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Regional leader decires georgia coup { November 27 2003 }

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   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16576-2003Nov26.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16576-2003Nov26.html

Regional Leader Decries Georgia's New Government


By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 27, 2003; Page A14


MOSCOW, Nov. 26 -- A regional leader in the former Soviet republic of Georgia said Wednesday that he would defy any orders by the four-day-old interim government in the capital, raising the possibility of further breakup in the already fractured country.

Aslan Abashidze, leader of an autonomous region on the Black Sea, said after meetings with Russian government patrons here that he had ruled out secession but might respond militarily if the new government tried to enforce its authority in his territory.

"People who came to power by force have no right giving orders to anyone, especially those legally elected," said Abashidze, elected leader of the Adzharia region. "We are dealing with ultranationalists who will go to any lengths in order to accomplish their own goals and the behests of others."

Abashidze has become a key figure in determining whether Georgia's new pro-Western leadership can hold the destitute mountain state together after peacefully toppling President Eduard Shevardnadze last weekend in what Georgians are calling the "revolution of roses."

During civil war in the 1990s, Georgia lost control of two pro-Russian breakaway republics, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Abashidze already rules Adzharia as a virtually sovereign entity. The region has its own armed forces and does not pay taxes to the national government.

On Wednesday, Abashidze called Shevardnadze's ouster a "shameful" coup d'etat. He ruled out running in a national presidential election scheduled for Jan. 4 and would not commit to allowing Adzharia to vote in new parliamentary elections.

Since the change of government in the capital, Abashidze has declared a state of emergency and partially closed his region's borders with the rest of the country. "We are doing this to prevent the outbreak of war that would be impossible to put out," he said at a news conference here Wednesday. "We know the Caucasus [region] very well. Wars break out in the Caucasus and they never end."

Abashidze suggested that a Russian military unit based in his region would respond if authorities in the capital, Tbilisi, tried to move in, because 70 percent of the soldiers are ethnic Adzharian. "They are the people of Adzharia, who will defend their interests, the interests of their families and their region," he said. But he promised to respect "the inviolability of the state of Georgia."

A Russian general later ruled out the use of troops in Adzharia, and the new Georgian leadership pledged to meet with Abashidze to find a peaceful solution.

Mikheil Saakashvili, who led the drive to oust Shevardnadze, this week minimized the prospect of further breakup. "There have been fears that Georgia would fall apart for the last seven centuries," he said . "I'm more concerned about violence here [in Tbilisi] than a secessionist movement somewhere else. . . . Whatever could fall apart has already fallen apart. We need to pull it together."

Saakashvili, 35, an American-trained lawyer and former justice minister, announced his candidacy for president Wednesday and sealed a power-sharing deal with coalition partners. Parliament Speaker Nino Burdzhanadze, the acting president, would lead the next legislature if the partners win new elections, while Zurab Zhvania, a former parliament speaker, would become interim state minister and later be installed in a newly created position of prime minister under a Saakashvili administration.

President Bush called Burdzhanadze and praised the peaceful transfer of power and the scheduling of a new presidential election. Bush also offered support for renewed democratic and market reforms, the White House said.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company



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