The Duran Podcast - EU's Georgia regime change operation enters final month

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

EU's Georgia regime change operation enters final month

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the ongoing protests in Georgia, the threats from the United States and from the European Union to Georgia Dream, the fact that the president of Georgia, the current president, the French-born former French foreign ministry employee, now president of Georgia, Salome Zura Bichvili, the fact that she has said she will not step down her term. from what I understand her term, officially ends December 28th. A new president is going to be voted December 14th,

and she has to leave the position December 28th. She has said she is not leaving. The protests are getting, with each passing day, they're getting more and more violent. I don't know if they're getting bigger, but they're definitely getting more violent. And there, yeah, that's the update on Georgia. What else can I say?

I mean, this is Maidan, Ukraine repeated, 2014 all over again. But this time, I just want to say at this time, Georgia Dream, definitely seems to be more aware of what is happening. And they definitely seem to have a better handle of things than Yanukovych back in 2014 in Ukraine. Absolutely. And that is the critical difference. Now, the fact that there would be a kind of revolution attempt. If Georgia Dream won the elections, I think everybody assumed that that was the case. We would discuss it in programs that we made.

We discussed it with Levon and others from Georgia. That it was, you know, this was baked in the whole, was programmed into the whole system. Georgia Dream would have to win the, first get the NGO law passed, then win the elections, then the color revolution attempt. as night followed day would follow. So nothing that we have seen is in any way surprising. In fact, as I said, it was all pre-programmed. Nor is it surprising that with every single passing day, the United States and the EU are becoming more threatening towards the leaders of Georgian dreams. Now, that probably signals EU and US frustration about the fact that the colour revolution so far has not succeeded.

It is confined to Tbilisi itself. So far, there has been no division within Georgian dreams. We've not yet had a situation where any of its MPs, its members have broken away. Nor have we seen any sign that the security forces are losing control of the situation or that they are attempted to switch sides, which is what we've seen happen in other color revolution attempts. Now, the fact that the protests are becoming more violent is a reflection of two things. Firstly, the evidence actually suggests that the protests are becoming smaller. As protests become smaller, these sort of protests, they do tend to become more violent

because the more committed activists and angry activists who remain, and the others aren't there to sort of moderate and restrain them. So that is one factor. And the second is that, of course, as the color revolution attempt appears to ebb, as attempts to organize general strikes to expand the protests beyond Tbilisi to involve more of the population of Tbilisi appear to fail, the temptation to try to keep the thing going by taking a more violent turn. increases. In other words, there are elements of frustration involved. Now, the fundamental difference, the key difference between Ukraine and this situation that we're seeing in Georgia is that in Ukraine in 2013 and 2014, Yanukovych, who was then the president, far from backing the security forces, far from taking a strong line with the protesters. On the contrary,

constantly tried to negotiate with them, constantly made concessions to them, repeatedly dismissed senior police officials who the protesters, the Maidan protesters, accused of violence, violence towards the protesters, spoke constantly with Western officials, including, by the way, repeatedly with the then-vice president who was none other than Joe Biden. Whereas Georgia Dream this time is doing none of these things. They are taking an extremely uncompromising line. They're saying that the protesters are trying to overthrow the constitutional order in Georgia. They're backing the security forces to the Hilt.

They're saying that what the security forces are doing is absolutely correct and justified and that they have the full legal backing of the government. They are refusing to engage the. protesters in any sort of negotiations. And as far as the current president is concerned, they're making it absolutely clear that when her term ends, her term ends, and she must leave, leave office and quit the building where she currently is. So that is a major difference. Now, whether they will be able to pull this off, whether they'll be able to stop this color revolution in its tracks, depends very much on whether they remain solid.

If we start seeing defections take place, that will be a bad sign and whether the security forces continue to be loyal to the existing government, as they have been up to now. If these two things play out the way that they have been doing up to this time, and I'm going to suggest that the protests will likely start to peter out once the current president is removed from office, which might be, by the way, rather dramatic if they have to send people into the residence and remove her physically. I'm just saying. But, you know, if they can get that done, then we're into the Christmas New Year period. And likely at that point, the protests will start to die down. And then the government can probably assert full control of Tbilisi. Up to this time, as I said, they've handled this correctly and intelligently. and they appear to be solid

but we can't be certain at this point that this is that this is going to continue this way and that the protesters, that the color revolution attempt will fail. Well, it's four weeks. So I mean they have to get to the 14th.

