Georgia Is on Our Minds, But Abuses Are Ignored
Only Human
By Kathleen Peratis
Thu. Sep 04, 2008
Georgia has been America’s darling in the Caucasus since its charismatic and telegenic young president, Mikheil Saakashvili, took over from the nasty old Russian-style despot Eduard Shevardnadze in the fall of 2003, in what came to be called the Rose Revolution (because Saakashvili carried a rose, and not an AK-47, as he and the throngs breached the doors of the country’s parliament building). All the world (well, most of it) had high hopes for Saakashvili’s reformist, democratic, anticorruption platform.
Throughout last month’s hostilities with Russia and in the weeks since, little Georgia’s stock has only risen with the Bush administration, as well as with the mainstream press and both presidential candidates. “We are all Georgians,” John McCain said. No one in the Obama campaign demurred.
Despite - or even because of - this coalescing consensus, now may be a good time to knock a few chunks out of Saakashvili’s pedestal. While Saakashvili rightly gets credit for putting the fight against corruption at the top of his agenda (in 2004, Transparency International declared Georgia one of the most corrupt governments in the world) and for combating religious and ethnic discrimination, he and his government have also committed serious human rights abuses.
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