest he was pressured “to sign a ‘confession’ alleging that that his audits of Saakashvili and Anzor Burjanadze had “been ordered by Shevardnadze to attack the opposition.” Maybe Molashvili would have been released - and Shevardnadze put inside if he had agreed to sign. For a time, in the months following the revolution, it looked as though Shevardnadze might be arrested.
Perhaps because of Mrs. Kakabadze’s visit Molashvili was punished and returned to the basement cells in Prison No. 7. His lawyers, Ioseb Baratashvili and Shalva Shavgulidze, told BHHRG that “the stench in these cellar cells was intolerable after being there for half an hour”. The cell was tiny and only contained an iron bed and a lavatory which didn’t function – it had no flush and there was no water tap. At the height of summer, Molashvili was kept for two weeks in that cell, without daylight and with poor ventilation. He remained until the Council of Europe’s co-rapporteur for Georgia, Matyas E_rsi, visited him and publicly stated: “I’m shocked by the conditions in which the detainee has been kept. This is a serious violation of human rights ..No human being however serious the charges against him might be, may be kept in such conditions ..Unlawful acts are unacceptable, especially if those acts amount to torture”. After that Molashvili was moved back to the hospital in prison No. 5 where he remains – his trial commenced on 28th July, 2005.
Mr. Molashvili is convinced that without the Council of Europe’s intervention he would have been kept in the punishment cell longer. He has also endured one and a half years of a different kind of torture. During this time, he has only been allowed two visits from his family which only happened after the CoE intervened. However, his three children are not allowed to visit him together as the authorities say he has “too many children”. He is told to choose which child he wants to see! The authorities now see E_rsi as an ally of Molashvili and: “they have become more aggressive towards the Council of Europe.”
Molashvili told BHHRG that the staff in the prison hospital behave “properly”. However, no food is provided by the authorities. As was the case in 1996, BHHRG saw relatives delivering provisions for prisoners at the entrance to the building. They also saw food packages stored in a stair well in the hospital bloc - the coolest but hardly cleanest place. Molashvili said that packages of food brought by family members are routinely crushed and damaged on inspection. Prisoners without families are fed by the other inmates. Drugs and medicines also have to be provided by families. Molashvili’s family pays for his medicines: Imovan, Serdoxin and the sleeping pill, Xanax.
During this period, Molashvili’s lawyers have made numerous attempts to have him released on bail. Their problems have been compounded by the fact that the trial has bounced back and forth between the local Tbilisi courts and the Supreme Court. Mr. Molashvili has no previous criminal record and is unlikely to abscond as he has a young family in Tbilisi. Also, as the lawyers point out, he was aware that he might be charged months before his actual arrest. Molashvili told BHHRG: “A few days after the revolution took place, the Prosecutor-General criticised me at a televised press conference”. Molashvili called his own press conference and said that he was answerable to the law and not afraid. In the intervening months, he did not flee neither are there any allegations that he interfered with witnesses
He also handed himself over voluntarily to the authorities. His family even gathered funds to provide a surety to guarantee his compliance with bail conditions. In modern, Western jurisdictions and under the case law of the European Court of Human Rights it is recommended that white collar criminals be granted their freedom in the pre-trial period. All bail applications, to date, have been turned down.
On 10th June, many well-known figures in Georgian public life, including writers, musicians, sportsmen and MPs, appealed to the president to show clemency and release Molashvili on bail. Saakashvili turned down the request. At a meeting held on 11th July with Supreme Court judges, he claimed that the signatories of the letter were championing Molashvili because “someone invited you for a drink ..No way, we won’t buy that …Either these people (indictees like Molashvili) will pay fully for the harm they have done, or we will come after them till the end”. On 2nd July, on Imedi TV he called the petition’s signatories “shameless people” who had been “paid”.
In fact, Saakashvili has regularly gone on TV to pronounce Molashvili and other suspects ‘guilty’, thus prejudicing their chances of a fair trial. He also read out a Human Rights Watch report on TV saying HRW is “the organization with the highest authority and it praises me for my protection of human rights”! The Procurator General has also opined. Worst of all, on 1st November 2004, the judge hearing the Molashvili case, Bejan Khimishiashvili, gave an interview to the “202” TV company about the matters connected with the trial, including the bail application.
Council of Europe
In 1999 BHHRG urged caution when it became clear that Georgia was on course to join the Council of Europe as there were no signs that many shortcomings in Georgia’s human rights record had been addressed. Apologists claimed that membership of the organization would provide much-needed oversight of institutions, like the prison service. In 2002/3 the CoE did conduct an investigation into Georgia’s prisons although its report was ‘sat on’ by the Georgian authorities and only appeared in July, 2005. Although its criticisms of the system are harsh, the medicine prescribed is always tame, namely, more ‘human rights education’ and ‘training’. Nevertheless, many ‘political’ prisoners now in custody in Georgia are pinning their hopes on the outcome of their appeals to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). As well as Molashvili, former Minister of Energy, David Mirtskhulava who was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in March 2005 for abuse of power, has launched an appeal as has Zurab Chankotadze.
