Posted on 11/23/2003 4:33:28 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Shevardnadze Quits in Georgia 'Velvet Revolution'
Sun Nov 23, 3:07 PM ET Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Elizabeth Piper
TBILISI, Georgia (Reuters) - Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze announced his resignation Sunday, bowing to opposition protesters who stormed parliament and declared a "velvet revolution" in the former Soviet republic.
"I see that all this cannot simply go on. If I was forced tomorrow to use my authority it would lead to a lot of bloodshed. I have never betrayed my country and so it is better that the president resigns," Shevardnadze said on television.
Shevardnadze's white-haired head was bowed as he walked away, but the former Soviet foreign minister -- accused in mass protests in the poverty plagued Caucasus state of vote-rigging -- gave a strained smile and lifted his hand to wave goodbye.
His resignation followed talks with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and main opposition leader Mikhail Saakashvili at the veteran Georgian president's suburban residence in the capital Tbilisi.
Tens of thousands of opposition supporters in Tbilisi exploded in rapturous celebrations when Shevardnadze gave up 11 years of power in Georgia, closely watched by the West and investors because of a pipeline project to take Caspian oil to the Mediterranean Sea. Fireworks ripped into the sky.
Western governments were in contact with the Kremlin over the departure of Shevardnadze -- a hero in the West when he helped oversee the end of the Cold War. In Washington, State Department spokesman Steven Pike said: "We are following the situation closely."
ELECTION FRAUD
Saakashvili told CNN the speaker of the outgoing parliament, Nino Burdzhanadze, would take over as acting president from Shevardnadze, 75. The constitution provides for her to remain interim president for 45 days pending elections.
"Now it is important that...Shevardnadze and the police of Georgia and the armed forces, as well as the acting president, preserve stability and calm in the country," said Saakashvili, a 35-year-old U.S.-trained lawyer.
Saakashvili had called on supporters to march on Shevardnadze's residence to force him to resign after a three-week protest campaign against alleged rigging in a November 2 parliamentary election.
Crowds outside parliament shouted "Victory, our victory" and Saakashvili led a parade of vehicles from Shevardnadze's residence to chants of "We won, we won." Many people waved red-and-white opposition flags out of car windows.
Shevardnadze had said earlier in the day he was ready to discuss key opposition demands, including an early presidential poll, but opponents said it was too late for talks.
BLOODY CIVIL WAR
His resignation occurred amid signs that some security forces were moving over to the opposition side in the mountain state of five million. Georgians fought a bloody civil war in the early 1990s and two regions have broken away from central government rule.
A group of up to 200 men and women, saying they were members of the national guard, had joined the opposition supporters before Shevardnadze quit.
Burdzhanadze said she believed Shevardnadze had left Georgia after resigning. "I understand he left the country and I don't know where he is," the acting president told CNN. She did not say where her information came from.
Shevardnadze, who officially had 1-1/2 years left as president, was widely blamed for Georgia's grinding poverty. He survived two assassination attempts in the 1990s.
Saturday, protesters seized the parliament. In an echo of the "people power" protests that swept Eastern Europe in 1989, the military stood aside. Shevardnadze was forced to flee.
As Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's foreign minister, Shevardnadze strode across continents, playing a key role in negotiations with the West and East European states that ushered in the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism.
For the last decade he had been in charge of what had become an impoverished, violent and unstable state.
"I know (Shevardnadze) well. He is by no means a coward and surely understood that the time had come to take such a step to prevent the break-up of Georgia. And on that score, I believe he did the right thing," Gorbachev was quoted as saying by Russia's Interfax news agency.
A European Union (news - web sites) spokeswoman said: "The position of the EU is that we want Georgia to go back as soon as possible to stability and within the constitutional framework."
Like Western governments, international oil companies kept watch on events in Georgia. "At this stage it is about the political system in the country and we just have to observe, like everybody else," said a spokesman for oil giant BP.
--written by Warren Zevon 1989. He turned out to be a pretty fair prophet, after all.
Zevon Music BMI
One thing I do know, Georgia is VERY geo-political.
Not that it's necessarily a high recommendation, but Reuters gives her a good review:
Burdzhanadze a cool head in emotional Georgia
A lawyer with internationally published essays, Burdzhanadze has been the considered the other half in a partnership formed with Georgia's main opposition leader Mikhail Saakashvili, for the purpose of removing the veteran president.
Her measured words and appeals for calm have balanced the strident pose of Saakashvili, the main force behind some of the biggest Georgian protests in a decade.
''We should be calm and organised,'' she told supporters during and after they stormed parliament, forcing Shevardnadze to flee in confusion as he was addressing the new assembly's inaugural session after a disputed election.
She also thanked the police and army ''who did not raise their hands against the peaceful people of their own country.''
Burdzhanadze, 39 and married with two children, seems an unlikely leader of what Saakashvili has called a ''velvet revolution,'' referring to the bloodless 1989 end of communism in Czechoslovakia.
Buttoned up in tailored suits, many say she reminds them of a school head mistress. Her clipped but elegant Georgian goes straight to the point.
Widely popular among women, she has been twice elected to Georgia's parliament since she ended lengthy studies and consulting work at the Environment Ministry and parliament's Committee on Foreign Relations.
Like Saakashvili, Burdzhanadze once backed Georgia's now embattled president, who took power in 1992 after a period of huge upheaval following the collapse of communism.
She has called on opposition activists not to turn their wrath over the modern Georgia's dire straits into attacks on the 75-year-old Shevardnadze. At the same time she has been blunt in branding his administration corrupt.
''We should protect the physical security of the president, like any other citizen of this country,'' she said after the opposition seized the country's parliament on Saturday.
He was an ally in the war on terror with us. Your above list is dubious.
He was more like Noriega or Somosa.
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