The approaching collapse of the Communist
system and its Evil Empire - as signalled by the
'five-year plan of state funerals' of Brezhnev,
Andropov and Chernenko - prompted the
ruling class of the former 'Indestructible Union', the
imperial mafia, to ponder its own future. Their
leading lights began to develop, and once Gorbachev
had won power to implement, a plan for transforming
the Communist imperial mafia, such conversion being
the hidden essence of ‘perestroika' and 'new
thinking'. First
among them was Shevardnadze, who, alone among the
highest members of the nomenklatura,
possessed invaluable experience of collaboration with
the ‘black’ economy - a shadowy and criminal proxy
for the free market in the USSR. As Georgia's Minister
of Internal Affairs and First Secretary of the Central
Committee of the Georgian Communist Party,
Shevardnadze had conceived, and later put into
operation, a total, deeply integrated and superbly
organized system of bribery, extortion and; collusion
which eventually reached - and began to infiltrate -
the highest levels of power in the Soviet Union,
enabling this provincial politician to rise to the
very Olympus of the imperial nomenklatura. The plan called for the
regulated 'surrender' of political power by the CPSU,
accompanied, and at certain stages anticipated, by the
organisation of a CPSU economy in the former Soviet
Union and the transfer of hard currency looted by the
CPSU to the West. Working in tandem, the two
initiatives would create the economic base of the new
power élite, restoring the power of the nomenklatura
in the post-CPSU, post-USSR era of 'free states'. 'GRAB-AT-ISATION'
AVALANCHE The avalanche of elemental, uncontained
privatisaton - justly referred to as
'grab-at-is-ation' by the ordinary people - was
helpful in advancing this aim, as, unleashed with
superior skill by Yegor Gaidar, economic chaos and
mass bankruptcy engulfed the former Soviet Republics.
The assets, lying dormant in the West, could now be
used to seize key economic spheres in the former USSR,
resulting in the 'second coming' or re-establishment
of the imperial mafia, now transformed and aligned
with certain political forces in the West - in short,
in the rejuvenation of the Communist nomenklatura.
[And since the looted finds were deposited with banks
in the West, the Soviet nomenklatura had all of a
sudden become clients of these banks en masse
-Ed.] . The
nomenklaturist mafiosi hoped that dirty CPSU hard
currency, now finding its way back to the former
Soviet Republics, would masquerade as foreign
investments. This is especially dangerous because the
foreign investments in question are supposed to play
some kind of civilising rôle, bringing with them a
fresh and desirable range of economic, and ultimately
political, relationships. Hence the genesis, or
origin, of such investments is of exceptional
importance: it is bound to influence the character
of the social and political economy, which ultimately
emerges. A
report published in Soviet Analyst [Volume 21, Number
6, page 5] is worth t noting in this connection.
Apparently, yet another aspect of the 'penetration of
commercial structures [by the CPSU]’ has been the
emergence of hundreds of ‘joint’ ventures which
are wholly capitalised with ‘laundered’ CPSU
money. Thus the ‘native’ as well as ‘foreign’
capital for such joint ventures consists mainly of
Communist Party dollars and Communist Party roubles. Independent Georgia, the
legitimate Government of the country, and its
President - which decisively challenged the legitimacy
of these structures - were all naturally unwelcome, as
far as the transnational nomenklaturist corporatists
established by Shevardnadze and his comrades were
concerned. For this reason, the legitimate Government
has been systematically discredited as ‘dictatorial’
by the nomenklaturist class and their Western cohorts.
The example of Georgia's ‘democrats’ is a
cautionary lesson to which all ‘ex’-Soviet
Republics and nations must pay heed. It will become evident
from what follows that the junta-run Georgia, like
many former Soviet Republics, is literally chock-full
of these Communist Party-funded ‘joint’
enterprises, feeding the new bourgeoisie of the old
Communist nomenklatura and its ‘market
democrats’, with power, money and weapons at the
expense of unprecedented poverty, robbery and genocide
among the people of Georgia. This, then, is the situation at the
outset - a dreadful state of affairs which frustrates
all attempts to construct a Western-type economy in
Georgia. Instead of stratifying and boosting the
middle classes as a bulwark of democracy, the criminal
cleptocracy - a dictatorial élite possessing monopoly
powers - divides the country socially into a few
bourgeois grandees and the mass of the proletariat,
compelled to obey the ruling clique, as in certain
banana republics of Latin America, by the force of
arms. This
is one of the effects of the currently continuing
Communist dictatorship, and to date the main effect of
‘perestroika’. Obviously, there is nothing
new about the secret transfer of funds abroad by
dictatorships in crisis. It was by such means that the
economic resources of Nazi Germany were ‘safeguarded’.
