Shooting into the air, the new arrivals chased off a carload of genuine police who had also arrived on the scene. Then they took Shaw.
The fate of Shaw, in Georgia on assignment for the European Union, is still unknown. But his kidnapping underscores the enormous challenges still facing the political stability and economic well-being of this strategic former Soviet republic.
Shaw was at least the fourth foreigner to be kidnapped here in the last 18 months. Two Spaniards, Antonio Tremino, 40, and Francisco Rodriguez, 48, were released in December after spending more than a year in captivity-most it chained to a wall in a tiny, dank cell.
Before that, Charbel Aoun, a Lebanese employee of the American-owned food-distribution company Agritechnics, spent 77 days blindfolded and chained to a bed. He was freed in a police raid; the kidnappers escaped. And last December, Gunter Beuchel, a German national, was beaten to death in front of his Tbilisi home by men wielding steel knuckledusters. Friends say Beuchel had been attacked several times previously. Another German, transportation executive Klaus Ditler Droig, 59, has been missing since July 2. Blood was found in his apartment and money was missing from his safe, but Georgia’s Interior Minister Koba Narchemashvili said last week it was premature to say that Droig had been kidnapped or killed.
Who is behind these incidents? Many residents-including some senior local officials-suspect that current or former members of the security forces are responsible. “Only the well-trained special unit could commit [a] crime like this,” says Minister of State Security Valeri Khaburdzania of the Shaw kidnapping. And Minister of State Avtandil Jorbenadze describes the kidnappings as the result of “collusion between the criminal underworld and representatives of official structures.” Even if not directly involved, police have singularly failed to make any arrests in any of these cases.
Kidnapping has a long tradition in this rugged Caucasus region. But 10 years after breaking free from the Soviet Union and receiving close to $3 billion in Western aid-$1 billion of that in bilateral aid from the United States alone-foreign governments want to see a Georgia that is closer to establishing a system of basic law and order.
One reason for their interest: the country-a key player in the revived Silk Road project linking Central Asia with Europe-is about to play permanent host to a multibillion-dollar pipeline project to bring Caspian energy resources to Western markets. Such strategic stakes have recently encouraged Washington to send 150 military advisers to train four special battalions-the intended core of a wholly revamped army and another step drawing Georgia away from Moscow’s sphere of influence and eventually, Georgians hope, into NATO.
The latest kidnapping-in broad daylight and in an affluent part of the capital-demonstrates how far Georgia still has to go. It not only deters much-needed foreign tourists, but it also raises questions of just how committed the country is to the Western-style reform process like the free market economy promoted by President Eduard Shevardnadze. Georgian business executives are more comfortable with muscle-enforced monopolies, and foreigners perceived to be challenging local concerns may have been targeted because they were seen as threats by those businesses. “Before the kidnapping of Shaw we had not been trying to get people in, because it is almost impossible to do that, but we had been trying to convince the people who were already in not to leave the country,” Fady Asly, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Georgia and managing director of Agritechnics, told NEWSWEEK. Asly himself is always accompanied by an armed escort after a rocket-propelled grenade was fired last year into a wall of the office where he oversees Agritechnics.
Shaw, the latest kidnap victim, spent six years working in Georgia as a banking consultant, most recently with the European Union-funded Agro-Business Bank of Georgia-a pilot project that Brussels considered a model for others serving the banking-deprived rural areas of Georgia and other former Soviet republics. Shevardnadze attended the ribbon-cutting opening ceremony in February 2000.
At this stage, it is still unclear whether the reasons for Shaw’s kidnap were personal, political or just plain mercenary. Local reports say the Briton’s kidnappers have asked for a ransom of $2 million, but these reports are unconfirmed. Shaw may have been targeted for revenge, say some, for his role in the foreclosure of six Georgian banks some years ago. Additional speculation has focused on whether Shaw could have been engaged in private business dealings outside his EU job.
As in previous kidnappings, most Georgian press accounts suggest the victims were somehow responsible for their own misfortunes. “The Ministry of Agriculture considers Shaw a dishonest businessman,” began one recent article in a publication called The New Version, “but the National Bank [of Georgia] has a different opinion.”
Friends and diplomats, however, insist Shaw was just doing his job. The morning of the kidnapping he was praised at a meeting about the bank with six European ambassadors. “These rumors are totally incorrect,” says Archil Kbilashvili, who served as a legal advisor to the Agro-Business bank. Murtaz Kikoria, the head of the national bank’s department for banking supervision and regulation says he didn’t see “any connection between the activities of the bank and the kidnapping of Mr. Shaw.”
Whatever the motivation, Shaw’s kidnapping could have significant fallout for Georgia. Because Shaw had close diplomatic ties-“he was one of us,” says an EU diplomat-and because his project is considered a key part of the EU program here, Brussels has reacted strongly to his disappearance. On June 24, EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten wrote to Shevardnadze that under the circumstances there could not be “business as usual” between Georgia and the EU. Brussels has also warned that it could cut its annual aid program of almost $45 million if Shaw is not released by mid-July.
It is still uncertain if Brussels will actually follow through on this threat. Georgian officials are arguing against such a move, warning that an aid suspension could threaten the central government’s already tenuous control on some parts of the country and possibly cause a rise in crime. “Their halts bring huge dangers to the Georgian state,” Deputy Foreign Minister Tamar Beruchashvili told Reuters.
For his part, Shevardnadze has busied himself assuring foreigners he is doing all he can, quickly dispatching a letter to EU President Romano Prodi to that effect. “This case must be solved in the nearest future even if it costs law enforcers their lives,” Shevardnadze said in his weekly radio address last Monday. “We will do our best to ensure that the kidnapped businessman returns to his family safe and sound.”
That may be easier said than done. Shevardnadze, 74, has relied on the police as his main pillar of power since he served as the republic’s interior minister in the 1970s. These days, it is less clear just who is propping up whom.
