Parliament Speaker calls for USAID response to allegations of “funding unrest” in Georgia

Shalva Papuashvili, the Georgian Parliament Speaker, on Monday urged the United States Agency for International Development to respond to allegations by the country’s State Security Service that said the Agency’s East-West Management Institute had funded trainings in Tbilisi last month for causing “unrest” in the country this fall.

The state body claimed early on Monday the EWMI had invited “top managerial representatives” from the Belgrade-based Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies to Georgia between September 26-29 to “train domestic civil groups and individuals for a planned unrest” in Tbilisi in November and December.

• Ruling party head warns against “any revolutionary scenario” in country

It alleged the trainings would use public fallout of the potentially negative decision by the European Union bodies on granting Georgia the bloc’s membership candidate status later this year to stage “planned protests and unrest”, block buildings, “creat[e] tensions in the law enforcement structures” and use violence towards police.

In his comments, Papuashvili said the alleged revelations marked a “dark day in the history of American aid to Georgia”, and added “it seems the money of the American people is being used here to plan revolutionary processes, to deliberately train people to riot and to provoke violence”. 

The official noted the USAID had not commented either to the latest allegations or to the controversy in 2020, when the Agency allegedly had information about inaccuracy of parallel vote count results from the parliamentary elections, released by the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy. Papuashvili said opposition groups in the country had used the numbers to spark confrontations following the voting. 

The latest claims by the SSS came as part of its ongoing investigation, launched last month, with the body’s previous comments saying it had uncovered a plan by former officials of the previous United National Movement Government to cause “civil unrest” and overthrow the country’s Government using a “Euromaidan scenario” in November and December.

The body said it had been monitoring the group, which it said involved Giorgi Lortkipanidze, the former UNM Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and currently the Deputy Head of the Ukrainian military intelligence, Mikheil Baturin, a former member of the security detail of the former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, and Mamuka Mamulashvili, the commander of the Georgian Legion fighting in the ongoing Ukraine war, and alleged the efforts had been “coordination and financed” from abroad.