Useful advice to Misha
Aravot, Yerevan
13 Mar 04
On the eve of his visit to Armenia, Georgian President Mikheil
Saakashvili gave an interview to Armenian journalists and said that he
wanted very much to learn Armenia’s experience in the law-enforcement
agencies and especially, in fighting corruption in the police, as the
level of corruption in Georgia is incomparably higher than in Armenia,
according to Saakashvili. So the Georgian president wants Kocharyan to
explain how he manages to do this and in addition, how our president
has managed to establish law and order in the state service system. We
are also eager to discuss this issue with Kocharyan. To be short, the
young president of Georgia has come to Armenia not only for
establishing friendly relations with the Armenians, but also for
learning our country’s experience that will be applied in Georgia
afterwards.
If, for example, the police in Georgia do not simply take bribes as
they do in our country, but demand money from drivers threatening them
with a gun, then Kocharyan may give really good advice. The same
concerns the state system, as nobody is being robbed in our country,
and people and private companies “pay taxes” of their own volition. In
this case, Kocharyan will teach Saakashvili how to create a system
under which people will give bribes to officials and policemen of
their own volition.
But corruption is not the most important issue. The newly-elected
president of Georgia should be thinking of gaining victory in the next
presidential elections, when the people’s euphoria ends and most of
social problems are not resolved. Our president will really become an
inestimable adviser for Saakashvili on the issue of “being re-elected”.
For example, Kocharyan may give very valuable advice about how to
revoke the licence of any undesirable independent TV company, about
how to turn the parliament into a puppet, about the laws that the
parliament should be forced adopt in order to restrict freedom of
speech and the press and about how to fight the opposition that
irritates them from time to time. Saakashvili may get advice about how
to stuff ballot boxes and rig the results of elections. And remember,
my friend Misha [meaning Mikheil Saakashvili], opposition activists
should be definitely arrested. The people should be kept in an
atmosphere of fear. To be honest, Saakashvili will learn all these
skills without his counterpart’s advice in a year.