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                                                                                WORLD, Page 26

GEORGIA

Descending Into Chaos


Gamsakhurdia flees, clouding his new nation's future and sending
a chilling message to the other republics on the state of
democracy

By JOHN KOHAN/MOSCOW -- With reporting by William Mader/London
and J.F.O. McAllister/Washington


    Fate can be fickle. Georgian leader Zviad Gamsakhurdia
made history eight months ago when he became the first person
to win the presidency of a Soviet republic by popular election.
It was a stunning triumph for the anticommunist nationalist, who
had been at the forefront of Georgia's campaign to gain
independence from Moscow. Gamsakhurdia's lead at the polls was
so commanding -- he had 87% of the vote -- that few doubted his
hold on power. Last week he made history again, this time in an
ignominious way: he became the first elected President of a
former Soviet republic to be ousted in a paramilitary coup.

    For two weeks, fighting had raged in the heart of the
capital of Tbilisi between troops loyal to Gamsakhurdia and
forces determined to end what they claimed was his dictatorial
rule. By early Monday morning last week, after enduring heavy
shelling, Gamsakhurdia finally decided it was time to retreat.
Accompanied by his family and loyal supporters, he slipped out
of the underground bunker in the parliament building where he
had been living in a state of siege and fled to the neighboring
republic of Armenia.

    Tengiz Kitovani, a member of the country's self-proclaimed
new Military Council and commander of the rebel National Guard
units that helped topple Gamsakhurdia, triumphantly announced,
"A new democratic Georgia has been born." But has it? The men
who took over are just as strongly nationalistic and
authoritarian as Gamsakhurdia, leaving it unclear what political
changes they might make. Nor was it known whether the new
leadership would move to join the Commonwealth of Independent
States that groups together 11 other former Soviet republics.
For now, Georgia seems to be playing a perilous lone hand.

    The high cost of the victory by the violent and well-armed
opposition was visible everywhere in the center of Tbilisi. A
heavy pall of black smoke hung over the parliament building,
where artillery shells had blown away huge chunks of the walls.
On nearby Rustaveli Avenue only the scorched facades remained
of graceful pastel houses. Gutted buses, twisted car wrecks and
hundreds of scattered machine-gun cartridges bore silent witness
to the ferocity of the fighting, which, officials said, left at
least 90 people dead. Some estimates put the total closer to
400.

    The putsch leaders claimed that brute force was necessary
to end Gamsakhurdia's brief, tyrannical rule. But they have set a
dangerous precedent for the new republics. In overthrowing a
popularly elected President, the Georgian rebels discredited the
country's fledgling democratic institutions and opened the way
for the kind of cyclical struggle between armed political clans
that has hampered the growth of democracy elsewhere in the
developing world. Says Soviet nationalities expert Paul Goble:
"The idea that Gamsakhurdia is a fascist thug being replaced by
liberals is nonsense." Not only is Georgia's own future
clouded, but there is no guarantee that similar events might not
be repeated tomorrow in any of the former Soviet republics,
given the explosive mix of ethnic, economic, political and
military problems confronting them.

    The new Georgian Military Council vowed to turn over power
"in the very near future" to a provisional civilian government
led by former Prime Minister Tengiz Sigua, a onetime
Gamsakhurdia ally who was pushed out of office in a political
squabble. But Military Council member Dzhaba Ioseliani, head of
the anti-Gamsakhurdia Mkhedrioni, or White Horsemen,
paramilitary squads, suggested that the timetable would depend
on how quickly life in the republic returned to normal. "Power
is now in our hands," he said. "Until things calm down and until
democratic institutions take root, we will keep power."

