“Georgian Manganese” is a private company that has been licensed to extract manganese from the Chiatura mines since 2006. In recent years, the company has expanded its mining activities in the village of Shukruti. Since 2017, the company has opened more than ten new mines and started using open-pit extraction, an especially intrusive mining method, at two locations. Locals claim that underground explosions have caused the hollowing-out of the ground underneath the villages, inflicting severe damage to their living environment, including water pollution, drying up of the wells, and damaged properties and infrastructure. In 2022-2023, extraction works led to the destruction of around twenty houses in the village of Itkhvisi. According to Shukruti residents, their houses are on the verge of collapse as well.
Over the past six years, Shukruti residents have opposed the company’s aggressive mining activities and demanded assessment of the damage caused as a result and compensation for it, including the payment of resettlement costs where necessary. In 2021, around 40 households joined the protests, which lasted over three months. The protesters, who initially picketed the mines in the village, later decided to move the demonstrations to the capital city. Eleven people went on a hunger strike back then, eight of them sewing their lips shut. After 30 days of the hunger strike, “Georgian Manganese” agreed with the villagers to evaluate the damage and compensate them for their loss accordingly. While the company claims to have paid over 12 million GEL (4 million EUR) to local households, according to Shukruti residents, only a few out of 282 local households have been compensated and even fewer of them have received a fair amount.
“Georgian Manganese” associates the deterioration of the living environment in Shukruti with the mining activities carried out in Soviet times. The journalist Mariam Nikuradze, who has been reporting on the Shukruti protests for years, refutes this claim. According to Nikuradze, who has photographed the extraction sites herself, they clearly appear recent. The Government refuses to become involved, even though the company has been operating under the supervision of a state-appointed manager since 2017. In the absence of an official methodology for the evaluation and compensation of the damage caused by the mining activities and with no one to claim responsibility, Shukruti residents’ demands have remained consistently neglected.
Against this background, over 30 families from Shukruti renewed their protest in March 2024. The locals blocked the entrances of the “Korokhnali” and “Shukruti” mines to halt their operation. Many miners refused to work in solidarity with them.
“I am scared at night. I swear, sometimes I wake up at night and my heart is shaking [from the fear] that my house may collapse this second,” said one of the demonstrators, Vera Kupatadze, who participated in the protests back in 2021 as well.
In September, after months of fruitless protests, around 20 people from Shukruti relocated to Tbilisi to attract the attention of the central government. The protesters intended to set up tents in front of the Parliament building, but were prevented from doing so by the police. Consequently, the villagers had to sleep outside, even in heavy rain. Seven men went on a hunger strike for 43 days, five of them sewing their mouths shut, with two women joining in the last 12 days.
Instead of responding to the locals’ demands, the company and the state have resorted to various repressive measures against the protesters.
In July 2024, the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia brought charges against three protesters under Article 226 of the Criminal Code (Organisation of or Participation in a Group Activity Disrupting Public Order). The people from Shukruti are accused of disruption of the company’s mining operations by blocking the entrances and interfering with the ventilation system. If convicted, the individuals who have been charged could face imprisonment for up to three years.
In August 2024, “Magharoeli LLC”, a subcontractor of “Georgian Manganese”, initiated civil lawsuits against 30 Shukruti residents, some of whom had never even participated in the protests. The company claims that, by hindering the mining activities, the respondents have caused damage amounting to 5,563,481 GEL (1,839,000 EUR). As part of the civil proceedings, the court has ordered the protesters to free up the entrances of the mines and seized the respondents’ properties to secure the claim.
In June-September 2024, five miners who had supported the protests were fired by “Georgian Manganese” and its subcontractors for “gross violation of the company’s internal rules” and “hindering the working process”.
Locals have further pointed to the company’s attempts to intimidate the protesters and delegitimise their movement. According to them, company representatives attacked the demonstrators in order to forcefully open the mines in July 2024. Moreover, “Chiatura Management”, a company linked to Georgian Manganese, has spread misinformation that the protesters have been fully compensated and that the Shukruti protests have been orchestrated by NGOs and media organisations associated with “radical political forces”. This accusation mirrors the government rhetoric regarding civil society organisations representing “foreign interests”.
According to local NGOs, the company and the state have used these formal and informal repressive mechanisms to suppress the Shukruti residents’ protest. By prosecuting them, the State has “criminalised the protest”, wrote Ani Nasrashvili, from the Civil Platform “Komentari”.
‘All this serves to prevent people from raising their voices in defence of their home, their front yard, their father’s and grandfather’s graves, and the village where they were born and grew up,’ commented one of the individuals who have been charged – Giorgi Neparidze.
In October 2024, as the hunger strikers’ health condition reached a critical state, an MP from the ruling party met with the protesters and offered to facilitate the negotiations between the villagers and the company. Following this offer, the Shukruti residents ended the hunger strike, only to feel deceived once again. After several failed attempts to agree on the compensation terms, the villagers have come to believe that the offer to negotiate had in fact served to drag out the process and resume the mining activities in Shukruti.
In November 2024, the company suspended the operation of mines in Chiatura, claiming they were no longer profitable. The company has invoked the Shukruti protest as one of the reasons for the financial crises it faced. The decision to shut down the mines became official in March 2025, when the company notified over 3500 of its employees of their dismissal. While leaving thousands of miners without daily subsistence, the company still plans to continue open-pit extraction. Consequently, protests against the company have spread in the entire region, adding an economic dimension to the locals’ environmental concerns. In addition to addressing the ecological crisis, protesters now demand the company’s total withdrawal from Chiatura.
The Shukruti residents’ protest against the mining company exemplifies the fight for environmental justice. Both the company and the state have continuously neglected locals’ right to a safe living environment and their duty to offer adequate compensation for the loss suffered as a result of the extraction works. In addition to living in constant fear of having their homes destroyed, the villagers have faced the threat of criminal sanctions, civil lawsuits, and other forms of repression for raising their voices. While the Shukruti residents seem to be standing strong in their protest, such a punitive approach severely affects their freedom of assembly and expression and the right to public participation.
Sources:
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