GEORGIA: REBEL LEADER ASLAN ABASHIDZE GOES INTO EXILE AS GEORGIAN PRESIDENT MIKHAIL SAAKASHVILI PROCLAIMS START OF UNIFICATION OF COUNTRY

Record ID: 643526

  • Title: GEORGIA: REBEL LEADER ASLAN ABASHIDZE GOES INTO EXILE AS GEORGIAN PRESIDENT MIKHAIL SAAKASHVILI PROCLAIMS START OF UNIFICATION OF COUNTRY
  • Date: 6th May 2004
  • Summary: (W5) BATUMI, ADZHARA, GEORGIA (MAY 6, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. VARIOUS OF GEORGIAN PRESIDENT MIKHAIL SAAKASHVILI LEAVING BUILDING GREETED BY SUPPORTERS CHANTING "MISHA, MISHA" (SHORTENED VERSION OF HIS FIRST NAME) 0.12 2. VARIOUS OF SAAKASHVILI AMONG CROWD OF SUPPORTERS 0.31 3. SLV ARMOURED PERSONNEL CARRIER (APC) WITH SOLDIERS ON TOP OF IT DRIVING THROUGH THE CITY 0.37 4. SLV CAR WITH GEORGIAN FLAGS DRIVING THROUGH CITY CENTRE 0.46 5. SLV APC PARKED ON THE STREET, SOLDIERS SITTING NEARBY 0.50 6. VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WALKING THROUGH THE STREETS, WAVING 0.58 7. SOLDIERS PATROLLING THE PORT OF BATUMI 1.06 8. WIDE OF SHIPS IN THE PORT 1.13 9. VARIOUS OF CRANES LOADING AND UNLOADIGN SHIPMENTS 1.20 10. SLV NAVAL OFFICERS IN THE PORT 1.24 11. WIDE OF GATES AT ENTRANCE TO THE PORT/ SOLDIERS BEHIND GATES 1.32 12. SLV SOLDIERS GUARDING ENTRANCE TO THE PORT 1.40 13. LV OIL STORAGE TANKS 1.46 14. WIDE OF SOLDIERS OUTSIDE RESIDENCE OF FORMER ADZHARAN LEADER ASLAN ABASHIDZE 1.52 15. SLV SOLDIERS RESTING UNDER THE PALM TREE 1.56 16. SLV SOLDIER CARRYING MACHINE GUN, WALKING 2.04 17. WIDE OF PEOPLE WITH GEORGIAN FLAGS AND SOLDIERS GUARDING MONUMENT TO ASLAN ABASHIDZE'S GRANDFATHER 2.11 18. SCU (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) BONDO KAKUBAYA, A REFUGEE FROM GEORGIA'S ABKHAZIA REGION SAYING "Our President (Mikhail) Saakashvili will help us in the near future, not in a year or two but I think in several months, like here (in Adzhara); we will return to Abakhazia peacefully. As it was here, we don't need war." 2.22 19. SLV GIRL WALKING, CARRYING SAAKASHVILI'S PORTRAIT, SHOUTING "MISHA" 2.30 20. SLV CAR DRIVING WITH GEORGIAN FLAG AND A TOY-BEAR (A BEAR IN RUSSIAN IS CALLED A "MISHA") 2.43 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 21st May 2004 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BATUMI, ADZHARA, GEORGIA
  • Country: Georgia
  • Reuters ID: LVACQ1ZF5Q4RV0J07Y13JM3ICY63
  • Story Text: Georgian leader triumphs in Adzhara and sees
    prospect of a reunited country.



    Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili proclaimed
    the start of his country's reunification on Thursday (May
    6, 2004) after forcing out the Adzhara region's rebel
    leader in his second "rose revolution" in six months.

    After a night of opposition rallies and a massive
    defection of his loyalists, Adzhara's leader Aslan
    Abashidze flew into exile with Kremlin envoy Igor Ivanov
    who had helped to negotiate a peaceful end to the crisis.

    The ouster of Abashidze, who ruled the Black Sea region
    as a fiefdom for 14 years, was a first step to Saakashvili
    fulfilling his pledge to restore central rule over the
    whole fractious former Soviet republic of 5.5 million.

    Hours after the coup, dozens Georgian soldiers manned
    key installations in Batumi as Saakashvili supporters drove
    in cars or walked along the sea front carrying posters of
    Saakashvili and Georgia's national flag. Others stood
    outside Abashidze's former residence and the hotel where
    the Georgian leader rested up after an emotional night.

    He now faces the burden of running the province, whose
    200,000-barrel-per-day oil port and customs point on the
    Turkish border, so far under the control of Abashidze,
    could now become major contributors to a lean national
    budget.

    Georgian authorities, who on Wednesday said the port
    had been mined by Abashidze's supporters, said on Thursday
    they would de-mine it within hours. A port source said it
    was working smoothly and expressed doubts it had ever been
    mined.

    As Batumi and the rest of the Adzhara region woke up to
    a chapter in it's post-soviet history, some hoped for a
    truly united Georgia.

    "Our President (Mikhail) Saakashvili will help us in
    the near future, not in a year or two but I think in
    several months, like here (in Adzhara); we will return to
    Abkhazia peacefully. As it was here, we don't need war,"
    said Bondo Kakubaya, an elderly resident of Batumi but also
    a refugee from Georgia's Abkhazia region.

    The two breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia
    still pose major challenges to Saakashvili, a 37-year-old
    U.S.-trained lawyer elected in January after leading a
    bloodless coup to oust veteran president Eduard
    Shevardnadze last year.

    The departure of Abashidze, 65, announced by
    Saakashvili, ended a standoff between the two men that
    sprang up after the Georgian president took power.

    Speaking to Reuters in Batumi, Saakashvili said
    Abashidze had been "some kind of mini-Saddam Hussein".

    A diminutive, grey-haired product of Soviet communism,
    Abashidze may have counted, wrongly, on his strong ties
    with business elites in Moscow to save him.

    But Russian President Vladimir Putin clearly put a
    greater price on good relations with Saakashvili and in the
    end the Kremlin sent an envoy to secure Abashidze's quiet
    departure.

    Like Shevardnadze last November, Abashidze initially
    defied demands to resign. Shevardnadze put his forces on
    high alert, while Abashidze imposed a state of emergency in
    the province, bringing the situation close to an armed
    confrontation.

    Just as he did with Shevardnadze, Russia's Ivanov
    then foreign minister and now secretary of the Kremlin's
    Security Council -- cajoled former ally Abashidze into
    accepting security guarantees from Saakashvili and leave
    power without fuss.

    Russia is a big player in the region, with a military
    base that Saakashvili wants removed and a keen interest in
    oil transit routes.

    The United States, which Georgia sees as a major
    strategic ally, welcomed the end of the crisis.

    Russia's Itar-Tass news agency said Abashidze, his son
    Georgy and several close allies arrived in Moscow early on
    Thursday. Saakashvili promised not to pursue him or seek
    his extradition if he left quietly.

    Georgia's acting Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili,
    who is in Moscow for talks on improving relations, praised
    Moscow for its role.


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