US-EU assets pushing color revolution in Georgia
Kit Klarenberg, The Grayzone, May 26 2024
A dark political atmosphere is swirling over the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, and grows more ominous by the day. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has been told by an EU commissioner he will suffer the fate of Robert Fico, the Slovakian leader still fighting for his life after an assassination attempt by a Ukraine proxy war ultra. US lawmakers are moving to sanction members of the ruling Georgian Dream party, and in parliament on May 14, opposition MP Tako Charkviani threatened:
Believe me, there will be a color revolution in Georgia.
The cause of this tumult is a bill known as the “foreign influence transparency” law which would compel organizations to publicly disclose their foreign funding. For weeks, the streets of Tbilisi have been filled with tens of thousands of protesters who are demanding that authorities dump the law, which they believe will compromise Georgia’s path to EU membership. Despite vehement condemnation from EU and US officials, the bill has now passed. The US has since threatened to impose visa restrictions on legislators who supported the legislation, and protesters show no sign of giving up. The sincerity of citizens who continue to occupy public spaces in Tbilisi, for fear their government’s actions will sabotage Georgia’s EU aspirations, cannot be doubted. But there are clear indications that many have been severely misled about the nature of the new law, with some reportedly convinced it will mandate mass surveillance and compel the public to denounce their neighbors as “foreign agents.”
The drive to misinform Georgians about the bill is led primarily by foreign media outlets and foreign-funded NGOs themselves. Today, over 25k NGOs are active in Georgia, and nearly all receive foreign funding. Many are bankrolled by the EU, which finances over 130 separate “active projects” and 19k small and medium-sized businesses in the country. American intelligence cutouts USAID, and CIA front NED, are also prominent backers of the sector. Together, these foreign-backed elements are mobilizing their constituents into the streets for a new round of protests that ultimately aim to bring the government down and replace it with one that suits the interests of Brussels and Washington.
Georgians wave US and Ukrainian flags as they protest the government’s
proposed “foreign influence transparency law.” Video by Rami Yahiah.
Many foreign-funded NGOs are explicitly concerned with integrating Georgia into the EU, NATO, and other “Euro-Atlantic” structures. Among them is the Shame Movement, which has been at the forefront of the recent unrest in Tbilisi. NED grant records indicate that it received just shy of $80k in 2021 for “engaging regional youth activists,” helping young Georgians address political “challenges” and advocate “for governmental accountability.”
Oddly, an NED entry indicating the Shame Movement also received over $90k that year “to promote democratic accountability and effective oversight of the Georgian parliament” has been removed. It noted that the organization was charged with tracking “votes and statements of all parliamentarians and maintain online profiles detailing this information.” Was this initiative ultimately concerned with creating a ‘hit list’ of MPs who vote the “wrong” way, from the West’s perspective? The Shame Movement was similarly involved in unrest in 2023, when Georgian Dream attempted to implement comparable legislation to the “foreign influence transparency” law, only to capitulate after vast, violent crowds threatened to overrun parliament, scenes similarly soundtracked by relentless hostile broadsides from Western officials. A WSJ report at the time made the organization’s loathing for the government abundantly clear, quoting a Shame Movement spokesperson:
Georgian Dream is a Kremlin proxy aimed at pushing the nation closer to Russia and further from the EU. The government can’t come out and say they are pro-Russia and anti-EU integration because they would get a huge amount of backlash from the public, so they are trying to boil us like a frog slowly. They are trying and doing everything they can to sabotage Georgia’s EU integration process.
At home and abroad, the Western propaganda line that Georgian Dream serves Russian interests, or is somehow a Kremlin pawn, has been repeated with increasing frequency since the anti-“foreign influence transparency” demonstrations erupted. Evidence to the contrary has been summarily ignored by Western opinion makers, with influential DC-based foreign policy think tank Carnegie Endowment going as far as deleting report that comprehensively debunked the charge.
