Ajaria declares state of emergency, Georgian leadership urges regional inhabitants to disobey curfew

4/26/04

Alleging that Georgian officials intended to resolve a constitutional dispute by force, Ajarian leader Aslan Abashidze has put his recalcitrant region on a war footing. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili ridiculed the Ajarian action, suggesting that Abashidze had gone "mad," while urging regional residents to disobey a curfew.

In imposing a state of emergency on April 24, Ajarian officials insisted that Georgian armed forces were massing for an invasion of the territory in an effort to compel the region's submission to central authority. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Under the state of emergency, Ajarian authorities placed barricades on roads at the region's border with Georgia proper, and imposed a nighttime curfew. "In the situation that has come to pass, and which continues to escalate by the hour, we adopt[ed] a most rational and correct decision," the Interfax news agency reported Giorgi Tsintskiladze, a leader of the Ajarian regional legislature, as saying.

The previous day, Abashidze alleged that Georgian officials were plotting to assassinate him. "Only two countries can stop what central authorities have planned against Ajaria," Abashidze said, according to a report by the Prime News agency. "These are the USA ... because Georgia does nothing without coordinating it first with the United States ... and Russia."

Saakashvili responded swiftly to the Ajarian action, insisting that the Georgian government was not preparing to use force against Ajaria. "The authorities of Georgia have no intention whatsoever of conducting military operations in Ajaria," Saakashvili told Rustavi 2 television on April 25. "These are rumors being spread by that person [Abashidze], who like a little boy, has been crying wolf so many times that eventually no one will believe him."

The Georgian president characterized the Ajarian state of emergency as "illegal," and told local residents to "just ignore it completely." He added that he was planning to take administrative action to override the Ajarian curfew. "You cannot impose a curfew or anything else just on the basis of someone's [Abashidze's] fantasies, or what he saw in his dreams the previous night. We cannot work like that," Saakashvili said.

In the past week, Tbilisi has brought increasing pressure to bear on Abashidze. For instance, the Georgian parliament adopted a resolution concerning the Tbilisi-Batumi power struggle that appears to lay the groundwork for the potential criminal prosecution of Abashidze and his lieutenants. The resolution, approved unanimously by MPs, asserted that human rights violations were being committed in Ajaria, and it instructed Georgia's prosecutor-general's office to gather evidence against those responsible for the rights violations. It also accused Abashidze of fomenting an armed insurrection against the central government.

The same day that Ajaria re-imposed its state of emergency, Saakashvili gave a bellicose speech in Tbilisi during which he announced that anyone engaging in separatist action would be "liquidated and destroyed by the Georgian army and the Georgian state."

"The time for babbling is over," Saakashvili continued. "We will never again allow the appropriation of any part of Georgia by bandits, narcotics dealers, [and] local feudal lords."

There is mounting evidence that Abashidze's power base in Ajaria is eroding. The recent mutiny of a Georgian military unit based in Batumi fizzled, largely because the bulk of the unit refused to follow its commander, Gen. Roman Dumbadze, in pledging allegiance to Abashidze. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

On April 26, Georgian media reported that a Black Sea patrol vessel, which had been under Abashidze's control, fled the port of Batumi, its crew declaring its loyalty to Tbilisi. In addition, Rustavi 2 reported April 24 that two members of Abashidze's bodyguard – identified as Roin and Iago Makharadze – had secretly traveled to Tbilisi, where they announced their support for the central government. "I have come here to serve the president of Georgia," Iago Makharadze told Rustavi 2. "I want to call on other lads [Abashidze bodyguards] too: Do not be afraid of their [Ajarian leaders'] threats, come and join us."

Posted April 26, 2004 © Eurasianet