Al Jazeera: Saakashvili on Putin, Europe's weak leaders and a return to power

Saakashvili dismisses accusations that he was heavy-handed in suppressing opposition during this second term as Georgian president, pointing instead to progress that was made under his government.

"Georgia was a failed country. You cannot make a failed country through Scandinavian methods, overnight, something like Sweden or Norway".

"My reforms survived my presidency ... most of it is still there, so from that standpoint: public services, absence of corruption, safety, I left a good legacy and a legacy that is still intact."

Asked about an EU report's claim that he was responsible for Georgia's 2008 war with Russia due to his "penchant for acting in the heat of the moment", Saakashvili says: "There is only one choice when your country gets attacked by a hundred times bigger neighbour: either to surrender or to fight. And we chose not to surrender."

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Bloomberg: Why 'Color Revolutions' Can't Be Exported

Such conclusions are based on the superficial similarity of the scenarios. People rise up against a corrupt authoritarian regime, usually provoked by an event like a stolen election or a new unpopular policy. They unite around a simple symbol (like a rose in Georgia in 2003 or a white ribbon in Moscow in 2011). The protests and the new government formed if they succeed immediately get U.S. support. [...]

If Saakahsvili is in possession of some sort of "color revolution" toolkit, he's been remarkably unsuccessful at applying it in Ukraine -- and not because this time around, he didn't enjoy U.S. support. He has excellent connections in Washington, especially in conservative circles, and the Atlantic Council crowd is largely indignant at Poroshenko's lawless, authoritarian treatment of a critic and political rival. If Saakashvili managed to mobilize enough popular support in Ukraine, he probably would have gotten some sort of U.S. political backing given his strong anti-corruption credentials and the growing Western fatigue with sly and grasping Poroshenko. [...]

The Chinese regime's political scientists, according to a 2010 paper by National Chengchi University's Titus Chen, came to the conclusion that "raging domestic grievances" and the institutions of electoral politics, which fostered a political opposition and gave it opportunities for seizing power, were more important causes of "color revolutions" than any foreign interference. In response, the regime has made an effort to punish corruption and avoided political liberalization, as well as to make it more difficult for Western actors to influence people in China. Putin's regime, of course, is doing all that too -- but its focus appears to be on the foreign aspect. That's a mistake that could eventually lead the Putin system to ruin -- if Russians ever get angry enough, they won't need a playbook to mess it up. No U.S. interference will be needed.

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Politico: Misha’s return reignites Ukraine’s political bonfires

Within hours of his return, the man known to his supporters as “Misha” had already galvanized anti-government forces to promise a “unified democratic opposition” and angered his ally-turned-rival President Petro Poroshenko, who could have him arrested or deported.

Saakashvili — who became a Ukrainian citizen two years ago and was made governor of the Odessa region, only to have his Ukrainian citizenship revoked in July, leaving him stateless — entered Ukraine late Sunday despite being barred from the country. Hundreds of supporters helped Saakashvili push past Ukrainian border guards at the Shehyni border crossing. [...]

One option open to Ukrainian authorities is to extradite Saakashvili to Georgia, where he’s wanted for abuse of power while in office (charges that Saakashvili claims are politically motivated).

However, any move to arrest or deport him could backfire as the saga promises to be a ferocious legal fight, with Saakashvili bound to challenge the arrest as well as his revoked citizenship in Ukrainian and international courts. More than that, it’s going to be a political one. [...]

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, a former head of Ukraine’s intelligence services who went into opposition politics, told POLITICO that he, former PM Yulia Tymoshenko, Saakashvili and others would create a “unified democratic opposition” to conduct “common protests around the country.”

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Spiegel: Would-Be Reformer Saakashvili Cast Out of Ukraine

It soon became apparent, however, that political will in Ukraine wasn't quite so black and white. The new president was no rose revolutionary or staunch reformist, and he wasn't elected with 96 percent of the vote as Saakashvili had been in 2004. Poroshenko was a politician and businessman, a classic product of Ukraine's oligarchic system, in which every major business leader is also involved in politics. [...]

Saakashvili built a new, transparent customs terminal (which never went into operation), established a citizens' office (which had to close again temporarily) and tore down fences that had been illegally set up on beaches (they were put up again). He reduced the size of the civil service and sent armed investigators to the state-owned chemical plant OPZ. [...]

The real reason for the rift remains unclear. Saakashvili says that he had a long argument with Poroshenko during a March meeting in Malta. According to Saakashvili, Poroshenko demanded that he behave himself and stick to the rules, insisting that he criticize others and not just Poroshenko himself - and that if he did so, he could continue his career in Ukrainian politics and would get a seat in parliament. If he did not, though, according to Saakashvili's account, Poroshenko said "individual measures" would be taken, though he failed to elaborate.

