Kmara

Kmara (

The Kmara movement emerged in April 2003. It was formed by the Georgian student activists which received training by the Serbian Otpor! through the funding of the OSI. The training was focused on sharing the Serbian experience of nonviolent action and Kmara's logo was a near-exact copy of the Otpor's clenched fist.^[2]

Tactics

Kmara organized a loose, decentralized network of the regional cells and employed simple, but effective methods to create a large-scale social movement against the government of Eduard Shevardnadze. Members

The scale of Kmara's actions grew as the

Kmara remained at the forefront of the mass rallies following the November 2003 parliamentary election, which was criticized by the opposition, NGOs and international observers. After the demonstrations brought about the resignation of Shevradnadze, Kmara shifted its focus in Adjara, a southwestern autonomous republic ran by Aslan Abashidze. The movement was continuously harassed by the Adjarian regime,^[8] which, in its turn, fell to the increasing pressure from the new Georgian government of Mikheil Saakashvili.^[9]

In 2005, Kmara worked with their counterparts in Belarus, named Zubr. In August 2005, two activists of the Georgian youth movement Kmara, Giorgi Kandelaki and Luka Tsuladze, were arrested in Minsk and held in prison for 15 days on charges of "hooliganism". The human rights NGO Amnesty International condemned the arrest and said that it "considers Luka Tsuladze and Giorgi Kandelaki to be prisoners of conscience."^[10]

References