However in this connection the Communist Party has
outperformed the National Socialist Party. IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT
SUPPORT In
this era of computerised banking, the movement of
colossal sums in the Communist Party’s possession
could not possibly have passed unnoticed - either
within the USSR, or else in those counties which have
accepted placement of the loot. In particular,
according to Soviet Analyst [Volume. 21, Number 6,
pages 3-5], over the past few years official Communist
Party organs have been involved in the transfer of
huge volumes of capital - in contrast to the pattern
established in earlier years, when smaller sums were
distributed via Western banks to finance local
Communist activities. By 1991 Western analysts had come to the
conclusion that a ‘mass movement of capital’ was
in progress. Some Western specialists who have studied
the transfers assess the cumulative total at $280
billion. The
money was placed in some 7,000 bank accounts
throughout Europe, particularly in Lyons and
Marseilles, as well as the Near East and Latin
America. In addition, so-called ‘friendly firms’ -
in reality, business fronts of the Communist Party
abroad - were established in a number of Western
counties. This is essentially how the contemporary
global Communist Party ‘economic underground’ came
into being. Financial
operations on such a large scale required systematic
Support and cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, the Communist Party's main foreign
policymaker, controlled by Gorbachev's factotum
and ‘one of the fathers of perestroika and
New Thinking’ - Eduard Shevardnadze. Equally, Western
governments could not have failed to notice - and,
having noticed the huge money flows, could hardly have
failed to respond with appropriate technical measures
with respect to the multibillion-dollar resources
being shunted around, especially given the possibility
that these could destabilise the financial and
economic situations in certain of the countries in
receipt of the funds in question. At this sensitive stage,
the Communist Party’s nomenklatura would have
had to have placed their cards on the table - and,
having done so, in effect collude with certain key
figures and moving forces in Western politics and
business. It is increasingly clear that
Shevardnadze’s chief party assignment, as head of
the Soviet Foreign Ministry was to mastermind this
collusion. Thus the cancer of the nomenklaturist
Mafia, created by Shevardnadze in Georgia, which first
spread to involve the top echelons of Communist Party
leadership, went on to infect men of influence in the
West - thereby producing a transnational
nomenklaturist corporate network with
multibillion-dollar assets at its disposal. For their part, the
political circles in the West which colluded with
Shevardnadze’s mafia in preparing the ground for the
economic return of the party nomenklatura - helping
them to mask their financial dealings and assisting
them in the laundering of funds - extracted certain
interesting concessions in return, particularly with
respect to East Germany and the rest of Eastern
Europe, and the Baltic States. In its many external
dimensions and positive aspects, this quid pro quo
is being extensively, one might say arrogantly,
promoted. However there is considerable evidence to
suggest that its hidden agenda has less to do with
considerations of high policy - the establishment of
democracy, in the eyes of the West, and the
achievement of Socialist regional objectives in the
eyes of Moscow - than with mafia greed. The relevant
evidence for this conclusion will be detailed later in
this analysis. PREPARATORY VISIT TO FLORIDA The key published
reference to the collusion at issue is to be found in
the Georgian junta’s official newspaper Sakartvelos
Respublika [‘The Georgian Republic’
dated 7th March 1992, the very day of Shevardnadze’s
return to Georgia as ‘leader’ of the junta.
According to the newspaper: ‘From 28th February to
1st March E. Shevardnadze was in Florida, in the
United States. Sources close to the former Soviet
Foreign Minister have indicated that he visited the
state at the behest of America’s business circles’. The report went on to
reveal that ‘during his meeting with the
businessmen, Shevardnadze announced the establishment
of the Fund for Restoration and Democracy in
Georgia [alias the Shevardnadze Fund for
Democracy and National Revival: see SOVIET ANALYST,
Volume 21, Numbers 9/10, box on page 23] (FRDG)
and called on his audience to work with the
organisation.’ The Georgian newspaper also revealed that
a protocol had been signed at the meeting
obligating the management of the ‘Brooke Group
Limited’ to participate in the following projects:
1. Creation of an overall
strategic concept for Georgia's economic
redevelopment. 2. Reconstruction of the port of Batumi. 3. Expansion of the Batumi airport. 4. The construction of new petroleum
storage facilities at Batumi. 5. The reconstruction of the port of Poti. 6. Rebuilding of chemical
enterprises. 7. The development of Georgian
resorts. 8. Establishment of enterprise
zones.
To any uninformed
reader, with perhaps little knowledge either of
Georgia’s current economic and political realities
or of Mr. Shevardnadze's involvement with them, this
intelligence may seem benign - evidence, surely, of
the ‘fatherly’ concern the ‘democrat’
Shevardnadze has shown for the restoration of his ‘lesser
motherland’ and of the willingness of American
capital to support such a worthy cause. But the reader should
remain alert:
1. At the time when the protocol was
signed Shevardnadze was not only not an
official representative, with powers to negotiate
on behalf of the country, but was not even a
citizen of the independent Georgia. 2. The economic objectives of the
protocol encompass the geopolitical backbone of
Georgia’s entire economy and are strategic
monopolies - not only in the local context of
Georgia and of the Caucasian region, but also of
the whole of the southern USSR as well as of
northern Iran and Turkey. This is to say nothing
of the fact that they are the national property of
the Georgian Republic, and cannot be employed or
alienated, exclusively or otherwise, for private
ends by any Fund - even one established by the ‘fatherly’
Eduard Shevardnadze, in conjunction with foreign
businesses which have the tell-tale
characteristics of Communist Party ‘friendly
firms’ about them. 3. Geographically, a significant
proportion of the national resources listed in the
protocol belongs to Georgia’s autonomous regions
like Abkhazia or Adjaria; and to
make use of them or to alienate them without
consultation with the local authorities, people
and governments, is to invite serious political
consequences - such as were indeed rapidly to
follow. 4. A majority of projects listed in
the protocol signed with the Brooke Group
Limited involves the oil-gas, oil-gas
processing and oil-gas-transportation industries
and facilities - whereas the products themselves
originate and undergo primary refining beyond the
borders of the Georgian Republic. In short, the
projects concerned have regional and geopolitical
and geoeconomic significance.
