Georgia Descending Into Chaos

By JOHN KOHAN MOSCOW

Fate can be fickle. Georgian leader Zviad Gamsakhurdia made history eight months ago when he became the first person to win the presidency of a Soviet republic by popular election. It was a stunning triumph for the anticommunist nationalist, who had been at the forefront of Georgia's campaign to gain independence from Moscow. Gamsakhurdia's lead at the polls was so commanding -- he had 87% of the vote -- that few doubted his hold on power. Last week he made history again, this time in an ignominious way: he became the first elected President of a former Soviet republic to be ousted in a paramilitary coup.

For two weeks, fighting had raged in the heart of the capital of Tbilisi between troops loyal to Gamsakhurdia and forces determined to end what they claimed was his dictatorial rule. By early Monday morning last week, after enduring heavy shelling, Gamsakhurdia finally decided it was time to retreat. Accompanied by his family and loyal supporters, he slipped out of the underground bunker in the parliament building where he had been living in a state of siege and fled to the neighboring republic of Armenia.

Tengiz Kitovani, a member of the country's self-proclaimed new Military Council and commander of the rebel National Guard units that helped topple Gamsakhurdia, triumphantly announced, "A new democratic Georgia has been born." But has it? The men who took over are just as strongly nationalistic and authoritarian as Gamsakhurdia, leaving it unclear what political changes they might make. Nor was it known whether the new leadership would move to join the Commonwealth of Independent States that groups together 11 other former Soviet republics. For now, Georgia seems to be playing a perilous lone hand.

The high cost of the victory by the violent and well-armed opposition was visible everywhere in the center of Tbilisi. A heavy pall of black smoke hung over the parliament building, where artillery shells had blown away huge chunks of the walls. On nearby Rustaveli Avenue only the scorched facades remained of graceful pastel houses. Gutted buses, twisted car wrecks and hundreds of scattered machine-gun cartridges bore silent witness to the ferocity of the fighting, which, officials said, left at least 90 people dead. Some estimates put the total closer to 400.

The putsch leaders claimed that brute force was necessary to end Gamsakhurdia's brief, tyrannical rule. But they have set a dangerous precedent for the new republics. In overthrowing a popularly elected President, the Georgian rebels discredited the country's fledgling democratic institutions and opened the way for the kind of cyclical struggle between armed political clans that has hampered the growth of democracy elsewhere in the developing world. Says Soviet nationalities expert Paul Goble: "The idea that Gamsakhurdia is a fascist thug being replaced by liberals is nonsense." Not only is Georgia's own future clouded, but there is no guarantee that similar events might not be repeated tomorrow in any of the former Soviet republics, given the explosive mix of ethnic, economic, political and military problems confronting them.

The new Georgian Military Council vowed to turn over power "in the very near future" to a provisional civilian government led by former Prime Minister Tengiz Sigua, a onetime Gamsakhurdia ally who was pushed out of office in a political squabble. But Military Council member Dzhaba Ioseliani, head of the anti-Gamsakhurdia Mkhedrioni, or White Horsemen, paramilitary squads, suggested that the timetable would depend on how quickly life in the republic returned to normal. "Power is now in our hands," he said. "Until things calm down and until democratic institutions take root, we will keep power."

There was widespread skepticism about Ioseliani's claim. Said a senior British diplomat: "The new leaders barely control the center of Tbilisi, let alone the republic. The place is in the throes of anarchy." As word of Gamsakhurdia's downfall spread, thousands of the ousted leader's supporters gathered at the capital's train station for a march through the city. For the second time since the conflict began, gunmen tossed smoke bombs and opened fire on the crowd, scattering the demonstrators. Ioseliani defended the use of terror to enforce a state of emergency in Tbilisi, but it has not lessened the danger of civil war breaking out in other parts of Georgia, especially in the western regions, where armed Gamsakhurdia supporters have already challenged the new regime. The coup leaders also face difficulties with the republic's restive South Ossetian and Abkhasian minorities, who are pressing for their own independence.

From a safe haven across the Armenian border in the town of Idzhevan, Gamsakhurdia wasted no time in lashing out against the Military Council, blaming criminals, bandits and a communist "Mafia" for his defeat. The Armenians have not offered Gamsakhurdia political asylum, but they also have not pressured him to leave the republic. It is clearly a ticklish diplomatic problem. If Gamsakhurdia attempts to go abroad, Georgia's current leaders say they will press for his extradition to stand trial on criminal charges. But as long as the deposed President remains so close to home, he will continue to be a destabilizing factor. Gamsakhurdia certainly has no intention of giving up. "I am still the President of Georgia," he vowed, "the legitimate President."

A noted human-rights activist and scion of one of Georgia's most respected writers, Gamsakhurdia seemed to have perfect credentials for his job. But he was too haunted by his own past persecution by the KGB and by the need to settle old scores to be a truly democratic leader. Obsessed with conspiracies involving "agents of the Kremlin," the President closed down liberal newspapers and barred critics from television. During a wave of protest against his authoritarian rule last autumn, police loyal to him fired on demonstrators, and he jailed opposition leaders. He was intent on extending his power into the provinces by appointing presidential prefects, but he showed no interest in radical economic reforms. Georgia became isolated from the other republics, especially Russia, the region's primary supplier of bread and fuel. Last week the opposition accused the deposed President of torturing hostages during his final days in the bunker and claimed he had run off with state treasury funds.

With his special brand of mystical nationalism, Gamsakhurdia had become such a commanding figure on the Georgian political stage that it is hard to see how any of the current leaders could aspire to replace him. Fault lines have already begun to show in the loosely united anti-Gamsakhurdia alliance, especially between the politicians and the paramilitary men. "The council's only uniting factor has been opposition to Gamsakhurdia," said a British diplomat. "Now that he is gone, they are falling out among themselves." Not all its members are equally committed to parliamentary democracy and presidential rule. Georgi Chanturia, the radical leader of the National Democratic Party, calls for a constitutional monarchy. Others advocate various forms of theocracy, uniting the Georgian Orthodox Church and the state.

There is one Georgian who rivals Gamsakhurdia in stature and who, as a former local Communist Party boss, knows every eddy in the complicated crosscurrents of Tbilisi politics: former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. In talks with the putsch leaders last week, he offered his help in getting democratic reform back on track. He publicly praised the takeover as a "democratic revolution" and promised "to devote all my energy to starting a movement of international support for building a democratic Georgia." Shevardnadze would certainly lend any post-Gamsakhurdia leadership the kind of authority it needs in the West. But the veteran diplomat suffers from one major handicap: he may be too closely identified with the Kremlin to suit his intensely nationalistic compatriots.

The violent events in Tbilisi herald a new era where no one can afford to shrug off the politics of Georgia -- or Azerbaijan or Kirghzia or Turkmenistan. Now that all the parts of the old Soviet empire are clamoring to be recognized as independent sovereign states, their appeals will have to be seriously considered by the international community, however far they may be from the ideals of a Western democracy. As a U.S. official ruefully admitted, "Gamsakhurdia won an overwhelming expression of support in the May election. On the other hand, he was not running a democratic state." Self- determination may be a splendid principle, but the reality can be very different.

With reporting by William Mader/London and J.F.O. McAllister/ Washington