Why do we need this lustration law?
By Nino Edilashvili, Georgian Times
23 March 2007
The knowledge of who the spy was is power. Who knows this, he naturally can rule him. - Georgian philosopher A. Bakradze
Why do we need this law? To be tolerant with those who collaborated with the former regime, or to condemn them for their past sins against us? This was a key question raised at the meeting on lustration on March 9.
The Tbilisi-based Goethe Institute, together with funding from the Heinrich Boell Foundation, arranged a meeting with Dr. Joachim Gauck, Federal Commissioner for the Files of State Security of the former the Eastern-Germany’s ,,shtazis'' (State defense service) archives. The main aim of the meeting was to share Eastern Germany’s experience with a lustration law with the Georgian audience.
MP Nika Rurua, Giga Zedania, Associate-professor at Ilia Chavchavadze State University, and Ivliane Khaindrava, an opposition-minded MP, participated in the discussions.
Lustration- which derives from the Latin Lustrum and describes a ceremony of purification of the Roman people after every five-year census - in the current world implies exposing those who collaborated with the former communist regime. This topic is very sensitive in post-Communist countries. The meeting hall was overcrowded and, despite repeated requests of moderator Lasha Bakradze to finish the discussion, the meeting exceeded the scheduled time by several hours.
According to Joachim Gauck, who is a legendary person in Germany, society’s attitude towards a lustration law is a kind of benchmark of tolerance for its own enemy. He said that the Eastern-European countries regulated this issue in such a way that it did not provoke any kind of discord among European society. Dr. Gauck advises Georgian society to choose the same path and promises to give consultations in how to achieve that.
In the communist era the best way to climb up the carrier ladder was to apply for membership in the ruling communist party. Georgia, with 70 years of communist history, was on one of the first places with a number of communist party members. According to popular statistics, every 10th Georgian was a member of the communist party. Many of them cooperated with the regime as agents, and the communist regime could control the situation with a dense network of spies. There were very few dissidents who were against the regime and were announced the people’s enemy for several years. After the collapse of this regime the former dissidents who wanted to know the truth and be rehabilitated started active work to adopt a lustration law. But their attempts ended unsuccessfully.
An opposition-sponsored draft law on lustration which was submitted to Parliament in 2006 November is the third attempt to initiate a law on lustration since Georgia gained independence.
The draft law, which was proposed by the Democratic Front parliamentary faction, says that those who worked in ex-Soviet special services, held high positions in the Soviet Communist Party, or served as KGB agents will be banned from holding key positions in the government. But it is a kind of tolerant, because this draft law will not have to publicize the full record.
Georgia's current government demonstrated its approach to lustration law when the new government formed (2004) under the leadership of late PM Zurab Zhvania signed the “10 Steps to Independence". The authorities pledged to pass a law on lustration, but no document has been proposed so far by the government. This subject is still a very unpopular topic for the ruling party and media alike. It is very difficult to recall any kind of initiative related to lustration that the government has proposed since then. It seems that lustration law is a very sensitive topic among the members of the government. That’s why the parliament majority don’t have a unified position, and that was the main reason why this draft law was rejected in February.
Giga Bokeria, MP from the ruling National Movement party, said in an interview with Civil Georgia in mid-November that “debates within the ruling majority are not yet over.” But he added he would support an “even tougher” law on lustration.
Nika Rurua, an active figure of National Movement party and the deputy chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Defense and Security, tried to justify the parliamentary majority's careful approach to this issue at the 9 March meeting. He said: “Lustration as a process is not technically ready. 84% of the documentation is destroyed, or the main list of agents is currently in Moscow and unavailable to the Georgian side.” Rurua claimed that the very few documents in the hands of Ministry of Internal Affairs will not shed light to the issue.
The government-affiliated Liberty Institute NGO recently proposed a new and tougher vision on lustration which is kind of alternative to the parliamentary opposition's blueprint.
According to this proposal, lustration should target not only former KGB employees and Communist party functionaries, but also those who have been cooperating with Russian state structures since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The meeting on March 9 raised a key question on lustration: why do we need this law? To be tolerant with whose who collaborated with the former regime or condemn them for their past sins against us?
According to former political dissident Levan Berdzenishvili, it is important and absolutely necessary to expose the identity of the person who squealed on him to KGB, and who banned his colleagues from the university to attend his court trial.
Journalist Davit Paichadze, the Deputy Dean of Social and Political sciences of Tbilisi State University: “It would be better if Georgian society learns who, for example, Vazha Lortkipanidze [former state minister], Temur Shashiashvili [Shevardnadzes former governor], Zaza Shengelia[former director of TV broadcasting] are.”
Representatives of the young generation are opposed to the radicalism of the lustration law supporter. Bakar Berekashvili, a young independent researcher on Eastern Europe issues, told GT that the former dissidents who want to adopt the lustration law do not the follow dissident values, since tolerance was the most important idea for the communist era dissidents. “For them [the former dissidents] the main problem was the system, not individuals. They didn’t fight to bring those who squealed on them to justice."
According to the young researcher, in Georgia, which is building its democratic institutions, Georgian intellectuals should talk about how to help improve the democratization process and protect human rights rather than to adopt a lustration law. The adoption of the lustration law will only clarify who squealed on whom, but brings nothing to Georgian democracy itself.
"In my opinion, the State should begin digging into history, what happened 25-30-40 years ago, when it has finished its most important function – shaping a true democratic country." He added.
According to 35th US President John F. Kennedy, public peace does not require that that every one like his neighbor. It requires only that they live with each other with tolerance. So this lustration law will be one more test for Georgian society to verify how tolerant it is and whether it is ready or not to look back firmly at its past, neighbors.
