Mathew Bryza Declares He Hade "very blunt" Discussions Over
Transparency in Democracy with Saakashvili, Burjanadze, and Gurgenidze
in former Soviet Georgia
"USA will not cuddle Saakashvili any more than they did Shevardnadze
before him --- DEMOCRACY!, overall, must reign over all players in the
new government and throughout the new parliamentary elections May
21st...."
http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=3D17804
/ Civil Georgia, Tbilisi / 2008-05-09 20:01:36
Mathew Bryza, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, said
there was a =93progress in preparing for a free and fair=94 parliamentary
election on May 21, but also noted there still was =93plenty of work to
do to make sure that all of the Georgian voters have full faith in the
electoral process.=94
=93It is im****tant that the voter lists be as accurate as possible; use
of administrative resources for political purposes in a way that is
illegal be taken care of, addressed and stopped and that Georgian
voters are confident that if they have complaint about the way the
election was carried out, they would be able to have a fair hearing
through the election commissions and through the Georgian court
system,=94 Bryza said at a news conference in Tbilisi on May 9.
Earlier on Friday the U.S. official met with the opposition leaders
and some of them again complained about what they call sup****t of the
U.S. administration and personally Mathew Bryza to the President
Saakashvili=92s administration and because of that sup****t, they
claimed, =93anti-American sentiments=94 started to grow in Georgia.
Levan Gachechiladze, the leader of the nine-party opposition bloc said
prior to the meeting with Bryza: =93They [the U.S. administration] are
lobbying them [the Saakashvili=92s administration], like Central
[Communist Party] Committee was lobbying its secretaries [local
Communist Party chiefs] in Georgia from the Kremlin during the Soviet
times.=94
Speaking at the news conference, Bryza had to again address those
complaints.
=93In every country where I have responsibility, or wherever I=92ve
worked, every political group tries to bring us on their side in their
domestic political debates,=94 he said. =93Perhaps some people confuse
democracy with sup****t for themselves. I know the cornerstone of our
administration=92s foreign policy, which is that stability can only come
through political legitimacy and legitimacy can only come from
democracy.=94
He then recalled the 2003 Rose Revolution, as well as ex-President
Eduard Shevardnadze and said that even through Shevardnadze was
considered =93a close friend=94 of the United States =93at the end of the
day it was the democratic force of peaceful protest that became the
Rose Revolution that changed the course of this country=92s history.=94
=93As painful as there was we stood by democracy [during the Rose
Revolution],=94 he added. =93In November [2007] things were difficult here
politically. I had very blunt discussions with the leader****p of this
country. And that was painful, but we stood on the side of democracy
and we continue that today.=94
=93As long as Georgia continues its very constructive path of
articulating peace plan [for resolving conflicts] and as long as
election preparations precede and shortcomings in last January=92s
election are taken care of and you Georgians see these elections free
and fair, we believe Georgia will find itself on a very strong path on
which you will feel sup****t of the entire Euro-Atlantic community.=94
**************************************
http://www.geocities.com/matthew_lulu_bryza/Georgian-Parliament.html
FULLY re-LOADED NEW PARLIAMENT
--- THE BEST SHOT FOR THE FUTURE OF
GEORGIA?
by Matthew L. Bryza
Georgia needs a totally new opposition, or she will sink.
For the Future of Georgia !!
I believe Ms. Hammick, a re****ter recently writing for JANE'S DEFENSE
WEEKLY, upon the upcoming election in Tbilisi, was practicing the art
of, as F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, of "the test of a first rate
intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at
the same time, and still retain the ability to function".
How so? She was evidently flipping through her mind the several
conflicting tentative dates set for the parliamentary elections,
starting back in late 2003. Since Nov. 23rd, 2003, when President
Saakashvili parachuted into his position as ruler of Georgia, and the
rarely clarified-in-the-media Georgian constitutional amendments,
made
in December, 2005, most people are understandably deeply confused and
divided on basic democratic procedures here, regarding efforts that
would help the majority of people, rather than propping up some cold
and abstract ideology in its stead, helping old insiders and new
=93graspers,=94 only.
Here is a blurb from Freedom House back in mid 2005, to refresh your
memories of the jigsaw puzzle of parliamentary election procedures
here:
[First, Saakashvili and NED and the Liberty Institute set in train
the
protests which brought him to power on 23rd November, 2003. Thus, it
can be argued, that parliamentary elections should have been held in
Nov. of 2007.]
