#rose revolution

[catch-the-world-in-pictures]

Found in: Tblisi.

[kevinmmiller]

Foreign Influence Law Similar to Russia's Law banning the press, was recently passed in Georgia, setting the stage for a summer of conflict, and wars in both Northern Georgia, as well as, more importantly in Azerbaijan, and Armenia. My Analysis is Below:

Foreign Influence Law Protest Erupt in Tbilisi after being passed by Georgian Presidency

[kevinmmiller]

Foreign Influence Law Protest Erupt in Tbilisi after being passed by Georgian Presidency

Foreign Influence Law Similar to Russia's Law banning the press, was recently passed in Georgia, setting the stage for a summer of conflict, and wars in both Northern Georgia, as well as, more importantly in Azerbaijan, and Armenia. My Analysis is Below:

Foreign Influence Law Similar to Russia’s Law banning the press, was recently passed in Georgia, setting the stage for a summer of conflict, and wars in both Northern Georgia, as well as, more importantly in Azerbaijan, and Armenia. My Analysis is Below: After the morally corrupt, though dubiously effective Saakashvili regime, there needs to be greater accountability for emerging democracies,…

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[political-affairs]

Eduard Schewardnadse

Eduard Shevardnadze 25 January 1928 – 7 July 2014) was a Georgian politician and diplomat. He served as First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party (GPC, the de facto leader of Soviet Georgia) from 1972 to 1985 and as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991. Shevardnadze was responsible for many key decisions on Soviet foreign policy during the Gorbachev Era. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, he was President of Georgia (or in equivalent posts) from 1992 to 2003. He was forced to retire in 2003 as a consequence of the bloodless Rose Revolution.

Shevardnadze's political career started in the late 1940s as a leading member of his local Komsomol organisation. He was later appointed its Second Secretary, and then First Secretary. His rise up the Georgian Soviet hierarchy continued until 1961 when he was demoted after he insulted a senior official. After spending two years in obscurity, Shevardnadze returned as a First Secretary of a Tbilisi city district, and was able to charge the Tbilisi First Secretary at the time for corruption. His anti-corruption work quickly garnered the interest of the Soviet government, and Shevardnadze was appointed to First Deputy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR. He would later become the head of the internal affairs ministry and was able to charge First Secretary (leader of Soviet Georgia) Vasil Mzhavanadze with corruption.

As First Secretary, Shevardnadze started several economic reforms which would spur economic growth in the republic, an uncommon occurrence in the Soviet Union because the country was experiencing a nationwide economic stagnation. Shevardnadze's anti-corruption campaign continued until he resigned from his office as First Secretary. Mikhail Gorbachev appointed Shevardnadze to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. From then on, with the exception of a brief period between 1990 and 1991, only Gorbachev would outrank Shevardnadze in importance in Soviet foreign policy.

In the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 Shevardnadze returned to a newly independent Georgia. He became the country's head of state following the removal of the country's first president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia. He was formally elected president in 1995. His presidency was marked by rampant corruption and accusations of nepotism. After allegations of apparent electoral fraud during the 2003 legislative election Shevardnadze was forced to resign following a series of public protests and demonstrations colloquially known as the Rose Revolution. He later lived in relative obscurity, but published his memoirs.

Downfall  

On 2 November 2003, Georgia held a parliamentary election that was widely denounced as unfair by international election observers.[32] The outcome sparked fury among many Georgians, leading to mass demonstrations in the capital Tbilisi and elsewhere, called the Rose Revolution. Protesters broke into Parliament on 22 November as the first session of the new Parliament was beginning, forcing President Shevardnadze to escape with his bodyguards.[32]On 23 November Shevardnadze met with the opposition leaders Mikheil Saakashvili and Zurab Zhvania to discuss the situation, in a meeting arranged by Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.[32] After this meeting, the president announced his resignation, declaring that he wished to avert a bloody power struggle "so all this can end peacefully and there is no bloodshed and no casualties".[37]Shevardnadze's political career ended with his resignation.[38]

Death 

Shevardnadze spent his last years living quietly at his mansion house in the outskirts of Tbilisi. As his health deteriorated, his involvement in public life became much reduced. After a long illness, he died at the age of 86 on 7 July 2014.[39][40]Georgia's incumbent president Giorgi Margvelashvili and Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili extended condolences to his family members. Margvelashvili described him as "one of the distinguished politicians of the 20th century, who participated in dismantling of the Soviet system." He added, "He was also playing a serious role in creation of new Georgia and in development of our western course." Garibashvili said that his "contribution was especially important in establishing Georgia’s geopolitical role in modern world. Eduard Shevardnadze was a politician of international significance, who made a great contribution to end the Cold War and to establish new world order."[41] Former President Mikheil Saakashvili, who overthrew him in the 2003 Rose Revolution, offered condolences and said that Shevardnadze was "a significant figure for the Soviet empire and for post-Soviet Georgia." He added that his government did not start a criminal prosecution against him, despite calls by the some politicians and a part of the society, out of "respect to the President’s institution."[42]

Among others, Russian President Vladimir Putin[43] and US State Secretary John Kerry offered condolences. Kerry credited him with playing "an instrumental role" in bringing about the end of the Cold War and reduction of "the risk of nuclear confrontation" as the Soviet Union's Foreign Minister and ensuring "the sovereignty and territorial integrity of that fragile state during the 1990s" as President of Georgia and putting the country "on its irreversible trajectory toward Euro-Atlantic integration."[44]

Awards 

Soviet Union

Hero of Socialist Labour (1981)

Five Orders of Lenin

Order of the October Revolution

Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class (11 March 1985)

Order of the Red Banner of Labour

[workshopxnews]

The beginning of the Rose Revolution. 

