For days, thousands of Georgians protest against Russian influence on your country. The trigger for the appearance of a Russian deputies in country Parliament. The Protest is not only directed against Russia.
In front of the Georgian Parliament hold posters in the height, on barbed wire, a map of Georgia and the inscription “Occupied”, and the inscription in English: “Georgia is occupied by Russia.” There, in the centre of the Georgian capital Tbilisi, have been demonstrating for days, thousands of people are against the Russian influence in this former Soviet Republic. Triggered the protests by a photo, to see how the Russian Deputy and Communist Sergei Gavrilov takes in the Georgian Parliament, in an armchair of the Chairman of place.
Gavrilov was members of the Russian Parliament, to a meeting of the so-called “inter-parliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy (IAO)” according to Tbilisi, and traveled. In the Forum of members of Parliament from the predominantly Christian Orthodox countries Gavrilov currently has the presidency. The meeting was held in the chamber of the Georgian Parliament. Gavrilov is accused of the of Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, recognised by Moscow as independent States, visited several times. As the protests began, left Gavrilov together with his colleagues fleeing the country. On the evening of the 20. June, the Demo of the Georg was dissolved of the police force. Now the people are demanding the resignation of the interior Minister.
Fear of persecution
Mari Kantschaweli speaks better English than Russian
The 28-year-old English teacher Mari Kantschaweli comes every night to the protests. She keeps a poster which says: “you would also go to the Demo, but then my mom loses her Job” – a reference to the fact that some of the opposition is afraid of the persecution by the authorities.
Kantschaweli speaks fluent Russian, but you want to answer the questions only in English. “In 2008, I forget the Russian language,” she says and plays on the former Russian-Georgian war. The issue of Russia, runs like a red thread through all the protest talk in front of the Parliament building. “For 30 years, we demand freedom for our country, so it is not a colony of a rich neighbor,” says Kantschaweli. That have a Deputy in the Russian state Duma in the chair of the Georgian Parliament, the President, was the drop that brought the barrel to Overflowing.
According to Kantschaweli tourists from Russia do not understand the Protest. Thus, a 20-year-old Russian, so I asked you whether the action is approved. “With us there is freedom of speech and, therefore, protests are allowed automatically,” she says.
Protests in Tbilisi
Tensions with Moscow
The majority of Georgian citizens consider Russia as the aggressor, and says to Peter-Andreas Bochmann, the German Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung in Tbilisi. Although with the coming to power of the party “Georgian dream” in 2012, the official tone toward Moscow, which has significantly mitigated, there are still tensions. Again and again it comes to incidents on the demarcation line with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. According to Tbilisi, the Russian-controlled armed associations in move the “border” further and further into Georgian territory. Add to that the cases of abductions of Georgian citizens for the purpose of ransom extortion.
The stable economic growth of the past few years, which is felt in Tbilisi, clearly, could not mitigate the political discontent. As the neighboring States of Russia and Turkey, Georgia also experienced a concentration of Power in the hands of a government party, behind which a powerful Person. In Georgia, the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili. According to observers, he is, de facto, as “owners of the country”: Political process based on the European model are almost impossible. An Opposition shall not be regarded as a normal part of the political system. It will even try to destroy you.
“In spite of the declared aspiration for membership in the EU and the NATO, a state model is produced in Georgia, in fact, according to the Russian model,” says Peter-Andreas Bochmann. The main features are a one-party system, centralization, corruption, and the Lack of political competition in the European sense.
Mariam Gegutschadse: Protest against our own politicians
Pro-Russian Lobby
The protesters in front of the Georgian Parliament to throw the government a creeping sell-out of the country prior to Russian oligarchs. “This is not only a Protest against the Russian occupation, but also a Protest against all the pro-Russian Georgian politicians, against the Russian Lobby,” says Mariam Gegutschadse, another Participant in the Demo. Also, you want to talk with us in English only. Georgia should not depend on the Russian economy, she says, because Russia can’t be trusted. According to her, Moscow wants Tbilisi with the recently imposed ban on flights to and from Russia to Georgia only under pressure.
As regards tourists, so Gegutschadse, not all may be welcome, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia into question. “We are not xenophobic,” she adds. But looking forward only to those who would acknowledge that one-fifth of the territory is occupied Georgia from Russia.