15.06.2005 - Source: Freedom House, ... the 2004 elections were
somewhat free and fair; however, the level of political pluralism had
been severely reduced, as no party could compete with National
Movement-Democrats
("Nations in Transit 2005") [#32929], [ID 4745]
"...the elections of 2004 were considered generally free and fair,
though voter lists were still not fully complete. There was no
harassment of the opposition. However, the level of political
pluralism was sharply reduced as the former ruling party completely
disbanded and no political group could compete with Mikhail
Saakashvili and his National Movement-Democrats. Only one opposition
bloc of the New Rights and Industrialists was able narrowly to
overcome the 7 percent threshold for party lists."
Historical Margin Note #1 on Georgia before you read further:
Compared
to Georgians and their 6 or 7 thousand year old fiercely loyal and
family-relations-devoted traditions, how many Americans do you know
who actually continue to look after their old parents and older
grandparents and perhaps their great grandparents too, themselves?
Perhaps in the same household? These Georgians, all of them here,
would NEVER put an older family member into a rest home, or a Memory
Care Home or into a criminally overpriced USA-style and shamefully
profitable nursing/senior/memory care home, you know -- the kind of
racket in the States backed up in large measure by HHS/MEDICARE
political insiders, working along with State and Federal
congresspersons, to milk the tax systems bone dry! These same
Georgians are trying to use this familial passion and commitment to
forge a new and democratic Parliament this May 21st, 2008, but the
likelihood of any success is as slender as the homeless of New
Orleans
to get their property back via FEMA programs after Hurricane Katrina.
The forces here preventing a true democracy in Georgia are the
identically same forces at work against them there in Louisiana and
Mississippi and Texas. Margin Note #2--QUESTION: How many Americans
typically speak and read three languages and alphabets, and who work
anywhere from 10 to 25 hours a week overtime, with not even a tetri
[penny] of paid overtime, and who never complain about the total lack
of labor laws coming out of their Parliament??? Again, nearly zero.
These Georgians here have not yet been educated by their strictly
censored media, in any shape or form, upon labor laws or labor
rights,
yet the USAID personnel here and the US embassy swear this is a
"beacon of light" regarding fulfillment of democratic ideals!
A whole new team of concerned Georgians need to take over their
parliament, this May 21st, these citizens desperately need new
opposition forces deep in their Parliament, and not only the elites
and millionaire businessmen/women that they now have as MPs, and THEY
should be the 'new ones' to select a new president, if there is to be
any hope of true democracy here in Georgia any year soon.
click here http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2008/04/30927_en.pdf
[ for a full OSCE re****t on the unlikelihood of a fair and square
parliamentary election in Tbilisi on May 21, 2008 [HIGHLY UNLIKELY] ]
A president such as "Misha" [short for Saakashvili], who galloped
into
power overnight on the day quoted above, would be fairly tested by
the
people of his new democracy, if and only if, the people themselves
gave him something like his re****t card grades after the last 4 long
years in which he could evaluate himself too, in careful and painful
self-examination. The result of a revitalizing and invigorating new
parliamentary election process, in which a `new batch of 2008
parliamentary MPs', not in any way part of Saakashvili's clan, nor
part of the current Opposition's clan, could and would implement
fresh
and vigorous legislation and programs. If only they had been allowed
to do so at the end of 2007, a global miracle would have been born =96
a
real beacon of light !!!
A real beacon of light, especially when one considers the helpful and
democracy-building funding from outside agencies of the last 4 years,
thanks to credits and currencies from the USAID, the EU, the UN,
SECO/
SDC, the German and Polish governments, et al, who have greatly
helped
make many of the improvements the Georgians have desperately needed,
after the mayhem and ugly scenarios following the collapse of
communism in this nation.
Isn't this Parliamentary =93stuffing=94 the nub of the conflict today,
and
a major cause of the loss of public and international confidence in
the current Saakashvili government? Aren't I correct that these
Georgians need to immediately reload their Parliament?
Georgians themselves, excluding the ever and over and twice again
prospering current Members of Parliament, the normal children of the
legendary Family of Georgia are cut off at the knees from any kind of
truly democratic structures and planks and platforms, in nearly every
respect, in the current situation. Can anyone remember how
Shevardnadze reinstated most of his Parliament after he dismissed
them, more or less, can you dig out these events from the faded
memories of the past? How many key players in Saakashvili's current
clan worked at one time [for quite a long while, indeed] on the
monorail of Shevaradnadze's express train to disunity and oblivion
and
hunger?
Will not the Saakashvili MPs and he as their leader, and most of the
old Opposition MPs, simply repeat the same mistakes again and again?
So we might conclude after an hour or two of productive thought on
this matter, [i.e., of a fresh and uncompromised Parliament], that
the
Georgian people were indeed deprived of a timely, and legal, and in-
their-favor, parliamentary election, in November of 2007, which might
have brought about the promising guiding-light of fresh teams of
Georgian MBAs and MDs and Masters degree winners, coming back from
USA, UK and Germany and France-- the EU, et al.