In reality, Georgian Dream has since taking office in 2012 struck a delicate balance between strengthening Western ties, and maintaining civil coexistence with neighboring Russia. In order to join the EU, the government has jumped through every Brussels-mandated hoop, satisfied every stated condition for membership, and was formally granted candidate status in Dec 2023. Yet, this has become an ever-fraught dance since Feb 2022, with external pressure to impose sanctions on Moscow and send arms to Ukraine perpetually rising.
The Tbilisi offices of the Information Center on NATO and EU, a NATO-sponsored initiative
which says its goal is to “engage our population in Georgia’s Europeanand Euro-Atlantic
integration processes and to gain their well-informed support.”
Strict compliance with Western sanctions regimes and public condemnations of the Russian invasion are evidently inadequate for Brussels, Kiev, London and Washington. In Dec 2022, Garibashvili claimed that the Ukrainian government had repeatedly demanded Tbilisi open a “second front” in the proxy conflict against Russia. His refusal was met with a firm rebuke, which in turn resulted in Georgian Dream’s branding as a Kremlin proxy, and therefore a legitimate target for regime change operations. Unlike in 2023, the government has refused to back down on enforcing “foreign influence transparency” in the face of Western condemnation and violent mobs flooding the Georgian capital’s streets. On May 3, Prime Minister Kobakhidze issued a fiery statement, accusing the US of orchestrating two failed coups in Tbilisi since 2020. These efforts, he asserted, were “carried out through NGOs financed from external sources,” and inspired by “false statements” made by Kelly C Degnan, US ambassador to Tbilisi until last year. Kobakhidze was referring to the diplomat accusing Georgian Dream of being Kremlin puppets. These allegations “served the facilitation of violence from foreign funded actors,” he contended. Referencing White House complaints about local police responses to the ongoing demonstrations, he noted wryly:
I have not expressed my concerns about a brutal crackdown on student Palestine solidarity protesters two days ago in New York City.
Longtime Georgian leader and former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze opened the floodgates for NGOs seeking a toehold in his country by allowing foreign-financed civil society organizations to operate in the country without much if any oversight. At the time a Western darling, with this act he signed his own political death warrant. As a since-deleted article on USAID’s website once noted, Western-backed NGOs went on to “promote democratic and liberal values,” which gravely undermined his government. The report continued:
For example, in 1999 US funding helped Georgians draw up and build support for a Freedom of Information Law, which the government adopted. That law allowed the media and NGOs to investigate government budgets, force the firing of a corrupt minister, and give people a sense that they should regulate the government.
Vast sums were also allocated to training “lawyers, judges, journalists, members of parliament, NGOs, political party leaders” in the art of color revolution. This led to the 2003 Rose Revolution, which toppled Shevardnadze, and installed Mikheil Saakashvili, a US-groomed politician personally approved by billionaire CIA cutout George Soros. A participant in the insurrection quoted in the deleted USAID article acknowledged:
Without foreign assistance I’m not sure we would have been able to achieve what we did. USAID supported civil society and created a network of civic minded people.
Elsewhere, a Saakashvili associate declared Washington had “helped good people get rid of a bad and corrupted government.” Foreign-funded NGOs exert an outsized and toxic influence in Tbilisi, having “long colonized most areas of public policy and services,” as a May 2 essay by LeftEast noted. These organizations “get their mandate from international bodies, which draw up and pay for to-do lists of policy reforms for Georgia,” and “lack an incentive to consider the impact of the projects they implement because they are not accountable to the citizens in whose lives they play such an intrusive role.” While this “has eroded Georgian citizens’ agency and the country’s sovereignty and democracy,” the “foreign influence transparency” law will not in fact address these issues, the authors argue. The legislation is instead concerned with countering “a small but powerful clique” of well-funded NGOs aligned with Saakashvili and his United National Movement (UNM), which “engage in openly partisan politics” to undermine Georgian Dream. As can be seen in the current round of protests, this retinue props up opposition parties while clamoring for the government’s ouster.
Despite the presence of foreign media at every protest, pro-EU demonstrators unironically
play Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” Video by Rami Yahiah.
