October 19, 2024 - The South Caucasus News - SouthCaucasusNews.com

On October 18 the Laboratory for the Research of the Soviet Past (SovLab) organized and hosted an event dedicated to the signing by political parties of the Memorandum “On the Establishment of the Institute of National Memory of Georgia after the 2024 Parliamentary elections and on the Comprehensive Realization of the Right to Know the Past”. The Memorandum was signed by three major opposition political alliances- Coalition for Change, Unity, and Strong Georgia.

The memorandum notes that since Georgia’s restoration of independence, there has been no full lustration, full disclosure of Soviet archives, or implementation of related measures. It also notes that in recent years, “the Georgian Dream government has introduced a number of draconian regulations” to restrict access to Soviet-era archives, which “has helped Russian disinformation to successfully use the Soviet past as an effective propaganda tool.”

The memorandum notes that a number of post-totalitarian states, such as Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Ukraine, have made significant progress in researching and rethinking the Soviet communist totalitarian experience, including by creating an effective institutional framework in the form of institutions of national memory.

The Memorandum thus provides for the establishment of a Parliamentary Institute of National Memory in cooperation with civil society and the academic community, taking into account the practice of Poland, the Baltic countries and Ukraine. The Institute will be established to fulfill the following tasks:

1. Lustration – to be carried out taking into account the best international practices. The lustration should not be considered as a punitive measure, but as a mechanism to free citizens from pressure;

2. Ensuring the opening of Soviet-era archives – lifting the restrictions imposed in recent years;

3. Protection, research and memorialization of sites of remembrance – including protection of mass graves of victims of repression, memorialization of sites related to the Soviet-Russian occupation of Georgia;

4. Educational and research activities.

On October 9, the European Parliament adopted a resolution “On democratic backsliding and threats to political pluralism in Georgia” which noted that the Georgian Government has further worsened access to public information, including Soviet-era archives, “using the EU General Data Protection Regulation to falsely justify draconian restrictions to archive access”. In the section on increased Russian influence in Georgia, the resolution states that, the resolution says that “some of Georgia’s most important Soviet-era archives (including the archives of the former KGB and the former Central Committee of the Communist Party) have been completely closed since October 2023 without any explanation.” The resolution regrets the growing cult of Stalin “supported by the ruling government.”

SovLab Employee Attacked

On the same day, after the signing of the Memorandum, an employee of the SovLab and an activist Badri Okujava, an employee of SovLab and an activist, was stopped, ambushed, beaten, and pelted with paint as he walked through the center of Tbilisi near the SovLab office.

According to Okujava, he was attacked by 3-4 men who were joined by several others from a car. Okujava said that he was beaten, especially on his back, and that he recognized the individuals by their faces and according to him, he knew them to be representatives of the Georgian Dream party.

Giorgi Kandelaki, one of the founders of SovLab, links the incident to political motives. He said about the incident: “Badri is an activist and there is no doubt that the incident had political motives”.

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