Gitmo plan sputters
By Dimitri Avaliani
Institute for War & Peace Reporting
TBILISI, Georgia — Since coming to power in 2003, President Mikhail Saakashvili has been a reliable U.S. ally, often to the consternation of his Russian neighbor. And by and large, most Georgians have approved of this policy.
For example, few disagreed when Saakashvili announced that Georgia would be sending additional troops to Afghanistan to support American efforts there. A 750-strong battalion flew to Afghanistan on April 7, and will serve under American command in the turbulent Helmand province. Other Georgian troops are already deployed with French units in the country.
So it came as something of a surprise when Georgia’s decision to accept three former detainees from the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, proved controversial.
Washington is anxious to close down the notorious detention center and has been searching for countries willing to take the 200 or so inmates who remain there. Saakashvili’s government said it accepted the three men, who were transferred to Georgia late last month, as part of the “strategic partnership” between the two countries.
The men, who have been identified as Libyans, are free to live anywhere in Georgia and may have their families join them. They may not, however, leave the country.
Opposition leader Koba Davitashvili, head of the Georgian People’s Party, called the move an insult to the Georgian people. “The fact that people who lived in Guantanamo will live here freely shows that the U.S. regards Georgia as one big prison,” he said.
Others worried the three posed a threat to the country’s security.
Jondi Bagaturia, leader of the Kartuli Dasi party and a member of parliament, asked why the 200 remaining Guantanamo inmates couldn’t be settled in the United States if they posed no threat.
“We are sure that they do not pose any threat,” said Shota Utiashvili, head of the interior ministry’s analytical department, who said the police had studied their files.
But that did not satisfy Kakha Dzagania, secretary of the Labor Party.
“Saakashvili has turned Georgia into a concentration camp and has started to import prisoners,” he said.
“Let them send the Guantanamo prisoners straight back where they were born. There is no need for them to come here,” he said.
Opposition
Moscow has voiced its opposition to the move, with the foreign ministry strongly condemning the decision.
“People connected to terrorism have been sent to an unstable region, where the threat of terrorism is palpable, and then given ’into the care’ of a state where the leadership has often shown the greatest irresponsibility and criminal adventurism in affairs of regional security,” said Andrei Nesterenko, the Russian foreign ministry spokesman.
Some independent observers say they think the controversy is being blown out of proportion.
“Georgia is not such an important player in the international arena that it has come to the terrorists’ attention,” said Tornike Sharashenidze, an analyst with the Institute for Public Affairs. “It is not worth their while to expend resources on Georgia.”
Dimitri Avaliani is a reporter in Georgia who writes for The Institute for War & Peace Reporting, a nonprofit organization in London that trains journalists in areas of conflict. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune.
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