Growing evidence of CIA involvement in Georgia coup?
Keith Parkins | 05.12.2003 17:50 | Analysis | Globalisation | Social Struggles
The initial euphoria that people power toppled a corrupt regime in Georgia is giving way to deep unease. From a position of skepticism, there appears to be growing evidence that it was a CIA coup. Or at least the CIA helped push it in a direction commensurate with US interests.
'In a region plagued by election fraud, there is now a precedent of a government coming badly unstuck after resorting to dirty tricks, and of a peaceful protest campaign achieving its ends.' -- Ivan Khokotva
'The latest events in Georgia will have a psychological impact on Armenia, and the authorities headed by the illegitimate president must draw conclusions.' -- Stepan Demirchyan, Justice bloc
'We express solidarity with Georgia's democratic forces and wish them courage and perseverance in defending their rights.' -- Free Belarus opposition alliance
'When they needed my support on Iraq, I gave it. What happened here, this I cannot explain.' -- Eduard Shevardnadze
'In relation to the ambassador, I have serious ... suspicions that this situation that happened in Tbilisi is an exact repetition of the events in Yugoslavia. Someone had a plan.' -- Eduard Shevardnadze
'Everything was ready - the army, the internal troops, the police - but I looked at the huge crowd. I saw in their faces it would be impossible to calm them, that they were not afraid of anything, and I knew there would be bloodshed. That morning I told my colleagues the only way out was my resignation.' -- Eduard Shevardnadze
The initial euphoria that people power toppled a corrupt regime in Georgia is giving way to deep unease. From a position of skepticism, there appears to be growing evidence that it was a CIA coup.
Commentators in Russia are of the view that it follows the pattern of the successful coup in Serbia which toppled Milosevic and the failed coup in Belarus.
This is certainly the view of toppled former-president Eduard Shevardnadze who feels he was badly let down by Washington and objects strongly to unfavourable comparisons with Ceaucescu or Milosevic.
Certainly the conditions were ripe for a coup, growing poverty and disaffection, rigged elections, corruption amongst the ruling elite, possibility of closer ties with Moscow, delays to the Baku Ceyan
pipeline.
The first calls the self-declared interim president, former speaker Nino Burjanadze, made, to say everything was okay, was to the UN and BP!
It is essential to BP and the US, to have a friendly and compliant regime installed in Georgia if the Baku Ceyan pipeline is to go ahead.
Prior to the toppling of Eduard Shevardnadze, he received a series of visits from western VIPs, who no doubt told him, thus far and no further. As Saddam Husein was warned.
A key player was US ambassador Richard Miles, who was posted to Belgrade before the overthrow of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.
In addition to Miles, those making the trip to Georgia included Bush senior adviser Stephen Mann, who came with a warning: 'Georgia should not do anything that undercuts the powerful promise of an East-West energy corridor', and James Baker (strong links to the Saudi Royal family, Bush cabal Carlyle group).
Another key player, who has also been accused by Eduard Shevardnadze, was George Soros. Little is know of the part played by Soros, but he was financing students from Serbia to come across the border and destabalise the Shevardnadze regime.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell was quick to recognise the new regime. The reaction of George W Bush was to call acting-president Nino Burjanadze and to offer to send a delegation to assess her needs.
We have not seen George W offering his support to populist presidents in Brazil or Venezuela, or supporting the people on the streets, when they toppled the US-backed presidents in Argentina and Bolivia. It remains to be seen what Bush will do when the people in neighbouring countries to Georgia, and in the Central Asian former-Soviet Republics, take to the streets to remove regimes far worse than that of Eduard Shevardnadze.
There is thus a coincident of interests. CIA has had the opportunity to remove a Grand Master from the board of the Great Game being played out across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It is unlikely that they engineered the coup, but seeing which we the wind was blowing, gave a push to steer it in the right direction.
It has resulted in the removal of Eduard Shevardnadze, and eased the passage of the Baku Ceyan pipeline through the country.
But it doesn't have to be. It is the people who have removed Eduard Shevardnadze from power, albeit with a CIA helping hand behind the scenes. It is for the people once again to look beyond their borders to determine their own fate.
They looked to Serbia to see how the people removed Slobodan Milosevic. They now need to look further afield to Latin America, to Bolivia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, to see how people are organising at a local level.
Georgia, currently a basket case, could be the example, which spreads across Europe and Central Asia, of people determining their own fate, of participatory democracy, replacing flawed representative democracy. Real democracy, where it is the people who determine their own fate, not local elites, unaccountable puppets of global capital.
