Opposition Protests Outside U.S. Embassy

The eight-party opposition coalition held a protest rally outside the U.S. embassy in a Tbilisi suburb on March 19. It came a few hours before a meeting between U.S. President George W. Bush and his Georgian counterpart, Mikheil Saakashvili, in Washington.

“It is extremely regrettable that it was the United States that legitimized Saakashvili’s illegitimate [January 5 presidential] election and I want to ask them [the U.S. administration] not to make the Georgian people hate the Americans,” coalition leader MP Levan Gachechiladze said at the rally.

“We want to tell Mr. Bush: Georgia is your friend; the Georgian people and not Mikheil Saakashvili are your friend,” Giorgi Khaindrava, an individual member of the coalition, told protesters. “We want to tell the U.S. ambassador loudly to convey our message to the White House that Saakashvili is an illegitimate president and he cannot represent Georgia.”

“On January 5 the Georgian people made its choice by saying no to Saakashvili. We urge our friends [in the United States] to respect this choice by the Georgian people,” MP Kakha Kukava of the Conservative Party said. “A repeat presidential election should be held in Georgia, free parliamentary elections should be held and all Georgia’s friends should prove that they are real friends.”
 
“The Georgian people want friendship and partnership, including with the Unite States, but we will not be somebody’s puppets, slaves,” Koba Davitashvili, leader of the Party of People, said. “If the U.S. government wants to see a friendly Georgia, it should make friends with the Georgian people and not with a tyrant or dictator.”
 
The opposition also called on the U.S. government to press the Georgian authorities to facilitate the resumption of Imedi TV broadcasts. Gachechiladze said that a protest rally would be held outside Parliament on March 24 against, what he called, the authorities’ attempts to seize the TV station.

Badri Patarkatsishvili’s widow, Inna Gudavadze, said in a statement issued on March 19 that the Georgian government was trying to take over Imedi TV station with the help of “impostors.” 

“They are taking over Imedi from the Patarkatsishvili family. Is this democracy? Why do they need such a big embassy, if they do not speak out against it?” Gachechiladze said, pointing his finger at the U.S. embassy compound. “If Imedi were opened, nobody would be on hunger strike, because we would have the means to disseminate true information and would be busy with the elections and the lives of some persons would not be endangered.”

This is the second time the opposition held a protest rally outside the U.S. embassy. On January 22 Koba Davitashvili, leader of the Party of People, held a rally outside the embassy and slammed the U.S. government for, as he put it, turning a blind eye on election fraud.