The CoE’s legal arm, the Venice Commission, has also criticized Georgia over the government’s unilateral reduction of Adjara’s autonomous status as well as the decision not to allow direct election of local mayors, including the powerful post of mayor of Tbilisi. It has also raised the issue of the high (7%) threshold for parties to enter parliament. But, Saakashvili has always treated the CoE with contempt, ever since its previous director-general, Walter Schwimmer, tried to diffuse the row over Adjara’s status and the best way to handle Aslan Abashidze in 2004. BHHRG reported at the time:
“What the president had said was that Schwimmer was an “arrogant bureaucrat” with a “bloated salary.” Soon it became clear that Saakashvili had, in effect, declared the CoE’s permanent representative in Georgia, Plamen Nikolov, “persona non grata” and expelled him from the country. Days after the 20th June Adjaran parliamentary elections, the CoE announced Schwimmer’s replacement as Secretary General by Terry Davis, a British New Labour politician. Presumably Washington viewed Davis as more reliable, despite, or rather because, he was the rapporteur who had ushered Shevardnadze’s (corrupt and fraudulent) Georgia into the Council of Europe in 1999 over Abashidze’s objections to its human rights record.”
Since then, Saakashvili has upped the rhetoric even more, boosted by the Bush visit: “Georgia has been recognized as a democratic country by the leader of a superpower and it does not need anyone else’s recommendations”. That is how the Georgian president commented on a Council of Europe recommendation for Georgia to have elected mayors. “We do not need anyone else’s recommendations. What did the leader of the free world say? Georgia is an example to everyone, a beacon. Let us stop being provincial, living according to someone else’s recommendations. Second, our democratic system is developing. We are currently one of the most democratic states in the region and one of the most democratic in the world. As regards local self-government, we will have one of the best systems in Europe.”
Meskhetian Turks. One of the conditions imposed upon Georgia when it entered the Council of Europe in 1999 was to allow the return of c. 400,000 Meskhetian Turks and their descendents who had been deported from Georgia by Stalin in 1944. The Meskhetians were dispersed all over the USSR but many were sent to the Ferghana Valley region of Kyrgyzstan from where they were expelled in 1990 after violent rioting; many moved to Krasnodar in the Russian north Caucasus region. At the time, there was no indication that significant numbers wanted to return to Georgia – apart from anything else, their former places of residence were in some of the most impoverished areas of the country, near the Turkish border. This is an area populated by ethnic Armenians who suffer severe economic deprivation and are less than eager at the prospect of an influx of people.
In 1999, BHHRG interviewed Guram Sharidze, an MP and chairman of the parliamentary migration committee who opposed the resettlement project. Mr. Sharidze’s suspected that the death of his son in mysterious circumstances was somehow connected with this campaign. The Group interviewed Mr. Sharadze again in April 2005. He said that while Walter Schwimmer had been in charge of the Council of Europe the issue had died down – apart from anything else there was no funding for such an undertaking. Sharadze claimed that millions of dollars which had been given to Georgia already for the project had disappeared. However, when Terry Davies took over from Schwimmer in 2004, demands that the Georgian government implement the resettlement policy returned to the top of the agenda – Davies was the rapporteur who recommended that Georgia be admitted to the CoE. Recently, the policy has been altered – for the worse. Now, those returning will be able to live anywhere in Georgia and not confined to their former places of residence – to sweeten the pill, the returnees are now referred to simply as Meskhetians – the ‘Turk’ label has been dropped.
The Council of Europe’s demands seem completely unrealistic. Georgia has a massive level of unemployment which has actually increased since the Saakashvili regime came to power. Recently, Foreign Minister Salome Zourabishvili begged Western countries not to return failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrant workers to Georgia as the country couldn’t absorb them. In July 2005, BHHRG was told that Meskhetians living in Azerbaijan are not poor and had “everything there”. On the other hand, returnees would be “peasants” who would just work the land and make no claims on the government.
Some, like Sharadze, harbour darker conspiracy theories about the policy – for example, that it is deliberately designed to dilute Georgia’s ethnic, Orthodox identity. However, the Council of Europe is a formalistic body, obsessed with politically correct notions - like ethnic inclusion. The actual impact of such policies is often ignored, while the host country’s bureaucrats are able to claim millions of dollars for their implementation.
While the CoE promotes the rights of the Meskhetians who, at present, do not live in Georgia other minorities are having their rights reduced. For example, future candidates for membership of local electoral precincts will have to speak fluent Georgian. This will mean that Georgia’s Armenian and Azeri minorities (who have been educated in their own languages) will be unable to have representatives on local commissions in Samtskhe Javakheti (where Armenians make up c. 90% of the population) and Kvemo Kartl where there is a large Azeri minority.
