Any international specialist who has been following up on the maintenance of democratic values in the former Soviet Georgia knows that the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were doing just fine back then. There are many NGOs in Georgia and there are many involved in solving issues having to do with freedom of speech. This refers to the well-known NGOs. It seems as if all the journalists of the country and the journalists with a diploma have formed their own committees, councils, associations, coalitions, etc, which defend freedom of speech. Each non-governmental organization has a charter which talks about freedom of speech.
In a word, there are too many non-governmental organizations; this overwhelmed specialists and international observers. This means that democracy is developing. Many non-governmental organizations have played and still play a very important role in our life and still do. The “Revolution of Roses” took place thanks to their activities and the support of the revolutionaries striving to become part of the authorities. As we found out, one of those revolutionaries was from one of the non-governmental organizations.
Back when Edward Shevardnadze was the president of Georgia, the NGOs, which were receiving huge grants, always used to pressure him and he felt that the authorities were no longer under his control. The former president talked about the “useless” Soros fund and it got to the point where he announced that it would be best for the people giving grants from the West to consult with Georgian authorities first.
“We will help them find useful, important non-governmental organizations, but now all they do is give money out to any non-governmental organization out there,” says the former president. During his term in office, almost everyone accused Shevardnadze for not going along with principles of a civil society. In the end, he left the political field. People who had formed those non-governmental organizations came to power. It turned out that what they were doing was no longer in need.
The executive and legislative bodies are directly pressuring the active non-governmental organizations by making their comments. From this point of view, the Georgian society is taking a closer look at the split that took place among members of the “Young Lawyers Association”. It all started when some members of the association started accusing the administration.
“We do not agree with the methods used by the administration in fighting against crimes. The administration either hears our opinions, or doesn’t pay attention them at all. If the administration does not change its attitude, then we will demand that the president of the association Anna Dolidze to be removed from office.”
Anna Dolidze, who was in the United States during this scandalous press conference, also held a press conference upon her return and announced that the members that “split” are backed by Georgian authorities which, in turn, are trying to weaken the influence that NGOs have. Despite that, after a couple of days, some NGOs announced that they were going to form coalitions supporting the “Young Lawyers’ Association”.
Head of the international center for conflict studies Georgi Khutsishvili, who is also one of the people that took the initiative of forming the coalition, said that he knows for a fact that the authorities are pressuring the “Young Lawyers Association”.
“The authorities are the ones that fired Salome Zurabishvili from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, violated freedom of speech and human rights (for example, during the reforms of the court system) and the pressure on the NGOs. Although we are no longer Bolsheviks, however, we are not democratic either. We are going to try to “knock some sense” into the heads of the authorities,” said Khutsishvili.
As for the authorities, they always keep silent whenever they hear that they are going against democratic principles.