Category: Selected Articles

In a press conference this week, Georgian Dream Chairman Irakli Kobakhidze announced the commencement of an impeachment procedure against Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili. Kobakhidze acknowledged that while the process requires the support of the opposition in parliament, the party views it as their constitutional duty to address what they perceive as a violation of the Constitution.
The grounds for impeachment, as outlined by Kobakhidze, stem from President Zurabishvili’s alleged breach of the Constitution by embarking on a series of foreign visits without the government’s approval. According to Georgian Dream, the Constitution explicitly mandates that the government has sole authority over both domestic and foreign policy.
While it is understood that garnering support from the opposition is pivotal for the impeachment process to proceed, Georgian Dream maintains that the primary objective is to have the Constitutional Court officially confirm the violation of the Constitution by President Zurabishvili.
The party contends that this move will serve to shed light on what they perceive as a close alignment between the President and the radical opposition.
“The meeting of the political council of the party was held, where, in addition to other issues, we discussed the gross violation of the Constitution of Georgia by the President of Georgia, who started a series of visits to foreign countries without the consent of the government. According to the Constitution of Georgia, only the government is authorized to implement the domestic and foreign policy of the country.
“According to Article 52, Clause 1, Sub-Clause A of the Constitution of Georgia, the President of Georgia shall exercise representative powers in foreign relations only with the approval of the government. As such, the text of the Constitution does not leave even minimal space for its non-uniform interpretation. It is known to the public that the President of Georgia has a radically different attitude from the government towards the processes related to Georgia’s EU membership candidate status. In particular, her position is that Georgia did not deserve the candidate status last year.
“Moreover, according to her, the parliament and the government are only formally fulfilling the requirements of the European Union, which means that, in her opinion, Georgia does not deserve the status of a candidate even now.
“Given such an attitude, it is obvious that any European visit of the President of Georgia is counterproductive from the point of view of Georgia’s chances to receive the candidate status and directly opposes the efforts of the Georgian government to receive said status. Therefore, the refusal of the Georgian government regarding the European tour planned by the President was justified both from the legal and political point of view,” said Kobakhidze.

He claimed that Salome Zurabishvili is trying to play “a kind of invincibility game.”

Source: Facebook

“On the one hand, she knows that from today’s point of view, the prospect of granting Georgia candidate status has increased, and she wants to earn points from such a possible development of events. On the other hand, she will try, as much as possible, to prevent Georgia from receiving the candidate status.
“The Constitution of Georgia provides for the only effective legal mechanism for responding to its violation – this is impeachment. Yesterday and the day before yesterday, we were repeatedly pointing out that despite the gross violation of the Constitution, impeachment was impossible in the given political situation. The support of 100 MPs is required for the implementation of impeachment and, accordingly, without the votes of the radical opposition, it has no prospect of execution. Despite this, at the meeting of the political council of the party, we made a decision to initiate the impeachment procedure against the President of Georgia. First of all, this is our responsibility before the Constitution of Georgia. Turning a blind eye to gross violations of the Constitution undermines the rule of law of a legal state and democratic constitutional system. In addition, the impeachment procedure will once again expose the common agenda of the radical opposition and Salome Zurabishvili, which is directed against the state interests of Georgia, including Georgia’s candidate status.
In order to initiate the impeachment procedure, the signatures of the members of the parliamentary majority will be collected in the next few days, and the relevant constitutional submission will be filed with the Constitutional Court of Georgia,” Kobakhidze said.
The impeachment procedure, as outlined in the Constitution, necessitates the backing of at least one-third of the full parliament membership (50 deputies). To actually remove the President from office through impeachment, 100 votes are required. This highlights the significance of cooperation with the opposition in this endeavor.
European Parliamentarian Viola von Cramon has weighed in on the situation, expressing the view that the initiation of impeachment may be seen as an attempt to divert public attention from other pressing issues.
“In my opinion, this is an attempt to divert public attention from real problems,” the MEP stated.
The process outlined in the Constitution stipulates that the matter must be referred to the Constitutional Court, which is tasked with considering it and presenting its conclusion to the Parliament within a month. If the Constitutional Court confirms the violation of the Constitution or the presence of signs of a crime, the Parliament must then consider and vote on the issue of the removal of the official from office through impeachment within two weeks.
Ultimately, the President of Georgia can only be removed from office by impeachment if the decision garners the support of at least two-thirds of the full membership of the Parliament. Should the Parliament fail to reach a decision within the specified period, initiating the impeachment procedure on the same grounds is prohibited.

