Kmara

Kmara flag

Kmara (Georgian: კმარა) is a civic resistance movement in the republic of Georgia which undermined the government of Eduard Shevardnadze. After international observers condemned his government's conduct of the November 2003 parliamentary elections, Kmara led the protests which precipitated his downfall.

In 2000, a small student movement was formed at Tbilisi State University to protest against official corruption in national universities. Nearly 2,500 students joined the organization, and the first state university student self-government was elected in the country. Later, similar student self-governments were elected in other universities across the country. This network of student organizations was transformed in youth movement Kmara in early 2003.

The prominent Georgian human rights NGO, Liberty Institute, made up of young veteran activists, functioned as the mother organization to Kmara and helped build the latter's organizational capabilities.

Since then, young Georgians have increased their organizational capacity and theoretical knowledge of how to conduct nonviolent action through contact with the Serbian movement Otpor (Serbian for resistance), which played a pivotal role in the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Like Otpor, the Georgian movement organized a loose, decentralized network of the regional cells. It intentionally avoided creating a head organization, whose dismantling could have brought the movement to a halt. The training sessions for activists and new recruits were conducted at a recreational facility. The recruits were expected to provide autonomous leadership in their regional cells and organize actions independently. Another dimension of the training dealt with political marketing, media relations, highly effective skills of debating, etc. In addition, the trainees acquired certain techniques of recruiting and mass mobilization. The scale of Kmara's actions grew in parallel with its membership.

Kmara started with smaller and more manageable actions and local issues. Simple but effective means of protest involving graffiti and noisy protest marches achieved high visibility. Kmara's small cell of nonviolent activists began actively mobilizing, strategizing, recruiting and developing organizational strength. Soon, Kmara activists were making daily appearances on major TV channels and made the headlines with all major political developments in the major newspapers. As a result, within the matter of months Kmara became a broadly recognizable name.

The activities of Kmara can be delineated into three temporal stages: a) Pre-election and organizational phase—establishment of organizational branches and discussions with opposition parties to determine positions and stances; b) Public outreach and voter mobilization—training programs for activists were launched this summer; c) Sustained “watchdog” actions and citizen empowerment—long-term efforts to ensure accountability, transparency, and good governance. With assistance of Liberty Institute Kmara began organizing civilian groups of mainly students as election observers and were vocal about the need for fair elections prior to the November 2003 elections. Their work garnered much attention from Shevardnadze, who complained that the Russian government and George Soros' Open Society Institute had been funding an opposition movement meant to drive Shevardnadze from power.

At a press conference on April 21, leader of the National Democratic Party and spokeswomen for the pro-Shevardnadze bloc For New Georgia, Irina Sarishvili-Chanturia announced how “Russian special services are planning a large-scale, tried-and-tested operation: ‘enough.’” Links to the Russian government have never been proven, although the OSI is well known to have funded training for Kmara.

In June, during his weekly radio broadcast President Shevardnadze threatened any international organizations promoting or supporting “organized chaos” in Georgia: "I can tell them that, from now on, you will no longer be in Georgia. That will then be it. They will no longer be here, just as they are no longer in Ukraine, Russia and some other countries, which told them to leave. That is because they have begun interfering in politics. Politics is not their business." After the accusatory comments towards the Open Society Georgia Foundation, President Shevardnadze began developing a different response to Kmara from mid-June until mid- to late-October. In his weekly radio address on June 16, Shevardnadze said that he saw Kmara graffiti from his limousine that day and noticed that “nobody seemed to be reading it.” This attempt to personally ignore Kmara persisted as Shevardnadze remained conspicuously quiet regarding their activities over the following months.

The Belgrade based Center for Nonviolent Resistance was also key in training Kmara, and several other Western organizations were involved in supporting the group. According to an article in the scholarly journal Problems of Post-Communism, Kmara was also funded by Freedom House, the National Democratic Institute, European Union, National Endowment for Democracy, International Republican Institute, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, USAID, and the Council of Europe.

OSI flew the Georgian youth leaders and opposition leader Mikhail Saakashvili to Serbia in order to prepare them for what might happen in the upcoming elections and how they could react nonviolently in a way that would produce real changes.

Kmara later proved instrumental in the removal of the regime of Aslan Abashidze in the Autonomous Republic of Ajaria.

After revolution most of the leaders of Kmara now work for Liberty Institute.

External links

[Eurasianet Report]

References

Fairbanks, Charles J. "Georgia's Rose Revolution." Journal of Democracy (2004): 110-124.
Herd, Graeme P. "Colorful Revolutions and the CIS: "Manufactured" Versus "Managed" Democracy?" Problems of Post-Communism (2005): 3-18.

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Kmara

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