Right-wing rally turned violent in Tibilsi, Georgia, March 7.March 14 — Over the past week, a bizarre yet all too familiar series of events has played out in the South Caucasus country of Georgia.
Beginning March 7, violent riots erupted in the capital city of Tbilisi. The demonstrations centered around the Georgia parliament, which recently proposed a law that would require non-profit organizations, individuals, and media outlets to register with the Georgian government if they received more than 20% of their annual income from abroad.
The proposed law immediately triggered an eerily united and coherent response from the United States, the EU, and NATO. They charged that the law was a backdoor for the Russian government to suppress “democratic” dissent in Georgia. Some corporate media outlets even went as far as to refer to the proposed foreign agent law as “kremlin-esque.”
The Western imperialist establishment condemned the proposed law as mirroring a Russian law adopted in 2012. As Western condemnation of the foreign agents registration law increased, so did civil unrest.
Georgia’s opposition parties, led by the right-wing libertarian organization “Girchi,” quickly organized large demonstrations against the Georgia Dream Party, Georgia’s ruling party. According to the opposition and their supporters, the Georgia Dream Party has somehow been turned against the West by Russian agents. This foreign agent law, which supposedly models 2012 Russian law, is put forward as evidence of such a turn.
These accusations are strange, considering ascension to the European Union has been and continues to be a hallmark of the Georgia Dream Party platform. Moreover, the Georgian Dream Party is responsible for signing agreements that opened up relations between Georgia and the EU in anticipation of Georgian membership. It seems strange that this same party would suddenly turn against its European allies and adopt a policy agenda friendly to the Russian Federation.
Even so, as if scripted, corporate media became flooded with images of brave anti-government protesters waving European Union and NATO flags as they battled with riot police. These clashes and the corresponding coverage continued for another night, after which the Georgia Dream Party pledged to withdraw the bill. But, funny enough, large, radically pro-Europe and pro-Ukrainian fascist demonstrations continued to rage throughout Tbilisi even after their demands were met.
Western corporate media would have us believe that this was all organic and that the violent pro-European outburst in Georgia was a genuine response to an evil Russian sleeper agenda.
As Georgia fell swiftly into political chaos, it was hard not to be reminded of the 2014 fascist Euromaidan coup in Ukraine that set off an eight-year war of terror against the people of Donbass by the Ukrainian army and allied nazi militias. The current Russian denazification campaign and special military operation against the NATO puppet Ukrainian government would not have been necessary without the maidan.
What is truly more likely? Has the consistently pro-European Georgia Dream Party fallen prey to Russian interference, or have the U.S. and its allies created a wedge issue to promote chaos in a country that borders Russia?
The strangest part of this whole saga, the Georgian government swears that the law was modeled after a U.S. equivalent. The equivalent U.S. law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, requires those the government believes to be “foreign agents” to disclose relationships and funding. Interestingly enough, CNN and similar outlets never attacked this U.S. law as being “Kremlin”-esque.
Whether speaking of the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh crisis or the 2014 fascist Ukrainian Euromaidan, Western powers use propaganda and nonprofit organizations to stoke so-called “color revolutions” or other unrest on the borders of Russia is far from rare.
It is important that this recent Georgian political crisis is called out for what it is: a staged U.S.-backed coup promotion. As Russia’s offensive against NATO-supplied Ukrainian troops starts to bear fruit, the U.S. has become desperate to maintain a military satellite in Ukraine. A hardline fascist pro-NATO Russophobic coup in Georgia could open another theater of war, in an attempt by the U.S. and NATO to stretch thin Russian military assets already spread between Ukraine, Syria, Sudan, and Mali.
Military conflict between Russia and Georgia is not unprecedented, as Russia was forced to intervene militarily to defend South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008. After those two autonomous regions attempted to secede to Russia, the Georgian army shelled multiple cities, killing civilians and Russian peacekeepers. If this scenario sounds familiar, it is probably because the exact same saga played out during fascist Ukraine’s 8-year genocidal war against the Donbass, a war supplied and funded by the United States.
The imperialist playbook may be effective, but it isn’t new. Suppression of self-determination while simultaneously claiming victimhood seems to be a standard tool of the imperialist war machine.
The current color revolution against an already reactionary Georgian government is another chess move in the U.S. campaign against Russia, China, and the global oppressed working class.
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