26 September 2024,

...[T]he Chiatura Management Company, which manages manganese mining, issued a statement regarding the protesting Shukruti residents. Picking the phraseology from the statements by the government officials and the ruling party, it called their protest “artificially manipulated” by NGOs “linked to radical opposition parties.” The Company said it would provide further documentation to prove it had already compensated the protesters...

The company claims that some Shukruti residents, most of whom have already received the compensation they are demanding, refuse to resolve the issue in a “civic manner” despite “several offers” from the company.

“It is clear that the actions of this group of people against the company have gone beyond civic forms of relationship and represent a blatant blackmail, and the false information spread daily by the protesters and the people who give them such orders triggers empathy for the Shukruti residents, who [in fact] have already been compensated [for damages]” the company stresses.

The company goes on to state that behind the “destructive process” in the village of Shukruti and the demonstrations in front of the parliament by the “radical group of people” are those “non-governmental organizations directly linked to the radical political parties, which in turn use the protests for their own narrow party interests”...

Chiatura Management Company goes on to explain what causes the “reasonable doubt” that NGOs are behind the demonstrators, citing instances such as:

• The Social Justice Center’s September 25 statement, in which the company claims to have given false information about how Shukruti residents could receive compensation, alongside other “wrongly interpreted facts”;
• Despite the fact that the company has published bank transfer documents showing that these people have received compensation, the people claim that they have not received it and have no documents, such personal bank statements to prove it;
• The demonstrators claim that the auditing company named in the memorandum signed by them did not provide an objective assessment of the damage and demand the audit of Samkharauli Burau, although they themselves can apply to Samkharauli Burau with the request to check the accuracy of the data;
• The CSOs are “intentionally disseminating” pictures of destroyed houses in Shukruti, even though the company has already compensated for the damage, which the company claims it didn’t even cause, adding that none of the CSOs have requested the documents proving that compensation was paid for these buildings...

The company says it is ready and invites interested civil society organizations to a working meeting. It promises to present documents “that will allow NGOs to disseminate only evidence-based, objective information in the future.”