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Politico: Enemies of Putin, but no longer friends

A few days ago, Poroshenko hit back with a much harder blow than a satirical song. He signed an order stripping Saakashvili of the Ukrainian citizenship he had granted only two years earlier. That left Saakashvili — a former head of state — stateless, since he lost his Georgian passport when he became Ukrainian.

What lies behind the latest twist in the men’s fraught relationship depends on who’s telling the story. Saakashvili says he is being punished for speaking out against rampant graft under Poroshenko. The president’s allies insist the move was legally justified but also speak of Saakashvili as an impulsive, ungrateful figure who turned on the man who brought him back from the political dead. [...]

Officially, Saakasvhili was stripped of Ukrainian nationality because he failed to provide details in his citizenship application of a criminal case against him in his native Georgia.

But figures across the Ukrainian political spectrum — including rivals of Saakashvili such as former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky — said the move smacked of a witch hunt. [...]

Saakashvili’s reforms in Odessa made only modest headway. Critics said he quickly lost interest in the daily nitty-gritty of running a far-flung province. Saakashvili and his team said they were being blocked and undercut by Kiev.

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The Washington Post: The window for reform is closing in Ukraine

Ukraine has some genuine achievements to which it can point. Some important reforms have taken place. Macroeconomic fundamentals are good; the value of the currency has stabilized. And Ukraine hasn’t lost the war despite the direct involvement of Russia, whose forces are far more powerful. [...]

The sad reality is that Ukraine’s reforms have stalled, and the window of opportunity is starting to close. None of former president Viktor Yanukovych’s cronies have been prosecuted. Vested interests have blocked the process of building a clean Supreme Court from scratch. Although the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine has succeeded in bringing charges against two notoriously corrupt officials, former parliamentarian Mykola Martynenko and former head of the State Fiscal Service Roman Nasirov, powerful forces are pushing back. The court considering Nasirov’s case refuses to examine all of the evidence. There are growing indications that the director of the anti-corruption bureau could be fired soon, and activists and parliamentarians worry that the bureau’s powers may soon be curtailed. [...]

If things continue as they are, Ukraine’s most talented will leave. More than 70 percent think the country is going in the wrong direction. The reforms that would better people’s lives materially still haven’t materialized, and some that have – such as restructuring of the natural gas market to eliminate corruption – hurt average people badly. As journalist Vitaliy Sych notes, “People are tired, their patience is running out, and many are leaving.” In 2016, nearly 1.3 million Ukrainians received temporary work permits in Poland, and another 116,000 were working there on longer-term permits. Ukrainians already make up the largest ethnic minority in the Czech Republic, and the second-largest in Italy and Portugal.

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openDemocracy: Georgia’s Russian cipher

Georgia’s most recent population census released in April 2016 reports that ethnic Russians constitute the third largest national minority behind Azerbaijanis and Armenians, totaling 26,500 persons. Yet Russians appear to occupy a peculiar place in the imaginary of Georgia’s ethnic and religious diversity. Given the Russo-Georgian War of 2008 and Moscow’s support for breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia, that’s no surprise. Ethnic Russians have lived on Georgian territory for centuries — but do they have a place in Georgian society beyond agents of geopolitical intrigue? Can they ever hope to? [...]

Some in Georgia's prevailing political and intellectual elites seem to deny the existence of ethnic Russians altogether. A recent article authored by Eka Metreveli, director of the Georgian Foundation for International and Strategic Studies (GFSIS), states emphatically that “Technically speaking, Russia is not a kin-state to any minority residing on Georgia’s territory”. In June 2015, staff of the United National Movement’s Batumi office [the ruling party of former president Mikheil Saakashvili - ed.] posted a Facebook video of a public procession organized by the local multiethnic cultural center Friendship House in recognition of Russia Day, a holiday celebrated by the diaspora in many countries, with the ominous line: “Russian march and shouting in the streets of Batumi”, as if it were led by an infiltration force, rather than fellow Georgian citizens. [...]

Yet, a common theme that runs throughout the platforms of these groups is their antagonism towards the radical westernisation policies pursued since the 2003 Rose Revolution, which have sought to rapidly transform the country's social, cultural and economic landscape in the image of foreign patrons—a vision not shared by all members of Georgian society.

In addition, some of these advocacy groups interact with long-established communal organisations that represent the interests of citizens whose preferences and perspectives have been marginalised by Georgian state forces in previous years. For instance: Earth is Our Home, whose chairman Elguja Khodeli gained infamy in local media for wrapping himself in a Russian flag at a demonstration during the Crimea events, was actually founded as a youth and lawyers' advocacy group in March 2003, and includes representatives of the Russian, Jewish and Azerbaijani communities. Among the activities of Earth is Our Home have been artistic performances to commemorate the birthday of Alexander Pushkin at his monument in central Tbilisi, cooperating with the local “Prima” music school to promote the study of Russian folklore, and roundtables with educators on prospects for restoration of Russian language sectors in Georgian schools.

