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Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Open Letter to Eduard Shevardnadze

INTRODUCTION

The "Open letter to Eduard Shevardnadze", written by the first president of the independent republic of Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, represents the statement of real facts that took place in Georgia and is brought to a broad public for judgment.

President Gamsakhurdia is clearing many facts and through reality gives to them the definite place in the history of Georgia. In this 'open letter' with chronological consistency, Zviad Gamsakhurdia describes how Eduard Shevardnadze was struggling against all kinds of manifestations and against the aspiration of the all-Georgian national liberation and independence. The plans of the Kremlin and its agents are fulfilling now in Georgia with the help of the false regime under the leadership of E. Shevardnadze.

Under the flag of 'democracy' without any mercy they annihilate the Georgian nation, turn it away from its own land, drive it out of its own land of origin and they are selling the territories that are indigenous parts of Georgia.

Zviad Gamsakhurdia analyses the events that were taking place in Georgia from the first days of E.Shevardnadze's activities and his role in the bloody coup d'etat in December 1991 - January 1992.

It is shown that these activities were criminal acts against the entire Georgian nation. Zviad Gamsakhurdia foresaw with magnificent preciseness the presumable consequences of the political cataclysms, such as violation of the territorial integrity and the loss of independence of Georgia which had been planned for years by the Kremlin, and with the help of artificially arranged ethno-conflicts and criminal bands these plans were fulfilled by the communist puppet E. Shevardnadze. Georgia forcedly became a member of the so-called Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and Samachablo and Abkhazia were taken from it.

This open letter was a kind of warning for Georgian people and publication will avoid the falsification of the real situation.

But unfortunately the world could not defend the independent Georgia from false democracy and open invasion from the Kremlin.

Georgia lost its independence at the end of the 20th century.

Shevardnadze is accused in the open letter of 19 heavy crimes, but now we have to add the heaviest crime: inspiring the murder of the first legitimate president of the Georgian republic, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who stayed truthful to the independence of Georgia.


I decided to address to you, as many things in our relations need to be explained as for the Georgian people, and also for all the world. This letter does not have the aim to insult you as a personality, it only reflects objective facts. I consider that all that was going on in Georgia during the time of your government in the Soviet period variably continues today and reflects the relations between Georgia and the Imperial Center, which from the very beginning puts the function of gendarme of Georgia on you. Because of that I want to remind you all even the smallest details and write down my conclusions. I an also ready to hear counterarguments. Everything else let people and publicity argue about.

Though personally we were acquainted to you even from the beginning of the 1960s, our first business meeting took place in 1970. You were the minister of internal affairs and considered yourself to be a friend of my father, the famous Georgian writer Konstantine Gamsakhurdia. That stimulated me to come to you on reception, when my father to the New Year had received an anonymous letter, as if from 'Russian and Armenian Nazi', written with angular letters in the Georgian language, which threatened my father and all Georgian people with physical annihilation. In that letter was said that the Georgian people stood on the way of degeneration and annihilation, and all this would be hurried up by Russian and Armenian 'Nazi'. In their words, Eastern Georgia should be passed into the hands of Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Western Georgia into the hands of Russia. Konstantine Gamsakhurdia as a public figure was the main obstacle on the way to achieve that aim, and that's why they threatened him with physical elimination. In the letter was the following phrase: "We are waiting for that minute, when we'll begin to shed the blood of Georgians. Slaughter we'll begin from the young generation".

For a long time I tried to make contact with you, but in vain.

Your reception answered me that you had a meeting, or said that you had left for the region. Obviously you knew beforehand with what question I was going to bother you. At last I managed to make contact with you through the government apparatus of the Writers' Union, and you received me. You read the letter, expressed your bewilderment, and instructed to investigate it to one of the inspectors of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Besides you told me to visit you again after ten days. I was greatly surprised that during our conversation was present the former head of the investigation department of the city office of Internal Affairs (deliberately I do not mention the name), who nearly took my and Merab Kostava's life in the time of our imprisonment in 1959 by the hands of killer-recidivists, specially sent to our cells. That was obviously your 'symbolic' answer to my legitimate demand to expose the author of the anonymous letter, and also the exposure of your position.

