GEORGIA PURSUES CAMPAIGN AGAINST ESPIONAGE
Molly Corso 3/31/06
EurasiaNet, NY
March 31 2006
Amid rancorous exchanges between Georgia and Russia, Georgian
President Mikheil Saakashvili is pursuing a campaign to root out
suspected spies operating in Tbilisi.
In televised comments March 28, Saakashvili announced that individuals
spying against the Georgian government would receive amnesty if they
gave themselves up by May 1. Without going into details, he asserted
that “many” foreign agents were currently operating in Georgia.
“If they cooperate with us, I give my personal guarantee to them that
they will be absolutely untouchable regardless of what they have done
until now,” Saakashvili said. “These people should know that we have
a lot of information but we want them to cooperate with their own
country based on our country’s interests.”
Saakashvili comments came just hours after the arrest of Simon
Kiladze — a low-level official in the presidential administration
press service — for allegedly spying for an unnamed foreign
government. According to Vano Merabishvili, the minister of internal
affairs, Kiladze had been engaging in espionage since 2004.
The alleged spy had been “systematically passing to special services of
a foreign country information of a confidential nature on the Georgian
president, the heads of the country’s executive and legislature,
visits by state delegations, their meetings, issues discussed at such
meetings and other information of strategic importance,” Merabishvili
said in comments broadcast by Imedi television. The interior minister
added that Kiladze had received “a minimum of $20,000” in exchange for
information that he provided. In a telephone interview with EurasiaNet,
Interior Ministry spokesperson Shota Khizanishvili said officials
Kiladze’s activities had been under investigation for “months,”
but he declined to elaborate, saying the probe into his activities
was ongoing.
Kiladze is one of many moles working inside government agencies,
Saakashvili alleged. “I am afraid this is not the only person in
the governmental structure who is engaged in this kind of activity,”
he said. “We have too much information, which we have been gathering
for a long time.” While the president implied the government already
knows the identities of at least some secret agents, he did not go
into details and did not mention one particular country.
Davit Losabaidze, a project director at the Caucasus Institute for
Peace, Democracy and Development in Tbilisi, suggested that Kiladze’s
arrest was likely connected to several foreign and domestic factors.
On the foreign front, Georgia has been experiencing growing pressure
from Russia, as the two states have argued over the political future
of the separatist South Ossetia territory. [For background see the
Eurasia Insight archive]. Domestically, Saakashvili has been facing
growing opposition.
“This [Kiladze’s arrest] is a show of strength,” Losabaidze said. “It
an example [to show] they [Georgian officials] are not going to
back down.”
The latest move in the Georgian-Russian political chess match
occurred March 30, when Moscow banned the importation of wine from
Georgia and Moldova. Russian official alleged that Georgian wines –
a major export commodity for Tbilisi – did not meet Russian safety
standards. Given that Russia is perhaps the most important market for
Georgian wine, Tbilisi reacted furiously to Moscow’s action. Georgian
officials insisted the ban was politically motivated, and said they
would have an independent lab in Switzerland test a wide selection
of the country’s wines to disprove the Russian assertions, the Civil
Georgia web site reported March 31.
In a telephone interview with EurasiaNet, Gela Charkviani,
a presidential spokesperson, declined to comment on whether the
alleged activity of Kiladze or of other supposed spies had undermined
national security, or posed a particular threat to the president’s
safety. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Charkviani
merely reiterated that Kiladze would face treason charges, adding
that no further details would be released until the completion of
the investigation.
Saakashvili has repeatedly warned in recent weeks that Georgia’s
stability was being threatened. On March 9, Saakashvili said an
“ideological war” was being waged against Georgia. “Very influential,
very rich, very important forces are engaged in discrediting Georgia
and in portraying Georgia as unstable, dangerous, unreliable [and]
non-European,” Civil Georgia quoted Saakashvili as saying. The
president and other Georgian leaders later characterized the foiled
mass prison escape in Tbilisi on March 27 as a part of a conspiracy to
destabilize Georgia. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
There are indications that the Georgia government remains very
concerned about possible destabilization. On March 31, officials
announced that Saakashvili had postponed a visit to Ukraine that
had been planned to begin on April 4. Officials gave no reason for
the postponement, or indicated when the trip would be rescheduled,
Civil Georgia reported.
Despite the fact that authorities assert they have compiled “firm”
evidence of widespread espionage in Georgia, many local analysts
wondered whether the alleged espionage posed a serious national
security threat.
Uri Simonian, a member of the political information department at
the South Caucasus Institute for Regional Security, voiced skepticism
about Saakashvili’s allegation that dozens of secret agents working
in Georgia. “I didn’t understand when they said there are a lot of
spies that operate here in the open. It is rare that a spy operates
in the open,” he said. Simonian suggested that Saakashvili was using
‘spy’ as a euphemism for critics.
Although Russia has not been openly accused by either authorities or
reports in the Georgian media in connection with Kiladze’s arrest,
Simonian said he immediately assumed that authorities were talking
about Russia, Belarus or Armenia. Simonian, who also works as a
correspondent for the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, noted
that when the president announced “a lot of spies” were working in
the county, he interpreted this as a reference to journalists working
for Russian, Armenian and Belarusian publications. “I think some
concrete steps will be taken against these journalists,” he said.
While he could not cite any specific examples, Simonian claimed that
he and his colleagues have long felt pressure from officials.
Losabaidze, meanwhile, suggested that while Saakashvili’s assertions
should be taken seriously, there also existed an incentive for the
president to play up the potential threat posed by espionage. Over
the past few weeks, several Saakashvili administration domestic
policies have faced extensive criticism. Tbilisi merchants, for one,
have staged protests in opposition to a government policy requiring
most retail businesses to record transactions using cash registers.
[For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. And on March 29,
Georgian media mogul Badri Patarkatshvili attacked the Saakashvili
administration for attempting to stifle independent media coverage of
politics. “It smells like they [officials] want to turn the public’s
attention to another topic,” Losabaidze said.
Editor’s Note: Molly Corso is a freelance reporter and photographer
based in Tbilisi.