Kmara
Encyclopedia
Resistance movement
A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...
in the republic of Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
which undermined the government of Eduard Shevardnadze
Eduard Shevardnadze
Eduard Shevardnadze is a former Soviet, and later, Georgian statesman from the height to the end of the Cold War. He served as President of Georgia from 1995 to 2003, and as First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party , from 1972 to 1985. Shevardnadze was responsible for many top decisions on...
. After international observers condemned his government's conduct of the November 2003 parliamentary elections, Kmara led the protests which precipitated his downfall in what became known as the Rose Revolution
Rose Revolution
The "Revolution of Roses" was a change of power in Georgia in November 2003, which took place after having widespread protests over the disputed parliamentary elections...
.
Origins
Tbilisi State University
Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University , better known as Tbilisi State University , is a university established on 8 February 1918 in Tbilisi, Georgia. TSU is the oldest university in the whole Caucasus region...
to protest against official corruption in national universities. Nearly 2,500 students joined the organization, and the first student government at a state university in the country was elected. Later, similar student governments were elected in other universities across the country. This network of student organizations evolved into Kmara in early 2003.
The prominent Georgian human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
NGO
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...
, Liberty Institute
Liberty Institute (Georgia)
Liberty Institute is a Georgian research and advocacy organization affiliated with Ilia Chavchavadze State University.Liberty has always been the cornerstone of established Georgian values. It has been transformed into classical liberal tradition by Ilia Chavchavadze...
, made up of young veteran activists, functioned as the mother organization to Kmara and helped build the latter's organizational capabilities. Kmara increased their organizational capacity and theoretical knowledge of how to use nonviolent action
Nonviolence
Nonviolence has two meanings. It can refer, first, to a general philosophy of abstention from violence because of moral or religious principle It can refer to the behaviour of people using nonviolent action Nonviolence has two (closely related) meanings. (1) It can refer, first, to a general...
to effect change through contact with the Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
n Otpor
Otpor
Otpor! was a civic youth movement that existed as such from 1998 until 2003 in Serbia , employing nonviolent struggle against the regime of Slobodan Milošević as their course of action. In the course of two-year nonviolent struggle against Milosevic, Otpor spread across Serbia and attracted more...
movement (Serbian
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
for "resistance"), which played a pivotal role in the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
in 2000.
Western patronage
The BelgradeBelgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
-based Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) 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
Freedom House
Freedom House is an international non-governmental organization based in Washington, D.C. that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom and human rights...
, the National Democratic Institute
National Democratic Institute for International Affairs
The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs is an organization created by the United States government by way of the National Endowment for Democracy to channel grants for furthering democracy in developing nations. It was founded in 1983, shortly after the U.S. Congress created...
, European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
, National Endowment for Democracy
National Endowment for Democracy
The National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, is a U.S. non-profit organization that was founded in 1983 to promote US-friendly democracy by providing cash grants funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress...
, International Republican Institute
International Republican Institute
Founded in 1983, the International Republican Institute is an organization, funded by the United States government, that conducts international political programs, sometimes labeled 'democratization programs'....
, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, USAID, and the Council of Europe
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
.
Like Otpor!, Kmara 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 recreational facilities. The recruits were expected to provide autonomous leadership in their regional cells and organize actions independently. Other dimensions of the training dealt with political marketing, media relations, mobilization and recruiting and debating
Debate
Debate or debating is a method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examines consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examines what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is a technique of persuasion...
skills.
Public outreach
The scale of Kmara's actions grew along with its membership. Kmara started with smaller, more manageable local issues. Simple but effective means of protest included graffitiGraffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
and noisy protest marches, which achieved high visibility. Soon, Kmara activists were making daily appearances on major TV channels and in the major newspapers. As a result, within months Kmara became a broadly recognizable name.
Kmara began organizing civilian groups (mostly of 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
George Soros
George Soros is a Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, philosopher, and philanthropist. He is the chairman of Soros Fund Management. Soros supports progressive-liberal causes...
' Open Society Institute
Open Society Institute
The Open Society Institute , renamed in 2011 to Open Society Foundations, is a private operating and grantmaking foundation started by George Soros, aimed to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform...
had been funding an opposition movement meant to drive Shevardnadze from power.
Rose Revolution
At a press conference on April 21 , leader of the National Democratic PartyNational Democratic Party (Georgia)
The National Democratic Party is a political party in Georgia.At the last legislative elections, 28 March 2004, the party was part of the National Democratic Alliance....
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.’”
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
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
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 ignore Kmara persisted as Shevardnadze remained conspicuously quiet regarding their activities over the following months.
After the revolution
Kmara later proved instrumental in the removal of the regime of Aslan AbashidzeAslan Abashidze
Aslan Abashidze was the leader of the Ajarian Autonomous Republic in western Georgia from 1991 to May 5, 2004. He resigned under the pressure of the central Georgian government and mass opposition rallies during the 2004 Adjara crisis, and has since lived in Moscow, Russia...
in the Autonomous Republic of Ajaria. The Open Society Institute also flew Georgian youth leaders and opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili
Mikheil Saakashvili
Mikheil Saakashvili is a Georgian politician, the third and current President of Georgia and leader of the United National Movement Party.Involved in the national politics since 1995, Saakashvili became president on 25 January 2004 after President Eduard Shevardnadze resigned in a November 2003...
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 change. After the revolution, most of Kmara's leaders left the organization to work for the Liberty Institute.