Dzhumber DZIGUA: “Saakashvili keeps the bar high, for he is a good crisis manager”

The 2004 Rose Revolution in Georgia, a sign of the power of the powerless, launched a process of reforms which that country’s new President Mikheil Saakashvili was the guarantor of. This phenomenon triggered a series of publications in the Ukrainian press, which drew close historical parallels between Ukraine and Georgia: even the two – Orange and Rose – revolutions coincided in time. The talk of the two countries’ similarity resumed after the latest elections in Georgia. Dzhumber DZIGUA, head of Lviv’s Georgian community, told the Lviv Debate Club about what Georgia was like before Saakashvili, how the opposition managed to come to power in the latest elections, and what prospects Georgia has.

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ON POST-SOVIET GEORGIA

To understand what reforms were carried out in Georgia, one should know the situation in that country before the Rose Revolution. The state of Georgia in fact existed on paper only. Owing to its geographic position, it has always whetted the appetite of its neighbors, especially Russia. Over the past 20 years Georgia has had two military conflicts with Russia and a civil war. As a result of those wars, the country has about 500,000 refugees. Georgia was thrown back 40-50 years.

When I came to Georgia in 2007, for the first time in 18 years, I was surprised to see the vast majority of Georgians clean up things and do the work they had never done before. The Georgians also paid taxes and behaved civilly. Clearly, there were some innovations intended for tourists (for example, riding on a taxi from Tbilisi international airport, I could see the traffic dividing line flashing out in a wavelike manner), but I understood that this was also necessary today because Georgians, who have had more than a fair share of sufferings in the past 20 years of never-ending wars, chaos, and instability, when corruption reached a disastrous level, were, naturally, missing a normal life. They want to have a feast right now, today. This team of reformers has given these people a hope – today, not tomorrow.

When Georgia seized the chance and restored its independence, Russia was not prepared to let it go. The Kremlin decided to teach the “disobedient” Georgia a lesson by unleashing a war between Abkhazians and Georgians. It was the greatest-ever preplanned shady scheme masterminded by Russian generals. As a result of that war, about 300,000 people had to abandon their homes overnight.

To have a better glimpse of Georgia in the 1990s, it is enough to recall a few examples:

1. Those who used to fly to western Georgia’s Senaki in the Shevardnadze era remember very well the following scene: after an individual has declared his incomes, the police take him to another room, strip him naked, and frisk for any other money. They would immediately take all the money away and throw the individual out on the street. It was in fact impossible to avoid this procedure unless one knew some influential officials.

2. A military mutiny was organized in western Georgia in 1998. A group of officers decided to seize the capital, overthrow Shevardnadze, and establish control over the country. On the D-Day, when the mutineers marched towards Tbilisi and were about to capture Kutaisi, Defense Minister David Tevzadze phoned the Kutaisi mayor and suggested entering into negotiations in order to gain time. It was extremely important for the minister to drag things out so that his troops could “find” fuel for tanks and armored vehicles and be able to engage the mutineers. Can you fancy a country whose defense minister has no fuel for two tanks? The answer is obvious: Georgia was a bankrupt state at the time.

ON REFORMS AND MIKHEIL SAAKASHVILI’S RULE

It is the grassroots who brought Mikheil Saakashvili’s team to power. The revolution began in the west and ended in the east. The Georgian people placed their confidence in Saakashvili and were not mistaken.

Once in power, Saakashvili did not exactly know what to do in addition to fighting corruption. To quote the well-known Georgian expert Rondeli, he “cut on the living flesh.” The Saakashvili team was very lucky at the time – a group of businessmen came from Russia to try to buy some large facilities. Among them was Kakha Bendukidze, a billionaire who had a bright intellect and knew what was to be done. Saakashvili was very much impressed by Bendukidze’s expertise and he appointed him Georgia’s minister for the economy the next day. It was obviously a historic chance for Georgia – and the engine was brought into motion.

The first thing the new team did was to admit that the country was bankrupt and thus unable to pay out pensions or benefits, as it had done before. This confession of sorts facilitated further work. The government announced: we are beginning from scratch, we will identify those who need aid, and we will be helping them first of all.

Today, I would sum up the concrete results of Georgian reforms on the example of our family. My parents are of pension age, while my sister is a civil servant, and other relatives, who drew a low income, included a policeman, a military serviceman, and students.