Subsequently you did not investigate anything and hushed up an affair.

Many threats of those 'Nazi' gradually became real in the following years, especially in this year during the bloody events in Georgia. But about that I shall speak later, and now I'll return to other points of our relation.

In the period of M. Mzavanadze, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, corruption and lawlessness were reigning. Georgian publicity was looking for a way out of this situation. You declared that you should struggle for integrity and principles, would put an end to the revelry of the mafia, and you would take care of Georgian culture (it's clear that it was not possible even to think about the independence of Georgia). Because of this many welcomed your coming to power in 1972. The hope came to me as well, in spite of the fact that I was a dissident and an enemy of the Soviet system. Though, now I see that it was the inexperience of a young person who was deceived by communist demagogy, though it could be very easily seen that flags of struggle against corruption were hoisted by the leaders of the most corruptible ministry.

Besides the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU always appointed as the heads of national republics specially chosen and checked collaborationists, careerists and russificators. It appears that Mzavanadze himself was considered as a 'nationalist' in comparison with you, so far as he (in consequence of his weakness, but not because of patriotism) could not declare war on his own nation, its language and culture, originality, because of that in the famous resolution of the Politburo there were mentioned 'nationalist' deviations of his period.

After your coming into power in the government, the illusion as if the mask of a communist and russificator that you needed for deceiving Moscow, that as if you took care quietly for the national problems of Georgia, soon disappeared. You have begun the campaign of Russification on such a scale that was unknown for the long-suffering Georgia, not even in the years of the Tsarist reactionary Black Hundreds. You have exterminated the Georgian language from all the state institutions and you have made the Russian language the factual state language. You have started the campaign against even the smallest manifestation of national spirit, you have condemned with 'nationalism' even the creation of works on historical themes and your writers and film producers have already created the falsification of history, obviously to propagate the unification of Georgia with Russia as the most progressive event, extolling the 'Soviet patriotism'.

Under the banner of 'internationalism' you have started an unprecedented oppression of the Georgian population in the cities and villages, the priviligation of non-Georgians and so on. You have started the struggle against the 'harmful customs and traditions', that in fact meant the struggle against religious ceremonies, and in parallel you implanted new communist, Soviet 'celebrations', where there was nothing but heavy drinking and gluttony. You implanted new Soviet Communist religious 'rituals'.

You have come to Georgia on the invitation of the present criminal-terrorist junta and you are often seen with other former partocrats in the church where you are lighting the candles. The present generation should know what your attitude was towards the Georgian church, how it governed with the authorities of your KGB, how you tried to turn it into a branch of the KGB, how the members of your Komsomol have been chasing faithful youth, especially in the period of the Easter celebration. They pushed young people through Komsomol clubs, which were functioning nearby every church, terrorized them, 'worked them up', registered them and after that there came repressions, exclusions from high schools, repressions against their families and so on. You converted churches into theaters and concert halls. You have abolished, for instance, the Shio-Mgvimi monastery that was functioning from the VI century, and its Father Superior, an aged man, has been closed in to the building of the church by your assistants on a freezing winter night, where he could hardly stay alive. Many priests had become the victims of the terror of your KGB in those years. You showed indulgence towards the military of the Transcaucasian military region annihilating our unique cultural monuments such as 'David Garedji' and 'Gelati', that was taking place according to the plans of the Empire.

It is generally known that during your being in power the lessons in Russian language at Georgian schools increased at the cost of lessons in Georgian language, how it was forbidden to teach the Georgian history, how you tried to russificate all the high schools in Georgia in 1976, to legitimate the reading of the main subjects in Russian language which caused great indignation among the conscious part of the Georgian population. In the same years Brezhnev's gigantomania, the building of gigantic hydro-electric power stations and enterprises, was supported by you, which was a manifestation of an ecological war against Georgia and in the end its aim was the genocide of its people. That also hastened the assimilation of the Georgian population as to provide such scale construction with national specialists not only Georgia, but even Ukraine and Kazakhstan were not able. You were one of the initiators of the construction of the Roky-tunnel in South Ossetia, of which the Georgian population is reaping the consequences and as a result we have lost the indigenous primordial Georgian lands Shida Kartli and Samachablo.