Accordingly, the
central question arises: why did Shevardnadze, with no apparent
involvement in Georgian affairs, who was ostensibly
residing peacefully in Moscow as a private individual
and a Russian citizen, suddenly travel to the Urged
States, to distribute among certain American
businessmen and possibly through them, officials, the
wealth and natural resources of Georgia? How does all this connect
with the events in Georgia in September, October and
late December 1991? With the punitive war against
western Georgia in Megrelia and Abkhazia? With the
invasion of oil-rich regions of the former USSR by ‘foreign’
companies? With the attempted appropriation of
strategic routes and the export to the West of oil-gas
products via the Caucasus [Poti and Batumi in Georgia,
Azerbaijan-Armenia, Chechenia and Ingushetia and
Ossetia in the north]? Or with the peculiar silence of Western
and Russian ‘democratic’ politicians and media
concerning the monstrous violations of human rights
which have been taking place without respite in
Georgia or Ingushetia, or about Yeltsin’s hysterical
assault on the unilaterally declared political
independence of the Chechen Republic? BAKER'S FIRST TBILISI
VISIT Some
answers to these questions emerge from events which
antedate by some two weeks the signing of the Miami
protocol. On
18th February 1992, only 33 days after the
military punch in Tbilisi, the US Secretly of
State, James Baker met the Junta’s acting Prime
Minister, Mr. Sigua, in Moscow. Mr. Baker had
visited Mr. Shevardnadze at his Moscow apartment on
the preceding day. According to a front-page report in
Sakartvelos Respublika dated 20th February
1992, the Baker-Sigua meeting had been ‘arranged’
by the American Ambassador to Moscow, Mr. Robert
Strauss - a businessman with a known interest in
the petroleum industry - and a young Georgian
diplomat, a certain Mr. D. Chikvaidze. The meeting between Baker
and Sigua became the subject of much speculation in
Georgia, since in the course of a Russian
Television address Mr. Baker had stated that the
United States would not restore diplomatic relations
with Georgia unless President Zviad Gamsakhurdia was
rehabilitated. At the end of the meeting Baker
stressed that the meeting ‘is not to be construed as
recognition of the present Government of Georgia’ -
that is, of the illegal junta. But the details of the
meeting itself were shrouded in secrecy. As for the
Baker-Shevardnadze meeting held ‘at Baker’s
request, Shevardnadze analysed the situation in
Georgia and put to his guest several questions to
which Washington must pay special attention’ [Sakartvelos
Respublika, ibid]. No Western media source, at
that time or in the preceding weeks, had so much as
speculated that Mr. Shevardnadze would return to
Georgia [just as no Western intelligence agency or
publication had foreseen the ‘changes’
orchestrated in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union by
the ‘inner KGB’ before they occurred, with the
exception of Anatoliy Golitsyn - Ed.]. Ten days later, Mr.
Shevardnadze surfaced in Miami, Florida. It would
appear that Washington did, after all, pay special
attention to the questions put to Mr. Baker. A further
week passed, and on 7th March 1992 Shevardnadze with
tears of emotion in his eyes, was embraced by the
leaders of the Georgian nomenklatura at Tbilisi
airport. MIAMI
PROTOCOL IMPLEMENTED On the same day A. Chikvaidze, father of
the aforementioned D. Chikvaidze, was appointed the
junta's acting Minister of Foreign Affairs. It may be
mentioned that this distinguished secret policeman,
noted for his momentarily misguided support of the
August Coup in Moscow, had previously served
Shevardnadze as Consul General of the USSR in San
Francisco and later as Soviet Ambassador to The
Netherlands. Now the junta’s new man rushed to put
the Miami protocol into practice, paving the way for
Communist Party dollars to be re-routed to Georgia. The charter of doe new
Fund was not published in Georgia until 11th March
1992, well after the signing of the Miami protocol [Sakartvelos
Respublika, dated 11th March 1992]. This text
shows that among the founders of the Fund for
Democracy and Reconstruction in Georgia are Eduard
Shevardnadze himself (‘personal savings’ and
lecture fees’ are mentioned), a Foreign Policy
Association which he runs, a Union for Economic
Reconstruction which he controls, and several
‘foreign’ and Georgian businesses. Thus,
Shevardnadze is at every level the founder, manager
and actual proprietor of the Fund. The launch the
Shevardnadze Fund took place in Tbilisi as early as
13th March 1992 - at the luxurious Metekhi Palace
Hotel [Sakartvelos Respublika, 14th March
1992] owned through the Austrian firm ‘ABC’ by the
nomenclaturists Khabeishvili, Mgeladze
and Shevardnadze. At the launch, Shevardnadze
declared that ‘the Fund must become one of the main
links in the struggle for the salvation of Georgia’,
leaving no doubt which interests had the upper hand. Additional information
concerning this Fund appeared in an article published
in Izvestia No. 92, reprinted in Sakartvelos
Respublika dated 24th April 1992]. The article
explained that ‘details concerning the FRDG's
capitalization have not yet been disclosed, but
sources close to the Fund maintain that it can easily
perform the fiction of a parallel budget for the
nation’. SUDDENLY, GEORGIA'S INTO DRUGS As indicated, the assets
of the new Fund, an offshoot of Our Shevardnadze’s
Foreign Policy Association, are said on good authority
to be comparable to the state budget of a country the
size of Georgia. If this is the case, what, then, is
the financial clout of the Association itself? In this connection the
testimony of Anatoliy Lukyanov may be relevant [cited
in the 'Bulletin of the International Society for
Human Rights, Frankfurt-am-Main, July 1992]: ‘Many Politburo members have
appropriated Communist Party funds, and Shevardnadze,
who has invested them in the narcotics trade and
ethnic conflict, is among them.’ At around the time
Shevardnadze was getting ready to be ‘appointed’
head of the Tbilisi junta, Georgia was becoming an
