Democracy and Reform
Georgian Style
by Maarten Doude van Troostwijk
British Helsinki Human Rights Group
Special to Antiwar.com
5/25/00

Eduard Shevardnadze is perhaps the most enduring favourite of the New World Order. Although other darlings of the transition in Eastern Europe from communism to democracy have been dropped like a brick when it suited the West over the past decade, Shevardnadze seems untouchable. He supervises as a sort of Mandela of the Caucasus the building of democracy and the free market in his native Georgia. At least, that is what we are led to believe. As so often with democracy-building, the only people who according to the West are fit to do so are the same people who supervised the building of communism up until some ten years ago. Shevardnadze is a case in point. He ruled Soviet Georgia for thirteen years from 1972 until 1985 when he was called to Moscow to become Foreign Minister.

In early April of this year Shevardnadze was re-elected president of his country using well-tested methods of fraud and intimidation to secure his victory. The 'old fox' managed to regain and maintain his power, after the violent overthrow of the short-lived government of Zviad Gamsakhurdia in late 1991. As a popular former dissident and founder of the Georgian Helsinki commission, who had won the presidency with overwhelming support through fair elections, Gamsakhurdia could in the eyes of Shevardnadze and his Western friends not be trusted with the running of the country. This time, however, 'Shevvy' emerged as a 'democrat' and 'orthodox Christian' rather then as a communist party-boss and KGB-general.

If he completes this second five-year term he will have ruled post-communist Georgia for the same length of time as he dominated the Soviet version. In fact, a whole generation of Georgians will have been ruled by this man for their whole life (even when in Moscow, he did not leave Georgia alone). Thus – with the exception of a short period in 1991 when Gamsakhurdia attempted to steer his country away from its bad past – the more things change, the more they stay the same in Georgia.

Poverty is wide-spread. Pensions and salaries are very small and often not even paid anyway. Political freedom is by no means guaranteed. Before the election some 115 officials of the Gamsakhurdia government were in prison on charges ranging from high treason, murder, terrorism to 'banditry'. They maintained that Shevardnadze's rule is illegal and that they are political prisoners. In the past, some of those prisoners have been tortured, a fact admitted by Shevardnadze himself.

Since he reclaimed power the West has supported Shevardnadze uncritically. News about political prisoners, torture and fraudulent elections hardly ever penetrated the debating chambers of the international policy-makers. After all, Shevardnadze (together with Gorbachev) had been responsible for the dismantling of the communist monolithic state and the reunification of Germany. No surprise, then, that German chancellor Schroeder visited Georgia just before the elections and promised a few extra million DMarks in aid: a clear sign of Western support for the incumbent. More absurdly, when George Tennet, director of the CIA, went on a similar pre-election visit he found that Georgia is considering giving his organisation 'the most favoured nation treatment'. Errr…come again?

Shevardnadze knows all too well what the West wants to hear. He knows the politically correct lexicon by heart and words such as reforms, market, and tolerance fill his public speeches. Back home in Georgia everyone knows that it is all meaningless drivel. When Shevardnadze – just like Tony Blair in Britain – announced that soon every schoolchild would have a laptop with access to the internet the Georgians could only laugh cynically. On a normal day Tbilisi has six hours supply of electricity at most. When Shevardnadze talks about democracy every Georgian knows he will never give up power in free and fair elections.

In the run-up to these latest elections state-television broadcast every night interviews with Shevardnadze. Documentaries underlined the high international standing of the president as well as his happy family-life. A supposedly independent NGO organised a pop-concert carrying the slogan 'We choose for Shevardnadze' written all over the stage backdrop. In accordance with Soviet tradition Shevardnadze seems to develop an ever-growing cult of personality.

However, despite some criticism by international bodies as to the conduct of these elections, the West refuses to face facts. A representative of one human rights organisation – who did not want to be identified – displayed gross ignorance about recent Georgian history. The fate of the Gelbakhiani family is perhaps the most well-known example of Shevardnadze's repressive regime. The grandfather was imprisoned by Shevardnadze in the seventies on charges of corruption. In the nineties, two of his family members suffered a similar fate. The Western representative claimed that it concerned two nephews of whom one would be released soon. The truth is, though, that it concerns a father and his son; the father was released almost a year ago.

It got even worse. The Western diplomat admitted that a few prisoners had been convicted on the basis of forced confessions. Why not demand the immediate release of those people? 'I am not entirely sure that they are not guilty'. In every normal country such prisoners walk out of jail immediately, only to start compensation proceedings. Not so in Georgia. According to the expert, reforming the legal system in Georgia is a process, which has to be dealt with in a structural manner. Individual cases can not be taken into consideration, if only because it would take too much time to investigate the thousands of pages of evidence. Awfully sorry, old chap, no time. Were you ever to end up in prison on dubious grounds, beware of the Western human rights experts: in the final analysis you are nothing more than part of a process.

The prisoners themselves understood this. They did not expect anything from the West and knew that only Shevardnadze could pardon them. By staging a hungerstrike (4 hungerstrikers even threatened to commit suicide on election day) they forced the issue to the fore. Just before the poll Shevardnadze implied on television that the prisoners could be released soon. And indeed, after a debate in parliament on April 18, those prisoners who have not been accused of capital crimes have been released. Yet, they were not acquitted, which they had demanded and can theoretically, therefore, be re-arrested at any time. Shevardnadze released them knowing that the Zviadist opposition is a powerless, fractured lot and harmless to his rule. The adherents of his old rival have been defeated comprehensively over the past decade; the release of his last persistent supporters will play well in the West and will only confirm Shevardnadze's status as a democrat with the policy-makers in the various Western capitals. He has gained political capital out of the very people he wrongfully imprisoned. No wonder he is known as the 'old fox'.

None of this was the result of interference by the Western human rights expert. According to this bureaucrat the hungerstrike was nothing more than a political game which raised tensions needlessly. By acting thus, they even lost credibility in her eyes. The fact that it concerned political prisoners did not seem to make any difference to her. What were these prisoners supposed to do to gain her attention, one wonders? Write a polite letter, which would go unanswered? Wait with any form of protest until after the election which would at least not rock the boat? Stage a protest as long as they made sure it would not be heard?

The history of Georgia since independence is full of examples of 'values' turned upside down. A man who comes to power on the back of an armed coup d'etat is praised by the West as a democrat. A man who eliminates all credible opposition to his rule using old-fashioned illegal methods is seen as a liberal reformer. A country – the highest judge of which delivered the death penalty twice in 1995 – is admitted to the Council of Europe, an organisation which rejects capital punishment unconditionally. What is more, this same judge now sits on the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. This court is supposed to safeguard European citizens against abuse of power and violations of human rights. His sister, however, acts as a lawyer for several of the Georgian political prisoners. Unsurprisingly, the two haven't spoken for quite some time now.

Maarten Doude van Troostwijk is a member of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group and traveled to Georgia to observe the presidential elections.