The knowledge of who the spy was is power. Who knows this, he naturally can rule him. - Georgian philosopher A. Bakradze
Why do we need this law? To be tolerant with those who collaborated with the former regime, or to condemn them for their past sins against us? This was a key question raised at the meeting on lustration on March 9.
The Tbilisi-based Goethe Institute, together with funding from the Heinrich Boell Foundation, arranged a meeting with Dr. Joachim Gauck, Federal Commissioner for the Files of State Security of the former the Eastern-Germany’s ,,shtazis'' (State defense service) archives. The main aim of the meeting was to share Eastern Germany’s experience with a lustration law with the Georgian audience.
MP Nika Rurua, Giga Zedania, Associate-professor at Ilia Chavchavadze State University, and Ivliane Khaindrava, an opposition-minded MP, participated in the discussions.
Lustration- which derives from the Latin Lustrum and describes a ceremony of purification of the Roman people after every five-year census - in the current world implies exposing those who collaborated with the former communist regime. This topic is very sensitive in post-Communist countries. The meeting hall was overcrowded and, despite repeated requests of moderator Lasha Bakradze to finish the discussion, the meeting exceeded the scheduled time by several hours.
According to Joachim Gauck, who is a legendary person in Germany, society’s attitude towards a lustration law is a kind of benchmark of tolerance for its own enemy. He said that the Eastern-European countries regulated this issue in such a way that it did not provoke any kind of discord among European society. Dr. Gauck advises Georgian society to choose the same path and promises to give consultations in how to achieve that.
In the communist era the best way to climb up the carrier ladder was to apply for membership in the ruling communist party. Georgia, with 70 years of communist history, was on one of the first places with a number of communist party members. According to popular statistics, every 10th Georgian was a member of the communist party. Many of them cooperated with the regime as agents, and the communist regime could control the situation with a dense network of spies. There were very few dissidents who were against the regime and were announced the people’s enemy for several years. After the collapse of this regime the former dissidents who wanted to know the truth and be rehabilitated started active work to adopt a lustration law. But their attempts ended unsuccessfully.
An opposition-sponsored draft law on lustration which was submitted to Parliament in 2006 November is the third attempt to initiate a law on lustration since Georgia gained independence.
The draft law, which was proposed by the Democratic Front parliamentary faction, says that those who worked in ex-Soviet special services, held high positions in the Soviet Communist Party, or served as KGB agents will be banned from holding key positions in the government. But it is a kind of tolerant, because this draft law will not have to publicize the full record.
Georgia's current government demonstrated its approach to lustration law when the new government formed (2004) under the leadership of late PM Zurab Zhvania signed the “10 Steps to Independence". The authorities pledged to pass a law on lustration, but no document has been proposed so far by the government. This subject is still a very unpopular topic for the ruling party and media alike. It is very difficult to recall any kind of initiative related to lustration that the government has proposed since then. It seems that lustration law is a very sensitive topic among the members of the government. That’s why the parliament majority don’t have a unified position, and that was the main reason why this draft law was rejected in February.
Giga Bokeria, MP from the ruling National Movement party, said in an interview with Civil Georgia in mid-November that “debates within the ruling majority are not yet over.” But he added he would support an “even tougher” law on lustration.
Nika Rurua, an active figure of National Movement party and the deputy chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Defense and Security, tried to justify the parliamentary majority's careful approach to this issue at the 9 March meeting. He said: “Lustration as a process is not technically ready. 84% of the documentation is destroyed, or the main list of agents is currently in Moscow and unavailable to the Georgian side.” Rurua claimed that the very few documents in the hands of Ministry of Internal Affairs will not shed light to the issue.
The government-affiliated Liberty Institute NGO recently proposed a new and tougher vision on lustration which is kind of alternative to the parliamentary opposition's blueprint.
According to this proposal, lustration should target not only former KGB employees and Communist party functionaries, but also those who have been cooperating with Russian state structures since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The meeting on March 9 raised a key question on lustration: why do we need this law? To be tolerant with whose who collaborated with the former regime or condemn them for their past sins against us?
According to former political dissident Levan Berdzenishvili, it is important and absolutely necessary to expose the identity of the person who squealed on him to KGB, and who banned his colleagues from the university to attend his court trial.
Journalist Davit Paichadze, the Deputy Dean of Social and Political sciences of Tbilisi State University: “It would be better if Georgian society learns who, for example, Vazha Lortkipanidze [former state minister], Temur Shashiashvili [Shevardnadzes former governor], Zaza Shengelia[former director of TV broadcasting] are.”
Representatives of the young generation are opposed to the radicalism of the lustration law supporter. Bakar Berekashvili, a young independent researcher on Eastern Europe issues, told GT that the former dissidents who want to adopt the lustration law do not the follow dissident values, since tolerance was the most important idea for the communist era dissidents. “For them [the former dissidents] the main problem was the system, not individuals. They didn’t fight to bring those who squealed on them to justice."
According to the young researcher, in Georgia, which is building its democratic institutions, Georgian intellectuals should talk about how to help improve the democratization process and protect human rights rather than to adopt a lustration law. The adoption of the lustration law will only clarify who squealed on whom, but brings nothing to Georgian democracy itself.
"In my opinion, the State should begin digging into history, what happened 25-30-40 years ago, when it has finished its most important function – shaping a true democratic country." He added.
According to 35th US President John F. Kennedy, public peace does not require that that every one like his neighbor. It requires only that they live with each other with tolerance. So this lustration law will be one more test for Georgian society to verify how tolerant it is and whether it is ready or not to look back firmly at its past, neighbors.
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