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Georgia’s Crisis Enters “Serious Phase”
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"I appeal to the other side and warn them: bad things could happen,” Shevardnadze
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TBILISI,
November 14 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Georgian President
Eduard Shevardnadze warned the country was in danger of slipping into
civil war as an opposition leader called Friday, November 14, on some
10,000 demonstrators gathered in the country's capital Tbilisi to
march on Shevardnadze's office to demand his resignation.
"They
are afraid that we will take the chancellery, but we will not do
that," Mikhail Saakashvili told the crowd.
"We
will now go nearer to the steps of the chancellery and demand that
Shevardnadze steps down," he said, according to Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
The
crowd gathered in front of the parliament building but was being
blocked off from the chancellery by the police.
The
throng began to move in the direction of Shevardnadze's office after
Saakashvili's call and some approached to within 100 yards (meters) of
the chancellery.
But
riot police had parked buses and vehicles on all the roads leading to
the chancellery, blocking off access.
Television
pictures from inside a yard at the state chancellery showed about 100
riot police drawn up in lines. They also showed 10 special forces
troops with flak jackets and automatic machine guns climbing out of
jeeps inside the compound and entering the building.
Civil
War Warning
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"They are afraid that we will take the chancellery, but we will not do that," Saakashvili
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The
developments came only hours after the embattled President warned
Georgia was getting closer to “civil war”.
A
week of protests, sparked by a parliamentary election opposition
parties claim was rigged, is expected to reach a climax late Friday
after the opposition leader called on all five million of his
countrymen to join a demonstration in the capital, Tbilisi.
In
an impassioned plea broadcast on national television, Shevardnadze
urged people not to respond to the call.
"I
make this warning: today there will be an action but it will not be
some sort of theatrical presentation. It is all very serious. It is
all leading to civil war. It could be the beginning of the end,"
he said.
"I
appeal to everyone: get on with your own affairs, stay calm, take
yourself in hand, in the name of our homeland. Everyone is against
confrontation. I am warning that this is very dangerous."
"I
appeal to the other side and warn them: bad things could happen. While
I am the lawful President of Georgia I will not allow a division of
the people and civil war."
In
the strongest indication yet that he is ready to use force to keep
order, Shevardnadze said: "the military are ready today to do
everything to (defend) their homeland."
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Georgian opposition activists, how far can they go?
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Shevardnadze,
a former Soviet Foreign Minister who has dominated political life in
Georgia for nearly three decades, also dug in his heels over
opposition demands for his resignation.
"I
will not resign," he said. "That would be irresponsible on
my part. When the time comes I will go on my own accord but in this
situation of uncertainty, it is not going to happen."
The
protests have already left 75-year-old Shevardnadze - who is deeply
unpopular because of widespread corruption and poverty in Georgia -
fighting for his political survival. They have also revived
uncomfortable memories of a civil war which wracked the turbulent
republic in the early 1990s.
Georgia's
political turmoil is a headache for Western investors, who are
building a pipeline to export Caspian Sea oil to world markets, via
Georgia. The United States is backing the project as an alternative
source of oil to the troubled Gulf.
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