Leaders urge calm in Georgia

TBILISI

The EU and Georgia’s influential Orthodox Church leader urged political forces in the former Soviet republic to step back from the brink yesterday after weeks of protests against the president flared into violence. 

Riot police wielding batons fought stick-wielding protesters on Wednesday night in Tbilisi and 28 people were injured. The previous day, a brief rebellion by a tank battalion cast a shadow over the start of month-long NATO exercises in Georgia that have angered neighbouring Russia.

The head of Georgia’s influential Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II, warned overnight the situation was “in danger of exploding” and urged the opposition not to step outside the law.

Czech ambassador Ivan Jestrab, representing the rotating EU presidency, told reporters that Georgia’s government and opposition should “start talks on the political solution of the existing situation”. Tensions are running high in the volatile South Caucasus country, which fought a five-day war with Russia last August when Moscow crushed a Georgian assault on the breakaway pro-Russian region of South Ossetia.

The opposition has been protesting and blocking streets in the capital since April 9, demanding President Mikheil Saakashvili resign over his record on democracy and last year’s disastrous war. Some opposition leaders said they were ready to meet the president and discuss an end to the stalemate.

“If we want to take this country out of the political crisis, he has to discuss with us how,” opposition leader Salome Zurabishvili said after meeting foreign diplomats. Around 3,000 people protested outside parliament.

An EU-brokered security meeting between Georgian, Russian and South Ossetian officials on their front line—the second such encounter—was cancelled in a dispute over the venue.

Russia blamed Georgia, while Tbilisi said it was South Ossetia which had boycotted the meeting. EU ceasefire monitors said they hoped the talks would be held “in the near future.”

Wednesday’s violence erupted when protesters converged on a police base where three activists were being held over the beating of a journalist working for the state broadcaster. Police and demonstrators clashed with sticks and batons across a metal gate dividing them.

The opposition accused police of firing rubber bullets, which the authorities denied. Twenty-two protesters and six police officers were wounded. Czech ambassador Jestrab said protesters had attacked police in “a criminal act, absolutely intolerable in a democratic society.”