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Interior Minister Coordinates Grape Harvest in Kakheti

September 12, 2008

Gela Mtivlishvili, Kakheti

Like last year, Vano Merabishvili, Georgian Interior Minister, coordinates the wine harvest in Kakheti. The difference is that last year Mikheil Saakashvili officially ordered him to monitor the entire process and special units patrolled in the villages all 24 hours so to prevent poor peasants from holding protest demonstrations. Special units and police are still mobilized in the villages of Kakheti during “Harvest -2008”. However, this year they are not wearing masks. Nevertheless, they again banned peasants to hold demonstration. Otherwise, they are threatened that factories would not accept their grapes and will remain without any source of income.

Vano Merabishvili visited Gurjaani today when Harvest-2008 officially opened. As far as we know Merabishvili arranged meeting with the heads of district administration departments, members of coordination HQs of the Vintage-2008 and district governors of Kakheti region. According to one of the participants of this meeting, Merabishvili gave them urgent order to prevent all protest demonstrations in Kakheti and the harvest should be carried out properly. Bakur Kvezereli, Georgian minister of agriculture and other officials from the ministry received special orders from interior minister.

Second day of the meeting with the minister special unit soldiers appeared in the villages of Kakheti region. Local people state that law enforcers do not argue with them, however, when they see crowds in the street they stop and ask people reasons for gathering.

“They do not wear masks but are in uniform and this still evokes fear in the petty grape producer. It is claimed that they are only controlling the situation. If they see ten people all together they stop and ask what we are doing there. Why are we together; whether we have any problem, etc? Last year, they severely beat us with guns,” said Eldar Mitichashvili, a resident of the village of Velistsikhe in Gurjaani district. He added that officials from the district administration told peasants to apply to district governor, or the coordination HQ or the police inspector if they have problems, than  they should address district governor, wine harvest and realization coordination headquarters, or apply to the police inspector and should not hold protests in order to attract attention. If so the wine factories would refuse on taking their grapes and they stay without an income.

“We are trying our best and in case they express discontent out loud you will be punished and the wine factories will not take your grapes, this was the message from Gamgeoba. The wine factories do not accept our harvest now and if they do not take it from us when they start collecting grapes from peasants in the future, we will starve as we have no other income,” states Badri Nanobashvili, the inhabitant of Vakira village, Sighnaghi District.
Giorgi Ghviniashvili, the new Kakheti Regional Governor does not deny that the police have become particularly active for the harvest period in the villages of Kaketi Region. “The government has allocated subsidies from the state budget and the vine-growers will receive 25 Tetries for black grapes and 15 Tetries for white grapes. The police work actively in the region to avoid instances of illegal usage of subsidies for wine manufacturers for their vineyards, mentions Giorgi Ghviniashvili.

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