important transit point on the drug route from East to
West. According to Moscow Television, it was Turkish,
not Georgian, customs officials and police located at
Sarpi (Batumi) who seized a record 1400kg shipment of
narcotics, smuggled by Turkish citizens along the
following drug route: Afghanistan to Central Asia to
Georgia to Turkey and thence on to Europe. Another
such route - Central Asia to North Caucasus (Ossetia)
via Georgia and Turkey to Europe - has also been
activated. Both routes are within the control of
Shevardnadze and several Central Asian Turkish
nomenklaturist bosses associated with him. The connection between
the Georgian drug barons and their Turkish
counterparts is underscored by frequent short visits
made to Turkey ‘on important state business’ by
the head of Georgian ‘drug executive’ - which is
what the Mkhedrioni, packed with obvious drug
addicts, is. Others who make such visits include one
of the leaders of the junta, J. Ioseliani, and
his aide-de-camp, Z. Vepkhvadze. This reality is worth
contrasting, in passing, with a curiously snobbish
statement by G. Sikharulidze, the chief
political commentator of Sakartvelos Respublika
[15th February 1992] ‘Turkey’, he wrote, ‘is a
democratic country, the Government of which is formed
from the highest social strata’. Sikharulidze
appears to have meant that some Turkish nomenklatura
bosses come from ancient aristocratic families. The Georgian, Russian and
European media have carried many accurate reports
concerning the widespread drug addiction prevailing
among the Mkhedrioni thugs. But none is evidently
willing to broadcast the fact that this bulwark of
the Shevardnadze junta is also the executive arm of a
global narcotics business. An especially disturbing feature of the
predominance of the Mkhedrioni is the fact that
financial and humanitarian assistance Prom the West,
as well as the ‘life-saving’ Russian credits, are
being used almost in their entirety to subsidise the
drug dependence of the Mkhedrioni and other ‘fighters
for democratic ideals’. According to Sakartvelos Respublika
[23rd June 1992], 10,000 of these brave men need to be
subsidised in order for their drug dependence to be
controlled and satisfied. A single dose costs anywhere
between five and ten thousand roubles. A simple
calculation shows that at current prices the monthly
allowance must run to at least two to three billion
roubles, or 30 to 35 billion roubles annually, which
represents a quarter of the Georgian state budget! Without their fixes, in
the words of this newspaper, ‘10,000 armed and
infuriated men would tear the whole country apart’.
Incidents are on record in which aggressive Mkhedrioni
attacks in Abkhazia and Megrelia had to be called off
because the troops had not received morphine in time
to be geared for their highs. MKHEDRIONI ESTABLISHED
WITH COMMUNIST PARTY 'DIRTY MONEY' In Georgia itself it is
an open secret that the Mkhedrioni gangs were
set up, organised and armed as long ago as 1988-89
using Communist ‘dirty’ money under the
supervision of Shevardnadze's associate, the Secretary
to the Central Committee of the Georgian Communist
Party, Mgeladze, who was also the Minister for
Agricultural Production - and thus head of by far the
most corrupt of the domestic ministries. The
Mkhedrioni even tried to hustle onto the international
stage during the run-up to the Gulf War, when J.
Ioseliani, on Shevardnadze's orders, made a big
show of wanting to go and attack Saddam. It was then that
Shevardnadze formed his ‘friendship’ with James
Baker and George Bush - as well as the US
General J. Shalikashvili, who was subsequently
appointed Commander of NATO troops in Europe. Mr.
Shalikashvili has become a sizeable landowner in
doe wine-growing area of Kakheti - a fact which
speaks for itself. Many issues are raised by the existence
of the Miami protocol - placing as it does under the
control of an obscure American firm not only the lion’s
share of the productive resources of Georgia - of
vital importance to a vast region of the former USSR -
but also, the development of a strategic concept for
the development of the entire country. The central
question to be answered, obviously, is this: what are
the forces which implemented this collusion, which not
only relies upon ‘foreign investment’ to line the
pockets of the mafia, but also presupposes and demands
the forcible overthrow of the legitimate government in
Georgia and radical modification of political systems
throughout the region PREPARATIONS IN AMERICA To inject some clarity
into this ‘confusing’ situation, we turn first to
the activities of a group of ‘dissidents’ from
Georgia, namely the Gudava brothers and the
husband-and-wife team Chanturia-Sarishvili. Not long before Eduard
Shevardnadze was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs
of the USSR, the brothers Eduard and Tengiz
Gudava were 'exiled' from the USSR - that is,
dispatched by the KGB - to the United States. Once
there, without delay and with no apparent financial
difficulties, the brothers founded nothing less than a
‘Center for the Acceleration of Democracy in the
USSR’. In retrospect it can be seen that the
main aims of the Center were to create financial
structures for the ‘movement for national liberation’
in Georgia. During
1988-91, the Gudava brothers concentrated on
discrediting two of the leaders of Georgia's patriotic
movement, namely M. Kostava and Zviad
Gamsakhurdia, in the American press, using, in
particular, the Russian-language news paper Novoye
Russkoye Slovo [the ‘New Russian Word’]
which published dozens of articles smearing these
leaders, and the legitimate government of Georgia, as
instruments of dictatorship. This was a classic KGB
smear campaign, conducted with the assistance of
agents of influence. In May 1992 Eduard Gudava arrived back in
Tbilisi to meet his patron Shevardnadze on 5th May, at
the Metekhi Palace Hotel, he and Chanturia gave an
interview to the newspaper ‘Droni’ [‘Times’,
No. 19/84, 16th May 1992], which casts fresh light on
the group’s activities and, more generally, upon the