You, in compliance with M. Suslov, were doing all you best to intensify the separatist movement in Abkhazia by which was prepared the bloody ethnic conflict. Your campaign against the 'negative phenomena' appeared to be a struggle against corruption in the lower and middle parts of the society, while the higher bribe-takers were left inviolable. In that time the mafia of Khabeishvili and Mgeladze had control of millions, that you were sending lavishly to the Politburo, while for the slightest cheating in weight of products and other economic faults people were thrown in the prisons and thousands of ordinary people were sent to Siberia. In the words of a poet from your time, the person who had stolen the camel was hanging the thief of a needle, and to those thieves of the camel you were distributing the important posts. You were implanting unprecedented sadistic methods of torture in prisons, established in special second corps the lawyers-sadists and imprisoned agents (so-called 'blood-hens'), and mutilated and killed hundreds of people with the purpose to get testimonies favorable for the investigation and money, plunged thousands of families into misery (case of Tsirkvadze-Usupian, case of Frolov, opera case, etc.). Many of them are restored to their rights today and they are working on the same posts, probably they will get new 'loads' from you.

In parallel with the struggle against the negative phenomena you yourself implanted criminal methods in industrial-economic field, for example in Kakheti, with the purpose of the falsification of wine. You have brought sugar in large quantities to succeed in increasing the production of wine, which has defamed Georgian wine and Georgian wine industry. However, such falsifications have brought to you the Red Banners, the decorations of Hero of Socialist Labor and paved your way to the glory of the Kremlin.

In those years the moral degradation of the society has increased, and also the people that were searching for posts or trips abroad had to become agents of the KGB (it wasn't enough to be the member of the Communist Party). The result of this was that in the network of the KGB's secret service a considerable part of the intelligentsia, youth and priesthood was involved. In general the number of KGB agents had reached a new record in the period of your government, which you called 'socialization of the personality', as it was apparent that you were going to involve a large part of the population in the service of that odious institution.

In the center of Tbilisi you have erected the monument for the traitor of the Georgian people, Ordzhonikidze, and in Ozurgeti you erected the monument for the organizer of Ilia Chavchavadze's murder, Philipp Makharadze. You were cultivating the cult of the Communist renegades and fratricides in every possible way, and Georgia was at the top of all Soviet republics in the number of Lenin's monuments. You were always secretly encouraging the Stalin cult, as officially Stalin was convicted. You were repeatedly saying in the small circle of your acquaintances that Stalin was your teacher, what you were demonstrating in practice on every step. At the same time in Georgia there was no respect allowed to King David Agmashenebeli (the Builder), Queen Tamar, King Georgi Brtskinvale (the Glorious) and other great figures.

Thanks to you the word 'Georgian' became a synonym of 'embezzler', 'speculator' and 'bribe taker' in the Soviet Union and all over the world, although in other parts of the Empire speculation and bribery were rampant. You were chasing the real literature and science that was inspired by national spirit, and stimulated the literature of G.Pandzikidze and others and the pseudo- science that misrepresented Georgia's past. You were unprecedented cruel by not only chasing the dissident movement, but every slightest aspiration for freedom. In 1976 you have shot the Georgian patriot V.Dzvania, the fighter for Georgia's independence who had arranged explosions as a sign of protest against you in front of the government building in Tbilisi, Sukhumi and Kutaisi. In 1983, on your orders, the fearless female journalist N. Shamanauri has been tortured to death in the psychiatrical hospital in Tbilisi for denouncing your mafia, and also in 1983 young people were shot for the well known 'airplane case', although in other republics for such crimes people were given minimal punishment. Together with that was also shot the priest Fodor Tchikhladze, who was not guilty of anything, but accused of being their 'ideological leader'. In reality he was shot because he refused to be the agent of KGB.

