“The Relationship Is Based On Values That We Share”
“Some still wonder where their friend is.”
TBILISI, Georgia — The road to the airport is named George W. Bush Street.
Across from historic Freedom Square, where former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin went to school, is a Marriott Courtyard. And the presidential palace under construction is often called the “white house.”
This tiny nation that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991 has deep economic and emotional ties with the United States, so much so that its beleaguered president, Mikheil Saakashvili, attended Columbia and George Washington law schools.
Now this democratic nation of 4.6 million people is looking to the United States for help as a massive military offensive from neighboring Russia threatens Georgia’s existence.
“The dream of Georgia is to be like the U.S.,” says Georgia’s chancellor, or minister of administration, Kakha Bendukidze. “The relationship is based on more than geopolitical considerations. It’s based on values that we share.”
Admiration for America is widespread here. When President Bush visited in 2005, more than 150,000 Georgians packed Freedom Square to see him. But the friendship became strained when Russian bombers started roaring overhead and Russian troops ventured close to this capital city. Although the Kremlin promised to pull back its troops, there were no signs of that Monday.
Some still wonder where their friend is.
“Why aren’t the Americans helping us?” asks Makvala Matiashvili, 67, a retired nurse who sells snacks and cigarettes at Freedom Square. “What if the Russians come again and come to (Tbilisi)? What are we going to do? Our army is completely destroyed. It would be good if the Americans sent troops here,” she says. “Our boys are dead.”
Others say it’s unrealistic to think that the United States would send troops to protect Georgia.
“It would have sparked World War III,” says Vladimer Shioshvili, 29, a software programmer. He studied at Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y., as part of an exchange program and is engaged to an American woman.
Many Georgians such as Shioshvili take comfort from the U.S. military cargo planes that are bringing humanitarian aid for people displaced by the war that began Aug. 7. Koba Subeliani, Georgian minister for refugees, said about 140,000 displaced people are now in Tbilisi and surrounding areas.
They’re thankful that Washington is pressuring Russia to pull out. They appreciate that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came here Friday and promised America would help them rebuild.
“That tells us who cares,” Shioshvili says.
Tamara Tabatadze, who fled the fighting with only the clothes she was wearing and is still waiting for U.S. aid, hasn’t given up on the friendship.
“I love Americans,” says Tabatadze, 42, who teaches English and Russian.
She fled the devastated town of Gori in central Georgia on foot with her two sons as the Russians moved into that city last week. “I defend Americans. They are the best people I have ever known,” she says.
She’s now living in a tent provided by a French aid agency at a makeshift camp at an abandoned Soviet military base just off George W. Bush Street.
She’s wearing clothes donated by Tbilisi residents. She and about 140 other displaced people get running water from an outside trough. There are portable toilets but little else. None have cars or money to get the few miles into the city.
She blames Saakashvili, the Georgian president, for provoking the crisis when he attempted to retake the breakaway province of South Ossetia, which has been semi-independent since 1992.
Russia used the Georgian assault on South Ossetia as reason to move in, saying it was protecting its peacekeepers in the province and the population long aligned with Russia.
‘Deeply cultivated’ ties
“The U.S. has strong and deep ties to Georgia,” says John Tefft, the U.S. ambassador to Georgia. “What they (Georgians) are trying to do is build a democratic nation like the U.S.”
This isn’t by accident, says Jonathan Kulick, an American scholar with the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, a Tbilisi think tank.
Washington sent money and aid when the nascent nation was broke as it struggled to be independent from the former Soviet Union, he says.
Major military assistance came after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to counter Washington’s fears that insurgents from the Russian republic of Chechnya based in Georgia could be fostering al-Qaeda terrorism. The Pentagon trained the Georgian army before it sent 2,000 troops to Iraq.
“It’s something that has been deeply cultivated over the years by Washington,” Kulick says of the U.S. commitment to Georgia. “They’ve put (in) about $1 billion in aid … since the early 1990s. The United States kept the lights on when Georgia was bankrupt. There is a huge investment here by the State Department and USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development).”
Georgians have taken advantage of the offers.
Tim Blauvelt, director of the American Councils for International Education that runs student exchange programs here, says young Georgians flock to the educational opportunities.
Almost 3,500 Georgian students applied for only 50 spots to attend U.S. high schools this coming school year — one in each state.
Two alumni of the high school exchange program — Eka Rostomashvili, 20, and Mikheil Matcharadze, 19 — were among a group waving U.S. flags and demonstrating here Saturday night against Russia’s continued presence in the country.
Matcharadze had a message for friends in Chapin, S.C., where he attended high school last year and to the rest of America: “Just keep supporting Georgia.”
American financier George Soros’ Open Society Institute boasts on its website that it has pumped money into Georgia to promote Western-style economics and institutions and has underwritten a library.
The strong business ties are evident through the American Chamber of Commerce of Georgia — the biggest of any foreign chambers here, with 140 members. Chamber president David Lee is CEO of MagtiCom, Georgia’s mobile phone service and one of the nation’s biggest companies. It brings in $1 billion in annual revenue. It’s also 100% American owned.
Lee says Georgia is one of the countries in the old Soviet sphere of influence where U.S. firms can do business.
“The government has taken enormous steps,” he says. “There is relatively lower inflation, a stable economy and massive foreign investment. It’s gotten rid of corruption.”
Economic growth on the rise
Much of the advances can be attributed to Saakashvili after he overturned the corrupt regime of Eduard Shevardnadze in 2003. He was elected president in 2004 and quickly raced to implement U.S.-style government and economic changes.
Economic growth last year was 12.4%, according to the Georgian-European Policy and Legal Advice Center that closely tracks Georgia’s economy.
Growth was 9.4% in 2006 and 9.6% in 2005.
Government debt has shrunk to 23% of Georgia’s economic output, from 43% in 2004.
Even U.S. aid and economic principles can’t perform miracles in this free-market economy.
Unemployment was down last year but still a walloping 15.8%, according to the center’s figures. Inflation was running at 9.4% last month, although it was 11% last year.
Saakashvili’s government had predicted growth of 10% this year and $2 billion in foreign investment. It now fears Russia may have destroyed that rosy outlook.
Badri Japaridze, a founder of Georgia’s largest bank, TBC, says reconstruction depends on whether Western aid arrives to help rebuild the army and damaged towns, and whether foreign investors think Georgia is safe.
Japaridze, who grew up here listening to Radio Free Europe during Soviet days, is again looking to America.
“When the Soviet Union collapsed, the only big power to support us was the United States,” he says.
“We know they will again. Georgians are very entrepreneurial. If the money comes in, we will quickly flourish again.”
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