Georgia 'on brink of civil war'

[emad]

From BBC News, Tbilisi


Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze has warned that the country is on the brink of civil war, as thousands of protesters prepare to rally in Tbilisi. In a television address the president urged opposition groups to avoid confrontation. Protests have continued since the 2 November parliamentary elections, which protesters say were rigged. Opposition leader Mikhail Saakashvili has called on "all Georgia" to join a mass outside parliament on Friday. But Mr Shevardnadze told the nation: "While I am the lawful president of Georgia, I will not allow civil war", adding that the current crisis should be resolved within the framework of the constitution.

He appealed to Georgians not to attend the opposition rally.
"If the leaders of this action believe that the protesters will behave as they want them to, then they are mistaken," he said. "Some people will be drunk, some people will act as provocateurs, and irreparable things may happen.

All week thousands of protestors have held rallies outside the parliament building in the capital, Tbilisi, demanding Mr Shevardnadze's resignation. The demonstrations were triggered by a parliamentary election at the beginning of the month which the opposition says was fixed in the government's favour. Mr Shevardnadze reiterated on Friday that he had no intention of stepping down until the presidential election in 2005. Thousands of riot police and interior ministry troops are stationed across the capital in case of unrest. Some fear there may be a repeat of the early 1990s when the country was racked by civil war.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3270197.stm

[burythehatchet]

1. I was hoping you were talking about

our Georgia as in Atlanta

[emad]

2. Maybe it's a cover story

?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

3. I wonder if we still have military forces in that country?...

Here's the way we see it:

Special Forces soldiers arrive in Georgia for Train and Equip Program
<http://www.eucom.mil/Directorates/ECPA/News/index.htm?http://www.eucom.mil/directorates/ecpa/operations/gtep/englishproducts/ArticlesofInterest/052002.htm&2>


And here's the way the Russians see it:

NATO Plans to Encircle Russia
<http://english.pravda.ru/cis/2002/11/25/39940.html>

"American Army specialists who train Georgian soldiers in the network of the program "Train and Equip" will soon be replaced by the US Marine Corps."


And the BBC reported the story as follows:

US military advisers arrive in Georgia
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1843909.stm>

[La_Serpiente]

Not just in Georgia

The entire Central Asia region is in crisis now. Azerbaijan, which is oil rich, is in crisis as well. There was a crooked election there, but the US and the EU refused to believe it. Now, there are massive protests out in the streets and the US and the EU don't even care. Why? Simply because of the oil.

That place is going to become the next Iraq. In fact, the ENTIRE region will become unstable. I am hoping that China and Russia could be more involved in the region instead of the US and the EU. That's just my opinion.

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav111303.shtml

Kazakistan is also a terrible human rights country. They have jailed a gay journalist just because he is gay.

[loudnclear]

4. There was something to be said about the stability of the old USSR

You have to know that Georgia and all the other former USSR sattelites hold huge supplies of WMDs that were never destroyed after the USSR broke up. It happened so fast that little was able to be done to provide for the security of the missiles and weapons that the Soviets had scattered all over their empire. Gorbachev warned about the hasty demise of USSR structure but the US of course supported the capatilist masscot and drunk Yeltsin...and now we have a growing problem of not just insability (which is not reported in our media) but insability with weapons.

This is what happens when "democracy" and "capitalism" are forced fed to people who are not ready for it or who don't want it.

[Gin]

5. Hmm.....may spread here...we have a Georgia....previews of

coming attractions!

[ze_dscherman]

6. Nuclear arms, missiles were returned to Russia or destroyed

http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/ctr/status.htm

[truthspeaker]

7. the US (and rest of the West) totally flubbed the Soviet collapse

It was an opportunity for the transition of a huge part of the world to democracy. Instead of helping them establish an independent judiciary and a free press we just sent in a lot of stock brokers and venture capitalists to help a few rich industrialists rip off the people of those countries. Once again, short-term greed led to long-term problems.

[0007]

8. ....and fast food joints.

[Barrett808]

14. And mafiosi

Don't forget that big chunks of Russia are owned and operated by organized crime.

