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Floor Speech

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Mr. RISCH. First of all, let me say, I want to fully associate myself with the remarks of my colleague from New Hampshire. She said it about as well as it can be said, but I am going to underscore it and go back.

As she said, in 2012, she and I were the appointed representatives of the United States to look at and monitor the elections in Georgia, and, I have to tell you, it was an interesting process to do that. We looked and watched the election. From our point of view, it was a straight-up election. It was well done, well executed. And, at the end of the day, the incumbent, President Saakashvili lost; Mr. Ivanishvili's Dream party won.

We had the interesting experience, the next morning, going to see both camps, and one of the things that gave me great hope is it was very much like an American election. Both camps were still in campaign mode when we talked to them, but, as Senator Shaheen indicated, we had very candid discussions with both sides. Frankly, before we left the region--I think we went to Turkey after that. But before we left the region, they had made agreements that they were going to talk about a peaceful transition. That was a really, really good sign.

I have to tell you, we left there really quite optimistic that things were headed in the right direction--that here they had an election that was a spirited election, but it came out the way the people of Georgia wanted it to come out and that things would go forward.

It wasn't too long after that that we started to have suspicions that it wasn't going as well as it should. And, indeed, that was the case, and it continued to deteriorate and continues to deteriorate today to where it is of an urgent nature.

Look, this country is a country that, after Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviet Union and all these countries got their freedom--most of them took it--this is one of those countries that has not been able to get complete footing and get the complete shake-off of Russia that it wants.

The ghosts of the Russian Empire still are there in that country, and they are showing up in what is happening today. The tactics that are being used by the government that is in place today are the tactics that they use in Russia. It is brutal. It involves tortures. It involves arrests. It involves all of the things that we see from the old Soviet Union.

This is not what the Georgian people want. You say: Well, how can you say that? The Georgian Constitution actually has enshrined in it that they will pursue--and they have been pursuing--membership in the European Union. When that happens, of course, things change dramatically in the country. They go much more to Western values than what they inherited from the old Soviet Union, and that is the direction that Georgia's people want to go.

And, again, not only is it in the Constitution, the polling there says that 80 percent of people want to continue to pursue both European Union membership and NATO membership.

So what has the current government done about the Georgian Dream? Well, they have done the things that the Senator from New Hampshire has laid out. They have done awful things that resulted in arrests and torture and the kinds of things that autocratic governments do in order to get their way.

The Georgian people have not stood by passively and let this happen. There have been lots of protests in the country over recent weeks. Indeed, some of them are quite violent because the Georgian Dream party is cracking down on these people who are just simply trying to pursue their dreams for Georgia, both as expressed in the Constitution and expressed by the will of the people. We had an opportunity to talk to the President of Georgia just recently and came away again disappointed with the way things are happening.

But, look, there is hope here. We passed a bill that gives the Biden administration the ability to go in and levy sanctions on the people that should be sanctioned.

And it is not a secret. We know who they are. They know who they are. The State Department knows who they are. The Biden administration knows who they are. So let's get at it.

And just as my colleague from New Hampshire, I am deeply, deeply disappointed that we haven't done that. Look, putting sanctions on is not a strain on this country. It is easy to do. But it can be and will be a real strain on the people who were sanctioned.

We really need to do that, and like my friend from New Hampshire, I don't understand why it is not being done. Is it incompetence? Is it laziness? Is it that they don't know better? We have all talked to them, but it just doesn't get done.

So, again, I want to join in with my friend from New Hampshire and urge the administration to step in and do what should be done, follow the law that we have put in place, and take the opportunities for sanctions that we have put in place.

I want to continue to be hopeful for the Georgian people. They don't want what is going on there. They don't want to drift back to the Soviet Union or to Russia. They want to look westward, by their Constitution, by their own will. They want to be part of the European Union and part of NATO.

Let's give them every help that we can possibly do, and it won't cost us anything.

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