State of emergency on my mind

Reminds me of Moscow [image source]

Here are roundup stories on the violent dispersal of protests (which by some accounts had themselves turned violent) and the declaration of a state of emergency in Tbilisi from the Int'l Herald Tribune, Washington Post, BBC and Kommersant (also, do not miss this Yahoo collection of photos of Wednesday's chaos).

One aspect of the Kommersant story made me want to do a bit of digging:

It is no coincidence that the Georgian president took such decisive steps shortly after a speech by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Mathew Bryza who said that the opposition rally was “destructive and irresponsible.” The White House thus virtually gave the Georgian authorities the green light to suppress the protests.

I was unable to find Bryza's remarks online, although Google News found a story about his conversations with Georgian leaders in the Messenger, an English-language Georgian newspaper; unfortunately, the Messenger's website seems down at the moment. Actually, websites for Imedi TV (here and here) are currently down as well, but that makes some sense, since the Georgian authorities have taken that station as well as another, smaller station off the air. Actually, Saakashvili's declaration of emergency seems to shut down all broadcasters other than Georgian Public Television, even the government-friendly Rustavi-2, perhaps because its journalists showed solidarity with their colleagues at Imedi and broadcast their last minutes on the air, when the Imedi newsreaders didn't know their broadcast antenna had been turned off.

Much more below the cut...

The only official US statement I could find (in a brief internet survey) was from the State Department's Nov. 7 daily press briefing (Sean McCormack, the State Dept. Spokesman, is paid to dodge tricky questions or at least answer them diplomatically):

QUESTION: There is a lot of civil unrest in Georgia, seems to be reaching sort of a new height today. Georgian -- people in the Georgian Government actually are accusing the Russians of stirring this up as some sort of a payback for the Rose Revolution, et cetera; just wanted to know if you had anything to say about that situation.

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, there have been, over the past couple days, some protests in Georgia, political protests raising a variety of different issues with respect to the actions of the government. Of course, we are very supportive, we're -- regardless of where protests may take place, the right of individuals to peacefully protest to express their point of view. I can't speak at this point to any of these accusations that there may be outsiders trying to stir up things in Georgia. Of course, if that were true, that would be something of concern not only to us, but I would expect of special concern to the Georgian Government.

Look, if there are political differences within the political system in Georgia, they can -- they should be worked out within the confines of that political system and also, they should be worked out in a peaceful manner. And neither side, whether the government or the opposition, should take any steps that would be deliberately provocative to the other -- that could lead to violence. So these are issues that can be resolved through peaceful political dialogue in Georgia and certainly, that's what we hope to see.

QUESTION: I'm sorry, is there any U.S. diplomatic involvement here, any contacts with them or --

MR. MCCORMACK: I know that we've been in contact with the Georgian Government. Beyond that, I don't have any information for you.

But the Russian media are not the only ones blaming the US for what is happening in Tbilisi. From the WaPo story:

Tina Khidasheli, an opposition leader, said in an interview that she had been beaten and hit with a tear gas canister when police moved in. She blamed the violence in part on the United States' "unconditional support" for Georgia's ruling party, adding that she thought her country's leadership would have respected the rule of law more if U.S. officials had insisted it be upheld.

"For four years they did not question anything Saakashvili was doing," she said. "Beacon of democracy? The shining of democracy was in the streets today."

As the Moscow Times and everyone else reports, Saakashvili blames his large neighbor to the north for all of his problems with the opposition:

Opposition leaders, who have not questioned Saakashvili's pro-Western line, called the accusations baseless and laughable. They said the Georgian Interior Ministry was responsible for the "wild" accusations of Russian intervention.

Analysts, too, questioned whether Moscow was fomenting unrest.

"This is hogwash," said Alexei Malashenko, senior expert with the Carnegie Moscow Center. "Russia has neither levers nor opportunities to influence the situation."

Malashenko said Saakashvili was blaming Russia in an effort to lure the United States into throwing its support behind him in the escalating standoff.

If there is anything that the opposition and Saakashvili agree on, it is the need to counter Russia's efforts to project influence on this republic, Malashenko said [...]