[Pompitous_Of_Love]

13. Huh?

It's going to take me a while to get used to the fact that an entire generation has now grown up without memories of the Soviet Union or the Cold War. That said, ignorance is not a good thing in this regard. You don't mention the 1991 coup by the Russian Communist Party that removed Gorbachev from office and required armed force to put down. The "capatilist masscot and drunk" Yeltsin was the man who led the resistance to resurgent communism and he did so at great personal risk. Of course, Gorbachev complained about what happened for years afterwards. What historical figure has ever quietly accepted the fact that his moment has passed?

No one forced capitalism or democracy on any of the successor nations of the Soviet Union. This is evidenced in the fact that none of them are either democratic nor truly open to free market economies. Almost all of them are crony capitalist fiefdoms run by pre-revolution communist leaders turned patriarchal presidents-for-life.

I guess what puzzles me is why anyone would want to absolve the political leadership of former Soviet bloc states for their thievery and mismanagement of both their national economies and emerging democratic institutions. They didn't need the U.S. to destroy their chances of making the transition to the First World. They did it just fine on their own.

As for your assertion that they all have WMDs, how about a link to a credible source of fact that backs your claim? I think you're right in that fairly sizable amounts of enriched uranium are floating around parts of the former Soviet Union -- Georgia apparently being one of them -- but all nuclear-tipped missles and other nuclear warheads were returned to Russian control soon after the 1991 revolution ended. I think Kazakhstan served as the center of Soviet bio-weapons development during the Cold War, but I believe you will find that those facilities have been closed and abandoned for some time (with a concurrent danger of environmental disaster literally in the wind).

[The Commie]

16. I hate Yeltsin.

If Gorbachev got what he wanted, without the Stalinists on one side and capitalist pigs on the other f*cking him up, Russia would be socialist AND democratic without the horrible economic collapse and high unemployment it had and still has because of Yelsin's corporate buddies. Now the corporations are getting Putin and his equivalents in the other CIS countries to become fascist police states.

Thanks Ronnie. :puke:

[Blitz]

17. Just out of curiosity, Commie

Have you ever been to the Soviet Union? Do you have any first-hand experience with what it was really like?

[Dirk39]

18. Democrazy? - What kind of democrazy?

Could you please go into detail?


Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[smallprint]

9. kick

[goforit]

10. Can you imagine they're protesting a scandalous voting system??

My O My!!!!

God forbid Americans fight for their right to vote!!!!

[goforit]

11. NYT article follow up...............

<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/15/international/europe/15GEOR.html?th>

President of Georgia Pleads for Calm as Protests Grow
By SETH MYDANS

Published: November 15, 2003


MOSCOW, Nov. 14 — A postelection standoff erupted into turmoil in Georgia on Friday as thousands of antigovernment protesters filled the streets, surrounding the presidential compound as truckloads of soldiers stood by.

President Eduard A. Shevardnadze addressed the nation on television, pleading for calm and warning that the protests could spark a civil war. He rebuffed calls for his resignation but said he was ready to talk with opposition leaders in this former Soviet republic.

"As long as I am president, a legally elected president, I won't allow the nation to split and civil war to break out, although the real danger of this exists," said Mr. Shevarnadze, 75, waving his hands and looking pale.

"I still appeal to everyone to calm down and act peacefully for the sake of your motherland, of our motherland," he said. "From civil confrontation to civil war is a short step."

As many as 20,000 chanting protesters, shown on Russian television, danced and chanted slogans as evening fell, by far the largest crowd in more than a week of daily protests outside the Parliament building in Tbilisi, Georgia's capital.

A row of helmeted soldiers wearing black ski masks faced the crowd from behind their shields in front of the presidential office. Reporters on the scene said armored personnel carriers and truckloads of soldiers were parked nearby.

<snip>
The demonstrations began as a protest against a manipulated parliamentary election on Nov. 2, which one diplomat called "a mess from start to finish."

[bemildred]

12. Georgia has been a mess for a long time.

It's already had several schismatic civil wars, and various
pieces want autonomy or independence, and the control
that the central government exerts outside the capitol is
tenuous in the best of circumstances.

[Terwilliger]

15. Set up a perimeter in Valdosta!

OH! The country Georgia!! ok