As a result,

1. As of today, my retired parents have an insurance policy within the limits of 15,000 laris, i.e., 9,090 US dollars (the exchange rate is 1 dollar = 1.65 laris). To help them take out the policy, a special employee came to their house. They also draw a monthly target-oriented allowance (formerly known as pension) of 140 laris, of which 15 are remitted to the insurance company. The authorities also render aid in the shape of various food and electricity vouchers. Before the Saakashvili team came, the pension was 7 laris, while health insurance and state-of-the-art hospitals were just a pipe dream.

2. The civil servant sister. Oddly enough, she earned a few dollars under Shevardnadze, and when Saakashvili came, she began to draw 50 laris. Her current salary is 500 laris plus an insurance policy. She is learning computer programs, attends a driving course, manages to find time for a beauty parlor, and ponders upon learning English. All this is indispensable in her job. This creates quite a competition, especially if you take into account that Zugdidi is a dead-ended city (Abkhazia, controlled by the Russian troops, is 12 km away from the city, so the road has been blocked for over 20 years). The sister says there are many, including English-speaking, tourists in the city now. A lot of them also come from Ukraine. Saakashvili also brought along civilization.

3. The under-6s are insured.

4. The policeman. It is a special category. If you are a police person, all members of your family (father, mother, wife or husband, children) are insured. A policeman draws a high salary plus all kinds of benefits and a free mobile phone. He speaks English and has every opportunity to update his skills, which is a true incentive for a career. Incidentally, the state itself is an insurance agent for the policeman.

5. A young, low-income family with underage children. The father of the family works in the building industry. He may be losing his job from time to time – this is why it is considered a low-income family. A state official occasionally comes to check whether or not the family is eligible for low-income status. Family members take out an insurance policy. The father of the family was recently admitted to hospital for surgery (gastric ulcer). The insurance policy worked, and, by contrast with the previous surgery (when there was no policy), the family and relatives did not have to scrape up the last money to save the young father.

6. The serviceman. It is the best-paid category. Our nephew is a young guy who has signed a four-year contract. He is in his third year now. The arrangement allows a serviceman to draw decent wages, visit his relatives several times a month, and have his higher education fees paid by the state after the end of the service. Incidentally, everyone who has served in the army for at least one year can have his higher education studies fully paid for. The government of reformers was going to introduce the insurance of the families of army servicemen next year, as it is now done in the case of policemen’s families. There also are many other positive innovations which really work, but it is the subject of a special discussion. Ninety percent of Georgian citizens trust the military (second after the church).

7. Georgian students also take out an insurance policy. Besides, depending on their academic progress, the state pays, partly or fully, for the tuition of the best students (about 25 percent of the total number), including those studying abroad.

8. The public register.

In Georgia, you can come to the House of Justice and receive all kinds of papers in five minutes’ time. There are some documents that need more time, but not more than 15 minutes. If you are applying for a foreign-travel passport, you will have it prepared free of charge within ten days, but if you want one today, this will cost you 60 dollars and will take as few as two hours. Now let us compare this with Ukrainian standards, and we will get an answer to the question: what is the level of corruption in Ukraine?

9. I am surprised that many of my compatriots in Georgia voted for the returning of the past – one must be blind not see the abovementioned.

Oksana KOVAL, 5th-year student, Journalism Faculty, Lviv National Ivan Franko University:

“It is said today that, although reforms have really eased the life of people in financial terms, it still remains costly to live. To what extent is this opinion right?”

“As for ‘high’ prices in Georgia… It is common knowledge that there are a lot of Ukrainian products in Georgia. But this happened after Russia had broken all ties with Georgia. Russia used to be a tremendous supplier of foodstuffs, industrial goods, and energy resources to Georgia, while Georgia supplied mineral waters and wines. Russia accounted for about 60 percent of Georgia’s market, and this market ceased to exist overnight. Russia expected our country to fall, but it was wrong. Georgia quickly reoriented to other countries, including Ukraine. When Georgia held out, Russia exploded the gas pipeline and power cable pylons in winter, when the temperature was minus 20oC. Georgia withstood this, too. In 2008 Russia launched an aggression, seized 20 percent of our territory, and destroyed the country’s infrastructure in a hope that it will collapse. Besides, this was immediately followed by the world crisis and a new problem – 180,000 refugees.

“What did Georgia do? It withstood.

“Now let us compare this with Ukraine which has fertile lands, a well-developed infrastructure, excellent roads and telecommunications, a huge Black Sea coast, ports, trains, airplanes, wonderful hardworking people, and, thank God, has lived in peace in the past 60 years. In spite of this, food prices in Ukraine are only 20 percent lower than in Georgia.