A parliament comprised of the principals and top teachers of Tbilisi
and Kutaisi and Batumi and Telavi schools, and Georgian physician-
activists for the desperately needed hospital care and health care
here for the struggling desperate people of Georgia, and along with
them also the passionate property rights activists fighting the
Chancellery, and the grey panthers of organized parties of
disgruntled
pensioners, and the many magnificent and proud Georgians, which
include displaced farmers from their hectares who are being replaced
by huge cor****ate conglomerate automated farms, owned by many current
MPs, these urgently needed new MPs -- who could have stampeded into
parliament as newly elected MPs this if just given the chance -- and
that this imagined truly democratic and model parliamentary election,
could have come into being at the most op****tune time for the natives
of this land, late 2007, early 2008, consisting of the non-elite of
Georgia, basically. They would have swept out most of Misha's MPs,
and
along with them the bulk of old Shevardnadze and Moscow-resonating
fiddlers too, who/which are frequently and deeply embedded in the
half-
dozen or more, old and very tiresome Opposition parties here, as time
rolls on like tank treads on these pot-holed streets?
These never recruited and never elected new MPs would have averted
the
hurried and hasty presidential elections of Jan. 5, 2008, and would
just as likely waited until a late 2008 election date to install
their
new president. By this time there would have been nearly a full year
of generous and hospitable Georgian debates, within a newly
transfigured Parliament, MPs most probably not in tune with Misha
during this hypothetical 2008 year's passing, and they would all have
had to agree and/or disagree with each other in a gentlemanly or
ladylike way, until end of 2008. Political pluralism would have
flowered like the Garden of Eden, and new and friendly coalitions
would have emerged [only in this scenario] and triumphed from the
reforms of Saakashvili's first two years.
These new and unheard of, but now lost to Georgia's better and
undiscovered destiny, these many freshly minted MPs could have TRULY
debated issues and policies and finances, rather than the mud
slinging
ejaculations and shout spasms we see today, and these angels of
democracy were in many aspects stolen from the garden of justice,
just
as its flowers were showing her firsts blossoms. These hypothetical
MPs might have had the chance to vote in Parliament on the issues
TRULY im****tant to THEM and to their constituents, and not just to
pocket USAID money for im****ted goods laden highways, nor toady up to
the Pentagon's missile strategies for Georgia, nor kneel to the
proponents of Vladimir Putin, his inner team evidently NOT allies of
Georgia, nor would these ideal MPs have sup****ted the old camaraderie
business ties to Russia are still deeply entrenched here, but not
clearly seen, and counterproductive to a new democracy.
I am truly astonished by the bright and hopeful and hard-working and
self-sacrificing Georgians in their 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s also,
who are well educated with admirable characters and genuine integrity
and who want to make a big difference in their country's destiny, in
a
disciplined communitarian manner, women most welcome too, to join the
ranks, and they are all blocked by the current `map of democracy', by
teams, Saakashvili's team, and the motley cluster of Opposition
teams.
Typical and honest Georgians must control the future of Georgia , and
not American military investment conglomerates nor old Russian mafia
business networks.
These sterling Georgians mentioned directly above are the citizens
who
belong in Parliament and THEY should select a president, if there is
to be any hope of true democracy here any year soon. After this
"turn-
around", Presidential elections could be arranged to coincide with
Parliamentary elections, as in other nations. After such a model
transition, Saakashvili would go down in history as a fine and
admired
agent of transition, a team player who saw he should enter private
business after 4 years at the helm, rather than what is in store for
his legacy should he win the election this Jan. 5th. His past
achievements would quite likely be blemished beyond repair by another
term in office.
These new hypothetical MPs would be loyal to Georgia, and her best
interests, and not to Saakashvili, as if he were their beloved CIS
factory boss, or a Godfather in a Francis Ford Coppola film, or a
mirror of Putin's autocracy, and these new hypothetical MPs would not
and could not be loyal, either, to any tricked-out business interests
of the old Opposition, one would pray.
Georgia needs a totally new opposition, or she will sink.
ONLY A FULLY RE-LOADED NEW PARLIAMENT WILL BE THE BEST SHOT FOR THE
FUTURE OF GEORGIA
related links:
ICF Kaiser
http://www.angelfire.com/blog/zog/ZOG_PROMIS.html
EXIM Bank
http://www.angelfire.com/blog/promis/Exim-Bank.html
Matthew L. Bryza is a commentator on affairs in Turkey and the
Caucasus. He has many years experience working in Wa****ngton DC.
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