post-perestroika secret activities of the Communist
Party nomenklatura representatives in the West. ‘At the time of the
Moscow putsch’, said Gudava, ‘we decided to close
down all the Center’s programmes since we felt that
their mission had been accomplished.’ In what way
was the Moscow putsch a signal for Guvada to
abort his fruitful mission? The answer is to be found not in the
circumstances of the putsch, but in the events
which took place in Tbilisi. For this was the moment
when Sigua and Kitovani began their first attempted
coup d’état in Georgia, which soon matured into a
permanent, creeping putch throughout September
and October, culminating in the bloody days of
December 1991 and January 1992. The closing down of the Center’s
programmes coincided with other relevant developments,
as well. The weeks which immediately preceded the ‘August
Coup’ in Moscow were remarkable, according to SOVIET
ANALYST [Volume 21, Number 6], for the unprecedented
size of Communist Party transfers of dollars through
German banks, in particular. The wall of money
accelerated to the point at which the dollar went
through the roof on the foreign exchanges - only to
depreciate sharply as vast profits were taken. Thus,
by August and September, the first stage of the Gudava
brothers' mission and their Center, had been
completed. The groundwork for the coup d’état in
Georgia had been well and truly prepared. GREEK INTERESTS INVOLVED Additional insights into
the circumstances surrounding the September coup in
Tbilisi can be deduced from official coverage of the
relations between the junta and Greek business and
political circles. The Greek Ambassador to Moscow, I.
Gunaris, has asserted [see Sakartvelos
Respublika dated 17th April 1992] that ‘the
decision to make a state visit to Georgia [by an
official Greek Government delegation} had to be taken
last year [that is, when the legitimate Government was
still in power in Georgia]. Everything was ready, blat
then came September and we received news from Tbilisi
that an armed conflict was under way. In such
conditions our visit became impossible, as we did not
wish to encourage what was happening by diplomatic
contact’. From
this it is clear that the Greek Ambassador chose to
ignore the mass executions, the beatings, the pogroms
and the torture of supporters of the legitimate
Government by Shevardnadze’s junta. Why did none of
these atrocities have the slightest effect upon
relations between Greece and the junta? What had the
legitimate Government of Georgia ever done to
displease the Greek ‘democrats’? The answer to
such questions is clear from reports of the visit by
the Democratic Party of Greece to Georgia
published in Sakartvelos Respublika on 14th May
1992. As the newspaper now explained, ‘work has been
completed on a joint Greek-Georgian marine enterprise…
The Greek guests have shown great interest in the
reconstruction of the seaport at Poti, its financing
and planning’. Greek interests, therefore, are
enmeshed, are they not, with the very same outside
interests which have already been identified.
Obviously, the local Communist Party has been hard at
work through agents of influence in Greece. PRESS AGENCY
DISINFORMATION CHANNEL ESTABLISHED IN U.S. But let us return to die
Gudava brothers’ activities in the United States. In
the course of his interview with ‘Droni’ [see
above], Eduard Gudava explained that ‘during perestroika,
we were able to start up a news service in the United
States which received, translated and disseminated
information from all parts of the USSR. We operated a
typically American magazine, Independent Press
Digest, intended for readers with an interest in
the ‘Soviet phenomenon’. It is difficult to
imagine that these intelligence-gathering activities,
or their financing, escaped the attention of the US
secret services. Eduard Gudava went on to explain to 'Droni'
that after the Center had been deactivated in August
1991, ‘on the basis of the Center we created a new
organisation called Transcominternational,
based on the same idea of the ‘opening up of a
closed system’. Presumably the new corporate shell
was intended to mask other activities. Gudava further
explained that ‘I have already begun work in order
to establish a new Georgian organization [based in the
United States]... This will be a purely Georgian
organisation to be entitled ‘The
Georgian-American Fund’. We will be closely
allied with the FRDG [Shevardnadze’s Fund], which is
already established in Georgia. The whole idea,
function and sphere of operations of the two
organisations are so identical that it is possible
that we will act as the FRDG’s American arm’ [sic].
No further comment is necessary. Further intelligence
concerning Eduard Gudava's activities in the United
States, his rôle in the Tbilisi coup d'etat and the
forces supporting him, appeared in a letter dated 22nd
March 1992 from I. Goldstein to E.
Shevardnadze, published in the newspaper Iberia-Spectrum
No. 40, 23rd-29th April 1992]. This letter stated that
‘in September 1991, on the instructions of Zviad
Gamsakhurdia, I conducted negotiations with a
representative of the opposition, Eduard Gudava. He,
along with his brother Tengiz Gudava, represented in
the West the political party of G. Chanturia [National
Democratic Party]. E. Gudava, a good friend of mine,
was in New York, I was in Tbilisi, and we had two
hour-long telephone sessions. In the interim, Eduard
had consultations with those he was representing...
Unfortunately Eduard was told to stand firm on the ‘Gamsakhurdia
must go’ line. The spilling of blood in Tbilisi and
the devastation in Rustaveli Avenue could not have
been avoided.‘ This is why, in August and September
1991, the Gudava brothers’ Center was able to
consider its mission to have been accomplished, and
turned to concentrating upon the recycling of
Communist Party dollars back into Georgia in the form
of Western ‘investments’. But with whom was Gudava having his
consultations in New York, while the fate of the
legitimate Government of Georgia and of its democracy
was being decided? THE NDP IS A KGB FRONT... The paths of E.