The deplorable situation in Georgia, your draconic repressions and anti-Georgian and anti-democratic politics aroused the protest movement which was led by me and Merab Kostava. At one time we tried, in parallel with underground activities, also officially to express our opinion. In spite of that the doors of the editorial boards of newspapers and journals were closed for us, we were writing letters to you, statements about the situation of the Georgian language, Georgian culture, Georgian churches. You always refused to receive us and to our statements we got no reaction, except that in your speeches -in which you were not mentioning names- you referred to us as anti-Soviet demagogues, betrayers of the country (it's obvious that you meant the socialist country, for the motherland you have never recognized and still you do not recognize). At last we fully went working underground, made close connections with the democratic movement in the USSR, as we had the same goals. That was answered by the chase from the side of your KGB, calls, searches, detentions. After that against us there was launched an unprecedented campaign of slander in the press and on TV. I was expelled from the university where I was teaching American literature, excluded from the Writers' Union, and in 1977 we were arrested.

After the torture chambers of the KGB we were sent to psychiatric prisons: I was sent to the Serbsky 'Institute' of Forensic Psychiatry in Moscow, and Merab Kostava to the psychiatric department of Tbilisi prison hospital. You wanted to declare us madmen for denouncing your harsh regime, for the truth. At last we were saved when the Soviet punitive psychiatry was blamed at the world congress in Honolulu and also by the protests of French psychiatrists. With that we could avoid the psychiatric prison of Dnepropetrovsk, from which we would not be able to come out alive.

During the nearly a year and a half imprisonment in the KGB- prison on your instructions, I was threatened that they would publicly announce me as an agent of the Central Secret service department (TsRU), would be convicted for 'high treason', the members of my family would be annihilated, there would be fired at the youth demonstrations which were expected to take place to defend me, and during my detention in Moscow emissaries of Suslov were even threatening me with tearing away Abkhazia from Georgia in case I did not confess. My wife, who had an infant in her arms, was dismissed from her work during her maternity leave, leaving her without any subsistence, which hadn't even done Hitler and Stalin. Today your agents are in all possible ways falsifying the so-called 'confessions' at the court in 1978, as if they do not know the real situation of the case. Because of that once again I have to explain publicly my tactical retreat.

After our arrest the national movement of Georgia had some danger of annihilation. There was no person at liberty who would be able to completely continue the activities, to support the informational bridge with the West. At last, not seeing any other way out, me and Merab Kostava had to come to an agreement that I should confess some of my actions. To come out of the prison, to preserve the underground samizdat, to preserve the informational bridge with the West, Merab Kostava himself had taken the load of staying in prison, and at the same time had made a written declaration that my so-called confession was necessitated, resulting from our common case. I have brought this statement from the prison, though did not made it public, fearing to harm my friend. At last after his release he himself published it in the Moscow journal 'Glasnost' (1987, no. 5). In the same year he had sent the letter before being released from the colony of Ksani with analogous contents to Y.Bonner to pass it to A.Sakharov. It's ridiculous that you and your assistants today are speaking about my tactical retreat as 'treachery', as if your moral authority was exceeding the authority of Merab Kostava, as if you were a greater leader of the national liberation movement than he was!

However, you are disturbed by my 'confession' for absolutely other reasons. The thing is that if there was no 'confession' and my release from the prison in 1979 would not have taken place, then there would not have been a rise of the national movement, there would not have been the 9th of April and consequently there would be no end to the domination of the empire, nor free, democratic, multiparty elections in October 1990. That's why you are warping when remembering this difficult event for you.

At last you have exiled me to the Pricaspian semi desert, where I was saved by Georgian shepherds from hunger and death by freezing. But after my release and returnal to Georgia your assistants set a rumor about me, as if I had become your agent, which was believed by many and repeated for a long time, until Chanturia and other betrayers themselves showed to be your agents. The society publicly saw that still I was an only person who could inform the world public opinion about the situation in Georgia, who had established samizdat, who arranged protest actions together with the youth. Though in consequence you succeeded in tearing these young people away from me with the help of the KGB machinery, and made them my enemies. Besides everybody could see that still the most important object for chasing and shadowing from the side of the KGB was I. However, you restrained from my second arrest, fearing world public opinion. However, I see your supporters will notice: you are speaking about Shevardnadze's past, but today he is no longer the same. He has changed, transformed and became a democrat. He is one of the authors of 'perestrojka', you know. He has denounced the mistakes of his past, he has quit the Communist party, do not mention his past anymore, but speak about his present.

