Like many Georgians, Rati Khazalia believes she is in a “fight to save” her country’s democracy and free the Eastern European nation from Russia’s attempts to isolate it.
“We have been betrayed by our government,” he said. “We were sold to (Russia) for nothing.”
The 29-year-old businessman who founded and runs a printing business in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, made the comments in a telephone interview this week as lawmakers in Georgia passed a controversial Russian-style “foreign agents” bill in Parliament, which has generated some of the largest protests in the country since it regained its independence from Moscow in 1991.
Khazalia is among those protesting.
“It’s time for everyone to come together,” he said.
The law was approved by 84 legislators voting in favor and 30 against.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili said she intends to veto the measure, which she characterized as “an exact duplicate” of a authoritarian law in Russia which cracks down on anti-corruption activists, democracy promotion organizations and political dissent. However, as the Georgian Dream party, which governs the country and sympathizes with Moscow, controls the legislature, Zourabichvili’s veto could easily be overridden.–to assemble.
Video broadcast on Georgian television showed scuffles in Parliament on Tuesday, with rival lawmakers shoving each other and gesturing angrily during debates on the bill. Following the passage of the divisive bill, protesters tore down barriers at Georgia’s parliament. Police fired tear gas.
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Here’s what Georgia’s “foreign agents” law is and why it’s generating controversy.
What is Georgia’s “foreign agent” law?
The law requires any organization in Georgia that receives more than 20% of its funding from abroad to register as so-called agents of foreign influence.
Critics say the bill, promoted by the Georgian Dream party and its pro-Russian billionaire founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, is an attempt to sabotage the country’s path to greater integration with the European Union and the West more broadly. . Ivanishvili is a former prime minister who wields significant political influence.
Georgia was granted EU candidate status in December. The EU said the bill is “incompatible with European values” and could harm the country’s efforts to become a member of the bloc.
Supporters of the bill say it is necessary to promote political transparency, fight against “pseudo-liberal values” promoted by foreign civil society groups and preserve the country’s sovereignty.
Natalie Sabanadze, Georgia’s former ambassador to the EU, said the measure is known in Georgia as the “Russian law” because it is “modeled almost entirely on laws passed in Russia in 2012 that basically killed its civil society,” referring to Russia’s political policy. opposition and groups that promote democratic rights and freedom of expression. Many Russians were silenced or forced to leave the country after these laws were passed in Russia.
In fact, Russia has used its law on foreign agents to decimate political dissent and is one of the reasons, along with tight control over Russia’s security state, that Russian President Vladimir Putin has managed to remain in power. for so long.
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Sabanadze said Georgians have been protesting in large numbers against the law for weeks because the country has “a fairly vibrant civil society” and “it is understood that the new law puts this in danger.”
Last week, the US said it was “deeply concerned” about the law. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the US was “alarmed by the democratic backslide in Georgia.” Sullivan wrote on Xthe social media platform, that “Georgian parliamentarians face a critical choice – whether to support the Euro-Atlantic aspirations of the Georgian people or pass a Kremlin-style foreign agents law that goes against democratic values.”
A “turning point” in US-Georgia relations?
After the vote passed, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O’Brien said the law “could be a turning point in what has thus far been a constructive and productive partnership” between Georgia and the USA. the law “moving forward” the US will impose travel restrictions and financial sanctions against people involved in drafting and supporting the bill.
On Wednesday, Zurabishvili, Georgia’s president, said the nation was “returning to the past” with the new law, a reference to the time when Georgia was part of the Soviet Union.
Georgia: West or East?
Surveys show that the vast majority of Georgians favor closer ties with the West, even as their government in recent years appears to be pulling the country in the opposite direction.
In an interview in Tbilisi in 2022, Khazalia, the businessman, said that living in Georgia it is not always possible to see what political direction the country is taking. “Is it for the West? Or is it to the East?” he said.
‘Our government is a pro-Russian puppet’
On Tuesday, Khazalia said the passage of the “Russian law” made the situation much clearer.
“Our government is a pro-Russian puppet,” he said, as he prepared to join the protests on Tuesday night. “Our only choice now is to show the world that we want to live in a democratic country.”
Khazalia said that many businesses in Tbilisi have closed and that the protests are attended by “all generations, all classes, all ages, all interests, groups and ethnicities”.
Russian exiles flee to Georgia
“I also saw some Russians,” he added, referring to the tens of thousands of exiles who have arrived in Georgia since the start of the war in Ukraine, a source of tension in Tbilisi.
Still, much of the obscurity surrounding Georgia’s politics has to do with its history and connective tissue with Russia.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, both Russia and Georgia became newly independent nations.
But in the years that followed, Russian-backed separatists in Georgia sought to declare the independence of two regions, which led to war in 2008. The war ended within days, with Russian troops occupying the regions. Today, Abkhazia and South Ossetia (or the Tskhinvali region, as Georgians prefer to call it) remain under Russian control.
The conflict essentially meant that Russia invaded the border parts of an independent country.
It also announced Moscow’s determination, said Daniel Fried, former US ambassador to Poland, “to force a country (that) considered to be within Russia’s sphere of influence to bow down.”
In fact, many international affairs experts in the West, like Fried, consider Russia’s actions in Georgia in 2008 to be a kind of prelude to the invasion of Ukraine. In 2014, Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Black Sea region of Crimea and supported separatists in Donbass, a vast industrial area in the east filled with factories and coal plants.
Russia then launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In Georgia, as in Ukraine, while Russia took over its border regions, the rest of the country took steps to join the West. It applied to be a member of the European Union economic bloc in March 2022. Like Ukraine, it has aspirations to join NATO, the military alliance that supports Western allies against Russian aggression.
Siding with Russia ‘would be political suicide’
Sabanadze, Georgia’s former ambassador to the EU and now a senior researcher at the London think tank Chatham House, said the ruling Georgian Dream party, in recent years, it has reversed the broad “Euro-Atlantic trajectory” that the country has had since its independence.
She attributed this largely to Georgian billionaire Ivanishvili and his connections to Russia, the country where he made all his money (in banking and metals). She said Ivanishvili likely believes Russia will win the war in Ukraine.
“Furthermore, he is personally furious with the EU and the US, is conspiratorially minded and believes that Americans and Europeans especially are funding NGOs to undermine him,” she said.
Ivanishvili could not immediately be reached for comment. The Kremlin said the new law in Georgia and the debate surrounding it are being used to “spark anti-Russian sentiments.”
“It is clear that no political party in Georgia can say that it is going in the Russian direction,” said Sabanadze, who stated that even the Georgian Dream party is careful not to openly express pro-Russian views when around 80% of Georgians say who want a closer approach. ties with the EU and NATO.
“That would be political suicide.”
This article originally appeared in USA TODAY: Georgia passes controversial Russian-style “foreign agents” law
