Row of Convenience
// Georgia capitalizes on the row with Russia
Georgian authorities have accused Russia of backing “treasonable activities” of ex-Defense Minister Irakly Okruashvili and prominent businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili in the first official statement of this kind. Georgia’s Economic Development Minister Georgy Arveladze said the two men were carrying out Moscow’s task. This ringing speech was clearly aimed at domestic audience to smear Georgian opposition which has closed ranks against “anti-constitutional actions” of the country’s leadership.
Conspiracy Theorists
Tbilisi has finally decided which foreign forces are behind the country’s most scandalous figures, former Defense Minister Irakly Okruashvili and businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili. This time, it was the turn for Economic Development Minister Georgy Areveladze to play the state unmasker. In a televised speech on Rustavi-2 the minister said that Moscow fosters a treasonable plot in Georgia.
“After Russian failed with its economic embargo and financing of Giorgadze’s party [the Justice movement of Igor Giorgadze who fled to Russia], Moscow decided to take up new tactics and carry out a conspiracy of opposition with the help of Patarkatsishvili,” Mr. Arveladze explained. He said this is proved by actions of its major masterminds, Mr. Okruashvili and Mr. Patarkatsishvili whose well-coordinated work tried to destabilize the situation in the country. Their efforts fell flat, however. “We are not the country where some oligarchs, conspirators or adventurist politicians can change political dynamics of the country, and our people know it well,” the minister noted.
Georgy Arveladze has become the first official to openly blame Moscow for fuelling the current political crisis. However, he only developed a thought of deputies from the Joint National Movement ruling party who had been telling the whole week that the Okruashvili- Patarkatsishvili duo is backed by a crafty foreign enemy.
President Mikhail Saakashvili also weighted in to back the theory of anti-Georgia conspiracy. Speaking to Danish officials in Copenhagen, he explained the reasons why Moscow pursues with its efforts to influence politics in his country. “I think Russia can’t come to terms with Georgia’s independence,” he said. “It wants to have the Soviet rule back, though it’s impossible. Georgia is not the country it was four or five years ago when we had no army, no police, and terrible corruption was reigning. Georgia is now able to defend its sovereignty as well as territorial integrity.”
Reluctant Conspirators
Moscow on Wednesday would not react to a new round of Georgian leadership’s anti-Russia angst. “Georgia blames all problems at home on Russia in an old habit,” the Russian Foreign Ministry told Kommersant.
In the meantime, the authorities’ latest statements caused uproar in Georgia mostly aimed against the unmasked “conspirators”. Georgia students gathered outside Badri Patarkatsishvili’s residence in Tbilisi on Wednesday. They were shouting “We don’t need you dirty money” and throwing around the businessman’s office fake dollar banknotes which had the portrait of Mr. Patarkatsishvili on them instead of U.S. Founding Fathers. The demonstrators were unfazed by the fact that Badri Patarkatsishvili vehemently denied any ties with Russia or that he has been on the international wanted list since 2002 following Russia’s request. The businessman is accused of large-scale misappropriation under the LogoVAZ case and organizing breach of prison. Mr. Patarkatsishvili is suspected of trying to help Nikolay Glushkov who was among defendants in the Aeroflot case.
Georgian officials were most likely seeking domestic aims in accusing Irakly Okruashvili and Badri Patarkatsishvili of cooperation with Moscow. The arrest of Mr. Okruashvili and ensuing accusations of corruption have caused stir among Georgian opposition leaders. Opposition decided that the former minister was attacked only because he ventured to reveal Mikhail Saakashvili’s criminal plans and blamed authorities for hiding the truth about Zurab Zhvania’s death. Opposition leaders did not withdraw their support for Irakly Okruashvili even after he spoke on Rustavi-2 refuting his ringing accusations against the president. Georgian opposition already showed its unity on September 23 in the first joint rally in support of Mr. Okruashvili.
This came as the first alarming note for authorities. But opposition is not stopping at that. Georgia’s former Minister on Conflict Resolution Georgy Khaindrava told Kommersant that opposition forces had united in the National Movement coalition to close ranks against the authorities’ despotism. The united opposition is set to stage the first fight against “the Saakashvili regime” on November 2 when they expect to gather up to hundred thousand people under its banners. David Berdzenishvili, leader of the opposition Republican Party, said that a key demand is to turn Georgia into a parliamentary republic.
This consolidation of opposition is naturally alarming for authorities. Apparently that is why they decided to lay down the Russian card, their main trump. This argument has been infallibly effective since Moscow and Tbilisi had a row last fall over Georgia’s arrest of Russian officers accused of spying. The relations are still sour. Russia still keeps a trade embargo as well as visa restrictions for Georgia. Accusing Mr. Okruashvili and Patarkatsishvili of working for Russia, Georgian leadership evidently hopes to cast a shadow on the whole opposition which has united after the former defense minister’s arrest.
“This way of playing a foreign card to excuse troubles at home has been known since Soviet times,” Salome Zurabishvili, leader of the Georgia’s Way party and former Foreign Minister, told Kommersant on Wednesday. “They are trying to smear Badri for his financial support for opposition and the whole opposition. I don’t think we should pay too much attention to that.”
Nikolay Filchenko, Moscow, and Vladimir Novikov, Tbilisi
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 11, 2007
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