TBILISI

The Georgian government’s agreement to a 9-12 month suspension of an $800 million hydroelectric project has failed to placate opponents skeptical of hydro-power.

They are gearing up for what they say is a decisive culmination in the capital, Tbilisi, on May 23. Some observers see it as little more than a foreign-funded effort to destabilse the already fragile country, whose government is weak, divided, and seems poorly coordinated.

The project was conceived years ago but in the last year or so, Orthodox ecclesiastical authorities, who suddenly seem well-financed, have whipped up a storm of opposition, saying their rich and unique traditions are under threats from “foreign forces”, namely Turkey.

“Our culture is a world treasure, and foreigners want to ruin it,” said local activist Mamuka Pogrebishvili. “We will make mincemeat of   Tbilisi,” he continued

This week a low level court fined the Namakhvani consortium – a 90 percent led Turkish project, a symbolic 5,000 Georgian Lari ($1450) for “failure to comply with the terms set by environmental assessment”, according to civil.ge. There were no more details given by the Tskhaltubo Magistrate Court as to what it specifically meant, and the amount was so miniscule that it called into question as to whether or not the fine was simply a convenient political foil.

The Namakhvani dual-dam project attracted little attention when launched more than five years ago. Protests began much later. The project, the biggest in the history of post-Soviet Georgia, is slated for the Rioni river, an iconic waterway fed by high mountain glaciers. The protests have been centered around the central city of Kutaisi, the historic capital of the Kingdom of Colchis, and according to some ruminations, the mythical land where Jason and the Argonauts pursued the Golden Fleece.

The late awakening, long after the project’s inception, has become fodder for conspiracy theories. Among them is that Turkey, the major foreign investor in Georgia, is attempting a “Muslim” takeover of the predominantly Christian Orthodox country.

Other pundits have speculated the uproar has been financed by Russia, which has had no diplomatic relations with Georgia since a 2008 war.  Turkey is the biggest investor in Georgia and its largest trading partner, but Ankara’s status as a NATO member clearly is not lost on Moscow.

Protesters, many of whom sprang up from previously unknown political groups, have erected crosses and pitched tents in some places along the Rioni River. The periodic demonstrations against the project in Kutaisi have attracted up to a few thousand people. The region is one of Georgia’s poorest, and is in the midst of a profound economic crisis.

Georgian employees working with the project have reported death threats, being followed by unknown people and have been singled out in local publications or TV outlets as “Turkish agents”.

POTENTIAL DIPLOMATIC FALLOUT

The fracas has promoted the unusual move of a visit to Georgia by Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The announcement came on April 23 but no date has been set, according to the Turkish Ambassador to Georgia, Fatma Ceren Yazgan.

Although neighbours, Turkey is a country of 82 million, and Georgia – officially at 3.7 million – is at least 20 times smaller. But the issue, while involving a country relatively sparsely covered in the Turkish media, is evidently worrying enough for Erdogan to try and calm tensions.

Scrapping of the contract could cast a pall over investments in Georgia, its relations with Turkey and Ankara’s ally Azerbaijan, which has supplied Georgia with natural gas for years at below-market prices.

GOVERNMENT STATEMENT, SOME ACTIVITIES GO ON  

“A moratorium has been imposed on the construction of the dam for a period of 9-12 months until environmental, geological and seismic surveys are reviewed and re-substantiated,” the Georgian government said.

The country’s justice ministry says it will study the existing agreement. It will also hire an international law firm to study compliance with the terms of the contract with international practices.

The project, originally a 50-50 investment by Turkey’s ENKA and Norway’s Clean Energy, later was renegotiated and is now a 90 percent ENKA endeavour, with the Norwegian firm having 10 percent.

“At this stage, the company will continue only the preparatory works of the first stage of the project in the field of infrastructure, within the framework of the valid construction permit,” the government statement said.

