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Barry Jagoda, The Washington Times: Mr.
President, in conversations with everyone we meet
in Adjara, you are extremely popular, even loved
by people. What is the source of your popularity?
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| The dynamic
President of the Autonomous Region of Adjara,
Aslan Abashidze, is a Georgian patriot and widely
respected at home and in Europe. Elected by
a large popular vote in 2001 he is known best
for leading the strong revival of the Adjarian
economy and for bringing democratic procedures
to the Region. |
President Abashidze: Probably, the historical
roots, because that is the main basis on which we
ourselves depend.
TWT: Please say a little bit about your
family background.
President Abashidze: They had privileged
conditions as rulers for centuries, and together
with those responsibilities and privileges, they
had the possibility to get high and serious education,
either humanitarian or military. This is what is
necessary for a leader. My grandfather knew seven
languages, including Arabic, Persian, Turkish, German
and French. He was a well-known traveler and humanitarian.
His whole generation had a good musical education
as well.
TWT: Do you know anything about your grandfather’s
father? Did he fit this pattern?
President Abashidze: They were all the same.
For example, when the first of them came here in
1453, there was a historical settlement named after
him. They were historical figures whether they wanted
to be or not, they went into history, one after
the next, the whole branch.
TWT: And you knew your grandfather well?
President Abashidze: No, I didn’t.
He went to prison in 1937 and he was shot two months
later. He was accused of struggling against the
Soviet regime. I was born two months after his death..
All members of my family were arrested together
with him, my father, who was 24, my 26-year-old
aunt. They were sentenced to 10 years exile to Siberia,
each.
TWT: So your father was in the GULAG?
President Abashidze: Yes. We were thrown
into the streets. My mother was seven months pregnant
with me. My grandmother was old. And my father’s
younger brother escaped, he was 22 years old. They
couldn’t catch him. Until 1958 we were prohibited
to live in Batumi. My father lived in three different
mountainous regions. So we had a very heavy life.
TWT: I’m reminded of a comment you
made speaking to young Abkhazian refugees today,
You said that anything worth accomplishing is difficult.
How did your family’s tragedy, I know it’s
hard to know, affect you and propel you?
President Abashidze: Well, my grandfather
went to prison six times, in Siberia, in Russia,
elsewhere. He fought for the independence of Georgia.
He was put to prison in the Turkish republic and
he was sentenced to death twice. So, all our public
figures were always involved in political battles.
I didn’t want to go into politics myself, but
the times made me do this.
TWT: How were you educated? What training
did you have?
President Abashidze: I have two educations, the
first in history/philosophy and the second in macroeconomics,
the planning of the national economy.
TWT: Where did you study these two fields?
President Abashidze: I studied the first, history
and philosophy, here in Batumi at the University,
and the second one at Tbilisi State University.
TWT: Moving to the immediate present, how
have you and your team managed to build an infrastructure
here, houses, parks, factories, that is so strong
by comparison with other transition economies?
President Abashidze: During the Soviet period
the leaders of the Communist Party of Georgia came
to my office and decided that I had to move to Tbilisi.
I was a Minister at that time.
TWT: What job were you doing?
President Abashidze: I was the Minister
of Service: construction, industry, light industry,
regular service, shoe factories, radio-technology,
lots of fields.
TWT: I understand you get involved in even
minor details of some factory products, new projects…Is
this true? And if it is, are you guilty of over-managing
your top executives?
President Abashidze: You know what, Nature
has granted me with drawing and sculpturing abilities.
For example I made drawings for my students, my
friends, and in the city I was leading the city
construction. And before that I was the head of
Construction and Building Technical Institute for
15 years. I took part in very serious all-Soviet
projects where you could not make any changes, as
there were strict standards for buildings. So I
changed the project, but nobody imprisoned me for
that.
TWT: Why didn’t you get caught?
President Abashidze: I don’t know,
they were afraid of that. I was doing a good job.
TWT: Are recent political developments in
Adjara moving in the direction of democracy?
