In September, the United States pledged $1 billion in aid to Georgia to help the country recover from its August war with Russia. The money was intended to “help Georgia sustain itself,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. With several Georgian towns badly damaged by Russian bombing and 20,000 refugees from South Ossetia still unable to return home, there were seemingly many worthy causes for all that cash. So why was $176 million of the aid money earmarked for loans to businesses—including $30 million to a real estate developer for a luxury hotel: the 127,000-square-meter Park Hyatt in downtown Tbilisi, an area that was not at all damaged in the war? The 183-room, five-star hotel will include 70 luxury condominiums, a fine-dining restaurant, conference facilities, and a health spa with juice bar.
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the U.S. government agency facilitating the loan, is also financing a $40 million office building across the street from the Georgian Parliament building and a $10 million renovation of a historic building into a convention center. The loans, OPIC President Robert Mosbacher told Eurasianet, were “a clear, unequivocal signal about the confidence we [the U.S. government] have in the future of this country.”
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s ill-advised military operation in South Ossetia might have been a disaster for many of his people, but thanks to Uncle Sam, it seems to have turned out just fine for Tbilisi’s real estate developers.
from Foreign Policy Magazine
Seriously? Hilarious..but couldn't that money have gone to, I don't know, building a school for every child in Afghanistan? Providing insurance for poor children in America? Like a milion other things?
1 comment:
Disgusting.
Post a Comment