On Nov. 4, Georgians protested against the government of President Mikhail Saakashvili for the third day. As many as 70,000 people filled the streets in the country of just over 4.5 million people.
Led by a coalition of 10 parties, the protests address political reform, high food and energy prices, rising unemployment and zero-tolerance laws that are throwing youth into jails.
Saakashvili came to power in the 2003 “Rose Revolution”—one of a series of U.S.-backed political interventions and coups in the post-Soviet era meant to erase all remnants of public ownership, and to swing the countries away from Russia and into the camp of U.S. imperialism.
Bush has called Georgia a “beacon of democracy,” a title reserved for the most faithful servants of U.S. interests. Saakashvili wants to join NATO and the European Union, and both the United States and the EU have backed him in political disputes against Russia.
