Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia's president, today tried to brush off serious American criticism of the country's human rights record by saying that the US State Department "critcises all countries" and pointing to the more positive comments in the report, released yesterday.
The report listed eleven types of "main human rights abuses" in Georgia:
least one suspected death due to excessive use of force by law enforcement officers,
politically motivated kidnappings and assaults,
poor prison conditions,
abuse of prisoners, including juveniles,
arbitrary arrest and detention,
politically motivated imprisonment,
excessive use of force to disperse demonstrations,
pressure that appeared politically motivated on owners of property,
lack of due process,
government pressure on the judiciary, and
senior-level corruption in the government
It also listed several other types of abuse including a dimunition of media freedom, restrictions on media freedom and attacks on people and organisations because of their sexual orientation.
The high level of anxiety in the government about the report is shown by the fact that it has hardly received any media coverage - with the state-controlled and financed national media effectively imposing a black-out of the report, so therefore merely ramming home its points about a lack of media freedom and objective reporting. (The video here is from Maestro, a cable-television station in Tbilisi).
Mikheil Saakashvili's office have falsified the Georgian (Kartuli) and English language transcript of his 26 February "state of the nation" speech to parliament to insert new words that point to a massive subsidy to pro-régime broadcasters Imedi and Rustavi 2.
In the real speech (see Maestro's report below for the relevant passage) the president promised a tax amnesty for regional broadcasters in the provinces - "television stations in the provincial regions" - we covered this story at the time, pointing out that the initiative raised some serious questions about the regime's behaviour towards the media:
The use of the phrase "television stations in the provincial regions" is most political of all - because it indicates that the president intends to treat Maestro and Kavkasia, regional TV stations in Tbilisi, differently from all the others.
The president also needs to be asked how many people closely associated with the ruling United National Movement are going to benefit from this tax amnesty? In November Transparency International stated: "according to documents TI Georgia obtained from [the broadcasting regulator]; several ... regional stations are officially owned by people who are closely connected to members of national or regional administrative bodies and high-ranking party officials."
Stopping regional television companies going bust is one thing - allowing them to make a free choice about what they broadcast remains another. Around a year ago several regional TV companies, including Batumi's Channel 25, were relaying Maestro when they weren't broadcasting their own material. Today none of them are. That is no accident and the president has announced nothing that will change it.
And then there is the really big question: just what form the admitted "state aid" received by Rustavi 2 and Imedi takes? When we exposed Grigol Vashadze's confession that the stations were being propped up by the government a panicked regime tried to claim they meant "legal and tax aid" - but there is no separate legal provision for television companies under the tax code and nor is there any clarity as to what sort "legal assistance" TV companies get - especially as Maestro and Kavkasia say they get nothing.
Now, it seems, the nature of (at least some of) the "state aid" has become clearer.
Because the president's office has published a falsified transcript of the speech in which the president's words have been altered to say:
"I propose a new initiative by which all Georgian TV channels, whether regional or national, will be granted a tax amnesty so that they are able to develop stronger foundations. The Georgian democratic and political culture will be enhanced by their development."
The point about tax amnesties is that you need one if you have not been paying tax. So it is clear that the Georgian authorities have been letting Rustavi 2 and Imedi get away with paying no tax for years and are now seeking to legitimise the situation. The amnesty is likely to be of little benefit to any station that doesn't take the régime's line, because they will have faced the threat of immediate closure if they failed to pay up on time, down to the last penny.
Taxpayers in Europe and the United States may wish to note that they are people paying for this, through their governments' large subventions to the Georgian authorities. Every penny lost on tax subsidies for pro-government propaganda is a penny that cannot be spent on health, education, or conflict prevention.
This is Mikheil Saakashvili's resignation statement on 8 November 2007 - for the first time (we believe) with English subtitles.
The contrast with the statement of the previous day (see here) could hardly be clearer.
