Word: tbilisi
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...There was obviously a lot of concern about the military's role in suppressing the demonstrations in Tbilisi last April ((in which 20 people were killed)). An inquiry, which was published in the Georgian press, has some very critical things to say about the military leadership. What should be the role of the army in preserving order in the country...
...troops were deployed in Tbilisi was the decision of the Georgian government. It was not the decision of the military. It is, of course, another matter that everything ended so badly. But there are other areas, like Azerbaijan, where the armed forces are preventing events that result in | bloodshed and are keeping order. What happened in Georgia was a single incident. A painful event. But it did not happen at the initiative of the military. Our government learned a lesson: our armed forces do not participate in such events now, and local governments have no right to give them orders...
...Journalist-Deputy Yuri Chernichenko took a daring jab at Politburo conservative Yegor Ligachev, wondering why he had been placed in charge of agriculture when "he was absolutely ignorant of this sphere and had failed with ideology." Others called for a review of the events in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi last April, when soldiers and riot squads attacked demonstrators with shovels and, it is alleged, with poison gas, killing 20. The probing questions continued until the new First Vice President and nonvoting Politburo member, Anatoli Lukyanov, was moved to read out three hitherto secret telegrams sent from the Georgian party...
...suspicion that the Congress would turn into a totally rubber-stamp legislature, however, was dispelled minutes into the opening session, when a Latvian delegate strode uninvited to the podium. "I ask you to honor the memory of those who died in Tbilisi," urged the gray-bearded man, referring to the 20 demonstrators killed in the Georgian capital in April, some reportedly with poison gas, during clashes with army troops. That request, which prompted the delegates to rise for a moment of silence, was not merely unrehearsed, it was an explicit act of defiance that went against Gorbachev's wish that...
...great Napoleon, who fearing neither bullets nor death, led the nation to victory, but owing to sycophants and his wife, transformed the republic into an empire." Marju Lauristin, a prominent Estonian nationalist, asked who in the ruling Politburo "knew in advance that troops would be used in Tbilisi." Others complained about Gorbachev's failure to improve his people's standard of living and mentioned rumors that he is building a fancy dacha for himself on the Black Sea in Crimea. Even the man who stood up to nominate Gorbachev for President, author Chingiz Aitmatov, did so with a few cavils...