Soviet Union: Paranoia Run Amuck

By Jill Smolowe

To hear Georgian president Zviad Gamsakhurdia tell it, conspiracies seethe around him. At the national level, Mikhail Gorbachev is scheming to "create a civil war" in the southern republic with the help of "40,000 KGB agents," while fellow Georgian Eduard Shevardnadze, the former Soviet Foreign Minister, is a "provocateur." At the state level, Tengiz Sigua, the Georgian prime minister until six weeks ago, is "a liar and a criminal" who, Gamsakhurdia says, "is making a coup against me." At the grass-roots level, the thousands who now take to the streets daily demanding Gamsakhurdia's resignation are all "plotters" and "criminals." Even Washington is colluding with Moscow, hatching a "kind of Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement" to deny Georgian independence.

With each new charge, Gamsakhurdia sounds increasingly paranoid. True, he legitimately has much to fear. Many of the very same Georgians who elected Gamsakhurdia president of their republic just last May are now demanding his ouster. The republic's prime minister and foreign minister have quit the president's cabinet, accusing him of dictatorial practices that block democratic and market reform. And tensions in South Ossetia and Adzhar, two Georgian regions where ethnic populations are demanding autonomy, threaten Gamsakhurdia's vision of a unified, independent state. Just one month after the entire Soviet Union rocked with revolution, Gamsakhurdia, 52, has a homegrown revolution brewing. But the main culprit in all this is not antidemocratic conspirators -- it is Gamsakhurdia.

Given the ethnic and political hostilities that have long festered in many republics beneath a veil of repression, it was inevitable that the breakup of the Soviet Union would quickly unleash unsavory nationalistic forces. Of the many republic presidents now grappling with restive populations, Gamsakhurdia has been among the quickest to resort to authoritarian tactics. On Sept. 2 his interior-ministry troops fired on anti-Gamsakhurdia protesters. The next week Gamsakhurdia jammed all Soviet and Russian broadcasts to the republic. Last week, as some 30 opposition groups brought more than 20,000 people into the streets, police arrested three opposition leaders after their Moscow-bound plane was ordered to return to the capital city of Tbilisi. Angry Georgians responded by occupying the state's radio and television center, cutting off Gamsakhurdia as he broadcast a presidential address.

It is hard to believe that Gamsakhurdia could have dug such a hole for himself in a mere four months. When he engineered Georgia's declaration of independence while serving as chairman of the Georgian supreme soviet last & April, he was hailed as a patriot. In May, when he took 87% of the vote, becoming the republic's first democratically elected president, he was regarded as a modern-day St. George who had defeated the dragon of Soviet imperialism. Given Gamsakhurdia's reputation as a distinguished literary scholar and his activism on behalf of human rights, comparisons with Czechoslovakia's President Vaclav Havel did not seem too much of a stretch.

These days the comparisons are far less flattering. At rallies, protesters chant "Ceausescu, Ceausescu!" Gamsakhurdia apparently takes seriously the reference to Romania's toppled, and summarily executed, dictator. For the past three weeks he has barricaded himself inside the Georgian parliament, where he is guarded by hundreds of National Guardsmen. When he ventures out, it is in one of two bulletproof Mercedes, for which Gamsakhurdia spent $460,000. But he bristles at being compared with the Romanian. "These people do not know what a dictator really is," he fumes, his dark eyes smoldering. "Could you really imagine such actions and demonstrations if I was a dictator?"

Maybe not, but Gamsakhurdia is doing a mighty credible imitation. He has closed opposition newspapers, capriciously fired government officials and seized control of most ministries. To quiet the republic's balking minorities -- Armenians, Abkhasians and Kurds, as well as the increasingly restless Ossetians and Adzharis -- he has suggested that qualification for Georgian citizenship should be based on family lines that trace back to 1801, the year Georgia became part of czarist Russia. He has even stated that mixed marriages threaten the purity of the Georgian race.

Detractors also charge that Gamsakhurdia is running Georgia's economy into the ground. "Five months have been wasted since independence was declared," says opposition leader Irakli Shenghelaia. "By now, Georgia should have proved itself ready for investments, for international ties, for peace and order." Instead the republic's economy is stuck on the same old treadmill: too many fruits and minerals but not enough export-oriented industry. Georgia still relies on imported grain, meat, sugar and dairy products to feed itself. Supplies have become so short that earlier this month Gamsakhurdia forbade the export of vegetables, meat and building materials. Charges former prime minister Sigua: "Gamsakhurdia has already destroyed the few sprouts of a free market economy that were beginning to show."

Then there is the matter of Gamsakhurdia's behavior during the tense days surrounding the Aug. 19 coup attempt. On Aug. 20 Interfax, an independent Soviet news service, reported that Gamsakhurdia had agreed to comply with Emergency Committee orders to disarm the Georgian National Guard. Gamsakhurdia dismisses the charge as the work of "common liars who want to slander me." But the fact remains that soon after the coup was set in motion, he ordered the National Guard into the countryside, supposedly on a training exercise. A large portion of the 15,000-strong guard ignored the order and holed up on a mountainside. Gamsakhurdia now maintains that the order was given to protect the guards from an impending attack by the Soviet "occupational" army, but the deserters have yet to return.

Though the opposition ranks keep growing, it is impossible to gauge with any certainty the extent of the discontent. Some polls claim Gamsakhurdia's popularity has dwindled to just 20%. His followers counter that support for the president still runs as high as 80%. That sounds wildly optimistic, but there is no denying that the beleaguered president has his ardent advocates. The throngs that gather daily outside Gamsakhurdia's parliamentary refuge, packed mostly with women, drape banners that read DEAR ZVIAD. WE ARE WITH YOU.

Certainly there is much in Gamsakhurdia's past to admire. The son of one of the republic's most venerated novelists, Gamsakhurdia refused to join the Communist Party. First arrested at 17 for "illegal patriotic activity," he helped found, in 1976, Georgia's Helsinki monitoring group to defend Georgian language, cultural monuments and prisoners' rights. The group also guarded the treasures of the Georgian Orthodox church from Communist Party plunderers, a deed that earned Gamsakhurdia almost mystical standing as a church guardian. For those activities he spent a year in solitary confinement. A subsequent five-year sentence was reduced to three after he told a court, "I sincerely regret what I have done and condemn the crime I have committed." Gamsakhurdia claims that he recanted only his efforts to distribute anti-Soviet propaganda, not his nationalist activities.

Now Gamsakhurdia seems inclined to recant some of his more recent activities. Late last week he suggested that the government bears some "guilt" for the current crisis and offered to open a dialogue with opposition leaders. His foreign ministry has hired John Adams & Associates, a | high-profile consulting firm in Washington, to burnish Gamsakhurdia's image and put his case for Georgian independence before the Bush Administration. Given that the U.S. was the 37th country to recognize the independence of the Baltics, it seems improbable that President Bush will lead the charge to legitimize Georgia's self-proclaimed status.

No less important, Gamsakhurdia must sell himself anew to the Georgian people. That may not be easy. Two days after inviting a dialogue with the opposition, police again clashed with demonstrators. At least two people were injured. Gamsakhurdia insists he will not quit his post. "How can I resign when only a handful of people are demanding this?" he asks. "If all my voters demand that I resign, then I will resign, but only then." His opponents think otherwise. "He is in agony now," says Sigua. "He has made many ideological and political mistakes, and he may be beginning to realize this." Sigua's prognosis? "We believe Gamsakhurdia will flee."

With reporting by Kevin Fedarko/Washington and Ann M. Simmons/Tbilisi