Because of that I'll take into consideration your activities after 'perestrojka'. It's true that you and Gorbachev had to begin relative liberalization under the pressure of world public opinion, though, in spite of the release of political prisoners and rehabilitation of Russian dissidents, the chasing of Georgian dissidents and their isolation from the society continued. In the years 1987-1989 there was still a raging campaign against me in the Soviet press, which however could not stop the unprecedented rise of the national liberation movement in Georgia, the culmination of what was the 9th of April, when you and Gorbachev for the last time tried to annihilate our movement with the help of military forces. Characteristic is that you, as one of the authors of the plan for the punishing operation, were sent to Georgia with the aim to lift the curfew (though today, after the putsch arranged by Moscow, you appeared again and established an endless curfew. You are not going to lift the curfew as you know that after that there will be the end of your regime).

At last democracy won in Georgia, there were free multiparty elections, which resulted in the failure of your party. From that day you have cherished revenge against me and have done your best to annihilate these achievements with the help of the forces of the empire. By the words of one of the Russian deputies the putsch has cost you and Gorbachev 65 million rubles. As a blind decoy of publicity you have congratulated me with the victory by telegram, though how sincere these congratulations were have shown the subsequent events. In Moscow you established the headquarters where you united all renegades and partocrats that escaped from Georgia, and started an unprecedented campaign all over the world against the new government of Georgia and especially against me. Together with the former Georgian dissidents and other betrayers of the national movement that had been bribed by you, you were assuring the world that in Georgia was established a totalitarian regime and a fascist dictatorship which was necessary to overthrow. It was out of question that we could speak about dictatorship, because more than 20 oppositional newspapers were published, in broadcasting it was only forbidden to call up for the overthrow of the government, freely were strolling around illegal armed formations and parties, we arrested only those persons who had committed concrete criminal offences: thuggery, barricading the streets, attempts to take over control of the television center and so on. You have used the alliance that was established between the Soviet empire and the West against our country, for accelerating its Lebanization, for the preparation of the bloody putsch and coup d'etat.

Together with you against us worked the enormous propaganda machine of the Kremlin, against which our sources of information remained powerless. In parallel the Kremlin was intensively arming the opposition that was established by them in Georgia and united it with criminal bands. And when we began acting according to the law, there raised a clamor about 'political repression'.

At the same time you and Gorbachev in every possible way supported the Ossetian separatists, which helped to stir up the conflict in Shida-Kartli and that was the best opportunity for bringing troops for a new annexation of Georgia. Then I was still thinking that you would pity your country and that I could get from you even reliable information about this terrible danger.

When I made contact with you, you told me that I should telephone Gorbachev and ask him not to declare the state of emergency. But that meant that Gorbachev in exchange for that would demand from me to sign the union treaty, and because of that I did not do it.

Then I asked from you to help us to separate Georgia from the USSR, that was an only salvation. I reminded you that you have nothing but your own country, and you must think about what that means to you. I was greatly surprised when I heard in response the following words from you: "Leave me alone, I am a pensioner, and don't ask me what I cannot do." I asked you whether you had voted in the referendum of March 31 for the independence of Georgia, but you replied with silence. Now it is known all over that you only have taken part in the referendum of March 17 and voted for the preservation of the USSR. And on March 31 you did not even remember Georgia and its independence.

However, your biggest crime is the preparation and realization of the criminal revolution in Georgia, that has no precedent in world history. You, once showing yourself as the uncompromising fighter against criminality, made contact with criminals and with the help of them realized a coup d'‚tat in Georgia. Representatives of the criminal world, Dzhaba Ioseliani together with his 'Mkhedrioni' ('Horsemen') and T.Kitovani with his criminal 'guard', betrayed the legal government and till the present day they represent your main strongholds. The criminal junta that was created by you is, with the help of the Transcaucasian military district, committing in Georgia the same that has been committed by the hordes of Murvan Kru, Sultan Dzalaledin, Tamerlan, Shakh Abaz and the Persian Makhmad Khan. In the junta are united, together with the criminal world, the representatives of the mafia partocracy and representatives of the communist intelligentsia that were privileged by you. This 'intelligentsia' that took up the arms that you had greeted while still standing on the stairs of the plane with which you arrived in Georgia.

