TOL Georgia

Georgia’s Public Defender explains why all the mess in Georgia

January 18th, 2008 by jibs

Georgia’s barely-squeezed-through second term president Mikheil Saakashvili met with the Public Defender Sozar Subari. He probably hasn’t done this for the last 3 years. Many times, Saakashvili’s team blamed the Public Defender for oppositional views. In a very detailed open letter, Subari expressed his views concerning what went wrong in once “Beacon of Democracy”.

Why Saakashvili at all met with the Public Defender, can be easily explained by his opening statement: “Allow me to congratulate you on your election for the second Presidential term.”

Right now the authorities have softened considerably. There is a reason to believe that more than half of the cabinet will change. New faces will come to eradicate poverty in Georgia. In short, everything will be alright after those few bad apples are removed from the basket.

In the meantime the opposition has not accepted Saakashvili’s victory due to election violations. Although the OSCE has branded the elections as “broadly democratic”, they have also noted certain “concerns”, which they claim didn’t effect the overall result.

I have written about these violations in the past. And how they didn’t influence the 3.4% with which Saakashvili avoided the second round run-off, is still an open question to me.

In any case, Saakashvili met with the Public Defender because he liked the opening statement of his letter. The main message is however more important than congratulations. After all, Public Defender’s competence is human rights, not election observance.

It’s a bit lengthy, but very much worth understanding why all the mess has happened in Georgia over the last few months.

Sozar Subari: Open Letter to President Saakashvili (excerpts, some minor editing)

INFALLIBILITY:

There is no time for the Human Rights, (for) first we have to build the state”- this is a slogan of the  governmental beau monde that declared the monopoly on infallibility and veracity. Who disagreed with this has been declared to be an enemy of the state.

The officials seriously taking part in the  estimation of country’s political course openly and cynically insulted the Human Rights and, as a rule, appeared as protectors of those public servants who, in the full sense of the word, scorned the Human Rights.

Only substitution of old faces with the new ones in the Parliamentary list is not enough. What has to be improved is the attitude towards the citizens, their rights and their dignity.

CONSTRAINTS

“Everybody acknowledges that our society is being faced with the gravest situation in the field of Human Rights and, in this way, the citizens’ trust to the state is depreciating  and the state consciousness is going corrupt.
We have to face the truth – the recent developments and crisis in our homeland has been engendered not by the state’s adversaries’ abstract or concrete actions (though they will of course try to profit from), but by the state, when the trampling down the Human Rights by the government almost became a mode of  everyday life.”

The homicides, contumelies, assault and battery, violation of ownership, demolition, bursting into and taking away property and afterwards discharging all this in TV with a cynical smile resulted in the November 2. The inexperienced public servants almost competed for an effective embittering of the people. The violence and licence became the tools for showing his/her worth in work.

The masked SWAT Forces, machine carbines, TV-broadcasted  arrests. . .
All this has been carried out under the slogan of interests of the state; however, I hope you will agree that in such contingency the public  servants often get confused between the private and state interests.

We addressed with dozens and hundreds of letters and recommendations the appropriate bodies, Parliament; we pointed out that the actions concerned have been unlawful ones, but there was no response and no answer. [so much for the Dialogue abilities of the authorities ed.]

All this piled up drop by drop and the people went into the street; this has been responded by the government with manifestly disproportionate severity and the rubber bullets, that are not provided for by our legislation and, in this way, refer to a felony.

There is an influential group in government that comprehends the violence and use of force as an unique way for solving the problems in the country… These persons deserved to be punished for their actions, but on other hand – it would be a demonstrative warning  for future officials.

NEOCORRUPTION AND THE NEO-BOSS-CRIMINALS

It is beyond any doubt that a serious  success in the fight against corruption and the shadow world has been reached. The people aren’t more taken away their money at every turn, the criminal world is not more assaulting businesses, looking into affairs and estimating the fairness according their own criteria.

These facts deserve to be appreciated.

At the same time, the matter of concern is the neocorruption, or in other words the “elite” corruption. There is a group of people that enjoy the everything- permissible-status; they are privileged in all aspects. They  can exploit the official structures, dismiss, arrest whom they desire, shut down the business, destroy, take away, prohibit, sequestrate, etc. They and their close people are permitted everything, what is nobody allowed.

As a matter of fact, they re-embodied the boss-criminals institute and became the new boss-criminals.

FEAR

To my great regret, I have to corroborate that the fear syndrome really gained a foothold in our society. To date, it is difficult to speak of the free society in Georgia. 

The ordinary citizens dread to lose their jobs, to be beaten, to be planted drugs, to be a reason for their relatives’ arrest; they think that each phone is being bugged. Of course, I am not asseverating that this applies to every case ( though there is a grain of truth in that), but the people dread, really dread and this is an alarming symptom. This fear is one of the serious problems for our country.

The logic of developments prompts me that the promotion of this fear happens deliberately and purposefully. Apparently, in one governmental compartment prevails the view that in this way it is easier to govern the country; however the history tells us that the afraid people is dangerous first of all for the government itself.”