Any tangible interference by Russia would prompt the opposition to abandon its efforts to challenge Saakashvili and rally behind him to counter the threat from its larger neighbor to the north, he warned.

From Kommersant:

Mikhail Saakashvili crowned to the speculations of Moscow’s clout when he addressed the nation in an evening TV statement. He said that the opposition was supplied with “money and guidelines” by employees of the Russian embassy who are “staff employees of the Russian intelligence”. He also announced that these people would soon be expelled from Tbilisi. [...] President Saakashvili said that Georgia’s Ambassador was recalled from Moscow “for consultations” so far. In essence, the Georgian president in his speech declared another war on Russia.

“Our intelligence reported of an alternative government that was shaped in Russia,” Mr. Saakashvili said. “But our people will not allow a civil war or events similar to those in 1991 to happen.” The president, who used to call himself a democrat and “defender of people’s right to protest”, said that “everyone is eligible to rally in a democratic country but authorities will no longer tolerate destabilization and chaos.”

I'm sure it's true that Russia is delighted to see that Saakashvili may have made a misstep or blinked under the pressure of dealing with a potential encampment of protesters. After all, official Moscow often seems to respect Misha little more than it would a pesky American-trained lapdog yapping away at the mighty bear. Unfortunately for Saakashvili, even without Russia, he seems to have a knack for rubbing people the wrong way (not to say rubbing them out) and has built up a fairly substantial amount of enemies among the elites.

Saakashvili's speech introducing the state of emergency drew the following response from Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (quoted by Kremlin-friendly web newspaper Vzglyad):

The pathos of Mikhail Saakashvili's speech comes down to one thing: in the face of an external threat, he suggests that the citizens of Georgia should forgive the president all his sins and reconcile themselves to the idea that he is "bringing order using a strong hand."

Wait a minute - doesn't this sound like something one could say about Putin's regime in Russia? The parallels, if you think about it, between Putin's hyping a non-existent "Western" threat and Saakashvili exaggerating the extent of Russia's involvement in the Georgian opposition are interesting, though perhaps superficial.

In any event, Saakashvili is showing a willingness to hold on to power that his rather easily ousted predecessor lacked, at least by the end of his career. I would like to hear what the Silver Fox has to say about how young Misha has handled things...

Georgian blogger jibs, writing at TOL's Georgia blog (a good place to watch for updates), says the following:

Four years ago, the current authorities came to power through mass demonstrations against the Shevarnadze regime, and back then the mass media was left untouched. Saakashvili does it differently — this must be a democratic measure I have never heard about.

This is why the demonstrations swept Georgia in the first place, and not because of an “evil” Russia. Russia looks way more democratic right now than Georgia. This is the end of the Rose Revolution myth in Georgia.

These last words ring especially true. After all, many believe that the critical event leading Georgia to break away from the USSR was the Soviet military's violent suppression of protesters in Tbilisi on April 9, 1989 (it's no accident that Georgia declared its independence two years later on that exact date). So if the Georgian political culture includes an admirable tendency to stop respecting leaders after they beat protesters in the streets, then perhaps Saakashvili's days are numbered.

One Russian pundit believes that nothing good will come of this for Saakashvili or for the opposition:

However, recent events are badly damaging to Saakashvili in any case. If he yields to opposition, chances of his party and his candidacy at the upcoming elections will jeopardized. If he cracks down on the protests violently, he will either become a dictator or at least make a bigger row with the political elite. Opposition cannot be called winners either. They are hardly united by anything except for animosity to Saakashvili and general West-friendly sentiment. In the short history of an independent Georgia, the crowd topped two presidents, and it was twice that a successor of the overthrown leader won a following election on a landslide. But who will win now if Saakashvili becomes a third ousted leader?

In his post on recent events in Tbilisi (titled "The Rose Reversal"), Registan's Nathan
Hamm calls these the "scariest-looking riot police in the world." [image source]

For now, it looks like Misha is using "any means necessary" to keep from having to find out the answer to that question. This is certainly not an inspiring picture (from the IHT):

Sozar Subari, the country's human rights ombudsman, denounced the government's use of force and suggested that Georgia, which had undertaken many reforms since 2003, had taken large steps backward.

