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'Together We Will Win': Demonstration Of Defiance On Streets Of Tbil

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  • 'Together We Will Win': Demonstration Of Defiance On Streets Of Tbil

    'TOGETHER WE WILL WIN': DEMONSTRATION OF DEFIANCE ON STREETS OF TBILISI
    By Shaun Walker in Tbilisi

    Independent
    Wednesday, 13 August 2008
    UK

    They flocked to Rustaveli Street in their thousands, waving Georgian
    flags, chanting and straining their necks to get a view of the
    politicians on stage, whose words were boomed across central Tbilisi
    via loudspeakers. There was a party atmosphere as helpers handed out
    free ice creams, and the speakers milked the crowd like rock stars.

    There have been many surreal sights in this short, nasty war, but
    none quite so puzzling as that which unfolded on the main street of
    the Georgian capital yesterday. Little more than 12 hours after the
    country's army had quite literally run away from the key strategic
    city of Gori without so much as firing a shot, the Georgian President,
    Mikheil Saakashvili, and his ministers held a rally that bore all
    the hallmarks of a victory celebration.

    The proceedings began shortly after Russia's President, Dmitry
    Medvedev, claimed that military operations were over, but many in
    the 150,000-strong crowd still seemed to believe the misinformation
    spread on Monday by the Georgians that the Russian army had captured
    Gori and were preparing an assault on Tbilisi, 45 miles away.

    They were in defiant mood, as a Georgian minister shouted out to the
    crowd: "All nationalities together in Georgia - the Armenians, the
    Azeris, the Georgians and the Ossetians! We will be together! We will
    win! Together we will win!" Shouts of approval went up in the crowd.

    One after another, top government officials gave speeches in the same
    vein. "We will never surrender and we will tell this to the enemy
    thousands and thousands of times," said Georgia's Deputy Foreign
    Minister, Giga Bokeria, one of Mr Saakashvili's closest allies.

    "We will never allow the Russians to do this!" said Gia Loria, 53,
    who was in the crowd with his friends. "We are a nation of warriors,
    and we will fight until the end. We will destroy the Russians and
    retake Gori; we'll drive them out of South Ossetia and we'll take
    back Abkhazia as well! Onwards!"

    Sukhumi and Tskhinvali, the respective capitals of Abkhazia and South
    Ossetia, were "the same as Jerusalem is for Israel", he said, and the
    Georgians would fight until the last to regain them. It was brave
    talk, but totally at odds with the reality of a population fleeing
    westwards from the Russian army. Gori had been abandoned without a
    fight, and people in Tbilisi reported a mass flight of residents to
    the region of Kakheti, so terrified were people that the Russians
    were advancing on the capital.

    Moscow has made it clear that it wants the pro-Western Mr Saakashvilli,
    who was educated at Columbia, out of office. But for now at least,
    the mood in Tbilisi suggests that the six-day war has made him more
    popular among Georgians. Among the Georgian flags in the crowd, there
    were banners proclaiming "I love you Misha", the diminutive form
    of the President's first name. When speakers praised his leadership
    during the conflict, the crowd roared its support.

    The last time crowds of this magnitude massed on Rustaveli Street was
    last November, when opposition parties demanded Mr Saakashvili step
    down and many Georgians took to the street in protest against his
    government before being brutally dispersed. Over the past year there
    has been pressure from opposition figures who challenged the Georgian
    leader over his democratic credentials and demanded he step down.

    But this time it was the President himself doing the talking. In
    defiant, finger-wagging mode, he said he was pulling Georgia out of the
    Commonwealth of Independent States, and declared Russian peacekeepers
    in Abkhazia and South Ossetia "occupying forces". The crowd lapped
    up his words, and even those who had wanted him out just a week ago
    had been converted to his biggest fans.

    "I, and a lot of my friends, used to be against him," said Niko
    Durchashvili, 57. "But he's our president, we elected him, and if we
    don't like him, we'll remove him ourselves, without Russia. This war
    has made Georgia united."

    Opposition leaders have been conspicuous by their absence. As the
    conflict erupted last Friday, an opposition leader announced a
    "moratorium on confrontation" with the authorities.

    "The situation is very difficult in the country. I think that there
    is no time for internal political disputes," Davit Gamkrelidze, head
    of the opposition New Rights Party, said at the time. "Under such
    conditions - it is an unwritten law - internal political confrontations
    and disputes should be stopped."

    But for all his defiance yesterday, the hot-headed Georgian President's
    days may be numbered. He came to power pledging that Abkhazia and
    South Ossetia would soon be part of a united Georgia, and if people
    on Rustaveli Street seemed still to believe that yesterday, it surely
    won't be long before they realise that this military defeat has made
    the prospect almost unimaginable.

    That is when Mr Saakashvili's reputation, already badly weakened on
    the international stage, may start to falter at home.

    "Most of Georgia is unified behind the President now," said Alexander
    Rondeli, a senior political analyst. "But there are certain rascals
    who are waiting for the moment to start to talk about his mistakes
    during this crisis."
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