    There was widespread skepticism about Ioseliani's claim.
Said a senior British diplomat: "The new leaders barely control
the center of Tbilisi, let alone the republic. The place is in
the throes of anarchy." As word of Gamsakhurdia's downfall
spread, thousands of the ousted leader's supporters gathered at
the capital's train station for a march through the city. For
the second time since the conflict began, gunmen tossed smoke
bombs and opened fire on the crowd, scattering the
demonstrators. Ioseliani defended the use of terror to enforce
a state of emergency in Tbilisi, but it has not lessened the
danger of civil war breaking out in other parts of Georgia,
especially in the western regions, where armed Gamsakhurdia
supporters have already challenged the new regime. The coup
leaders also face difficulties with the republic's restive South
Ossetian and Abkhasian minorities, who are pressing for their
own independence.

    From a safe haven across the Armenian border in the town
of Idzhevan, Gamsakhurdia wasted no time in lashing out against
the Military Council, blaming criminals, bandits and a
communist "Mafia" for his defeat. The Armenians have not offered
Gamsakhurdia political asylum, but they also have not pressured
him to leave the republic. It is clearly a ticklish diplomatic
problem. If Gamsakhurdia attempts to go abroad, Georgia's
current leaders say they will press for his extradition to stand
trial on criminal charges. But as long as the deposed President
remains so close to home, he will continue to be a destabilizing
factor. Gamsakhurdia certainly has no intention of giving up.
"I am still the President of Georgia," he vowed, "the legitimate
President."

    A noted human-rights activist and scion of one of
Georgia's most respected writers, Gamsakhurdia seemed to have
perfect credentials for his job. But he was too haunted by his
own past persecution by the KGB and by the need to settle old
scores to be a truly democratic leader. Obsessed with
conspiracies involving "agents of the Kremlin," the President
closed down liberal newspapers and barred critics from
television. During a wave of protest against his authoritarian
rule last autumn, police loyal to him fired on demonstrators,
and he jailed opposition leaders. He was intent on extending his
power into the provinces by appointing presidential prefects,
but he showed no interest in radical economic reforms. Georgia
became isolated from the other republics, especially Russia, the
region's primary supplier of bread and fuel. Last week the
opposition accused the deposed President of torturing hostages
during his final days in the bunker and claimed he had run off
with state treasury funds.

    With his special brand of mystical nationalism,
Gamsakhurdia had become such a commanding figure on the Georgian
political stage that it is hard to see how any of the current
leaders could aspire to replace him. Fault lines have already
begun to show in the loosely united anti-Gamsakhurdia alliance,
especially between the politicians and the paramilitary men.
"The council's only uniting factor has been opposition to
Gamsakhurdia," said a British diplomat. "Now that he is gone,
they are falling out among themselves." Not all its members are
equally committed to parliamentary democracy and presidential
rule. Georgi Chanturia, the radical leader of the National
Democratic Party, calls for a constitutional monarchy. Others
advocate various forms of theocracy, uniting the Georgian
Orthodox Church and the state.

    There is one Georgian who rivals Gamsakhurdia in stature
and who, as a former local Communist Party boss, knows every
eddy in the complicated crosscurrents of Tbilisi politics:
former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. In talks
with the putsch leaders last week, he offered his help in
getting democratic reform back on track. He publicly praised the
takeover as a "democratic revolution" and promised "to devote
all my energy to starting a movement of international support
for building a democratic Georgia." Shevardnadze would certainly
lend any post-Gamsakhurdia leadership the kind of authority it
needs in the West. But the veteran diplomat suffers from one
major handicap: he may be too closely identified with the
Kremlin to suit his intensely nationalistic compatriots.

    The violent events in Tbilisi herald a new era where no
one can afford to shrug off the politics of Georgia -- or
Azerbaijan or Kirghzia or Turkmenistan. Now that all the parts
of the old Soviet empire are clamoring to be recognized as
independent sovereign states, their appeals will have to be
seriously considered by the international community, however far
they may be from the ideals of a Western democracy. As a U.S.
official ruefully admitted, "Gamsakhurdia won an overwhelming
expression of support in the May election. On the other hand,
he was not running a democratic state." Self-determination may
be a splendid principle, but the reality can be very different.