Elect the new president and it seems like they already have someone in mind to appoint as a new president. He seems very solid, but he's not pro-West. I mean, I've read about the guy He's an ex-Manchester City footballer. He's not pro-West, but he's definitely not Salome Zutupichvili,

which is someone who was placed as president in order to move Georgia into the EU and into NATO. I mean, that was her purpose. But they have to get to the 14th, and then they have to get to the end of the month. When he takes over, officially takes over, and Zudabitchvili has to go peacefully or by other means, I don't know. what happens then? If they can get to the end of the month, then I think they're fine. Yes.

They've avoided the regime change. What I worry about is usually when you get to this point over the next four weeks and you start getting more and more violent protesters, including protesters, my hunch is that a lot of people are being blown in as well. That's just, I mean, I've seen this play out so many times. We've seen this play out so many times.

And my experience in Greece, watching many protests over many, many years, is that usually you get professionals in there as well who really start to agitate things, is that they'll take it to a point where something very bad happens and then the population is shocked that's something very bad happening to civilians

and that's when you start to build momentum to remove the government. I don't want to say it's a false flag, but it has a false flag type of feel to it where you get something really shocking. And that kind of moves everything into a different direction. What do you think about the risk of that happening? Well, it's very real. I mean, this color revolution has not yet failed. I think this is the

key thing to understand. I mean, it's still playing itself out. I suspect that over the next couple of days, there will be more discussions within the government that the point really has to come when some kind of emergency situation. into Belisi is created so that the protests are brought to a complete stop. You know, the riot police have the means, I mean, they've shown that they have the ability to disperse the protests, but to actually start taking more drastic steps to start. I'm going to say it, I mean, again, there's no nice way to say this. Arrest people who are ringleaders, do things of that kind, bring this whole protest movement to a stop. So I think that, I think that, I think that

there's probably discussions about this going on in the government all the time. And the fact that the EU and the US are now threatening them all with personal sanctions and the fact that they themselves have taken the decision to put EU accession talks on ICE suggests to me that they are actually moving in that direction because there really isn't anything left to lose. They could just go ahead and do this, close the process down, which is as I said, they do have the means to do. And then this has said, the West imposes its sanctions, but what does that actually mean?

My final question is, what does this say about the EU? The US is also putting pressure on Georgia, but it's obvious that the US has kind of let the EU get out in front of this, right? So they're letting the EU really be the driving force in trying to get this regime change, this color revolution going. what does this say about the EU? How are all the countries outside of the collective West? How are they viewing the EU now?

Because it's obvious, it's clear that this is a regime change. It's clear if the U.S. is in back of this, but it's also very clear now that you have the EU, the European Union, taking a leadership role in trying to remove the government. I mean, they're saying it to Kayakhalis, the new foreign minister is just coming out and saying it, you know, there's going to be consequences.

We're going to sanction you. What does it say about the EU? How are other countries now viewing the European Union, seeing that they're trying to regime change a democratically elected, a sovereign government that just a few months ago, they were courting to enter the European Union. And the only reason that this is happening

is because they passed a foreign agent's law. I mean, this isn't like a huge, huge deal of foreign agents law, which Hungary has, which I believe France has, which the United States definitely has, which so many other countries have, which the EU has. What's the perception of all of all of this for the European Union? The world's perception of the European Union is changing completely from where it had previously been thought of as a rather benign institution, which was essentially an economic project. I remember Putin saying this even as recently as about a year ago in the presence of

the president of Kazakhstan, to a situation where Lavrov, amongst others, is saying that the EU today is a geopolitical military type of organization, which it is clearly evolving into. And you can see that it isn't just the Russians who are taking that line. More people around the world are seeing the EU in that way. So when Behrbock goes, as course as German foreign minister, but also travels as an EU official arise in China, she arrives in China and nobody will receive her. So it is turning the world against the EU. Once upon a time, not very long ago, people made a distinction. They saw the EU as an alternative within Europe to the Euro-Atlantic NATO system. It was seen as somehow distinct from it, a benign thing, part of what you wanted to work with.

