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Will parliament vote for lustration?
Eighteen years after the fall of the Soviet Union, lustration is still under question
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Author: Nana Sajaia
In the coming weeks, parliament will start committee hearings and discussions over a draft law on lustration. Gia Tortladze, opposition MP and leader of the parliamentary faction Powerful Georgia, tabled a draft law excluding former Soviet secret service officers and Communist Party functionaries from serving in state structures.
The proposal is similar to one which was tabled by the opposition Democratic Front faction in 2007. Back then Tortladze was a member of the faction. The draft law was voted down by the majority National Movement Party in February 2007.
According to the draft law, “those who worked in ex-Soviet special services, or held high positions in the Soviet Communist Party, or were serving as KGB agents will be banned from holding key positions in the government, Presidential Administration, or defense and interior ministries.”
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Window on Eurasia
Putin: Decision on Georgia’s reunification “already decided”
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Author: Paul Goble
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has often described the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest tragedy” of the 20th century, has now said that the “reunification” of Georgia has “already been decided,” a suggestion some of his listeners believe was a call for restoring Moscow’s control over Georgia and even the former Soviet Union as a whole.
In an intriguing commentary published in yesterday’s Rossiyskaya Gazeta, columnist Bozhena Rynska describes both the celebration of the 80th birthday of longtime Soviet and Russian official Yevgeny Primakov and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s two very different toasts on that occasion.
The celebration took place at the Center of International Trade. Among those in attendance were Vice Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, Governor Valentina Matviyenko, Federation Council First Vice Speaker Aleksandr Torshin “and other government people of the first rank,” Rynska said.
Primakov, she continued, has close ties to Georgia – he spent part of his childhood there, his first wife was a Georgian, and his mother was a Georgian-Armenian – and consequently it was not surprising that many of the guests at his birthday celebration were people “with Georgian roots.”
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Teens still detained in Tskhinvali
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Author: Tamar Kikacheishvili
Four Georgian teenagers arrested in Tskhinvali remain detained. Neither their families nor their lawyers have managed to contact them. The Georgian government addressed the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg Nov. 17 demanding their immediate release, Deputy Justice Minister Tina Burjaliani reported earlier this week.
“We constantly inform the court in Strasbourg about human rights violations in the occupied territories,” the official said. “However, this case was especially focused as it refers to teen detainees. According to current information, the health of one of the detainees is unstable.”
Burjaliani said in a statement that an official appeal has been sent to Strasbourg. The appeal warns that the situation in border areas is dangerous. The government underscored that Russian militants violate the rights of individuals living in the areas on the pretext of “border violations.”
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Russia building new military bases in Gali
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Author: Nana Sajaia
Russia continues to build military bases in the Abkhazian city of Gali. Gali is situated some 20 miles away from the Enguri Bridge and serves as an administrative border between Georgia and Abkhazia.
According to the Abkhazian government-in-exile, the Russian Federal Security Services (FSB) are building large military bases in the villages of Otobaia, Phichori and Nabakevi.
“Besides military bases, residential construction is continuing where Russian military officers will reside. The building materials have been taken from Ochamchire,” the Abkhazian government-in-exile’s Samegrelo Representative Tornike Kilanava told Georgia Today.
Kilanava added that construction is underway in four villages in the Gali region – Tagiloni, Nabakevi, Otobaia, Phichori. He said the military is providing the building materials.
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Reopening Russia-Georgia border vital for Armenia
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Author: Zaza Jgharkava
While the political establishment kept itself busy with opposition campaigns Nov. 7, the Presidential Administration distributed a press release calling on the National Security Council to open the Larsi border checkpoint. Earlier President Mikheil Saakashvili stated his intention to open the checkpoint only after negotiating with opposition parties. And so, once again the border issue brought Moscow-Tbilisi relations back to the forefront of Georgian politics.
With no diplomatic relations between Georgia and Russia, the press release resulted in a scandal, as the non-parliamentary opposition accused the government of entering secret negotiations with Moscow. According to the radical opposition, Georgian officials met illegally with the Kremlin’s goons in Yerevan and made a deal at the expense of national interests. The larger than life accusations were the result of a Russian statement about the country’s border structure, which alleged that Moscow-Tbilisi negotiations on the Laris border had finished successfully.
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