President Abashidze: Yes, first instead
of having the Head of the Autonomous Republic of
Adjara elected by the Parliament, based on my proposal,
the head of Adjara is elected by the population
of the region. We did this despite the fact that
in the Parliament I had everything guaranteed because
I have the ruling party there. You can misuse love,
warmth, but not power. Once you start misusing the
power, this is the time when you start to regress.
TWT: But who is watching to make sure you
don’t?
President Abashidze: The population. When
you speak about the popularity, they would not elect
you. I’m like a squirrel in a wheel. The people
that give guarantees to you, you have to do something,
because they do not care what you did. When I appeared
on television, the telephone rang and there was
a question, it was the beginning of a month, and
the caller said that he hadn’t received his
salary yet. And it was three days after the end
of the previous month, he was a director of a school,
and I said, ‘We’ll arrange a special commission
for this question. If you don’t get your salary
on the first day of a month the whole authorities
of the district will be dismissed.’
TWT: Earlier you mentioned three trends
toward democratization?
President Abashidze: Yes, the first was
that the head of the republic was elected by universal
balloting by the population. The second was that
they established two elected chambers of Parliament
and we now have elections for government bodies
in the districts and regions. Before that they were
appointed. And then the election of the Mayor. That
was the third.
TWT: Mr. President, I want to go back to
one question. I asked how you and your team have
managed to build this infrastructure. It’s
a very serious question, because elsewhere they
must be doing something wrong. Or you are doing
something right? Or is it just a matter of collecting
appropriate taxes? Why is it so?
President Abashidze: Now there are many
good possibilities and the potential in Georgia
is very high, but the central government policy
does not lead toward realization. So every step
made towards the revival of the economy which is
not blockaded by the center is considered as anti-central.
They used to call us separatists, but now they have
managed to find out that we are not separatists.
In Adjara we have adopted social and economic policies
which lead to growth and democracy.
TWT: Forgetting about the central government
for a moment, what are some of the foreign investment
opportunities here? Are there any ways to get a
good return?
President Abashidze: In this very difficult
period… As one foreigner said, ‘ You have
no corruption, you have banditism. Corruption is
when you build something and then you rob it. But
you take everything, you don’t leave anything.
This is banditism.’ They don’t say that
we have corruption. We have gone 140 days without
any criminal action, its 4 months and 20 days. Cars
are not locked here.
TWT: So it’s generally a nice climate?
President Abashidze: The business people
are absolutely protected here. They will never be
asked to pay anything. Moreover, no criminal will
ever come up to you and ask for a personal interest.
No bureaucrat will dare to ask for any shares from
businessmen. The cargoes and businesses are protected.
And our position and our satisfaction is that businessmen
do come here. A person who contributes in a certain
field is elected an honorary citizen of the Autonomous
Republic of Adjara. And what does that mean? He
is granted a piece of land in the city in the resort
area, at the seaside and in the mountains. And his
property can be inherited.
TWT: How do you get along with Eduard Shevardnadze,
and do you have a strong feeling of Georgian patriotism?
President Abashidze: Yesterday I told one
of the people from security ministry of Georgia.
I said, ‘The attitude must change.’ He
is my friend. He’s a very good person. I told
him I’m like a tree. When there’s a hot
sun, political hot sun, you come here into the shade
to hide from the heat. And he said, ‘How pleasant
it is to be in the shade, that is Adjara.’
‘Then you leave, and when you regulate the
situation in Georgia, in Tbilisi, you come here
with an ax or a saw, you come to the same tree.
And I don’t change, I’m the same tree.
My attitude towards Shevardnadze does not change.
It’s because of my efforts that he hasn’t
lost Adjara. He has not a single problem in Adjara.
In the most extreme situations, even recently when
he was under the threat of being overthrown, he
came to Adjara.
TWT: Why did you take the trouble to engage
yourself in Abkhazia? Are you making progress in
the negotiations? And what is your blueprint for
future resolution, and what is the interest of the
larger world in Abkhazia?
President Abashidze: It’s a very good
question. I’ll open my cards to you. First:
I’m implementing the order which I got from
my President (Shevardnadze), and especially that
one that concerns the unity of my country.