Now people are increasingly seeing it as part of the collective West, which is this expression that is gaining increasing amounts of traction as a very, very aggressive and very ruthless block, part of the Atlantis block, which uses all the same tricks. that it did it, by the way, in Ukraine as well, to try to enforce and impose its own political line. So it loses its threats. But I mean, they don't care. That isn't what they're about. I mean, they're not concerned about what people think about them.

At this moment in time, what concerns them is bringing back Georgia under their control. And that is what this protest movement in Georgia is. If they can succeed, if they can overthrow the government of Georgia and install one of their own in its place, well, they will see that as a major success. And in a sense, it will be. Well, it's a short-term success. It's a short-term success. You start incorporating Georgia and Ukraine and Moldova into the EU and you're just speeding up the collapse. Well, in Georgia's case, I think that we're seeing a major shift in Georgian opinion.

from where Georgians had been overwhelmingly supportive of the U.C., the same in Moldova, by the way. I mean, Moldova, bear in mind that Sandoo was only elected because 30% of her vote came from outside the country. So within Moldova itself, she's now, there is probably, well, there's a majority, at the very least, a plural, of people who oppose us. She's the pro-EU president of Moldova. And the same as in Georgia. I mean, people are turning against the EU in all of these places, attempts to try and push countries like this into the EU. It's just going to create more instability and more crisis and more war, by the way. We saw that in Ukraine. Have they learned the lesson? No, they haven't. Will they learn the lesson? They never will.

And it's going to also create resistance within EU member states. Yeah. Like citizens of the EU are looking at this. And they can't, they can't argue that this is not our own European Union as a citizen of the EU. They can't say, well, obviously we're trying to overthrow a government. This is what European Union citizens have to admit. We as European Union citizens, we're trying to overthrow a democratically elected government. And we're doing this in order to bring in a country.

that as a union, we can't possibly absorb and pay for and take care of. Well, absolutely. So you're going to get the rise of parties like the I've done, these types of parties. It's just going to get stronger and stronger. Oh, absolutely. This is absolutely true. But as I said, they don't think that far.

I remember when we were in Hungary, we had one of those meetings with one of the senior officials in Hungary, the many senior officials we spoke to. And somebody asked this person the question, do you ever bring up? It might be you, actually, now that I think about, do you ever bring up with the EU, the fact that they interfere in your domestic affairs? No, that was a bit... It was you, it was you. And he replied, clearly he said, yes, we do.

And they don't like it. So there we go. Yeah, Romania is a case of this. I mean, no one expected someone like Georgescu, to take first place in Romania. Oh, exactly. Anti-EU or at least he's Romania first. I don't want to say he's anti-EU,

but he's definitely anti-globalist and Romania first. And they're shocked about what happened in Romania. Absolutely. So, of course, he's far right. And the Supreme Court has ordered to recount the votes in the first round and all the usual bag of tricks. Yeah, but this turns off Romanians as well. I mean, because even Romanians that didn't support Georgescu.

Yeah. They say, wait a minute. Yes. As the EU, what are you doing? You just can't recount the votes because you don't like the guy that came at first. Yes. And he hasn't even won the election yet. Yes.

At least let the election play out. Oh, no. Yeah. But as we, I mean, the EU has become what it is. It is unsustainable. It will eventually break down. But the point is they will continue doing what they are doing. And in the short to medium term, they will create a deeper crisis across Europe and throughout all of the countries that we have been discussing.

So Moldova is, I think, after Ukraine now, the poorest country in Europe, when it could be a very rich country, actually. I mean, Moldova has many, many things that could have made it a rich country, but it has not been. Georgia, which had been brought to the brink of complete collapse and breakdown in the mid-2000s. It lost a war in 2008. As we know, the claims about the economic boom at that time were smoke and mirrors, as it turns out, this is what I've discovered, and which has seen a significant stabilization since then, though it is still relatively low base, Georgia risks being destabilized all over again. Armenia has seen it has been defeated and we've seen Nagorno-Karabakh lost.

All of these countries face terrible outcomes, but the EU never learns. There's a changes. It just goes on until the final, eventually the whole thing will come crashing down. But in the meantime, an enormous amount of damage is going to be done. All right. We will end the video there. The durand.orgas.com. We are on Rumble odyssey, bitchew, telegram, rock, fin, and X. Go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch like what we are wearing in this video.

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