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US-GEORGIA: Expats Unite Against Russia

Sam Cassanos

NEW YORK, Aug 16 2008 (IPS) - When the Russian military launched a military invasion of its small neighbour Georgia – operating at will in Georgia’s secessionist provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as well as Georgia proper – New York’s Georgian-American community responded almost immediately by gathering outside United Nations Headquarters here to protest the invasion of their homeland.

Beginning Aug. 9, hundreds of Georgian-Americans have assembled across from the U.N. on consecutive days chanting such cries as, “Russia out of Georgia”, “Georgia, Georgia, we want Georgia”, and “USA-Georgia.” Many of the demonstrators draped themselves in Georgian flags while others voiced more pessimistic messages through signs with such wordings as “Today Georgia, Tomorrow Who?” and “The World Has a New Fascist State: Russia.”

The rallies continued throughout the week. On Thursday a march past the Russian consulate took place and two rallies are scheduled to take place in Washington D.C.

The decision to demonstrate was a diffuse one originating throughout an émigré community that is roughly a decade old, and has not yet developed potent lobbying groups. In New York City the Georgian-American community consists of an estimated 5,000 people.

Facebook.com announcements, emails, phone calls, and Georgian-American news sources spread the news of the rallies outside the U.N., apparently without the direction of any formal leadership. Demonstrators told IPS that they had travelled to New York from Florida, Philadelphia, and Boston to join the rallies.

Russia and Georgia have both agreed to a cease-fire. However, because it is widely believed that Russia is violating the spirit if not the terms of the cease-fire agreement, activists are poised to continue calling for a greater diplomatic effort to put an end to the conflict.

Victoria Goginava, a co-founder of the Progressive Youth Movement for Georgia and an organiser of Saturday’s protest, told IPS that “the reason why we’re still going to rallies and there is still a high turnout is that despite the ceasefire Russians have not been honouring the ceasefire. There is – as we speak – looting, raping of women, killing. Georgian men are being targeted and being disappeared. It is the same tactics that have been used [by Russia] in Chechnya.”

Emotions run high at the protests. The Georgian-American community is a relatively new phenomenon and its members are closely connected with their former home in the Caucuses through relatives that live there as well as their own personal experiences in the country.

One of the demonstrators at Monday’s rally, George Karazahishvili of Brooklyn, worried that his son who is an American citizen currently visiting Georgia would remain trapped amidst the violence because Russia had attacked Tbilisi International Airport. Russia bombed the airport’s radar system as well as areas close to a runway. Georgian officials maintain that the airport continues to operate normally.

Another activist, Maka Saladaze, also related the conflict back to personal solidarities. When asked what she hoped the demonstrations would accomplish she told IPS, “We want the international community to pressure Russia to stop.” Tears welling up in her eyes, she added, “We all have families back there. They can’t move because the infrastructure is being destroyed.”

The need for international diplomatic assistance to halt Russia’s advance was a major theme of the rallies. By sending troops into South Ossetia on Aug. 7, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili provided Russia with a pretext to launch attacks there as well as in Abkhazia and Georgia proper. The Georgian incursion quickly proved to be a strategic error, revealing Georgia’s lack of military capability to challenge Russia over the breakaway provinces and its inability to defend its own major cities against Russian invasion.

To mobilise international support many demonstrators framed the conflict as an ominous choice between halting Moscow’s ambitions now or seeing Ukraine, Poland, and the Czech Republic come under Russian attack in the near future.

For Columbia student Valerian Sikhuaksvili the classical wisdom of international relations summarised the situation. “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” he quoted from the ancient Greek historian Thucydides. Russia “is not paying attention to diplomacy and is ignoring the international community,” added Sikhuaksvili.

However, Sikhuaksvili admitted that he did not see viable military solutions to the current hostilities and like many of the other demonstrators, he said that he had joined the protest to send a message to the U.S. and the U.N.

In the absence of an official protest organiser activists began to fill the vacuum. When the police arrived to inform the demonstrators that they had far exceeded the area’s 54-person limit and would have to use another location for future demonstrations, about a half dozen people appointed themselves to consult with the officers. “We’re trying to establish an organiser,” explained Officer Meury of the New York City Police Department’s 14th precinct.

One of those people, Ana Kovziridze, helped to found the Georgian Student Association at Baruch College in Manhattan, where she is entering her senior year. According to Kovziridze Georgian society groups “are not that established” but the congruent politics of Washington, Tblisi, and the Georgian-American community are the basis for a strong strategic bond. The students at Baruch and the Georgian community at large “very strongly support President Saakashvili, an American ally who has sent Georgian troops to Iraq, and has supported his country’s inclusion in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization” a position which the Bush Administration shares.

The current fighting has stimulated political involvement and unity within the Georgian-American community and some activists are trying to use the opportunity to forge more centralised organisations.

Goginava told IPS that in the coming days she plans to participate in a roundtable discussion with her counterparts in other Georgian-American groups. Among the issues they will be discussing is the possibility of coordinating demonstrations in different cities and other collective actions to protest Russia’s actions in Georgia. Creating networks between organisations could be the groundwork for more influential appeals, she said.

“Our priority is to stop the murdering of Georgians right now,” Goginava said, referring to the current wave of demonstrations. But, “on the broader scale our goal would be to form networks within the Georgian community and especially Georgian youth all over the world. After we do that it is too early to say what else we will do.”