Are agents Of Foreign Influence Joining Hands With Domestic Dissidents To Effect An Undemocratic Unconstitutional Coup Without Benefit Of Ballot?

The immediate news is of the Dream Party government in Tbilisi, Georgia, a small country located in the Caucus, withdrawing a draconian, Russian style ‘Foreign Agents’ bill. This, in the face of two days of vigorous popular protest. But the back story is interesting.

In the Caucus, the tiny populated 3.7 million people of Georgia want to be part of the increasingly tattered, battered, economically pressured, but still desirable EU to some. These people do not want to fall into the Russian sphere of influence.

At least 80% of Georgians, we are told, want EU membership. At the same time 20% of Georgia, namely South Ossetia and Abkhazia that want to break away, in a manner similar to the Donbass region of Ukraine, are already Russian occupied, as of 2008.

Russia now recognises these territories as ‘independent states’ and has stationed its troops there. The ruling Dream Party in Tbilisi is accused of being pro-Russia, and has not imposed sanctions on it after the commencement of its military action in Ukraine. Some Georgians have reportedly gone over to Ukraine to fight alongside, even as official Georgia acts as an unrestricted conduit for Western goods into Russia.

The ruling Dream Party is egged on by its founder, Bidzina Ivanishvili, an eccentric billionaire, a kind of right-wing counterpart to George Soros, the diabolical Hungarian Jewish billionaire angel of the Left, acting as a thorn in the side of the Modi government in India, amongst other places. 

Georgia’s Ivanishvili made his fortune in Russia and makes no bones about wanting to ally more closely with it. In the Western propaganda war against Russian influence, the role of the ordinary, EU leaning Georgian is naturally being exaggerated and Ivanishvili and the Dream Party are being vilified.

Several if not many elected governments around the world are concerned about a neo-imperial bid to weaken and/or topple them. The attempt is to effect regime change by a combination of inimical foreign money power, local subversion, dissidence, propaganda, threats to sovereignty and unity of the republic.

People on the ground are encouraged to mass protest to attract the media, conduct acts of arson and destruction of public property, mount illegal blockades, engender and instigate communal riots, all in the absence of success at the ballot box. There is a lot of clandestine money being funnelled in to finance such activities.

This lack of ability to win votes too is not being owned up to. Instead, it is likened to the effects of fascism with compromised institutions of government, unfair elections, crackdown on freedom of expression, communal, caste, and tribal bias, wherever applicable, and a general action to weaken democracy and perpetuate the hold of those in power.

The Modi government is constantly painted in these lurid colours by elements of the Indian opposition and their cheer leaders abroad. Dependent on foreign funding as such opposition is, from those that want to install a weak government in its place. They are hoping that it will be them, installed with this foreign help.

This methodology is now clearly out in the open in long established and vigorously functioning democratic countries like Italy and India. Both have moved against such forces with laws that scrutinise foreign contributions and the purposes they are put to.

Russia has had quite a draconian law, in place since 2012, against foreign intervention in its affairs, now receiving much attention in the Western media in the context of the NATO/EU war of Russia via Ukraine. Every clause is being mulled over to illustrate the totalitarian bent of Putin’s government, that did not seem to bother the West till about a year ago.

Others too are facing problems with unelected people using subversive street politics that cause both law and order problems and undercut democratic processes.

Israel is facing intense protests because its current right-wing coalition government under Benyamin Netanyahu is in process, and determined to reform its judiciary. It wants to stymie a largely Leftist cabal of judges out to subvert and overturn initiatives of the legislature and the executive. The popular protests there include a bizarre siding with the Palestinians against the government of Israel, that has encouraged sectarian clashes between Arabs and Jews.

India has in fact tightened a  Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) Law in place since 1976, several times over the years, and most recently twice, in 2020 and 2022. There have been curbs put on a think-tank cum NGO funded partially by George Soros and his affiliates recently.