How could the people protect themselves in such situation? Apply to police, intelligence service, prosecutor’s office or go directly to the court?! This question still remains  unanswered.

COURTS, PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE, MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS

The Government declares that it strives to bring Georgia into the European family and gain foothold there; on the other hand there is no visible political will to protect the European values in Georgia. And what is more, it seems that the devaluation of these values occurs in a purposeful mode.

Each citizen is very well  aware  and also the government confesses that the independency of courts doesn’t exist in the country and, therefore, the justice  can not be obtained (!) Such state of matters is a source for every evil!

…[T]he prosecutor’s office, it became a monster and the citizen is absolutely unprotected in the face of it.

If you would intently follow up, you could find out that the prosecutor’s office interferes and takes decisions practically in all sectors. The prosecutor’s office is exactly that body that in many respects rules the country at present; of course, unofficially, via phone calls. The officials are making even the unimportant decisions only after having agreed them with the prosecutor’s office.”

How and where can find the ordinary citizen a justice against this monster? What is the sense of knowledge of laws and lawyer, when his/her destiny is determined beforehand and agreed somewhere “on the upper level”, as the saying in such cases goes.

The public servants are cynically advising the citizens to apply to the courts and there assert their truth. I hope your advice will be different.

THE GIRGVLIANI CASE

“What was the purpose of investigation as regards the Girgvliani and Robakidze cases, and in particular – the exposure of truth or keeping it back?

We have to face the truth – the society  treat the government with distrust, even because of its position. There was not only ommited the political responsibility of Vano Merabishvili, the Minister of Internal, but it was also selflessly spoken in support of him by the group  that at one time  praised to the skies Irakli Okruashvili and now is reviling him; Vano Merabishvili has been declared by this group to be backbone of the country.

The attitude was an explicit one – as long as it suits them, everybody is innocent, when it begins to be inconvenient to them, everybody becomes guilty. Due to the fact that the government and justice are merged together in our country, the guiding criteria for the investigation have been the same as in case of government.

I feel obliged to advise you not to engage those people whose names are associated with the violation of Human Rights.

The society suspects of your intention to carry out only the tactical rearrengements, live the real levers in the hands of the same officials and  formally appoint their marionettes. Such practice has been already exercised in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. I hope this will not come true, the society expects the real changes from you.

TV BROADCASTING

At present the situation there is also quite far from perfect.

At present it is of essential importance without any further delay to establish really independent supervisory board at the public broadcaster that will be able to comprehend the interests of the whole society and not only of one political group.

If the political will to make a really independent channel financed at the expenses of society really exists, this issue can be solved very rapidly and easily.

THE ELECTIONS

In course of elections one player [Saakashvili] is supported not only by the administrative resource but also by the law enforcement bodies – Ministry of Internal Affairs, Prosecutor’s Office, Intelligence Service etc.

The Minister of Internal Affairs chaired the meetings with the local party chairmen, police officials, intelligence servants, prosecutors, municipality chairmen, governors, instructed them for carrying out the elections and advised them on the concrete  plans. Of course the protocols for these meetings haven’t been furnished and no observer from abroad took part in, but the fact remains – in a small country nothing could be kept secret.

When the mode of work of the state machinery is such one, there always will appear the  falsification wishers and exercisers on place; the drawing force for them is to please to officials through meeting and overfulfilling the plans. They are obliged to do so and the general calls can not change this attitude.

Please, don’t believe that those chairmen of police stations who stole the protocols, did it because they respect you. They simply feared for punishment in case of undesirable result.”

Under such conditions it is impossible to carry out fair elections. The logical results of real frame conditions are the scarred population, stolen ballot papers, throwing the additional ballot papers etc. At the end the population loses the trust in government and moves into the street. I hope you will agree that it is not normal  for the capital city to have almost all means of transport engaged by the ruling party in order to move their supporters. The same happened in the regions. I hope you will agree, this transport doesn’t move towards Europe.

Faithfully,

Sozar Subari

If you have reached this far, take a look at the arguments in the western press on why the crisis in Georgia has taken place. Many argue and draw attention to the “severity of reforms”, which the socialist minded people could not understand. The authorities, on the other hand, complement such claims with excuses that “they failed to properly communicate with the population about the necessity of the reforms.”

Some voices argue that “no post socialist government has stayed in office longer than 2 years, because the reforms hit the peoples’ welfare hard”.

I view such explanations, or reasonings as either shallow, or really missing the main point — when looking at the recent crisis in Georgia. I think it was the rage against injustices that brought out the people, not that 15,000 policemen four years ago lost their jobs due to “efficient reorganization of previously corrupt system.”

In this light, take a look on the reactions on the brutal dispersal of the demonstration in Tbilisi this November: the authorities to this day claim that this was “a necessity” — why? No one knows: something to do with either the Russians, or some forces that were preparing a coup de tat. Something in the interest of the state security and all its citizens.

Also, it turned out that the main demand of the demonstrations in November — that is to hold the parliamentary elections in Spring — could be easily satisfied (now the elections will be held in Spring). If this was done in November, the crowds would peacefully go home, without anyone chasing them with truncheons. Nor would the early presidential elections be necessary.