Gudava and Shevardnadze converge in the
context of the Shevardnadze Fund and of large economic
and intermediary transactions involving American
firms. Mr. Gudava’s relations with the National
Democratic Party, it turns out, were motivated by practical
considerations. Gudava helpfully explained what these
were in his ‘Droni’ interview after a
journalist had asked about his membership of the
National Democratic Party (led by the husband-and-wife
team of G. Chanturia and I. Sarishvili):
‘My [NDP] membership is largely symbolic’, he
said. ‘The NDP was the only [political party in
Georgia] which was interested in establishing links
with the West, and had done so. Its staff managed to
locate me, and now we work together.’ This
establishes that the Gudava brothers are are tied in
with the National Democratic Party, headed by the
Chanturia-Sarishvili team [see this page]. What is the NDP? It is a small, ‘controlled’ party
with carefully concealed, yet significant, sources of
revenue. It controls a substantial number of
underground paramilitary groups. Its members are
involved in large scale racketeering and narcotics
trafficking. It has links with the German ‘radical
Right’, which officially protested to President
Zviad Gamsakhurdia when Mr. G. Chanturia, the head of
the party, was arrested following the second Tbilisi putsch
attempt in October 1991. Finally, the National
Democratic Party was actively involved in die
September and October coup attempts in Tbilisi. Who is G. Chanturia? He is a double agent. During his ‘imprisonment’
in 1983 for ‘dissidence’, Mr. Chanturia worked as
a KGB informer (‘hen’) and was put in charge of
the prison’s housekeeping facilities. After
documents confirming this fact appeared in the
Georgian media, he was challenged to a televised
debate by the head of the KGB prison in question, Colonel
T. Dalibazashvili, but declined to participate,
fearing complete exposure. In 1988-89, working through
the Gudava brothers, G. Chanturia began cooperating
with certain Western secret services. …AT THE CORE OF NEW
STRUCTURES Who is I. Sarishvili? She is the actual head of the Georgian
Information and Intelligence Service, Shevardnadze’s
analogue of the Georgian KGB. Sarishvili and the
National Democratic Party are at the center of one of
the most mysterious episodes to have taken place in
Georgia since the military coup - namely, the
abolition and dispersal of the entire apparatus of the
KGB's former structures in the Republic - the
apparatus which had reared Shevardnadze and had served
him loyally and brutally for two decades - and the
subsequent creation of an entirely new system,
headed by the simpleton I. Batiashvili but
actually run by Sarishvili, Chanturia and the NDP.
Since 1989, this organisation had been acting as
Shevardnadze's intelligence service, while at the same
time forging prospectively lucrative relationships in
the West. An
interview given by Sarishvili to the newspaper ‘Kabadoni’
[21st May 1992 offered a valuable clue to the
CPSU-dollar expectations of Shevardnadze’s
entourage. ‘Unfortunately, we will not be able to
find a solution to Georgia's socio-economic crisis by
ourselves. We must make the right choice: whose help
we are going to receive and with whom we are going to
collaborate? There is the West, and there is our
traditional choice, Russia - traditional, in the sense
that for many years we have been chained to her.
Today, Russia cannot help us because she is herself in
a difficult position. But Russia can act as a bridge.’ But exactly which
‘traditional’ Russia did Madame Sarishvili have in
mind? The Russia of the imperial nomenklatura
and CPSU dollars? How can such a Russia be a bridge? This reference to Russia
acting as a ‘bridge’ for Georgia represented a
radical departure from that same National Democratic
Party’s stated policy, as expressed in a declaration
signed by die NDP’s Press Officer, V.
Khukhunaishvili, and published in Sakartvelos
Respublika on 29th April 1992 under the heading:
‘God Alone we Obey: 75 Years of the NDP’.
The party’s statement read, in part: ‘Nor did we
change our stance with respect to Georgia’s
independence. No to any special relationship with
Russia! No to all confederations and pacts! Go west -
bypassing Russia!’ But four months later, the
same Madame Sarishvili declared in Sakartvelos
Respublika [of 28th October 1992] that ‘Eduard
is the only force that can take Georgia to the West,
bypassing Russia’. GENSCHER INVOLVED IN GEORGIA The revised destiny of
Georgia was also hinted at in certain Georgian media
coverage following the final putsch, of the
close relationship between Herr Hans-Dietrich Genscher
- the former German Foreign Minister who resigned
suddenly in May 1992 following revelations contained
in the Stasi files from eastern Germany, and who was
close to the chief Soviet administrator of agents of
influence, Alexander Bessmertnykh - and Eduard
Shevardnadze. Sakartvelos Respublika [11th April 1992] published the text of
a speech by Genscher given in Vienna during an award
ceremony on 14th February 1992, when Shevardnadze had
received the Order of St Augustine [sic!]
‘I am honoured’, the German Foreign Minister said,
‘to announce that the St Augustine of 1992 is my
good friend Eduard Shevardnadze. From this day forward
he is Eduard Augustine Shevardnadze. During l 990 he
helped me in my election campaign, in my native city
of Halle. I promise him that I will return the
kindness during the elections in Georgia’. But consider this.