In light of these developments, the initiation of the impeachment procedure against President Salome Zurabishvili marks a significant political event in Georgia’s recent history. The outcome will hinge on political maneuvering and cooperation between the ruling party and the opposition in the days ahead.

By Mariam Gorkhelashvili

On September 11, at about 08:30, illegal Armenian armed detachments in the territory of Azerbaijan, where Russian peacekeeping forces are temporarily stationed, using a dog as a kamikaze attempted to commit a terrorist act against the servicemen of the Azerbaijan Army who were on combat duty in the direction of the Khojavend region. Thus, illegal Armenian armed detachments attached a Radio Controlled Improvised Explosive Device (RCIED) to the dog and forced it to move in the direction of the Azerbaijan Army positions.The Armenian gunmen’s attempt to launch the improvised explosive device attached to the dog that entered the positions of the Azerbaijan Army in order to increase the scale of the terrorist provocation and cause even more damage to military personnel was suppressed due to the vigilance of the Azerbaijan Army servicemen.We strongly condemn the provocation as an action that contradicts the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as an amendment to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons.

Using animals for the purpose of committing suicide is an immoral act, and we consider it a terrorist act.

This week, 15 years ago, Georgia was one of the first in the 21st century to face the wrath of the Kremlin’s foreign policy machinations. To commemorate the occasion, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and his retinue attended a memorial ceremony at the nation’s military cemetery where the Georgian warriors that fell during the war had been laid to rest. Shaking hands and embracing family members of these heroes, the Prime Minister made statements that sparked controversy with many, including the opposition.
This controversy surrounds the observed date of the beginning of the war. While many online refer to the beginning of formal hostilities as August 7th, the Government of Georgia and others claim this was not official until the following day. Most military analysts and enthusiasts agree that the true roots of the war go much farther back, and the debate sparked by recent statements hinges on a matter of hours and varying reports that come out of the fog of war.
During his statements to the press at the cemetery, Garibashvili commented on the beginning of the war, stating “you can read the order of the president of that time, where it is directly written ‘August 8’ – until 2012, August 8 was officially celebrated as the date of the start of the war.” In response, members of several opposition parties latched on this, calling it a falsehood and a line from the Kremlin. “Russia attacked us on August 7, this is already a fact recognized by the world,” Giorgi Vashadze, MP and chairman of the Strategy Aghmashenebeli party, said to the media.
At the center of the debate is who was the true aggressor in the war. The Kremlin’s narrative has long been that Georgia had been attempting to subjugate these two regions by force, including genocide, and this began with the shelling of Tskhinvali on August 8. Fueled by Rusophobic sentiments in the West and their manipulation of the Georgian government, the Russian side states that Georgia was at fault for the destruction that came after their forces were forced to intervene in a “peace enforcement” operation as a result of this attack on the South Ossetian de facto capital.
Conversely, the Georgian and Western side says quite simply that Russia used the internal security issues in Georgia as a causus belli. With Tbilisi growing closer and closer to Europe and the collective West, the Kremlin saw the opportunity to cripple the trend, thus virtually eliminating the possibility of a NATO country on its southern front. This side states that Russian troops had already entered Georgian territory on August 7th, ahead of any Georgian operations around Tskhinvali, in order to invade and capture territory, not to “enforce peace”.

To drive this home, Giga Bokeria, head of the European Georgia party, noted, “This was a key issue of our enemy’s propaganda, to at least partially blame Georgia for what happened in August 2008 and the fact that today we have a government, a regime, which in this matter and more in the wider context, has completely become a part of our enemy’s propaganda and has become a partner in this. Russia sees in this a recipe for maintaining power for itself; this is our shame.”