Conclusion
During the 1990s, BHHRG regularly criticized the Shevardnadze regime for human rights abuses and electoral fraud. However, by 2001, this darling of the West was unexpectedly feeling the heat and the message was clear: regime change was in the air. Paradoxically, by this time, some things were improving in Georgia. All political prisoners (mainly supporters of former president Zviad Gamsakhurdia) had been released, the media was free and television, in particular, regularly broadcast exposés of the regime’s perceived wrongdoings. Finally, in 2003, no doubt aware of the vultures circling above, the government conducted clean parliamentary elections for the first time since 1992. Those who repeatedly point to fraud in this poll overlook the fact that by ‘cheating’ the Citizen’s Union (the government party) only claimed 21% support of the electorate. There was no criticism from the West when Mikheil Saakashvili won a Stalin-style 96% of the vote in the presidential election held in January 2004 and, later in March, when the National Movement party won nearly all the seats in parliament.
Shevardnadze had followed all the Western-imposed ‘reform’ policies since coming to power. Presumably, it was decided that a ‘rotation’ of the cadres was necessary to ensure the succession as the president was, by 2003, in his late seventies. It was disenchanted Shevardnadze insiders who took over and the battle lines were drawn between the old and new elites. Most ordinary Georgians had long ceased to believe in change from the top – this is best reflected by Saakashvili’s changes to the law which removed the need for a 50% turnout in future presidential elections. By 2004, few people were interested in going out to vote any more.
However, the ferocity with which the new regime pursued its enemies has surprised even those predisposed in its favour. Whatever Shevardnadze’s faults, he showed some respect for the niceties of due process and the rule of law. He never went on television to berate suspects awaiting trial nor did his regime take ransom payments to enable alleged criminals to escape justice. From the remarks made by Sulkhan Molashvili to BHHRG, it seems that Shevardnadze himself could have faced arrest in the early days of the Saakashvili government. After the coup, the ex-president (no doubt feeling betrayed by his former patrons) blamed both Soros and the US ambassador, Richard Miles, for facilitating his removal from power. Since then, he has become more circumspect as illustrated by a bland interview he conducted with Russia’s Argumenty i Fakti in July 2005.
Georgia is the home to hundreds of Western-funded NGOs and some human rights groups, notably, Nana Kakabadze’s “Former Political Prisoners for Human Rights” and the Human Rights Information and Documentation Center – have been vocal in their criticism of the new government. Others, like the Young Lawyers and Liberty Institute have begun to add their voices, especially over changes to the organization of elections and abuses of public finances. But few NGOs interact with ordinary people and their bona fides have been damaged by the mass defection from the non-profit sector (where they criticized the Shevardnadze regime) to government where they have become apparatchiks, and even ministers; the Georgian Young Lawyers Association and Liberty Institute are the most obvious examples. However, NGOs have proved to be a very lucrative milch cow for many children of the elite in Georgia and elsewhere in the former Communist bloc. With $70 m. promised to Georgia by the US in 2006 for “democracy assistance” there is no sign that this agreeable (but, unproductive) way of life will cease.
There is also some cooperation between opposition parties although, again, parties like the Republicans contain members who supported the ‘Rose Revolution’. There is no reason to believe that life for ordinary Georgians would improve if they were to come to power even if they leant on the president to tone down some of his more florid rhetoric and wayward behaviour. All are committed to the Western-imposed, reform agenda.
The European Union and the Council of Europe have criticized the Georgian government’s ham-fisted approach to law and order, but in a nuanced way. Without the political backup from senior member governments they can only indulge in periodic hand wringing. Georgia is a member of the Council of Europe; unlike Russia, for example, there have been no calls for its suspension for abuse of power, abandonment of due process and cruel and inhuman treatment of prisoners.
Sulkhan Molashvili and his lawyers are understandably grateful for the intervention of the CoE’s Matyas E_rsi. But, when Mr. Molashvili’s trial started on 28th July, E_rsi had left and the CoE had no representative in Tbilisi. Similarly, the EU’s rule of law project ended a week before the trial commenced. Many ‘political’ prisoners, including Molashvili, have appealed to the ECHR over their treatment by the Georgian authorities and seem confident of success. But, BHHRG would urge caution: to date, the ECHR has ruled in only two cases (out of 57) from Georgia. Both of them had a distinctly political tinge – one ruling backed a case brought by an opponent of Aslan Abashidze and the other criticized Georgia for deporting Chechen refugees to Russia where they were deemed to be terrorists.
Establishing proper democracy in Georgia seems to be of no concern whatsoever to the main players, the US and UK. Their real concerns revolve around advancing and protecting Western energy interests in the Caspian region while positioning themselves to further corrode the power and influence of Russia, even within Russia itself. The real story since Saakashvili came to power is the militarization of Georgia; the increase in defence spending that has led to the importation of military hardware, including large numbers of Kalashnikov rifles as well as other Soviet-era equipment. Every day there are reports of terrorist activities in the North Caucasus region, especially in North Ossetia, Dagestan and Chechnya. The arms bazaar in Georgia means that there is an unlimited amount of weaponry which can be made available to insurgents who conduct destabilizing operations around and within Russia’s border.
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