Saakashvili ostensibly runs the UNM from prison in Tbilisi. Having fled Georgia and taken up residence in Ukraine as governor of Odesa at Petro Poroshenko’s invitation post-Maidan after losing power in 2012, he returned in October 2021. Upon arrival, he was jailed for ordering violent attacks on political rivals, and helping one of his ministers cover up a hideous murder they personally directed. President Zourabichvili has pledged she will “never” pardon the former leader. Recent polls place the party’s public support at just 9.6%, significantly lower than Georgian Dream’s 31.4%. Despite his fading popularity, Saakashvili’s supporters appear determined to bust him out of prison, by hook or by crook. In Sep 2023, Georgian security officials warned “a coup a la Euromaidan” was being prepared locally. Named plotters included ethnic Georgians working for the Ukrainian government: Giorgi Lortkipanidze, Kiev’s deputy military intelligence chief; Mikhail Baturin, Saakashvili’s former bodyguard; and Mamuka Mamulashvili, commander of the notorious Georgian Legion.
A pro-EU demonstrator in Tblisi sports a Georgian Legion flag. Video by Rami Yahiah.
Mamulashvili is centrally implicated in the Feb 2014 false-flag sniper massacre of Maidan protesters in Kiev, which was pivotal in unseating Yanukovych and installing a nationalist government primed for war with Russia. The Georgian warlord apparently brought the shooters to Kiev to create “chaos” by opening fire on crowds, providing them with weapons for the purpose. This time round, security officials said, anti-government activists, trained near Ukraine’s border with Poland, would set up a “tent city” in Tbilisi, much like the one erected in Kiev’s Maidan Square. Then, a false-flag bombing would take place at the site, triggering mass violent upheaval. Allegedly planned for some time between Oct-Dec 2023, the bloody plot never came to pass. Nonetheless, police discovered activists from a US government-backed group called CANVAS operating in Tbilisi at the time, suggesting something malign was indeed afoot. CANVAS grew out of Otpor, an NED-created Yugoslav dissident youth group instrumental in the overthrow of Milosevic in 2000. Thereafter, its activists began training regime change operatives the world over on Washington’s dime. Among the recipients of CANVAS’ expertise were members of Kmara, a youth resistance movement at the forefront of the 2003 Rose Revolution, directly modeled on Otpor, logo and all. That event has shaped Georgia’s politics and society ever since, and looms large in the minds of many citizens, its historic connotations viewed both positively and negatively. Opposition MP Tako Charkviani undoubtedly knew precisely what she was doing when she forcefully promised a fresh color revolution in Tbilisi.
Corrupt Australian firm busted as intelligence front
Kit Klarenberg, May 13 2024
A whistleblower complaint obtained by The Grayzone alleges industrial scale corruption by three former SAS operatives linked to a private firm, which operates as a “front company for deployable, offshore covert or clandestine intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance activities” on behalf of the Australian government. The document, submitted anonymously by an Australian Defence Force whistleblower with knowledge of the matter to Canberra’s National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), alleges that the three influential SAS veterans are implicated in the corrupt operations of a company named Omni Executive. Founded in Canberra in 2012, Omni Executive boasts on its website of being “trusted, proven, Australian.” Its mission is described as “delivering innovative defence, national security, intelligence and critical infrastructure solutions to further our national interest.” An “Australian veteran-owned enterprise,” Omni employs in excess of 400 staff, all of whom boast “a wealth of experience in intelligence, special operations, law enforcement, emergency services, engineering and aviation.” An Australian Defence Force (ADF) source has claimed a “murky arrangement” existed between senior officers within Canberra’s Special Operations Command and Omni’s founders. They said:
The lines seemed very blurry. They seemed to have cracked some sort of code. Omni does dodgy stuff for Defence so they can pretend it’s not them, even though they provide Omni with everything they need. A win-win arrangement.
