Georgia puts military on alert over row with renegade region

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, March 15, 2004

Georgia puts military on alert over row with renegade region

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Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili put the state military on alert on Sunday and threatened to impose an economic blockade on its Black Sea region of Adzhara unless its leaders concede his control of the province.

Saakashvili warned Adzharan leader Aslan Abashidze that his government would close Adzhara's airspace, block the oil port of Batumi and freeze accounts of companies linked to Adzharan leaders.

Saakashvili's most serious threat was to block the port which ships around 200,000 barrels per day of oil and refined products from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan via Azerbaijan. He gave Abashidzea deadline until Monday to recognize Tbilisi's authority.

"I am giving Abashidze until tomorrow night for reflection," Saakashvili told a news briefing in the Black Sea port town of Poti.

"I demand first, freedom of movement for me and any official onAdzhara's territory, second to let Adzhara residents freely express their will, and third to allow free election campaigning in Adzhara," he said.

Saakashvili issued the warning to Adzhara after he was twice prevented from entering the Black Sea region. Russia, Georgia's giant northern neighbor and patron of Adzhara's leaders, warned Georgia of "grave and unpredictable consequences" if it sends forces into the region. But the Georgian leader said Tbilisi wanted no foreign interference.

The current crisis flared early Sunday after armed men loyal toAbashidze -- who has for years irked Georgia's rulers by refusing to take orders from Tbilisi -- blocked Saakashvili and his entourage from driving into Adzhara and fired automatic rounds into the air over his motorcade.

Saakashvili turned around and drove to the nearby city of Poti,where he convened an emergency cabinet meeting, ordered the military onto high alert and shut down Adzhara's airspace.

Abashidze, the ruler of Adzhara on Georgia's Black Sea coast, warned that Saakashvili was planning an armed invasion and a coup plot against him.

Saakashvili, a 36-year-old US-educated lawyer who came to powerin January on a promise to bring Georgia's wayward provinces back into line, has had a war of words with Adzhara's authorities over the status of the region in the past months.

Relations between Tbilisi and Adzhara have been tense for years.Abashidze, a pro-Moscow regional ruler, has withheld taxes from the Georgian central government and has set up his own security forces which take orders only from him.

The standoff over control of Adzhara has also worsened the already tense relations between Georgia and Russia, which still has a Soviet-era military base in the small Black Sea region.

And it further undermines the stability of Georgia, which lost control over two other openly separatist regions -- Abkhazia and South Ossetia -- in Soviet times.

"It's all about an attempt at armed mutiny against Georgia, ...Georgia is under real threat of disintegration and collapse," saidSaakashvili.

Abashidze, who spent the weekend on one of his frequent visits to Moscow, returned late on Sunday night and urged Russia "to stopthe invasion forces which will bring new bloodshed and refugees," Russian news agencies reported.

Source: Xinhua

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