“My question is: which of the governments has checked prices in Georgia at this level? It is the result of the efforts of Saakashvili’s team of reformers.”

Yuliana LAVRYSH, graduate student, Journalism Faculty, Lviv National Ivan Franko University:

“Speaking of the role of church in Georgia, to what extent is it active today in tackling the country’s problems?”

“After the collapse of the USSR, the Communist Party, whose ideology used to dominate, was banned in Georgia. Once the communists vanished, the church gradually filled their niche. The church in Georgia is no longer content with being just a spiritual educator of people, and very often it intervenes, as the communist ideology used to do, into politics, the economy, and other fields of public life. Many Georgian priests do not have a required education, while others received an education in Russia. They are preaching an ‘eternal friendship with the fraternal Orthodox people’ of Russia, forgetting that soldiers of this very ‘fraternal Orthodox people’ were destroying Georgia.

“If we analyze the well-known events, we must admit that the latest elections saw a surprising confluence of the interests of the criminal world (which wanted to take revenge), the Kremlin (a desire to oust Saakashvili), the former bureaucrats ‘hurt’ as a result of reforms (an attempt of revenge and a desire to come back to power), and, unfortunately, the Georgian Orthodox Church which, incidentally, the team of reformers underestimated (it is my personal opinion). I must add that a law was passed in Georgia, which guarantees the same rights to all religious organizations. The Orthodox clergy did not like this, and the president’s team had to announce through the parliament speaker that this law would remain in force. We saw very well what many clergymen were doing during the election campaign. In my view, the Saakashvili team had no option but to recede and ward off a war in order to save Georgia.”

ON THE TRUE REASONS WHY SAAKASHVILI OPTED FOR OPPOSITION

“Mikheil Saakashvili’s public admission of the defeat of the ruling party United National Movement in the latest parliamentary elections became a portentous event – it was a victory of democracy in the finest sense of the word. Many oppositionists called Saakashvili dictator, but if he were really a dictator, he surely would not have given up power. Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko even said he began to respect Saakashvili because everybody knows what it means to relinquish power. I can say confidently that he knows what he is saying.

“As for the allegations that Saakashvili was preparing for bloodshed and, for this reason, deployed riot police, it is not true. On the contrary, it is Saakashvili who suggested inviting a large number of observers to the elections. There were as many as 60,000 of them against 3,500,000 voters, whereas in Ukraine there were 4,000 observers against 37 million voters. It was vital for Saakashvili to show that the elections were transparent and fair and thus not to give Ivanishvili’s team and the Russian troops a pretext for intervention. Very few know that the Russian troops stationed in Abkhazia, western Georgia, were fully alerted. An exercise of snipers and army medics had finished on the last day before the elections. A Russian armed forces spokesman said bluntly: ‘When they call us, we will step in.’ It is not ruled out that Saakashvili gave up power to avert a war.”

ON THE NEW GOVERNMENT’S FUNCTIONAL MECHANISMS

“I was shocked when Saakashvili readily admitted his defeat, for he knew who he was handing over power to. On the other hand, we did not know what he knew. A Tbilisi resident was right to say: ‘Saakashvili is a genius because he still keeps the bar high: he is a very good crisis manager.’ His team consists of people who gained a good education abroad, know several languages, and can speak publicly without a problem.

“The new government is clearly inferior to Saakashvili’s team, which people can see. They have already begun to strictly control this government’s actions. Many people voted for the Ivanishvili coalition under the influence of emotions, which is obvious, even though there also were some overt supporters – we must admit this, too. We can say in no uncertain terms now: Ivanishvili’s team came to power because it had been trying to instill hatred towards one person. It does not have a program and is unable to address the concrete problems that are vital for Georgia’s integrity. Almost all the new ministers admit that their ministries are in an apple-pie order and everybody stays behind on his or her place. I’ve got a question: look, guys, if everything is OK, what did you want then?

“In my view, they did not expect to come to power! Incidentally, it is not ruled out that they will carry out a Georgia destabilization scenario later because Putin has not fulfilled the plan to topple Saakashvili and seize Georgia.

“Another eloquent fact: a Russian criminal boss, nicknamed Grandpa Hassan, posted the following on Bidzina Ivanishvili’s social networking page: ‘Bidzina, congrats to you on behalf of the whole criminal world. I hope you’ll keep your promise and release our brothers from prison.’

“We know now that it is planned to free 13,000 prisoners.

“This is the kind of government we have now.”