Siege of Sukhumi

By Kevin Fedarko

Moaning from pain and shock, Elgudzha Bagaturia staggered into the brick house where fellow Georgian soldiers were taking cover from small arms fire. A stream of blood gushed from a hole in his neck, courtesy of a grenade hurled by Abkhazian insurgents trying to take the city of Sukhumi, the capital of their autonomous region within Georgia. Suddenly, an exploding shell shook the house from the left. Then another concussion, this time from the right. The enemy artillery was zeroing in on its target. "Outside everyone!" shouted Misha, the black-bearded commander. "They have found us."

So they had. Ten minutes after his comrades laid Bagaturia on a dirty blanket and pulled him into the street, a shell smashed the building, killing two wounded soldiers left behind. Dodging explosions, the Georgians zigzagged past overgrown oleander bushes and neglected vineyards toward the comparative safety of downtown Sukhumi. As they dragged Bagaturia through the former resort, once one of the Black Sea's most idyllic vacation spots and now a bombed-out coliseum where Georgians and Abkhazians are locked in combat, an old woman cried out, "How are things out there? Is the enemy advancing? What will become of us?" The soldiers had no answer for her.

Neither did Eduard Shevardnadze, the courtly head of state who has been struggling to hold Georgia together since he took office last year. The intervening 18 months have taxed the talents of the consummate diplomat with a series of crippling crises: economic collapse, political chicanery, ethnic rebellion and even a guerrilla-style insurgency waged by the country's former President, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, whose lust for power remains undampened by the popular coup that deposed him nearly two years ago. The revolt in Abkhazia, where a small minority of ethnic separatists want an independent state, has put the fate of Georgia on the line. In Sukhumi, where he has set up headquarters, Shevardnadze has vowed to keep his nation whole or die trying.

What is happening to Georgia today could be repeated all along the fringes of the old Soviet empire tomorrow. The particular feuds may be different in Tajikistan or Azerbaijan, but they all share the brutality of internecine war. Many of these gerrymandered republics are being torn apart by long-suppressed ethnic hatred erupting like flash fires along Russia's periphery, but few conflicts have reached the incendiary combination of confusion, violence and anarchy that exploded last week in Sukhumi.

The tiny enclave of Abkhazia, whose historical roots stretch back to more than a thousand years before Christ, has emerged as the keystone to Georgia's future as an independent state. Under pressure from Moscow, the insurgents suspended their drive for autonomy and endorsed a cease-fire in July. But when Shevardnadze's forces turned to the task of breaking a blockade imposed on the Georgian capital of Tbilisi by Gamsakhurdia's rebels, the Abkhazians struck again. Two weeks ago, fighters launched a ferocious attack on Sukhumi. Within 48 hours, surprise had enabled them to seize the heights overlooking the city and pour artillery, mortars and missiles down on the civilian population.

If the Abkhazian drive succeeds, it could mark the beginning of the ultimate dismemberment of Georgia as other ethnic minorities, bent on fulfilling their own dreams of independence, followed suit. Equally menacing to stability, an Abkhazian victory would demolish Shevardnadze's credibility as the only leader capable of holding the country together. That danger prompted him to issue a televised call to arms, appealing "to all men with guns to go to defend Sukhumi." Together with his physician, cook and the rest of his personal staff, Shevardnadze headed for the embattled city, pledging to remain with the defenders "until the last drop of my blood."

While Sukhumi should be basking in the special autumnal softness that those who live along the Black Sea call the velvet season, the walls of Shevardnadze's headquarters in the city's only building with electricity reverberate day and night from shells that land 50 ft. from his office. So ) close has the fighting come that the Georgian leader's American-trained guards have at least once flung their bodies over him in protection as missiles slammed into nearby buildings.

Through it all, Shevardnadze has displayed a steely, pig-headed courage. His wan smile, snowy head and immaculately pressed suits, trademarks of the emissary of international statecraft he once was, offer a jarring contrast to the bearded and increasingly desperate commanders who surround him. With only three hours' sleep a night, he speaks in a voice so hushed that aides must strain to hear him; and yet, when he finds it expedient, the Georgian leader summons a fierce eloquence, all the more surprising in his tattered circumstances. "I am addressing you from besieged Sukhumi not knowing if my words will ever reach you," he wrote last Sunday in a worldwide appeal for help. "The city is being shelled. There is no water, no bread, no light and hope is dwindling. Regardless of what happens, I will not leave this town."

Ironically, the principal architects of Georgia's predicament may be the same Russian military commanders who are supposed to be enforcing the U.N.-sanctioned cease-fire. At least that's what Georgian officials and CIA sources charge. A minority of only 17% in their own homeland, the Abkhazians have turned to Russia for help. Georgians are convinced that vindictive Russian army officers, bent on taking revenge for the role Shevardnadze played in the collapse of the Soviet empire, are providing battlefield intelligence plus Russian Grad missiles and SU-25 fighters to the Abkhazians, who previously were armed with shotguns and hunting rifles. Outside observers suspect that assistance comes from free-lancing local commanders without the approval of political leaders in Moscow. But the distinction makes little difference to Georgian soldiers.

The principal targets of the shelling are civilians, many of whom had previously fled the city but returned during the cease-fire. Now they are frantically trying to escape again. Streets are clogged by women and children who walk the 15 miles to the airport with whatever possessions they can carry. They storm the planes that fly in at irregular intervals, laden with ammunition and volunteer reinforcements from Tbilisi.

As soldiers on the tarmac push the hysterical crowds back with rifle butts, Abkhazian gunners train their fire on the runway. Those who do manage to clamber into an outbound plane discover that they have boarded a flying morgue. The backs of seats are pushed forward to accommodate stretchers bearing soldiers too critically injured to survive the 35-minute flight to Tbilisi. What little space remains is packed with refugees who even wedge themselves into the toilets, indifferent to the stench. The situation is horrific, but now that the Abkhazian artillery has made evacuation by sea impossible, the only remaining exit from Sukhumi is this exposed portal.

Too exposed, in fact. Last week three planes ferrying refugees and wounded soldiers were attacked with missiles, killing more than 100 people. But even the blackened wreckage fails to deter those who are still trapped. "Couldn't they at least send cargo planes to take us out of this hell?" sobbed a woman on the tarmac, clutching the hand of her bewildered daughter. "Nobody cares for us at all. Nobody."

In the end, if the Abkhazians take the city, the entire country could be swept up by the conflagration. And then the word hell would apply not just to Sukhumi, but to all of Georgia.

With reporting by J.F.O. McAllister/Washington and Yuri Zarakhovich/Sukhumi