 This file photo shows Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili (C) standing with U.S. Senators Harry Reid (L) and John McCain at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 16. AP photo.
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An opposition party in Georgia has blasted the United States for propping up Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili’s regime, reiterating its call for a protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi on Friday.
“We believe that Russia has seized our territories, but by this support [to Saakashvili], the U.S. administration is seizing our freedom, our sovereign right of free choice in our internal political affairs,” Erosi Kitsmarishvili, one of the founders of the opposition Georgian Party was quoted as saying by online news outlet Civil Georgia on Wednesday.
His comments echoed earlier remarks made by party co-leader and ex-Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili.
Kitsmarishvili was speaking at a news conference convened after some of the other opposition parties slammed the Georgian Party for the planned rally and for Okruashvili’s remarks, in which he described the U.S. Embassy as a “torrent, poisoning Georgian society.”
“This statement is directed not against the Georgian authorities, but against Georgia as a whole,” said Levan Berdzenishvili of the Republican Party.
Georgian member of parliament Giorgi Targamadze, the leader of the Christian-Democratic Movement, or CDM, slammed Okruashvili’s remarks as unacceptable and said such a stance only contributed to strengthening the authorities’ position and would help create a situation from which Russia might benefit.
Nino Burjanadze, an ex-parliamentary speaker, the leader of the Democratic Movement-United Georgia party and a longtime critic of the Georgian Party, also said such statements only benefit the authorities.
“This statement is part of Saakashvili’s plan,” she said.
Burjanadze plans to launch street protests May 21 to force the president’s resignation.
“I’ve listened to various opposition parties’ statements about the remarks made by Irakli Okruashvili,” Kitsmarishvili said. “If someone wants to know what the people think, let them go and meet people… and ask them what they think about the U.S. administration’s support of the Saakashvili regime.”
“We are a sovereign state and we demand that not a single country should be interfering in our internal political affairs,” he said.
Kitsmarishvili also said that Georgian authorities were not following their democratic commitments as laid out in the U.S.-Georgia Strategic Charter, a document signed in January 2009 that vows mutual protection as well as recognizing “that democracy is the chief basis for political legitimacy.” Despite not upholding this democratic principle, the U.S. still supports the current regime, Kitsmarishvili said.
“Despite the terror against business and people, the U.S. administration still continues its financial support for the Saakashvili regime,” he said. “For that reason we think that expressing protest [outside the U.S. Embassy] will be important May 16.”
Protest rallies outside the U.S. Embassy are rare in Georgia, but there have been several occasions in past few years when the opposition held such rallies to protest against what they called the “U.S. support of the Saakashvili regime.” One such rally was held by the “Party of People” in January 2008, after the snap presidential elections, and another one was held by a group of opposition parties ahead of a meeting between President Saakashvili and then-U.S. President George W. Bush in March 2008.
After the 2008 presidential elections many opposition politicians voiced their criticism of the Bush administration for what they called “helping Saakashvili to legitimize fraudulent elections.” Mathew Bryza, who at the time was the U.S. Department of State’s point man for the Caucasus working for in the department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs and is now the U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan, was a frequent target of criticism.
The opposition’s rhetoric, however, has changed since then with many opposition politicians saying President Barack Obama’s administration is more inclined toward pressing the Georgian authorities on democratic reforms. Many opposition politicians have praised the U.S. ambassador to Georgia, John Bass, who has been serving in Tbilisi since October 2009, for what they call “adequately assessing” Georgia’s problems with democratic reforms.
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