Tbilisi, Georgia, 2003. Photo by Justyna Mielnikiewicz. Justyna will lead our workshop in Tbilisi, Georgia this September: www.workshopx.org/eng/justyna-mielnikiewicz-tbilisi-workshop

[shitmyprofsays]

They threw them flowers, did you... did you sense that shit there?

Prof. A on the amazingness of The Rose Revolution.

[newstfionline]

Deflowering the 'Rose Revolution'

By Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com, October 2, 2012 Despite the best efforts of Georgian strongman Mikheil Saakashvili and his ruling party, Georgian voters have delivered a stunning victory to challenger Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire who vowed to tamp down tensions with Russia and free up an increasingly authoritarian system. Saakashvili pulled out all the stops in his campaign to neutralize the first credible political challenge to his rule: his initial response was to revoke Ivanishvili's citizenship. When that raised eyebrows in the West--and a storm of protest in Georgia--Saakashvili backtracked, and turned to other methods. The Georgian opposition, Georgian Dream, was subjected to new rules and regulations, limiting the amount of money they could spend, and opposition supporters were fired from their state jobs. Exorbitant fines were levied on dissident groups, and gangs of thugs preyed on opposition activists, particularly in rural areas where dependence on state subsidies--and the good graces of the ruling party--is the key to survival.

And, of course, Saakashvili's Western allies were quick to respond to Ivanishvili's challenge. A much criticized "survey" put out by the National Democratic Institute--the Democratic party's international bureau, affiliated with the US government-subsidized National Endowment for Democracy--claimed right before the election that Georgian Dream was "losing support to Saakashvili," with one of its questions asking if voters would support Ivanishvili's "call for street protests" if he lost. A major flaw in this equation: Ivanishvili had made no such call. Yet even after Ivanishvili complained, the US ambassador, John Bass, defended NDI's intervention in the election, averring that its methodology was correct--even as independent pollsters, not affiliated with the NED, were saying it was a close race. Opposition spokesperson Maia Panjikidze was blunt:

"We do not trust the NDI surveys, as well as the researches of other organizations. We are not familiar with the methodology of research, how the field work was conducted, we do not know who's funding these studies."

Of course they don't trust the NDI surveys--that's because Saakashvili has been one of America's top clients since his ascension to power in the 2003 "Rose Revolution." George W. Bush stopped off in Tbilisi, Georgia's capital, in 2005, where he hailed Georgia for increasing its commitment to stationing troops in Iraq "five-fold," and held up Saakashvili's increasingly repressive regime as an exemplar of his "Freedom Agenda." After Saakashvili bombed the city of Tskhinvali for defying his authority, killing over a thousand civilians and a dozen Russian peace-keepers, the Russians intervened. Although Saakashvili started the war--he had been planning it for quite some time, according to a former government official--both US presidential candidates (Obama and John McCain) sided with Saakashvili, competing with each other in denouncing "Russian aggression." After the war, in which the Georgians were soundly defeated, the US sent $1 billion in "aid" to "rebuild Georgia."

Saakashvili's aim--to drag the US into a military confrontation with Russia--failed, but not without a reasonable expectation of substantial American support. McCain's unforgettably stupid declaration that "Today we are all Georgians" reflected a bipartisan consensus in Washington that Big Bad Russia is trying to reabsorb its former satrap, and that Saakashvili is a Good Guy. The big problem with this equation is that the Georgian people had, by this time, had enough of "Misha." Growing public dissatisfaction with the regime's repressive methods--political murders, beatings of dissidents, closing down opposition media--led to massive street demonstrations in November, resulting in a crackdown: police fired on protesters, and an opposition television station was occupied by troops. Dissident media were "temporarily" banned.

 The next elections were characterized by outright ballot-stuffing, intimidation, and threats against opposition activists, who were jailed and fired from their jobs. The OSCE condemned the balloting. The country was rocked by protests, resulting in more confrontations on the streets of Tbilisi between opposition activists and police. This week's election was marked by open bias in the government-controlled media, threats against government employees who refused to support Saakashvili, and the above-mentioned interventions by US-funded "pro-democracy" organizations--all to no avail.

The final blow against Saakashvili was delivered by a video showing disgusting abuse of prisoners in a Georgian prison. An arrest warrant was issued for the prison guard who leaked the video: he has since sought political asylum abroad. In spite of official acclaim for the "democratic reformer" Saakashvili, the horrific conditions in Georgia's prisons was well-known to human rights groups: that didn't stop the US government from sending billions to their "democratic" sock puppet, however.

During the campaign, the regime's refrain was that Ivanishvili and his supporters are "traitors," "Russian agents" who want to deliver Georgia to Putin's tender mercies: this, indeed, has been his response to any and all internal critics who dared speak up. Georgian voters weren't buying it: yet it would be a mistake to think Saakashvili is going to fold up his tent and go quietly. He's still the President, and while governmental reforms mean the powers of his office are slated to be reduced, with the switch to a parliamentary system, the transition has yet to take place.

Ivanishvili is calling on Saakashvili to resign, but that isn't going to happen. "Misha" will put every obstacle in the new government's way, and is doubtless at this moment planning his revenge. In the meantime, however, the oppressed people of Georgia mean to have their revenge--paving the way for a long, drawn out drama.

Saakashvili will always have his American apologists. Expect to hear more from Saakashvili's well-compensated American fan club as the deflowering of the "Rose Revolution" continues apace.