These are the social strata on which you were leaning and with whose hands you are trying to build up the future of Georgia.

Your 'amnesty' has released from the prisons and corrective labour colonies of Georgia about four thousand criminals, under whose dictatorship are now the police and the procurator's office. All law protection organs show their indulgence to them to commit new crimes all the time. Under your order and their demand the procurator's office framed up my 'case' and also the cases against the parliamentarians and other officials of the legitimate government. The cases against real criminals were dropped and they were rehabilitated. The imposter 'attorney general' Razmadze declared that these criminals were fighting with guns in their hands to 'overthrow dictatorship', and that's why they deserve the special favour from the side of the new government ("Republic of Georgia", February 25, 1992). From custody was released the leader of the criminal bands of Ossetian extremists, T.Kulumbekov, which caused a great rise in the separatist-terrorist movement of South Ossetia, thanks to that we finally lost Shida-Kartli.

From the first days your junta committed and is committing massacres of peaceful protest demonstrations. In January-February the criminals from 'Mkhedrioni' and 'Guard' killed and wounded hundreds of demonstrators and then tried to hide their crimes by forbidding the Ministry of Health to mention their names.

However, you must know that these name are known to everybody, sooner or later you all will have to answer for these atrocious murders.

Your junta unleashed the civil war in Georgia and, what is the most disturbing, unprecedentedly is stirring up hatred between tribes. In times of 'marches' to Megrelia in Poti, Senaku and Zugdidi you used Gurians, Imeretians and Kakhetians as if you are conquering a foreign country. The latter are robbing and jeering the population, and the population of Zugdidi rose against them.

They liberated the city from the bands of 'Mkhedrioni' and 'Guard', taking captive many people, as a reaction on your order to the 'guardians' to fire the house-museum of Konstantine Gamsakhurdia in Tbilisi, as if his heritage only belonged to Megrelia, but not to all Georgia.

Today the Moscow mass-media extol you as the politician who played a decisive role in the positive processes of the modern world. Your statement, that you have started 'perestrojka', liberated Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries and united Germany, is extremely exaggerated in the estimation of your own role. All this represents first of all the victory of the western politics, of Ronald Reagan's SDI-program and also of the dissident movement of the USSR, which made the government of Gorbachev to compromise. You in fact receded before the force and signed a factual capitulation, which did not speak about great diplomatic victory. Ridiculous is also your assertion about everything you have done to achieve the independence of Georgia.

If you were really striving for Georgian independence, you would not fight so selflessly for preservation of the USSR, would not come back voluntarily to the post of minister of foreign affairs and would not declare that 'the motherland must be saved' by implicating in the USSR. If you were a supporter of the independence of Georgia, you would have taken part in the referendum of March 31, and also during your trips to western countries on diplomatic missions at least once you should have declared that you are a Georgian by nationality, that Georgia is an occupied country and is struggling for its independence. However, you never considered yourself being a Georgian, and always you have been the real 'homo sovieticus', what you yourself confessed in an interview published in the Italian newspaper 'Corriera della Sera'.

Ridiculous is to affirm that the credit to the amount of 10 million D-Mark, that Genscher has brought to Georgia, will be spent for strengthening 'democratic institutions', about which informed us your ally, the Ostankino center of misinformation.

For everybody it is known what kind of 'institutions' are the so- called 'Mkhedrioni', 'Guard', 'State-Soviet' or 'junta', that exterminate democracy in Georgia by fire and sword, rob and terrorize the population, that turned Georgia into the most impoverished country in the world where everyday already some people are dying of hunger (information from Georgian radio). The recognition of the present illegitimate regime of Georgia by a number of countries is the result of support from the side of the empire, and also from your skill of demagogy and misinformation.

