<
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/15/international/europe/15GEOR.html?th>President of Georgia Pleads for Calm as Protests Grow
By SETH MYDANS
Published: November 15, 2003
MOSCOW, Nov. 14 — A postelection standoff erupted into turmoil in Georgia on Friday as thousands of antigovernment protesters filled the streets, surrounding the presidential compound as truckloads of soldiers stood by.
President Eduard A. Shevardnadze addressed the nation on television, pleading for calm and warning that the protests could spark a civil war. He rebuffed calls for his resignation but said he was ready to talk with opposition leaders in this former Soviet republic.
"As long as I am president, a legally elected president, I won't allow the nation to split and civil war to break out, although the real danger of this exists," said Mr. Shevarnadze, 75, waving his hands and looking pale.
"I still appeal to everyone to calm down and act peacefully for the sake of your motherland, of our motherland," he said. "From civil confrontation to civil war is a short step."
As many as 20,000 chanting protesters, shown on Russian television, danced and chanted slogans as evening fell, by far the largest crowd in more than a week of daily protests outside the Parliament building in Tbilisi, Georgia's capital.
A row of helmeted soldiers wearing black ski masks faced the crowd from behind their shields in front of the presidential office. Reporters on the scene said armored personnel carriers and truckloads of soldiers were parked nearby.
<snip>
The demonstrations began as a protest against a manipulated parliamentary election on Nov. 2, which one diplomat called "a mess from start to finish."
The protests have swelled into a cry of anger over a decade of mismanagement during which Mr. Shevardnadze has let this small nation in the Caucasus slide into poverty, joblessness, corruption and a breakdown in services. Few of the former Soviet republics have plummeted farther and faster since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 than this ancient mountain land.
(con't)............
Hmmmmmm.........:tinfoilhat: sounding familiar DUrs
This is a great article!!!.... We can learn too.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