But that is not all. In addition to Russia, India, Italy, and of course Red China, countries that have anti-foreign influence laws include Belarus, seen as a staunch Russian ally, Hungary, Algeria and Zimbabwe.

The Dream Party Of Georgia has indeed retreated from a  mirror version of the 2012 Russian Law. The protests, probably instigated by Western forces in Georgia, saw the withdrawal of the proposed law for the time being. Ostensibly, the worry is that Georgia would be debarred from joining the EU in future. This, even though its candidature was denied in favour of Moldova and the war-torn Ukraine. The latter was however denied the possibility of NATO membership in the face of intense Russian objections.

All Georgia got, in turn, was a ‘European perspective’ status from the EU instead of an actual and formal candidate status. Joining NATO is not on the table.

The Russian law demands, amongst a plethora of restrictive and punitive clauses, the production of financial reports by a given foreign funds receiver on a quarterly basis, it wants to know the composition of the management bodies of such NGOs on a semi-annual basis, and a state audit annually if not at any time.

But the broader question that arises is why such laws are being put in place or tightened with increasing frequency nowadays, in more and more countries. Democratic process relies primarily on the voter to elect its representatives and the opposition to highlight the shortcomings of the ruling dispensation in parliament. But recent tactics seem to be a throwback to 19^th century style attempts to  overthrow an elected government by other means, short of, but not always excluding bloody revolution.

This desperate stratagem appears to be a phenomenon of economic turmoil and distress roiling the world after the twin blows of the Covid pandemic and the damaging war in Ukraine.

Even attempts at pension reform in France have occasioned massive street protests.

In Afghanistan, Iran, parts of Africa, there are ruthless suppressions of women and their rights, that have also seen brave and often bloody protests. These appear to be morally right against the excesses of brutal state power. But there is little or no foreign intervention to set things right.  Their problem is not the West’s problem.

Pakistan is facing civil war-like tendencies in facing up to its bankruptcy. And while there is some concern because it is a nuclear weapons state, it is nevertheless being largely left to its own devices. International law applies where the West has a vested interest.

Foreign intervention therefore is seen as an economic tool designed to effect hegemony over countries that are not falling in line with the strategic designs of powerful external forces. Weak and biddable governments suit such forces, not strong ones with the backing of its people, nationalistic, patriotic, and often right-wing.

But in Europe, experiencing rampant inflation, food shortages and high prices, fuel prices that are forever climbing, grain shortages as the wheat from Ukraine is difficult to access, high unemployment, things are coming to a head.

However, it is not NATO and the EU that appears to be winning in Ukraine despite putting in massive military and financial resources. The ability of the world’s mightiest military machine to subdue Russia and effect regime change is faltering. This is giving the lie to its infallibility and moving the tectonic plates of the world order.

New multilateral power blocks are forming that have the potential to change the strategic assumptions of the West. In the past, the two world wars completely changed not only the maps of Europe, and elsewhere, but the economic standing of Europe.

It led to the eclipse of the European colonial powers and the rise of America as the main challenger to the countries of the Warsaw Pact, the Iron Curtain, and the USSR.

Today, the churn will see a greater emergence of India, a moderation of Chinese imperialism vis a vis the United States, as it is likely to lose control of its ‘One China Policy’ in Taiwan, despite all its sabre rattling.

This will also be done to wrest its attempted control of the East and South China Seas and the maritime passages through them. The threat to all the countries in the littoral and Australia is also not acceptable to the US.

There will be new, stronger ties with allies for Russia, in West Asia, Africa and of course India. This is already coming to pass.

So, the foreign contributions laws and their attempts at neo-imperialism are, at best, only the tip of the iceberg. Much as the West and those it has bought over may protest them, a counter movement has started by the states affected, that will be difficult to snuff out.

Playing Chess with the nations of the world, instead of fair negotiations will simply not work, not the least because it is an outdated notion.

 (1,564 words)

March 11^th, 2023

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee