TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/042390/0423009.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.3 KB | 117 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 46

SOVIET UNION

Freedom's Haunting Melody


As Georgians ponder which path to take to independence,
Gorbachev threatens to turn the economic screws in Lithuania



    As midnight approached, the crowd keeping vigil on the
front steps of the government building in Tbilisi, capital of
the Georgian Republic, suddenly burst into song. The anthem was
an ancient call to battle, glorifying freedom as "the sweetest
of words." As its haunting harmonies echoed down nearby
Rustaveli Prospect, tens of thousands of Georgians thrust
clenched fists into the air. One year ago to the day, on April
9, 1989, Soviet troops had broken up a peaceful demonstration
on the very same spot with tanks, shovels and poison gas,
killing 20 people. Last week residents gathered in the streets
again -- but not just to mourn their dead. As one impassioned
young speaker put it, they were celebrating "a great victory on
the difficult road to freedom and complete independence."

    The message was hard for Moscow to miss. A sign in Russian
on a pillar of the government offices read, OCCUPIERS, GO HOME!
Another placard urged SOLIDARITY WITH THE LITHUANIAN PEOPLE.
Representatives from the restive Baltic republics were on hand
to wave their national banners alongside the flag of the
short-lived Georgian Republic.

    Independence, though, is a difficult road, as was clear
last week when Lithuania received its most ominous warning yet
from Moscow. Addressing the breakaway government, Mikhail
Gorbachev charged the Lithuanians with "anticonstitutional
actions." Rescind those decisions "within the next two days,"
he demanded, or the shipment of supplies to Lithuania would be
stopped. Gorbachev was seemingly threatening to cut off oil,
natural gas and coal supplies to the Baltic republic, which
depends on the Soviet Union for most of its energy needs.

    If Mikhail Gorbachev thought he could limit the cracks in
the union to the Baltic region, he has certainly been
underestimating the Georgians. The 5.4 million people of this
small Caucasian republic have never forgotten the brief period
of independence they enjoyed between 1918 and 1921, when
invading Bolshevik forces imposed Soviet rule. The Georgians
contend that they were illegally forced into the union, in
violation of a 1920 "noninterference" treaty with Moscow.

    Georgians are of two minds about how to gain their freedom.
The centrist Popular Front movement advocates working through
the republic's supreme soviet to advance the cause of
independence. The National Forum, a coalition of seven political
parties and national movements set up last month, rejects any
form of cooperation with what it calls the Soviet "puppet"
government. The group wants to hold alternative elections for
a new national congress.

    One man certain to play a pivotal role in Georgia's future
is Zviad Gamsakhurdia, chairman of the Georgian Helsinki Union
and a leader of the National Forum. The son of one of the
republic's best-loved writers and a distinguished translator and
literary scholar in his own right, Gamsakhurdia is viewed by
many of his countrymen as something of a Georgian Vaclav Havel.
Twice imprisoned for his nationalist views, Gamsakhurdia
believes full sovereignty can be achieved only through
nonviolent opposition to Soviet rule. As he explains, "It is
senseless to declare independence when the Soviet army and
administration are still here. No Soviet institutions can bring
freedom to Georgia. The only way is through civil disobedience."

    The Georgian Helsinki Union has drafted an economic program
that attempts to prove that the republic can survive alone.
Georgia not only can feed itself but also has sufficient
reserves of oil, coal and hydroelectricity to meet its energy
needs. Furthermore, the republic boasts mineral deposits plus
undeveloped forests, Black Sea beaches and Caucasus mountain
peaks. The major drawback for Georgia, argues the document, is
that "its energies are constrained by the limits of an economic
system imposed from the outside." The union proposes "shock
treatment" for one year to build a free market out of the
republic's thriving underground economy.

    Such grandiose plans may come to naught if the Georgian
independence drive sparks ethnic tensions among the republic's
minority peoples, who make up a substantial 30% of the
population. Many are concerned about the Georgia-for-Georgians
tone that has been creeping into the political debate.
Gamsakhurdia believes Moscow is "fighting against us through the
hand of other nationalities."

    For the moment, the Kremlin seems to be hoping that if it
ignores the Georgian national movement, it might somehow go
away. But what will happen when Moscow wakes up to the fact that
independence is a word not limited to the Lithuanians? Gorbachev
makes no secret of how deeply he fears the movements seeking to
redraw the boundaries of his country. At a meeting with young
Communists last week, he predicted, "If we begin to divide up,
I'll give it to you bluntly, we'll end up in such a civil war,
in such bloody carnage that we won't be able to crawl out of
it." Given the tragic memories in Tbilisi, it was a fate
Georgians were determined to avoid.