Kmara

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Kmara (means, Enough!) is a youth political organization in Georgia similar organization to Otpor, funded by among others George Soros. Its purpose was the same as Otpor: to forge disaffected youth into a political force capable of undermining the previous (Shevernadze) government. After the takeover of power by Saakashvili and his allies, Kmara was disbanded and incorporated into the EDP, the dominant political party.[1]

Many members of Kmara, and indeed of the opposition parties, learned from another Soros-funded project, Serbia's Otpor (Resistance) student movement. A documentary on the mass protests that brought Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic from power in September 2000 was aired twice before Nov. 22 by the independent, but pro-opposition, Rustavi-2 (Soros funded).
"Most important was the film," the general secretary of the National Movement, Ivane Merabishvili, told reporters on Nov. 25. "All the demonstrators knew the tactics of the revolution in Belgrade by heart because [Rustavi-2] showed the film on their revolution. Everyone knew what to do. This was a copy of that revolution."
Merabishvili didn't mention the trip that Giga Bokeria, a 31-year-old Tbilisi activist, took to Serbia to meet with Otpor members in February 2003, or the trip to Otpor activists took to Tbilisi last summer. The Otpor activists ran three-day classes teaching more than 1,000 Georgian students how to stage a bloodless revolution. Both trips were funded by Soros' Open Society Institute.
This partly explains why everything went so smoothly and why at least two banners with the Serbian "Gotov Je" (He's finished) were to be seen at the Nov. 22 demonstration. Of course, it also helped that the army didn't defend the president and allowed Saakashvili to enter Parliament.[2]

References and Resources

Resources

References

  1. Vicken Cheterian, Georgia: too little change, Le monde diplomatique, July 2007.
  2. Daan van der Schriek, Georgia: How good the revolution has been!, World Press Review, 7 Dec. 2003.