As of 14th February 1992 - one month after the
putch in Tbilisi there had been no mention, either
official or even quasi-official - in Georgia or
anywhere else of Shevardnadze’s impeding return to
his ‘lesser homeland’, to say nothing of any
elections. Yet Herr Genscher knew, and promised to
help. [Observe our exclusive information about Bessmertnykh,
given above - Ed.] Genscher’s promise was not made
public Until April 1992. It is worth adding that on 25th January
1991, Sakartvelos Respublika had reported that
E. Shevardnadze had met Genscher, who had shared with
the former Soviet Foreign Minister ‘his’ plans for
the creation of new structures governing the
architecture of Europe. The German Foreign Minister
had asked about the situation in the USSR generally,
and in Georgia in particular. He had said that under
certain conditions and in a certain situation, the
Federal Republic of Germany would be able to lend
support and assistance to Georgia. Those hypothetical
conditions and that situation were soon to become
reality. On 12th April 1992, Genscher had the
opportunity to put his promise into practice. He
arrived in Georgia. Whereupon the newspaper ‘7
dge’ [‘7 Days’, No. 12/49, 15th-21st April
1992] resolved the mystery of Genscher's relationship
with Eduard Shevardnadze, by revealing the nature of
the deal struck between them. As the Georgian
newspaper quoted Shevardnadze, the dictator said that
‘by recognising Georgia, now on its way towards
normalisation, the Federal Republic of Germany in
effect receives carte-blanche for its
activities in the Caucasian region.’ JUST AS IN FORMER
YUGOSLAVIA [Thus Herr Genscher, the ‘friend’ of
Bessmertnykh and Shevardnadze) set the scene for the
mass recognition by Western countries of the
illegitimate régime of Shevardnadze in Georgia. The
other key Western powers were, as usual, weak and
feckless: thy mainly followed the German example.
This, of course, is precisely what happened in the
former Yugoslavia: and the whole world knows the
results of Germany's precipitate and arrogant
recognition of three ‘ex’-Yugoslav states against
the wishes of the weak European powers - Ed.] . Peaceful protests in
Tbilisi by the many thousands of Georgians who turned
out to demonstrate their support for the legitimate
Government of Georgia during Genscher's visit, were
abruptly dispersed by the gangs of Mkhedrioni and
members of the National Democratic Party with unusual
cruelty - using German shepherd dogs which are now
unavoidably referred to as ‘genschers’
in Georgia. By the same token, 7.6mm calibre
Kalashnikov bullets of the type pumped By the junta's
terrorists into the backs of peaceful demonstrators in
the course of James Baker’s visit to Tbilisi no more
than a hundred yards from the podium where this ‘great
democrat’ stood embracing Shevardnadze and Ioseliani
- have been known ever since that notorious episode,
as ‘bakers’. These, then are the weapons of ‘democracy’
employed to repress ordinary Georgian people: lethal
‘genschers” and ‘bakers’ [see: ‘Democracy
and Human Rights in Georgia’, Report by the British
Helsinki Human Rights Group, 1992, page 10]. But while any had
recognised the sovereignty of Georgia under
Shevardnadze, which it had failed to do under the
legitimately elected Gamsakhurdia, Russian troops
remained stationed in Germany. So Shevardnadze
undertook to guarantee to receive and to quarter
certain troops being withdrawn from Germany in the
region. Furthermore, Shevardnadze has given his
consent to new settlements in Georgia by people of
German origin once located there by the Russian
Empire, as well as by ‘Soviet’ Germans. Genscher’s visit also had other undertones. A.
Ghikvaidze, the junta’s ‘Minister of Foreign
Affairs’, claimed in Sakartvelos Respublika
on 8th May 1992 that ‘the visit raised Georgia’s
prestige in the eyes of the international community.
Here is one example of why this is so. Certain circles
in the Arab countries now believe that Georgia can act
as a mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict... The
American Senator, Alan Cranston, has mentioned
Shevardnadze and former President Carter among a list
of figures suited for this task’. Shevardnadze’s
ambition, it seemed, was already somewhat
circumscribed by his modest homeland. It transpired
later that the Shevardnadze ‘government’ had ‘established’
close relationships with elements of the Palestinian
movement and with Iran. BAKER'S GOLDEN FLEECE METAPHOR Has Shevardnadze bitten
off more than he can chew? The fact is that ‘dear
Augustine’ (actually Augustine George, since of late
he has undergone a ‘Christian conversion’) is
having to manoeuvre with great care, as was evident
from his relationship last year with Messrs Bush and
Baker. That Shevardnadze must operate within
constraints of a subtle nature was made clear at the
notorious dinner given in Mr. Baker’s honour during
his visit to Tbilisi on 25-26 May 1992. James Baker
II, that brilliant orator and powerful thinker, spoke
as faithfully recorded by Sakartvelos Respublika,
in its issue of 27th May 1992: BAKER: ‘In ancient times there was a
beautiful and enchanting land, cursed by a terrible
curse. To flee this land [from the curse], a young
leader and his courageous friends took a path riddled
with great dangers. For their land to have peace and
prosperity, they had to liberate the sacred treasure.