The three individuals named in the whistleblower complaint were no strangers to the kind of “dodgy stuff” implied by the source. Before the creation of Omni, the operators were previously affiliated with a highly secretive Australian SAS unit known as 4 Squadron, which was modeled on the notoriously brutal US JSOC special forces group. 4 Squadron’s cloak-and-dagger work combined typical special forces functions with human intelligence gathering, which is traditionally the preserve of civilian spying agencies. In 2012, after journalists revealed the existence of the unit, as well as its involvement in targeted assassinations and other covert activities across the African continent, a decision was apparently made to move 4 Squadron underground. By doing so, an ADF source claims Australian officials effectively “bought 4 Squadron off the shelf as a going concern.” Now, a growing body of evidence suggests Omni was secretly established, and initially funded, by the Australian military, in order to continue 4 Squadron’s operations after they were publicly exposed.
Anonymous military veterans who witnessed the company’s creation up close have testified to an unsettling lack of official distinction between the private company and 4 Squadron. The SAS unit’s spying equipment was transferred directly to Omni, along with several personnel. To this day, many Omni employees list their location as Russell, Australia, the headquarters of the Australian Defence Forces. Omni Executive was founded by Jon Hawkins, a 25-year ADF veteran. Since its inception, the company has reaped hundreds of millions from government contracts, often without competitive tender. After the controversy in Africa left 4 Squadron’s reputation in tatters, numerous members of the unit left official military service and joined Omni. At that point, the Australian government provided them with “surveillance and communications equipment” outside “typical Department of Defence procurement channels,” the complaint alleges.
Since 2015, according to public records, Omni has reaped over $230 million in intelligence and security contracts from Australia’s Department of Defence and other government agencies. Details of how much the company earned from government contracts, and what it was doing, over the prior three years are unavailable. Omni is evidently trusted at the highest levels, as even the office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet are listed among its clients. The whistleblower complaint alleges:
Senior [Special Operations Command] officers involved in procurement decisions gave preferential treatment to Hawkins, who made a significant financial gain. There were clear conflicts of interest and breaches of Commonwealth procurement guidelines: The establishment of Omni Executive and subsequent awarding of more than $230m on contracts involves conflicts of interest, a lack of public oversight and activities that have questionable legality, including the use of Commonwealth assets for domestic surveillance without warrant or other normal oversight processes. Furthermore, Omni Executive is potentially utilising Commonwealth assets (aircraft) for commercial services they offer.
Questions linger over whether another SAS veteran named in the NACC complaint named Vance Khan exploited his position to secure profitable deals for Omni. Khan’s official Australian government directory entry appears to have been scrubbed of references to this post. It remains a mystery why so little information about him can be found online, or why his face is cropped out from his official “Special Forces Roll Of Honour” profile.
The whistleblower complaint notes Khan now manages the National Indigenous Australians Agency. Indigenous Australians have been subjected to rampant societal discrimination, counting as disproportionate victims of police brutality. By some accounts, they are 16.5 times more likely to die in police custody than non-indigenous Australians. Given Khan’s military record, it is unclear why he still occupies a post presiding over the affairs of this community. In Aug 2001, the Australian government of then Prime Minister John Howard sparked international outcry after not only refusing to allow a Norwegian freighter carrying 433 refugees to enter its waters, but sending a team of SAS operatives to storm the vessel. A damning UN probe concluded the administration had failed to meet its obligations to distressed mariners, under international law. Sources with intimate knowledge of the matter have informed The Grayzone that Vance Khan was among the special forces soldiers deployed. The next year, five SAS operatives under Khan’s command killed 11 innocent civilians and wounded 16 more while conducting a coalition patrol in Afghanistan. The Australians also killed two villagers they wrongly believed to be insurgents, then took part in a pitched firefight that claimed nine civilian lives. One SAS soldier faced censure for taking the turban and gun of a slain Afghan as a souvenir.
It appears no one faced consequences for the bloodshed, however. From the Australian government’s perspective, the killings were arguably legitimate. Under the terms of Operation Slipper, the codename for Canberra’s Afghanistan mission, “incidental/collateral damage” was deemed acceptable, as long as it was not “excessive in relation to direct military advantage anticipated to be gained.” The next year, Australia’s military rewarded Khan for his actions with the Distinguished Service Cross, one of its highest honors. Against this backdrop of unrestrained brutality, the Howard government secretly created 4 Squadron in 2005. Directly modeled off the notoriously abusive US special forces unit known as the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, the Australian version merged covert intelligence gathering with military actions until it was publicly exposed in 2012. The disclosure of its existence may have been prompted by an internal government tussle over the deployment of SAS soldiers to Libya the previous year, during which they assisted the CIA and MI6 in toppling President Muammar Gaddafi.
