The European Commission’s November recommendation that EU candidacy status be granted to Georgia is the latest in a string of hard-won victories the Georgian people have achieved in recent months. In March, hundreds of thousands of Georgians took to the streets and forced the government to abandon a draconian Russian-style NGO law. In October, a controversial partisan gambit to impeach President Salome Zurabishvili failed after vocal opposition both in the parliament and throughout civil society. The loudest voices pushing back against democratic decline in the country belong to youth, civil society, and parliamentarians such as the women on this panel. Women from different political parties are coming together to highlight the importance of expanding political participation and keeping European integration the nation’s top priority.
Georgia’s Path to Europe
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Speakers:
Ambassador Daniel Fried (opening remarks) is currently the Weiser Family Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Endowment for Democracy. In the course of his forty-year Foreign Service career, Ambassador Fried played a key role in designing and implementing American policy in Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union. As special assistant and NSC senior director for Presidents Clinton and Bush, ambassador to Poland, and assistant secretary of state for Europe (2005-09), Ambassador Fried crafted the policy of NATO enlargement to Central European nations and, in parallel, NATO-Russia relations.
Ana Buchukuri is a member of parliament from the “For Georgia” party and an Associate Professor at “New Vison” University. She has served in a number of positions in the Georgian government over the years, including in roles such as: Deputy Chief of the Prime Minister’s Office and Head of the Administrative Rights Secretariat of the Georgian Government in 2020; Deputy Head of the Administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (2018-2020); Deputy Director of the Legal Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs; Head of the Department of Parliament Relations at the Ministry of Economics and Sustainable Development (2017); Chief Specialist of the Analytical Department of the Public Defender (2014-2015).
Khatia Dekanoidze is an independent member of parliament. She has served as an expert for the United States Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (2018-2019); OSCE expert on police reform (2017-2018); Marshal Security Center fellow (2017-2019); Chief of the National Police of Ukraine (2015-2016); Advisor to the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program of the U.S. Department of Justice (2014-2015); Minister of Education and Science of Georgia (2012); and Rector of the Police Academy of Georgia (2007-2012).
Tinatin Khidasheli is a visiting lecturer at Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA) and Ilia State University. She has previously served as: Defense Minister of Georgia (2015-2016); MP, Chairperson of European Integration Committee, Chairperson of Temporary Investigative Commission at the Parliament Georgia (2012-2015); Vice-president, Political Committee (2012-2015); Vice-President ALDE, PACE, Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe; President of Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (1997-1999); World fellow at Yale University (2004); Human Rights fellow at American University Washington College of Law (1999).
Ana Natsvlishvili is a member of parliament from the “Lelo” party and an associate professor at the Institute for Public Affairs. She has served as the Parliamentary Secretary of the President of Georgia (2018) and was named “Human Rights Defender of the Year.” She was the Chairman of the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (2014-2017) and has worked at the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the OSCE (2013); Center for Human Rights (2008-2010); and the NGO, “Article 19” (2007-2008).
Miriam Lanskoy (moderator) is Senior Director for Russia and Eurasia at the National Endowment for Democracy. In 2003 she was awarded a PhD in international affairs from Boston University for her dissertation on the Russian presidency, the Chechen wars, and social and political problems of the North Caucasus. She has fourteen years of experience in political analysis and democracy promotion in post-Soviet Eurasia and in 2005 became a term member in the Council on Foreign Relations. She has published articles in Journal of Democracy, SAIS Review, and The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs and has appeared on numerous panels and conferences to discuss political developments in Russia and Eurasia, testified in Congress, and appeared on the PBS Newshour.
Dekanoidze:
Launching her career following the Rose Revolution of 2003, Dekanoidze first served as an official within the Ministry of Internal Affairs and as a diplomat, before being appointed as head of the Police Academy to oversee law enforcement recruitment reforms. In 2012, she became head of the National Examination Center and Minister of Education and Science in the last months of the Saakashvili presidency. Following UNM’s loss in the 2012 parliamentary elections, she joined the opposition, before moving to Ukraine in 2015, where she was appointed as Chief of the National Police under during the presidency of Petro Poroshenko.
…Khatia Dekanoidze was born on January 20, 1977, in Tbilisi, at the time the capital of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. She studied international relations and diplomacy and received her bachelor’s degree from Tbilisi State University in 1999. In parallel, she also received training from the Central European University in Vienna, as well as the US-based RAND Corporation.
…After the Saakashvili-led UNM became an opposition party, Khatia Dekanoidze distanced herself from national politics, working briefly for the Center for European Policy Analysis and an adviser to the U.S. Department of Justice’s International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program.
Following the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine and Petro Poroshenko’s election as President of Ukraine, she became one of [Mikheil] Saakashvili’s close protégées to join him as he took a leadership role in the new pro-Western government of Kyiv. In 2015, she was granted the Ukrainian citizenship just as Saakashvili was appointed Governor of the Odesa Oblast, formally at the request of Internal Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov, in whose cabinet she first served as an adviser
In Georgia’s opposition
Back in Georgia, she joined the non-governmental and academic sector, working as an OSCE expert on police reform from 2017 to 2018, a Marshall Security Center fellow between 2017 and 2019, and an expert for the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs from 2018 to 2019. Politically, she remained aligned with UNM, becoming one of its largest donors. In March 2017, her son was arrested for alleged drug use, an arrest she dubbed “politically-motivated”, as it happened during other high-profile, opposition-related drug arrests.
George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies
The George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies is a bi-national United States Department of Defense and Federal Ministry of Defence (Germany) security and defense studies institute.
…Background
After the failed August 1991 coup attempt in Russia, defense specialists identified the need for an institution such as the Marshall Center. The United States European Command (EUCOM) began to develop proposals to expand defense and security contacts with the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia in order to positively influence the development of security structures appropriate for democratic states.
Baltic-American Freedom Foundation (front org), Big Tech, Military Industrial Complex, NED, Scaife Foundations (front org), US State Department.
Born in Tbilisi, Tina Khidasheli graduated from Tbilisi State University with a degree in international law in 1995. She became a Master of Political Science at the Central European University in Budapest in 1996. She was a human rights fellow at the Washington College of Law, and World fellow of Yale University. Having worked for several governmental and international organizations in Georgia, Khidasheli assumed presidency of the influential human rights group Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) from 2000 to 2004. At the same time, she served as member of the State Anti-Corruption Council from 2002 to 2004. One of the vocal critics of the government of the-then President of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze, Khidasheli was energetically involved in protest movement which brought about Shevardnadze’s resignation in the Rose Revolution in November 2003. She, however, distanced herself from the new government led by Mikheil Saakashvili, her ally in the political struggle against Shevardnadze.
After a brief tenure as a Chairperson of the Board of Open Society Georgia Foundation (Soros Foundation) from 2004 to 2005, Khidasheli joined the Republican Party of Georgia, led by her husband, David Usupashvili.
Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association Sponsors (All front orgs)
Natsvlishvili:
Based on the decision of the board of the Georgian Young Lawyers‘ Association (GYLA), the new chairperson – Ana Natsvlishvili will lead the organization since December 24, 2014.
Worked for Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Essex Transititonal Justice Network, Penal Reform International (London-based NGO working on penal and criminal justice reform worldwide), Human Rights Center (International Federation for Human Rights),
GYLA Elected a New Chairperson
FIDH Financials (International Federation for Human Rights)
Article 19 Funding (more front orgs):
Ford Foundation, NED, Open Society Foundations (Soros), USAID, US State Department.
NGOs, “Unions”, & Media Outlets in the Service of Imperialism (Rose Revolution)
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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