Second: If we want the principle of regionalism
to be implemented, in the western European countries
and in the post-Soviet space, and this is what is
required to have order in the whole world--in the
struggle against terrorism, the struggle against
the poverty, for promotion of social, economic,
health, ecological issues, then we have to seek
another way for conflict resolution. Take the example
of Germany. German regions are members of the Council
of Europe and of the European Parliament. Without
regional consent the Federal State of Germany will
not make any decisions. We can develop this idea
and move it onto a new stage.
TWT: Let me make sure that I have understood
that. You are saying that regionalism, or sub-national
government, is the best process for conflict resolution.
President Abashidze: We need more than democracy
in name but really true internal democracy where
power is also delegated to local and regional self-governments.
TWT: Mr. President, there is talk that you
will run for president of Georgia in the next election.
In fact some of your advisors, I believe, encourage
that you do so. Will you?
President Abashidze: There is no presidential
campaign in Georgia existing. We can show you some
films of how the police block the way for some people
with armored troop carriers thus prohibiting them
from entering some districts to proceed with the
elections. So we absolutely don’t have elections,
democratic elections. They receive as many votes
as they need, except for Adjara, which had international
observers who took part in the elections in Adjara.
So by this I want to say is that there won’t
be elections. This will be a battle with very rough
results, especially during the presidential elections.
TWT: Yes, but surely in 2005 elections will
be held and someone will be declared a winner. In
the light of your history, so much that we’ve
discussed today, have you thought about getting
in there and trying to create a fair election?
President Abashidze: I can tell you directly
that democratic institutions have not been established
here. In reality we have anti-democratic processes.
The elections that have been held in Georgia until
today, I would like to underline this, are far worse
than those that used to be held during Soviet times.
Let’s see what was during the Soviet period.
There was one candidate for one place. And whether
you wanted or not you had to elect him. And here
now on the new democratic stage they still elect
one out of one. But if in Soviet times all this
happened without any victims, now in Georgia all
this happens at the price of people’s blood.
What kind of violence do you prefer, the one with
blood or bloodless when the result is the same?
TWT: This is a very pessimistic view, but
one could say you should be trying to make changes?
President Abashidze: Then there will be a civil
war. That’s why I always kept withdrawing myself
from elections. What we really need is international
involvement to help make our national elections
fair.
TWT: How do you see the future of the independent,
former Soviet states? When will a true middle class
emerge?
President Abashidze: Of course, everything
requires time and some of these states have received
significant foreign support, not all of which always
goes to the people. In Adjara, we haven’t received
a single cent of foreign aid. So what do we do?
First, we show our people that the Soviet system
has changed, a new government has come, and the
attitude to everything has changed in Adjara. We
support all political parties. If they have no money
to appear on TV, we give them the TV time and still
they have nothing to say. We don’t want to
have a one-party system, just the opposite. We need
that also in some of the other former Soviet states.
The middle class will emerge when economic growth
takes off.
TWT: But regarding western aid, why don’t
you just go to Shevardnadze and say, ‘You are
getting 90 million dollars a year from America and
how come I’m not seeing anything?
President Abashidze: Georgia has received
more than a billion dollars.
TWT: And you aren’t getting anything!
Why not?
President Abashidze: He will not answer
me.
TWT: You must take enormous pride in what
has been accomplished here, particularly since the
Adjarians have done it and you’ve done it yourself.
Does this achievement give you a feeling of
pleasure?
President Abashidze: We only show the people
what life can be, that there are no restrictions.
That there is no standard that the height of the
ceiling in an apartment should be 2m, 25cm, there
are no rules that if you speak a foreign language
you will be caught. But it used to be like this.
We opened the way for them and gave examples. And
I have done only a very small percentage of what
Adjara can potentially do. Tomorrow the Communists
might come to power in Georgia, but they won’t
come here in Adjara, because we’ve shown a
different life, this is our victory. You have to
do something totally different in order to generate
interest in the population, so that they support
you. Only then will the middle class come, the new
generation come, when the chances for all layers
of the society get equal, and everyone will have
the same platform. And only then, depending on the
different potential of every person, will differences
emerge. The differences in success and achievements
will be based on the potential of every individual.
So, this is the reality.
TWT: Thank you, Mr. President.
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