Kmara (Georgian: კმარა, lit. 'Enough') was a civic youth resistance movement in Georgia, active in the protests prior to and during the November 2003 Rose Revolution, which toppled down the government of Eduard Shevardnadze. Consciously modeled on the Serbian nongovernmental organization (NGO) Otpor!, which had been instrumental in defeating Slobodan Milošević's regime in 2000, the Kmara members were trained and advised by the influential Georgian NGO Liberty Institute and funded by the United States–based Open Society Institute (OSI). The movement was a hybrid of social movement and virtual NGO, which was highly successful in mobilizing the young Georgians, mostly students, against Shevardnadze's rule. Although Kmara was allied with the opposition parties, especially Mikheil Saakashvili's United National Movement, its behavior and tactics were nonpartisan, focusing on criticizing corruption and failures of the Shevardnadze regime, rather than promoting any particular politician or political party.[1]
- ^ Mitchell, Lincoln A. (2009). Uncertain democracy: U.S. foreign policy and Georgia's Rose Revolution. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 53–54. ISBN 978-0812241273.