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Slate: Where Europe Begins, or Where It Ends?

The Black Sea has played a formative role in the creation of the idea of Europe. It was here where the ancient Greeks first came into contact with the nomadic Scythians, out of which developed the Greek discourse of “civilization” vs. “barbarism,” argues Neal Ascherson in his brilliant Black Sea. “In this particular encounter began the idea of ‘Europe’ with all its arrogance, all its implications of superiority, all its assumptions of priority and antiquity, all its pretensions to a natural right to dominate,” he writes, “a ruthless mental dynasty which still holds invisible power over the Western mind.” [...]

Herodotus’ was the minority view: Most of his contemporaries put the Europe-Asia border much farther north, where the Black Sea meets the Don River in today’s Russia. And Georgia, which considers itself the successor to Colchis, has generally been considered geographically part of Asia. To the British historian, statesman, and diplomat James Bryce, touring the Russian empire in 1876, Poti was a port through which “every traveller from the West is condemned to pass through, the most fever smitten den in Asia.” [...]

Saakashvili left power in 2013, but his version of Georgia’s history in Europe has remained the consensus. In 2015, political scientists surveyed Georgian officials from across the political spectrum and found that they espoused a remarkably consistent narrative about Georgian history and its ties to Europe: that Georgia was part of the ancient Greek world and then medieval Christendom, both of which tied it to Europe’s history. In addition, according to this narrative, Georgian values have traditionally been the same as those of other Europeans, with an inherent love for freedom and individuality. [...]

The irony of Georgia’s European identity is that, when it first emerged in the 19th century, it was essentially a Russian import, and the Georgians who picked it up used it to justify closer ties with Russia. Tbilisi was the center of the Russian colonial administration in the Caucasus, and tsarist officials encouraged a sense of shared European identity in order to co-opt Georgians against the more rebellious Caucasian highlanders like Chechens and Dagestanis.

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Political Critique: Old hatreds rekindled in Ukraine

The assailants, predominantly ethnic Bulgarians, overlooked the suspect’s mixed heritage in their eagerness to blame the crime on bad blood. They even overlooked the suspect’s family home and his relatives. Instead, the mob chased out unrelated Roma families, many with small children of their own. They hurled rocks, kicked in doors and set homes ablaze. A handful of uniformed police officers watched on, failing to stop the pogrom.

After the Roma had been hounded out, the village council passed a resolution attempting to legitimise the violence by formally expelling them. It organised buses to ferry them out to Izmail, the nearest town. [...]

“A TV poll showed that 65% of Ukrainians supported the pogroms against Roma in Loshchynivka,” said Zemfira Kondur, Vice-President of the Roma Women’s Fund Chirikli. “Far-right groups are using that and we’re afraid that we will have more cases of hate attacks against Roma in different areas.” [...]

Most coverage of the pogrom was sympathetic to the aggressors, focusing on the allegations of drugs trafficking and petty crime as justification for the violence.

Comments by Odessa’s regional governor, Mikheil Saakashvili, appeared to support that narrative. “I fully share the outrage of the residents of Loshchynivka,” Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia, told reporters after Angelina’s funeral. “There was a real den of iniquity, there is massive drug-dealing in which the anti-social elements that live there are engaged. We should have fundamentally dealt with this problem earlier — and now it’s simply obligatory.”

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The Guardian: Mikheil Saakashvili: 'Ukraine's government has no vision for reform'

For Saakashvili, the crunch time has now approached to determine whether Poroshenko is part of the problem, or part of the solution. Last month, he held a press conference in which he blasted the president for not fulfilling a single promise made since he took office after the 2014 revolution.

“For a long time, Poroshenko has been very flexible,” Saakashvili told the Guardian, speaking in his rapid, lightly accented English, learned while studying in the US. “If you were a reformer he spoke reform language. If you were someone old-fashioned, he said OK, we can find a way to deal with you. Now he’s brought in a government which has not got any vision of reforms at all.” [...]

Critics say Saakashvili’s recent foray into the national arena is born of his outsized ambition, and a desire one day to become prime minister of the country. Instead of focusing on improving Odessa, they say, he has taken to criticising the government, and taking an “anti-corruption roadshow” around the country. He is expected to set up a political party of his own, though the lack of early elections has stymied this for now. He insists, however, that his focus on national politics is a necessary extension of his work in Odessa.

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