Washington Post - 11.02.2001

 

Washington Post

Shevardnadze Fires His Government

Georgian Political Crisis Sparked by Raid on Independent TV

By Peter Baker

MOSCOW, Nov. 1 -- Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze fired his government today in an attempt to defuse a growing political crisis in the impoverished former Soviet republic as thousands of angry demonstrators took to the streets demanding changes at the top.

Shevardnadze dismissed his entire cabinet and accepted the chief prosecutor's resignation following a controversial raid by state security agents against an independent television station this week. The dramatic decision came just hours after the head of Parliament, a longtime ally of the president and No. 2 in the line of succession, announced his surprise resignation to prod Shevardnadze into taking action.

"Everybody is resigning today in this country," Zurab Zhvania, the speaker of Parliament, said by telephone from his government office in Tbilisi, the capital, trying to speak above the din of protesters who could be heard shouting outside his window.

Everybody, that is, except Shevardnadze. Although he initially threatened to resign rather than sacrifice key ministers, Shevardnadze went on national television tonight to insist he would not step down. Instead, he vowed to restructure his government by creating a new executive cabinet led for the first time by a prime minister who would take over many of the duties and powers now in the president's hands.

"The country needs the president," Shevardnadze said. "I am not an irresponsible person who can put on his hat and leave. I must control the process of establishing the cabinet of ministers."

Fueled by deep discontent with a decade of economic hardship, civil strife and rampant corruption, the political breakdown in Tbilisi has been brewing for some time. But it arrived at a particularly dangerous moment, when new fighting has broken out in the separatist, pro-Russian region of Abkhazia.

In Tuesday's raid, the state security ministry dispatched 30 agents to the headquarters of Rustavi 2, ostensibly for a tax investigation. The station director refused to allow the agents to examine the financial files, creating an awkward standoff that the station promptly broadcast live. Outraged by the move, an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 people, mainly students, gathered in downtown Tbilisi to protest beginning Wednesday.

"They were so against the government that the attack against Rustavi 2 was the last straw that forced them to go into the streets," said Nika Tabatadze, the station's chief executive. "It's almost like Yugoslavia after [Slobodan] Milosevic."

Home to 5 million people in the rugged peaks and valleys of the Caucasus Mountains, Georgia attracts disproportionate attention on the world stage because of its close ties to the West in a strategic, oil-rich region and because of its famous leader, the silver-haired former Soviet foreign minister who helped Mikhail Gorbachev end the Cold War. But while Shevardnadze remains an icon in the West, to many critics at home he has outlived his era.

Even with generous economic aid from the United States, the promises of a Western-style market economy have not borne fruit for many Georgians, who scrape by while waiting for back wages, looking for work or collecting a pension of $7 a month. With 60 percent of the population living under the poverty line, pervasive tales of graft in government -- and even within Shevardnadze's own family -- only evoke more indignation.

"The people are fed up," said Zhvania, the speaker of Parliament, in an interview. "They are moved to the street by the ideals and the dream to live in a normal country that is clean of corruption."

Under pressure, the minister for state security resigned on Wednesday, but Shevardnadze at first refused to force out Interior Minister Kakha Targamadze, who controls domestic police and has been at the center of many accusations of abuses. By this morning, however, Zhvania's resignation and the growing public support of the demonstrators changed Shevardnadze's mind.

Kakha Imnadze, the presidential press secretary, said in an interview that the raid against Rustavi 2 was legal but "a stupid move" that "stirred emotions." He cast Shevardnadze's decision as a testament to Georgia's transition away from its Communist past when political opposition was simply squelched.

"It can be a triumph of democracy, what's happened in Georgia," he said. "We had people in the streets demanding active measures from the president. The president took resolute steps. The Parliament responded with resolute steps as well. This is what democracy is about. It's a government of the people, by the people and for the people and it was manifested today."