Kevin Rudd, who was then Australia’s Foreign Minister, first floated the proposal for 4 Squadron to intervene in Libya. At the time, Rudd took an extremely belligerent stance on the conflict, suggesting Australian forces should participate in NATO attacks and cheering Gaddafi’s demise against the wishes of his own prime minister, Julia Gillard, and the country’s defense chief, David Hurley. Sources have speculated that Canberra may have decided to “burn” 4 Squadron, and decisively torpedo the prospect of its Libyan adventure. The person who leaked information on the unit’s activities to the press has never been identified, let alone prosecuted, raising suspicions about their proximity to the highest levels of power. The complaint by the NACC whistleblower also lists former Acting Special Operations Commander Daniel McDaniel among those implicated in Omni’s corruption. An investigation by local media revealed that in 2012, the unit under McDaniel’s command known as the Special Operations Task Group killed unarmed civilians during a raid targeting a suspected Taliban bombmaker in Afghanistan. An internal ADF probe concluded the dead were all combatants. However, a detailed investigation by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission found all those killed were innocent civilians. Nonetheless, McDaniel was not only awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, but was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia, both rewards for his supposedly “exceptional service” in Afghanistan.
The overwhelming majority of Omni’s Australian government contracts relate to domestic security and intelligence gathering. At the same time, the company has actively sought recruits with “TSPV [top secret positively vetted]” clearances. The positive security vetting process involves intensive investigation of an individual’s personal life, including their relationships, finances, associations, and mental health. Australians with TSPV clearance conduct some of the country’s most sensitive operations, and they have ready access to highly classified intelligence. Omni’s website boasts that the company maintains a fleet of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, “fully equipped with advanced aerial surveillance equipment, including daylight and infra-red full motion video, augmented reality systems and contemporary technology to exploit the information environment.” These resources, they say, provide “real-time situational awareness through manned and unmanned intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.” Use of these aircraft is referenced in several of Omni’s government contracts, including one which explicitly states that Omni was selected “due to an absence of competition,” a dynamic that’s apparently maintained for “technical reasons.”
The scale and nature of Omni’s domestic spying activities are unknown. But it is almost certain that the vast intelligence yield is shared with the US-led ‘Five Eyes’ global spying network, of which Canberra is an eager participant. The arrangement is so secretive that the Australian public, and even its political leaders, were unaware of its existence until 1973 – 17 years after the country became a signatory. According to veteran journalist Duncan Campbell, each Five Eyes member theoretically has the right to veto a request for signals intelligence collected by another member. However, Campbell explained, “when you’re a junior ally like ANZ, you never refuse,” even in situations when there are concerns about what ostensible allies may do with that sensitive information.
The conviction of David McBride, a former Australian Defence Force lawyer, for leaking sensitive material about war crimes in Afghanistan, highlights the anxiety coursing through the Five Eyes national security complex. Evidence in McBride’s trial was withheld from his defense lawyers on the grounds it could jeopardize “the security and defence of Australia” if released. Now facing a lengthy prison sentence for his moral stand, the whistleblower’s prosecution appears intended as an example to others considering exposing the illicit activities their country engaged in on behalf of US imperial interests. By contrast, those who participated in Washington’s crimes abroad have not only been treated with impunity; their abuses have been rewarded. Indeed, not a single individual implicated in the atrocities documented in McBride’s leaks has been in any way penalized for their conduct.
A 2020 investigation into war crimes committed by Australian special forces in Afghanistan during the two-decade-long US-led occupation uncovered evidence that at least 39 civilians and detainees were murdered by the SAS. Yet, it absolved all implicated senior officers of any culpability. The probe was led by Retired Major General Paul Brereton. He is now Canberra’s National Anti-Corruption Commissioner. mni Executive was approached for comment, but did not respond.
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