Soviet Union Freedom's Haunting Melody

By JOHN KOHAN TBILISI

As midnight approached, the crowd keeping vigil on the front steps of the government building in Tbilisi, capital of the Georgian Republic, suddenly burst into song. The anthem was an ancient call to battle, glorifying freedom as "the sweetest of words." As its haunting harmonies echoed down nearby Rustaveli Prospect, tens of thousands of Georgians thrust clenched fists into the air. One year ago to the day, on April 9, 1989, Soviet troops had broken up a peaceful demonstration on the very same spot with tanks, shovels and poison gas, killing 20 people. Last week residents gathered in the streets again -- but not just to mourn their dead. As one impassioned young speaker put it, they were celebrating "a great victory on the difficult road to freedom and complete independence."

The message was hard for Moscow to miss. A sign in Russian on a pillar of the government offices read, OCCUPIERS, GO HOME! Another placard urged SOLIDARITY WITH THE LITHUANIAN PEOPLE. Representatives from the restive Baltic republics were on hand to wave their national banners alongside the flag of the short-lived Georgian Republic.

Independence, though, is a difficult road, as was clear last week when Lithuania received its most ominous warning yet from Moscow. Addressing the breakaway government, Mikhail Gorbachev charged the Lithuanians with "anticonstitutional actions." Rescind those decisions "within the next two days," he demanded, or the shipment of supplies to Lithuania would be stopped. Gorbachev was seemingly threatening to cut off oil, natural gas and coal supplies to the Baltic republic, which depends on the Soviet Union for most of its energy needs.

If Mikhail Gorbachev thought he could limit the cracks in the union to the Baltic region, he has certainly been underestimating the Georgians. The 5.4 million people of this small Caucasian republic have never forgotten the brief period of independence they enjoyed between 1918 and 1921, when invading Bolshevik forces imposed Soviet rule. The Georgians contend that they were illegally forced into the union, in violation of a 1920 "noninterference" treaty with Moscow.

Georgians are of two minds about how to gain their freedom. The centrist Popular Front movement advocates working through the republic's supreme soviet to advance the cause of independence. The National Forum, a coalition of seven * political parties and national movements set up last month, rejects any form of cooperation with what it calls the Soviet "puppet" government. The group wants to hold alternative elections for a new national congress.

One man certain to play a pivotal role in Georgia's future is Zviad Gamsakhurdia, chairman of the Georgian Helsinki Union and a leader of the National Forum. The son of one of the republic's best-loved writers and a distinguished translator and literary scholar in his own right, Gamsakhurdia is viewed by many of his countrymen as something of a Georgian Vaclav Havel. Twice imprisoned for his nationalist views, Gamsakhurdia believes full sovereignty can be achieved only through nonviolent opposition to Soviet rule. As he explains, "It is senseless to declare independence when the Soviet army and administration are still here. No Soviet institutions can bring freedom to Georgia. The only way is through civil disobedience."

The Georgian Helsinki Union has drafted an economic program that attempts to prove that the republic can survive alone. Georgia not only can feed itself but also has sufficient reserves of oil, coal and hydroelectricity to meet its energy needs. Furthermore, the republic boasts mineral deposits plus undeveloped forests, Black Sea beaches and Caucasus mountain peaks. The major drawback for Georgia, argues the document, is that "its energies are constrained by the limits of an economic system imposed from the outside." The union proposes "shock treatment" for one year to build a free market out of the republic's thriving underground economy.

Such grandiose plans may come to naught if the Georgian independence drive sparks ethnic tensions among the republic's minority peoples, who make up a substantial 30% of the population. Many are concerned about the Georgia-for- Georgians tone that has been creeping into the political debate. Gamsakhurdia believes Moscow is "fighting against us through the hand of other nationalities."

For the moment, the Kremlin seems to be hoping that if it ignores the Georgian national movement, it might somehow go away. But what will happen when Moscow wakes up to the fact that independence is a word not limited to the Lithuanians? Gorbachev makes no secret of how deeply he fears the movements seeking to redraw the boundaries of his country. At a meeting with young Communists last week, he predicted, "If we begin to divide up, I'll give it to you bluntly, we'll end up in such a civil war, in such bloody ! carnage that we won't be able to crawl out of it." Given the tragic memories in Tbilisi, it was a fate Georgians were determined to avoid.