“Great Britain has imposed sanctions on two of Georgia’s leading broadcasters, an unprecedented example of open assault on a free press. This fact is, on the one hand, tragic and, on the other, farcical, given the official pretext that was used to justify the sanctions,” declared Georgia’s Prime Minister and Chairman of the Georgian Dream Political Council, Irakli Kobakhidze, at a briefing held at the party’s headquarters.
According to Kobakhidze, the real motive behind the attack on Georgia’s free media was, naturally, to throw a lifeline to a discredited, half-dead opposition.
“For the foreign ill-wishers of our country, this necessity remains as pressing as ever. They can see that on one side stands Georgian Dream, in the service of the Georgian people, to whom the Georgian people have twice expressed their firm confidence over the past two years, and on the other side stands a radical opposition in the service of external forces: a foreign agency that places no value whatsoever on the legitimacy conferred by the Georgian people and is concerned with nothing beyond executing the instructions of its foreign masters.
The word ‘stateless’ describes these people most precisely, as their reaction to the British sanctions once again demonstrated most vividly. It is already plain for all to see, and they no longer conceal it themselves, that for these stateless individuals, not only the homeland, which is a far loftier and more emotional concept, but even the state and statehood itself mean nothing. In reality, they have but one motivation: to kneel and await instructions from their foreign masters, the unconditional execution of which is their sole obligation.
It is only natural that they look exclusively to their foreign masters for salvation, particularly when it is evident that they are not merely in great difficulty, but on the very threshold of extinction. For these individuals, the sole source of legitimacy is not the support of the Georgian people but that of their foreign masters. Our country’s centuries-long history has taught us beyond all doubt that every Georgian by passport who entered this country in the service of foreign powers and acted upon their instructions brought nothing but chaos, ruin, and bondage.
Naturally, no sanction can compel a national broadcaster to renounce the telling of the truth and the informing of Georgian society. No one in Georgia can suppress the truth, for just as water will always find its course, so truth will always find its way. Against this backdrop, the jubilant cries with which these stateless individuals, devoid of any sense of statehood or state consciousness, greeted a foreign assault on media freedom were at once peculiarly farcical and deeply tragic. That reaction is the finest illustration of the value system of those with whom we are dealing.
Society has witnessed how, the moment the radical opposition received a one-off favour from its foreign masters in the form of sanctions against Imedi and PosTV, they began, with a unified message, to assert the absurd: that the government and Georgia’s free media were supposedly on the verge of collapse. This is yet another act of lustration and, at the same time, the tragedy of these individuals: in their view, it is not the Georgian people but external forces that must determine Georgia’s fate, because they have zero chance or hope of receiving support from the population of our country. By external force is naturally meant that force which gives instructions to the local agency whilst simultaneously assuring them that now and in the future, upon unconditional execution of those instructions, it will help them come to power, though they must work not for Georgia but for its interests. Whether we refer to these forces as the ‘Deep State,’ the ‘Global War Party,’ or oligarchic dynasties, the fact remains that it is precisely such informal networks that are embedded within the European bureaucracy.
It is noteworthy that certain individual foreign agents, in the wake of the British sanctions, called upon other radicals to unite and to offer that united front to the West, and more specifically to America, as a political alternative to Georgian Dream. The same individual added that the party Lelo, along with its leaders, would inevitably join the coalition being offered to Washington, as distancing itself from these processes would prove difficult for that party. This statement from the agency is of particular interest to us, given that the current U.S. administration has openly declared a foreign policy course that precludes interference in the internal affairs of other countries.
By President Trump’s order, the foundations responsible for funding revolutions, namely USAID and NED, were conspicuously shut down in a manner that openly revealed their covert interference in the political affairs of foreign nations, their orchestration of revolutions, and their role in violently replacing governments against the will of the people. Since the electoral victory of the new administration, hardly a week has passed without senior political figures, including Vance, Rubio, Gabbard, and others, strongly reaffirming that the United States no longer intends to interfere in the political processes of other countries.
Since we are well aware that the agency masquerading as an opposition knows perfectly well who its master beyond the country’s borders is, the fact that this same agency, united at ninety-nine per cent as ever, continues to offer its ‘services’ to the United States, notwithstanding Washington’s declared policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations, raises additional questions for us.
Recent events, including the British sanctions, have once again confirmed our conviction that freeing the European bureaucracy from informal influence will prove exceedingly difficult in the short or even medium term. As regards the United States, we continue to maintain hope that the battle against the so-called Deep State announced by Donald Trump will end in the latter’s victory. The strongest proof of this will be a shift in the American administration’s stance towards Georgia.
Against the backdrop of shared values, America’s current distant stance towards Georgia is illogical and raises numerous questions. A change in attitude towards Georgia will confirm that the declared battle against the Deep State is not a phantom event or an attempt to rebrand informal forces, but is sincere and real. We continue to maintain an optimistic expectation. Everything will become clear in the very near future.
In conclusion, let us once again note that the events of recent days have shown, better than anything else, who is the Georgian force vested with the mandate of the Georgian people, and who is striving to reach power solely to serve the corrupt interests of foreign masters within Georgia,” declared Irakli Kobakhidze.