"Georgia is now the same as Lukashenko's Belarus," he said, referring to President Aleksandr Lukashenko, the leader of a post-Soviet state that much of the West has labeled a dictatorship. A woman could be heard screaming in the background.

Subari later called the police action "illegal" and said that he himself had been beaten by the police. "Even after I declared that I am the ombudsman, they beat me more," he said.

Around the internets, Mark MacKinnon's post on this story sums up the lay of the political land well and is worth reading. Registan pooh-poohs Saakashvili's allegations that Russia is behind everything:

Saakashvili has vowed to stay in power and has, in what has now become quite characteristic for him, blamed Russia for the protests. I’m all for blaming Russia as much as the next red-blooded fan of Red Dawn and Rambo 3, but come the hell on Misha… He says he has proof, but I think it’s safe to assume he won’t produce it.

TOL's Georgia Blog is similarly dismissive, and has a post on this topic entitled "WHAT RUSSIANS?!"

A few bloggers to watch if you can read Russian are cyxymu, tony_geo, and elenaim, all of whom are in Tbilisi and have commented on their experiences moving around the city. In the coming days, no doubt This is Tbilisi Calling will have something to say about the events of Nov. 7, and so will many others. Civil Georgia might also be worth following - although it's very gov't-friendly, it is aimed at a Western audience, so it will presumably try to remain credible. One place you won't see many updates on this story is here - this post represents an almost inexcusable break from the busy-ness that has characterized my life of late.

As of now, here are a few other random on-topic items culled from the web:

Echo of Moscow Radio had posted an open letter to Saakashvili on its blog, but the post has since been removed. The text of the letter, also signed by non-Echo journalists, is up on the LJ of a Russian journalist based in Georgia. It reads, in part (my translation):

Democracy ends when journalists are gagged as they fulfill their professional responsibilities. The slide into dictatorship begins where journalists are beaten at rallies and demonstrations, frightened and intimidated.

Certainly the Russian state-run media outlets seem overly concerned with the possibility of democracy's end in Georgia. From a comment on cyxymu's blog:

The first 11 minutes of Vremia...strangely enough were not about HIM [Putin], but about a small but proud neighbor. So obviously everything is great in Russia - the most interesting stuff is happening in Georgia. A fire in an old folks' home with over 30 deaths is of course no big deal. And in the whole 11-minute segment they didn't manage to actually show the Truth about what is happening there [in Georgia].

Naturally, Vremia has people like Andranik Migranyan commenting on the situation, saying things like this:

Today Saakashvili, having received carte blanche, is ready to do away with the opposition, positioning himself as an anti-Russian leader [as though he needed to do anything more to position himself as anti-Russian]. If he hadn't received carte blanche from Washington, it's unlikely he would have resorted to taking such serious actions against his own people. Today we once again see the obvious truth: wherever leaders speak out in support of Washington, they receive carte blanche to do anything you can imagine."

Migranyan has been working on his anti-US schtick for a while, so he does it pretty well.

Russia Today, the state-run English news channel, seems to have been quite prepared to cover the unrest in Tbilisi. I never thought I would call RT useful, but they have translated into English Imedi's last minute on the air (you can even see the lights go off in the studio as the police enter) and one of their intrepid correspondents battled tear gas to report from downtown Tbilisi (isn't this a better use of YouTube than those Diet-Coke-and-Mentos videos?). More video is available from NTV, which headlines the story, "Tbilisi is on a siege footing."

To close on a more positive note, a RIA Novosti-affiliated website, newsgeorgia.ru, reported early Thursday morning that some of the troops and riot police are being withdrawn from Tbilisi, that the suppression of the protests did not turn into mass rioting, and that the windows of many fancy shops on Rustaveli are still intact, the airport and train station are operating, and utilities and communications are functioning as normal. So perhaps this too shall pass and Saakashvili's day in the sun is not over yet.

[Update: Onnik Krikorian has a great roundup of blogging about the situation in Georgia; cyxymu has a very downbeat and comprehensive new post, which I may try to translate later; Zhirik is making either a bad joke or Duma campaign political hay out of the crisis]