As is so often the case with Saakashvili when he felt weak (as on 7 November) he appeared contrite and conciliatory, saying the day before that he thought the vast majority of the opposition were patriots and not involved in any foreign conspiracy.
Now that his police force have beaten the opposition off the streets, smashed up the country's most popular TV station and demonstrated that they are able to act above the law in association with masked and armed gangs, he feels confident enough to change his story and label the events of the previous day as a defence of democracy against a pre-planned foreign attack.
The anti-pluralist mindset of the president is also apparent: he regards the fact that no-one of any significance disagrees with him or is able to exert significant influence in the state is a good thing. Overall the speech feels more like the Czar telling his subjects how good he is to them rather than that of a democratic president asking for a new endorsement.
Update: Unfortunately the first upload suffered from sychronisation problems, hopefully the version here now is better, but the poor quality of the original video remains - though we have cleaned up the sound somewhat. If you want your own copy you can download an AVI file from here.
No one has ever accused Mikheil Saakashvili of lacking "the vision thing" but his frequent hyperbolic flights of fancy seem more like out-of-touch bombast than inspiration when one considers the country's grim economic and social state.
And while the content is different the tone is easily recognisable from the communist past: Khruschev's promise that "this generation will know communism" comes to mind.
Today, though, was another speech and another opportunity for rhetoric on an epic scale, as reported by Civil.ge:
"The major thing, that we should create and which represents our major challenge and task, is creation of the highest level of education system in this region and hopefully in Europe and in the world – like it was in Singapore, like it was in Switzerland.
"Because we are Switzerland of this region with elements of Singapore; of course we have a long way ahead before reaching that point. [Georgia] is the place where most of the financial interests will be concentrated, the most of the business activities will be concentrated, the most of the transport and tourism infrastructure will be concentrated; we will create all these together with our friends; these children [referring to school children standing behind him] should make all this work – these are the most honorable citizens of future Georgian Switzerland, future Georgian Singapore, future Georgian Dubai, Georgian Hong Kong and of greatest Georgia of all times.”
It won't have been missed that of the of the four states he mentions, only one, Switzerland, is a democracy. Singapore has elections but opposition parties that threaten to even win more than a few seats are repressed, Dubai is a near-absolute monarchy (where 250,000 labourers have been described as living in "less than human" conditions) and in Hong Kong the part-elected assembly has little power compared to the chief executive appointed by the Chinese Communist Party.
This address is not just here for historical reasons - though we think it is the only subtitled version of this address that is available, so it is important in that sense.
It gives a real insight into the character and political praxis of Mikheil Saakashvili. Part histrionic, part hectoring, it is the work of a show man but also someone possessed of a close-to-messianic view of their own historical importance.
Some points worth noting are:
He fails to announce he has actually declared a state of emergency and ordered special forces to storm the Imedi TV station (which happened within an hour of the end of this address)
He spends much of the twenty three minutes telling his audience he is in favour of human rights and freedom of expression before spending the last few minutes saying that he will not tolerate public division because - apparently - it looks bad on foreign television
He says that the majority of the Georgian opposition are true patriots - he has spent much of the two years since claiming the opposite
He claims to have concrete evidence that the oppoition - or at least party of it - is engaged in a concrete conspiracy with Russian secret services - yet sixteen months later nobody has been convicted in even a Georgian court for this
He claims that the Georgian judiciary are well able to able to hold the executive to account - these days even he admits that the judiciary is not up to scratch
The transcript is based on that provided by Civil.ge - please let us know of any errors or omissions, either in the comments box or by email (georgiamediacentre@gmail.com). Because of the way he garbles parts and appears to cut his microphone off on at least two occassions, while at other times racing through his text, the translation and the speech are at times somewhat out of synch - but we have tried to keep it readable.
"state of the nation" speech to parliament to insert new words that point to a massive subsidy to pro-régime broadcasters Imedi and Rustavi 2.
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