Word: gamsakhurdia
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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...
...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...
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...
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...