Capitalism brought misery, not freedom
Mass protests shake former Soviet republic
By
Heather Cottin
Published Nov 15, 2007 9:01 PM
In Georgia, a former republic of the Soviet Union, President Mikheil
Saakashvili sent riot police to shut down the main television stations in the
capital city of Tbilisi on Nov. 7. On the following day, he imposed a state of
emergency.
This came after days of protests against the regime. Tens of thousands gathered
throughout the capital to protest the abysmal social and economic conditions
that are destroying their country. Acting as a dictator, Saakashvili issued an
emergency decree abolishing all civil liberties. His ruling restricted
dissemination of information, demonstrations and strikes.
With clubs, water cannons, rubber bullets and tear gas, riot police bloodied
and jailed hundreds for violating the emergency decree. “These people are
fascists,” one protester said. (London Times, Nov. 7)
However, the Bush administration considers Georgia a great democracy. When
Saakashvili clamped down there, Washington merely raised its eyebrows.
Saakashvili assured his friends that the restrictions would last only a
fortnight, but then changed his mind and decided to extend the repression as
long as “the Georgian government deemed it necessary.” Saakashvili
blamed the protests on Russians, extending the emergency decree
indefinitely.
Georgia is Washington’s closest ally in the Caucasus, a mountainous
region south of Russia that has enormous economic resources. Four years ago,
the United States helped create what was called the “Rose
Revolution” in Georgia. Intelligence assets, including the National
Endowment for Democracy, funded a takeover of the nation that mirrored the
pro-U.S., pro-NATO governments these same forces had helped establish in
Yugoslavia in 2002 and the Ukraine in 2003. When Saakashvili took power, his
great revolutionary act was to enable the complete privatization of the
Georgian economy and bring it more rapidly into the U.S. and Western
sphere.
Georgia’s geographical situation made it a perfect conduit for the
pipelines that Western corporations require to transport the oil and natural
gas of the Caspian basin through Georgia to Western Europe.
British Petroleum, Chevron and Atlantic Richfield are developing oil fields
near Baku in the Caspian Sea. They helped build the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
pipeline from the Caspian through Georgia to Turkey. It has been moving
thousands of gallons of oil per day since it opened in 2006. The World Bank
helped build an oil terminus on the Black Sea in Georgia. The
Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline is under construction, at the cost of the
beautiful environment and national parks near the Black Sea, which have been
ruined.
Since the end of the Soviet Republic of Georgia, conditions for ordinary people
have deteriorated. In the last decade, over one-fifth of the 4 million
Georgians have emigrated, mostly to Russia, and are sending home remittances to
poor relatives remaining in their homeland. Even the CIA World Factbook says
that 54 percent of the people lived below the poverty line in 2001. Life
expectancy has fallen precipitously, partly because health care has been
privatized. (Mzia Shelia, Tbilisi State University)
Georgia’s industrial output has significantly declined. In 2001, 48
percent of the GDP came from industrial production; today it is only 12
percent. Unemployment immobilizes 50 percent to 65 percent of the able-bodied
population. The authorities have dismissed masses of employees in the system of
education, closing free schools and kindergartens and firing more than 800
Tbilisi University professors and lecturers. (Aleksander B. Krylov, Strategic
Culture Foundation, Nov. 11)
George W. Bush calls Georgia a democracy, but its parliament rubber stamps
whatever Saakashvili proposes, while the courts act to quash opposition and
dissidents.
When socialism was abolished in Georgia, factories that had formerly employed
hundreds of thousands were closed. What the “rose revolutionaries”
called “liberal reforms” boiled down to predictable sell-offs of
state property. Some became millionaires and corruption and graft flourished
while the social and economic conditions of the majority of the population
declined.
On the day before Saakashvili announced the state of emergency, the Georgian
parliament voted to allocate two-thirds of its budget for military spending
(Civil Georgia, Nov. 6), something the people could ill afford.
Saakashvili’s government is a willing market for U.S. weapons
manufacturers.
This is why the population is so angry.
Georgia, not yet in NATO, is sending hundreds of soldiers into the NATO armies
in Afghanistan and into the Iraq War. In the past 10 years Washington has paid
for the training and equipping of Georgian frontier guards and the setting up
of “anti-terror” units, some of which have been dispatched to Iraq
and Afghanistan. (Krylov)
There is widespread opposition to these wars among Georgians. Georgia once fed,
housed, clothed, educated and cared for its citizens. Now homeless children beg
in the streets of Tbilisi and thousands of impoverished women are lured into
the international sex trade. (BBC News, March 29, 2002)
Saakashvili has stopped all agricultural commerce with Russia, causing farm
failures and widespread migration. While Georgia was once called the
breadbasket of the Soviet Union, its farmers now suffer the worst poverty in
the country.
Now that the Soviet Union is out of the way, U.S. corporations have their
sights set on the fabulous natural resources of Eurasia. This does not sit well
with Iran, Russia or China. NATO militarism is encircling the region and
Washington needs Saakashvili. NATO and the U.S. won’t desert him unless
they have some other puppet ready to follow their program.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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