Ref
Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, Hamish Hamilton, 2003
Aziz Choudry, Blood, Oil, Guns And Bullets, Indymedia Chicago, 30 November 2003
Jenny Craven, Georgia 1997, Russia Indymedia, 13 November 2001
Steven Eke, Powers vie for influence in Georgia, BBC news on-line, 26 November 2003
Steven Eke, Russia in row over ex-USSR states, BBC news on-line, 2 December 2003
Fuel's Gold, SchNEWS, 5 December 2003
'I saw Georgia election fraud', BBC news on-line, 26 November 2003
Ivan Khokotva, Georgia 'revolution' inspires neighbours, BBC news on-line, 27 November 2003
Keith Parkins, Democracy US style, Indymedia UK, 21 November 2003
Keith Parkins, Georgia, Indymedia, 25 November 2003
Keith Parkins, Was Georgia a CIA coup?, Indymedia UK, 27 November 2003
Keith Parkins, A sense of the masses - a manifesto for the new revolution, November 2003
Press anxiety over power games, BBC news on-line, 29 November 2003
Shevardnadze says US betrayed him, BBC news on-line, 27 November 2003
web
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/11/282127.html
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=366181
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/11/281517.html
http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/democracy.htm
'The latest events in Georgia will have a psychological impact on Armenia, and the authorities headed by the illegitimate president must draw conclusions.' -- Stepan Demirchyan, Justice bloc
'We express solidarity with Georgia's democratic forces and wish them courage and perseverance in defending their rights.' -- Free Belarus opposition alliance
'When they needed my support on Iraq, I gave it. What happened here, this I cannot explain.' -- Eduard Shevardnadze
'In relation to the ambassador, I have serious ... suspicions that this situation that happened in Tbilisi is an exact repetition of the events in Yugoslavia. Someone had a plan.' -- Eduard Shevardnadze
'Everything was ready - the army, the internal troops, the police - but I looked at the huge crowd. I saw in their faces it would be impossible to calm them, that they were not afraid of anything, and I knew there would be bloodshed. That morning I told my colleagues the only way out was my resignation.' -- Eduard Shevardnadze
The initial euphoria that people power toppled a corrupt regime in Georgia is giving way to deep unease. From a position of skepticism, there appears to be growing evidence that it was a CIA coup.
Commentators in Russia are of the view that it follows the pattern of the successful coup in Serbia which toppled Milosevic and the failed coup in Belarus.
This is certainly the view of toppled former-president Eduard Shevardnadze who feels he was badly let down by Washington and objects strongly to unfavourable comparisons with Ceaucescu or Milosevic.
Certainly the conditions were ripe for a coup, growing poverty and disaffection, rigged elections, corruption amongst the ruling elite, possibility of closer ties with Moscow, delays to the Baku Ceyan
pipeline.
The first calls the self-declared interim president, former speaker Nino Burjanadze, made, to say everything was okay, was to the UN and BP!
It is essential to BP and the US, to have a friendly and compliant regime installed in Georgia if the Baku Ceyan pipeline is to go ahead.
Prior to the toppling of Eduard Shevardnadze, he received a series of visits from western VIPs, who no doubt told him, thus far and no further. As Saddam Husein was warned.
A key player was US ambassador Richard Miles, who was posted to Belgrade before the overthrow of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.
In addition to Miles, those making the trip to Georgia included Bush senior adviser Stephen Mann, who came with a warning: 'Georgia should not do anything that undercuts the powerful promise of an East-West energy corridor', and James Baker (strong links to the Saudi Royal family, Bush cabal Carlyle group).
Another key player, who has also been accused by Eduard Shevardnadze, was George Soros. Little is know of the part played by Soros, but he was financing students from Serbia to come across the border and destabalise the Shevardnadze regime.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell was quick to recognise the new regime. The reaction of George W Bush was to call acting-president Nino Burjanadze and to offer to send a delegation to assess her needs.
We have not seen George W offering his support to populist presidents in Brazil or Venezuela, or supporting the people on the streets, when they toppled the US-backed presidents in Argentina and Bolivia. It remains to be seen what Bush will do when the people in neighbouring countries to Georgia, and in the Central Asian former-Soviet Republics, take to the streets to remove regimes far worse than that of Eduard Shevardnadze.
There is thus a coincident of interests. CIA has had the opportunity to remove a Grand Master from the board of the Great Game being played out across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It is unlikely that they engineered the coup, but seeing which we the wind was blowing, gave a push to steer it in the right direction.
It has resulted in the removal of Eduard Shevardnadze, and eased the passage of the Baku Ceyan pipeline through the country.
But it doesn't have to be. It is the people who have removed Eduard Shevardnadze from power, albeit with a CIA helping hand behind the scenes. It is for the people once again to look beyond their borders to determine their own fate.
They looked to Serbia to see how the people removed Slobodan Milosevic. They now need to look further afield to Latin America, to Bolivia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, to see how people are organising at a local level.
Georgia, currently a basket case, could be the example, which spreads across Europe and Central Asia, of people determining their own fate, of participatory democracy, replacing flawed representative democracy. Real democracy, where it is the people who determine their own fate, not local elites, unaccountable puppets of global capital.
Ref
Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, Hamish Hamilton, 2003
Aziz Choudry, Blood, Oil, Guns And Bullets, Indymedia Chicago, 30 November 2003
Jenny Craven, Georgia 1997, Russia Indymedia, 13 November 2001
Steven Eke, Powers vie for influence in Georgia, BBC news on-line, 26 November 2003
Steven Eke, Russia in row over ex-USSR states, BBC news on-line, 2 December 2003
Fuel's Gold, SchNEWS, 5 December 2003
'I saw Georgia election fraud', BBC news on-line, 26 November 2003
Ivan Khokotva, Georgia 'revolution' inspires neighbours, BBC news on-line, 27 November 2003
Keith Parkins, Democracy US style, Indymedia UK, 21 November 2003
Keith Parkins, Georgia, Indymedia, 25 November 2003
Keith Parkins, Was Georgia a CIA coup?, Indymedia UK, 27 November 2003
Keith Parkins, A sense of the masses - a manifesto for the new revolution, November 2003
Press anxiety over power games, BBC news on-line, 29 November 2003
Shevardnadze says US betrayed him, BBC news on-line, 27 November 2003
web
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/11/282127.html http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=366181 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/11/281517.html http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/democracy.htm
Keith Parkins
Homepage:
http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/democracy.htm
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