Georgian National Guardsmen during the Russian invasion of Georgia, 2008. Photo source: Press Office of the Government Administration

With most opposing arguments, the truth generally lies in the center somewhere. However, taking a deeper look at the events of those harrowing days as the dark clouds in the north gathered allows one to see the intricate details that shed more light on the reality on the ground. With the fog of war working against the truth, it is imperative to take several key notes into account.
The first step is to look at the background of the war. For months, and indeed even years, Tbilisi had sparred with militants in both regions. Groups in South Ossetia and Abkhazia had long sought their own independence after the fall of the Soviet Union, when the duo had achieved some small modicum of autonomy as oblasts, or regions. Following the Georgian civil war, tempers had not cooled and low-level conflict continued to be seen.
In the weeks prior to August 7th and 8th, these tensions had resulted in sporadic gunfights and artillery exchanges. On August 1, Georgian police were struck by an improvised explosive device planted by South Ossetian militants, causing Georgian troops to open fire, killing at least 4 of the armed militants. For days after, the frequency of armed clashes steadily rose. On the 6th of August, then-President Mikheil Saakashvili attempted to reach then-President of Russia Dimitri Medvedev in order to sway him against an intervention or invasion, but he was unable to reach the Kremlin and was told that “the time for presidential negotiations has not yet arrived.”
In this crescendo of violence, Russian military forces were confirmed to have been moving around the North Caucasus, well within Russian territory. However, a Georgian intelligence report at the time claimed that intercepted communications indicated that Russian units entered Georgian territory in the latter part of the 7th. A call between a South Ossetian border security command post and a smaller post by the Roki Tunnel connecting Russia with Georgia was reportedly recorded at 3:52 AM on August 7th.
“Listen, has the armor arrived or what?” the command post asks. “The armor and people,” the response came. When asked if these Russian units had already passed through the tunnel, the reply was “Yes, 20 minutes ago; when I called you, they had already arrived.” The messages confirm that Russian military units were on the move long before any Georgian offensive operations.
What the calls do not tell us is how many units passed through the tunnel. The Russian Ministry of Defense has held the position that any movement was a small contingent meant to rotate peacekeeping units out of the area, indeed units that had been working with Georgian units in a long-established deal. However, the Estonian National Defense College released a report indicating that the size of the units was far more than any peacekeeping agreement allowed for. “150 Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers entered the Roki tunnel in the morning hours of August 7,” the report says. “This happened 20 hours before President Saakashvili gave the order to attack.”
Additionally, a 2009 Black Sea Trust report commented on the composition and mission of such a force, stating the objective was a “full scale invasion inside the Georgian territory with the direct objective to replace President Saakashvili and his regime and to install a ‘more responsible’ president in Tbilisi, as Russian authorities clearly put it.”
Interestingly, another report from the Russian side that went largely under reported shows that Russian conscript units were deployed on August 7th as well. Days after the war concluded, the Russian newspaper “Permskiye Novosti” published an article titled “Perm soldiers found themselves in the epicenter of the war.” In this article, the unit of conscripts spoke with family members about the state of confusion many of them found themselves in during the conflict. The article quotes one of the conscripts who called home saying to his family that “we have been here since August 7. Well, our entire 58th army” and adding that he was not able to call sooner as the unit’s command had “silenced” their phone service.
In an interview, Russian Captain Denis Sedristyi said to military news outlet Krasnaya Zvezda that “on August 7th, we received the order to start moving towards Tskhinvali. An alert was declared and we began the road march.” Thus, with this compiled information, it can be assessed that indeed Russian regular units had been in Georgian territory, moving in an offensive and tactical nature before any Georgian movements against them had begun in earnest.

Sadly, the resulting 5 days of combat saw 180 Georgian soldiers and police killed, and more than 1,000 wounded. Russia sustained 170 killed and more than 350 wounded, including members of the North Caucasian, Cossack, Abkhazian, and South Ossetian militias. The controversy, still leaving the wounds of war open, is only deepening the divide between people once united. Indeed, in light of more recent events since 2014 in Ukraine, it is more clear than ever which side is the true aggressor in the region.

By Michael Godwin