Beleaguered Georgia Petitions Democrats

Official From War-Torn Country Meets With Slew Of Foreign Policy Experts

by Paul Starobin

Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008


What is it like to be in Denver on deadly serious business -- during a generally festive occasion when just about everyone else is here for a chance to party hard among familiar faces and fast new friends?

That is a question for Giorgi Baramidze, a first-time visitor to the city from the far-away former Soviet republic of Georgia in the South Caucasus, on the Black Sea. A few weeks ago, Russian tanks rampaged through his country, and Baramidze, a vice prime minister of the Georgian government, is here with several colleagues to plead for support from the Barack Obama camp and other Democratic Party bigwigs.

"This is no time for us to enjoy life," he said in an interview between nonstop meetings with, among others, Obama national security advisers Susan Rice and Tony Lake; DNC Chairman Howard Dean; and Richard Holbrooke, a perennial candidate for secretary of State in any Democratic administration.

Holbrooke is "a tough guy," Baramidze said with a grunt of approval -- knowing that Georgia's very survival may depend on how strong a stand an Obama administration would take against the Russians. The crisis is not over: Russian troops still occupy parts of Georgia, and Moscow has recognized the independence of two breakaway provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, that Georgia (not to mention the United Nations) regards as part of the country's sovereign territory.

Youthful looking and square-jawed, Baramidze is used to crisis management; in fragile Georgia, the turbulent is the quotidian. He was born in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi in 1968 -- the year that Soviet tanks invaded Czechoslovakia, he noted with a wan smile. In late 2003, he helped engender the Rose Revolution that peacefully removed Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze from office in favor of Mikhail Saakashvili, the current president (who these days is omnipresent on CNN, his media lifeline to the world).

While still in his mid-30s, Baramidze served as interior minister and then as defense minister. He cracked down on smugglers and, ever earnest about his reform mission, decreed an end to "potbellied" policemen. Earlier, as a member of Georgia's parliament, he mounted a hunger strike against a fraudulent election and warned that Mafia-like "oligarchs" were targeting him for assassination.

Notwithstanding Saakashvili's determined efforts to cast Georgia as a U.S.-style democracy and pluralistic society in the making, the truth is that the South Caucasus is more of an ethnic and tribal mosaic, riven by clan rivalries, than an American-type melting pot. Ethnic Georgians are not Slavs, as Russians are, but they are Orthodox Christian by tradition. Baramidze glanced at this reporter's business card and arched an eyebrow: Is this a Slavic last name? Told that the name was East European Jewish, he riffed on the history of amicable ties between Georgians and Jews.

In his Denver meetings, Baramidze is helped by his fluent English and his nuanced understanding of American politics -- gained in part from studies at Georgetown University in the late 1990s. "I know D.C.," he said with confidence. He is particularly eager to dispel the impression that the John McCain camp is closer to Georgia's leadership -- McCain is said to talk with "Misha" Saakashvili several times a day -- than the Obama crew.

"We appreciate our friends" on the Obama team and in the Democratic Party, he said, expressing special gratitude to Obama's running mate, Sen. Joseph Biden for calling for $1 billion in emergency aid to rebuild battered Georgia. Baramidze's fondest hope is a personal meeting with Obama -- something that schedulers were working on as of Wednesday. The Georgian government is paying the Glover Park Group, a Washington public-affairs firm, to help arrange meetings -- and a team of Glover folks is in Denver to do just that.

Not that Baramidze and his Georgian mates are putting their eggs in one basket. They also plan to be in Minneapolis-St. Paul to lobby the McCain campaign and other Republicans for support.

"Frankly speaking, America is the only hope," Baramidze said -- before trudging off to his next meeting.

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