INVESTMENT REPUTATION

In the 1990s, Georgia was so systematically corrupt, violent, and anarchic that few investors dared visit, let alone get out their wallets. But with the arrival of a new government in 2003, procedures were streamlined, legions of notoriously shady bureaucrats and police were sacked and the country became something of a boutique curiosity.

But some investors in recent years have argued there has been regression on many fronts and the latest scandal has the potential to damage Georgia’s investment climate.

Ambassador to Georgia Yazgan said the sudden protests against the project were not based on scientific evidence or even much in the way of concrete facts, as environmental impact surveys were completed years ago. She added Georgia was under no pressure to sign up for any investments, but if it reneged on commitments, its image may indeed suffer.

“We found out that those who are raising those concerns do not have any studies, do not have any scientific input, to be challenged or mitigated by scientific factual information.” She added that obviously, Georgia’s decision to pursue the project was ultimately a national issue for Georgians to decide.

“This project is about Georgia; it cannot be done against the interest of Georgia. If the Georgian people understand what this project means, I believe they will agree. I didn’t pay attention to the details [of the project] until I saw very heavy discriminatory language, an anti-Turkish language coming up. The way the campaign against this project grew attracted my suspicion,” she told Civil.ge in an interview.

According to the Georgian government, experts from the EU Energy Union will be involved in the mediation process, as will local NGOs, while Georgian police, who had been deployed to allegedly discourage protests, will remove barriers in the vicinity of the planned hydro-project area and reduce the number of police officers on the ground in order to allow protesters to choose a venue for demonstrations.

Georgia was a basket case in the 1990s in many ways and electricity a luxury. Most people got – if lucky – two hours of power a day.

But the mountainous country with many glacier-fed rivers is a naturally attractive hydroelectric project magnet. It now gets more than 80 percent of its power from hydroelectric sources, and actually has become a net electricity exporter.

The Namakhvani project, if implemented,  would become the largest energy undertaking in the history of independent Georgia. The consortium has said it will employ 1,600 Georgians in one of the poorest areas of a country already with deep economic problems and low living standards. Up to half the population has left since the 1991 Soviet breakup, seeking better opportunities.

The project comes with a 15-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Georgia’s government, for eight months of the year (September–April). The remaining generation is expected to be sold in the domestic market or exported primarily to Turkey.

Opponents of the project say the construction of the HPP in the Rioni gorge will lead to serious environmental and seismic risks.

Thirteen non-governmental organisations in Georgia, including the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), Georgian Democracy Initiative (GDI), Media Development Foundation (MDF), Tolerance and Diversity Institute (TDI), Rights Georgia and the Atlantic Council of Georgia, slammed the government for allegedly violating human rights and prohibiting citizens from exercising their rights to assembly.

They said that authorities used “repressive mechanisms” against Rioni valley residents, instead of listening to their concerns.

The Open Society Foundation made a separate statement saying that the decision to construct the Namakhvani HPP did not take into account concerns over ecology, cultural heritage, the project’s social benefits, and the needs of the local population.

“Its development started without any justification of the economic need for the plant, and the preliminary construction works started without the completion of a number of studies required by law,” CEE Bankwatch Network said.

INFLUENTIAL CHURCH INVOLVED

The influential Georgian Orthodox Church last week issued a statement expressing concern over the rising tensions in the Rioni river valley and saying that the project needed more detailed discussion.

The church is a major political force in a country where political forces tend to come and go quickly and was a mainstay of dissident activity during the Soviet era.

Though Turkish-Georgian ties have, formally, been strong for the 30 years since the USSR collapse, some, especially in more religious circles, still harbour suspicions or float conspiracy theories of alleged Turkish territorial designs.

One part of the country, the autonomous Adjara region along the Black Sea and the Turkish-Georgian border, was controlled for 300 years by the Ottoman Empire, until 1921, and is still home to at least a third of locals who self-identify as Georgian Muslims. The area is now a major tourist draw, full of casinos and resorts. Yet some Georgians still allege Turkey has designs on it. They cite construction projects in Adjara which have involved Turkish firms.