This sacred treasure was guarded by a sleeping
monster. Moreover, on the way there, they met terrific
obstacles. They had to harness fire-breathing bulls,
and to sow a vast field with the poisonous teeth of a
snake. Despite all this, thanks to their joint efforts
their nobility, audacity and devilish conspiracy, God
intervened and they survived their ordeal’. One can perhaps forgive
the former US Secretary of State - in the words of the
well-informed British journal SOVIET ANALYST this ‘useful
idiot’, used by Shevardnadze for personal gain - his
comprehensive ignorance of the Classics, and of Greek
Mythology in particular. But what are we to make of
the distinct impression given by Mr. James Baker’s
speech - that the troubles and hazards in his version
of the story of the Argonauts, contained a specific
message? Here
it is the message it contained. Colchis, the historic western part of
Georgia incorporating Megrelia and Abkhazia, is cursed
with a terrible curse - although by whom or for what
reason, we are not told. Colchis is either the
property or the fiefdom of the foreigner - the Greek
Jason and his friends. The Argonauts come to bring
peace and prosperity to Colchis - rather than to steal
the Golden Fleece. It is clear that these mythological
events amount to a collective metaphor for the
contemporary revenge of die nomenklatura,
complete with the sacred dollar treasure of the
Communist Party, the wars and putsches against
the cursed land, and a hellish conspiracy: all the
ingredients of the Greek myth seemed, Mr. Baker was
implying, to be matched by events as they were
unfolding. In fact, even as he was speaking, he was
compelled to pause to take in the fact that the
hideous racket of machinegun fire in the adjacent
streets reps resented government atrocities in the
course of being committed against unarmed people. NOTHING TO OFFER AFTER
ALL It
would be comforting to believe that Mr. Baker had not
allowed himself to have the wool pulled over his eyes
to the point of complete blindness. But one thing is
for certain: Shevardnadze had been deceiving Baker,
and all his other Western ‘friends’. Neither in
Georgia nor in the Caucasus does Shevardnadze enjoy
significant support among the population - other than
among the corrupt nomenklatura and the mafiosi.
His grandiose promises to the Germans and the
Americans in the Caucasus have amounted to so much hot
air - it since his arrival has been the sill for
permanent civil war, almost total anarchy, banditry
and general destabilisation - all of which he is
responsible for having let loose in the region. These
circumstances combine to prevent the Communist
Party-dollar Argonauts from profiting as anticipated
from the betrayal of the Caucasian peoples - although,
judging by the money being made from illegal shipments
via Georgian Airlines to Vienna airport, everyone is
doing their best [box, page 7]. Colchis is
unafraid of the curse of the nomenklatura,
while the ‘Greek’ leader is not young enough to
abduct the proud Medea and must content himself with
an elderly lady of generous proportions. UNDESIRABLE FOREIGN
OPERATORS Yet still the fire-breathing bulls keep
on ploughing up the suffering Caucasus, and still the
enemy continues sowing dragon teeth on our land. For instance, Georgia has
been flooded with Western ‘businessmen’ of the
most unsalubrious type. One example is a certain G.
Bonomi, an Italian ‘businessman’ who is
chairman of the holding company ‘Georgia-Italy’.
According to ‘Droni’ [4th April 1992], this
gentleman reported that ‘since from 1983, I’ve
been working in Latin America... At the request of the
Government of Peru... I have carried out a prison
reform there. In the prisons, factories were created
for the inmates to work in’. Congratulations, Signor
Bonomi, you have a good nose. Your experience and
services will be invaluable to the ‘democrat’
Shevardnadze. The Georgia-Italy enterprise will
undoubtedly be very successful. There’s plenty of
work for you in Georgia’s overflowing prisons and
torture chambers, and you are sure to be handsomely
rewarded. PARADISE
FOR MAFIOSI Yet Shevardnadze is fatally hampered in
the doing of his various noble deeds by native,
well-established mafiosi syndicates which have ‘come
of age’ since he seized power. Their motto, adapted
from the American film classic ‘The Magnificent
Seven’, insists that banks in Georgia can only
be robbed by Georgians. Accordingly, they
combine to protect their turf with ruthless
efficiency. They
are busily siphoning oil along the entire length of
the Baku-Batumi pipeline which now resembles a sieve.
They control the seaport at Poti and the oil terminal
at Batumi - stealing vast quantities of oil, a
fraction of which goes to pay off some of the junta’s
key people. They intercept and rob every form of
transport which crosses into Georgia - collecting
local ‘taxes’ and ‘customs duties’. By force
of arms, they strip bare state-sector enterprises and
private businesses alike; and nor are they squeamish
when it comes to exploiting the lucrative potential of
‘joint’ ventures. So Shevardnadze is caught in the middle.
On the one hand, he is indebted to the transnational
nomenklaturist club network, which has helped him to
market himself him as a ‘democrat’, and is now
demanding to reap its dividends. On the other hand, he
is indebted to the now flourishing and over-mighty
native mafiosi, whose cooperation has enabled him to
return to power in Georgia and which now covets and
steals its share of the spoils. . . GEORGIA POINTS THE WAY Georgia’s experiences
provide a window on what has been happening throughout
the so-called 'former' USSR. They reveal what Western
analysts and opinion seems reluctant to recognise - inter
alia that: The ‘market’ economy said
to be ‘emerging’ in the region is impregnated
from the outset with corruption, and infected by
monopolistic arrangements fixed up by the
transnational nomenklaturist network. Western interests are
collaborating intensively with the new ‘ex’-Soviet
‘market’ super-empire - which has now, for the
first time in history, penetrated the financial
citadels of the West, through the recycling of
nomenklaturist hard currency to and through the
Western banks, of which the ‘ex’-Soviet élite
have become customers.
So: do CPSU dollar
influence policy making and the taking of strategic
decisions? And
does all this not mean that the Evil Empire is not
only not dead or weakened, but to the contrary - that
it has turned itself round and gained a new lease of
life? |