However, remember that at first you should be recognized by your own people, otherwise recognition by other countries will not have any importance. It's a comfort that those countries that recognized Georgia before the coup d'‚etat, recognized the legitimate government and now they are not going to recognize your illegitimate regime. What concerns your own people, they will never recognize you.

It's well known that in today's Georgia narcotics and narcobusiness are legalized. Narcobusiness has become an open, nearly official procedure, as your main supporting formations 'Mkhedrioni' and 'Guard' consist of users of narcotics. For each of them during a day is needed some thousands of rubles to get the narcotics they need, in consequence of which they rob the population, take from people thousands of cars and sell them across the Georgian borders absolutely legal. The population of Tbilisi, Poti, Senaki, Zugdidi, Kutaisi and other cities has been robbed, and now they continue robbing other nationalities, that promises us new ethnic conflicts. Near the border town Kazbegi, homeland for our prominent writer Alexander Kazbegi, they have created the center of narcobusiness, which is a second Hong Kong in the Caucasus, functioning as a bridge between Asia and Europe for narcobusiness.

As a consequence of the robbing of the Georgian exchequer, you are not able to distribute the salaries, pensions and royalties, but the putchists still get premiums for their bloody crimes as the 'fighters for democracy'.

You realise that you're not able to subjugate the population of Georgia only with the help of the narcotics using 'Mkhedrioni' and 'Guard', that's why in military operations against your own people you grandly use the occupational army of the CIS, which now, together with the army of your junta, is standing near the village of Rukhi on the border of the Abkhazian ASSR with the intention to invade Abkhazia to stir up a new ethnic conflict.

On the 31st of March at Samtredia station were detrained armored carriers of your 'guard' filled with soldiers of the CIS-army, who made their way towards the bridge over the river Tskhenistskhali to conduct a punitive operation against the peaceful demonstrators. The military helicopters of the CIS-army are flying around over the city of Tsalendjikha and are shooting at 'suspicious' cars, and they also fired and smashed the beautiful health resort 'Skuri'. In Georgia you are beginning a second Afghan war, but don't think that the world does not see it.

In parallel with strengthening 'democratic institutions', you are intending to restore in Georgia mass terror and repressions, like in 1937, the arrests are going on under framed up charges, in which is seen your hand. On false charges were arrested the deputy Tariel Gelantia, chairman of the budgetary commission of the Supreme Soviet of Georgia, the chairman of the commission in deputy ethics, Bidzina Dangadze, the member of the directorate of the Georgian Helsinki Union, deputy Vakhtang Chitava, the minister of finance, Guram Absandze, a dying person wounded by six bullets from putchists, and others. Now at meetings are propagated beatings to death and wounding by knives. Your criminal assistants are treating women and elderly persons extremely severe and brutal, nearly all females are declared enemies for uprightness and fearlessness.

You are a preacher of 'perestrojka' and 'glasnost', but in Georgia you have destroyed all kinds of glasnost and freedom of speech, you have established the most brutal censorship on press and television, you have forbidden all free publications, have killed the son of the editor of the only independent newspaper, Irakli Gotsiridze, the remarkable painter Georgi Gotsiridze, and now you are threatening to kill another son, because of his father's faith in journalistic conscience. On March 30 of this year you have fully stopped the first channel of Moscow television, which was broadcasting my interview revealing you. Is it possible that this is democracy and glasnost? Why did not you allow to broadcast on television everything that was going on and is going on during the last four months? Why don't you show the destruction of Tbilisi with your howitzers, mortars and rockets, the shootings at meetings and demonstrations, the murders of citizens who are not guilty of anything by your hands, the genocide and robbery of the population in western Georgia? Why don't you give speech to your opponents, do you really think that with the help of that you can muffle up the voice of truth?

Now let's see what your 'activity' represents in Georgia from a legal point of view. Your arrival in Georgia, usurpation of power, the establishment of your illegitimate organ similar to the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the so-called State Soviet, and the appointing of yourself to be the chairman is the greatest lawlessness and a violation of all standards of international law, because the country has a legitimate president and parliament which were elected by the people, but nobody elected and appointed you on this post. You have declared that in the nearest future in Georgia will be conducted democratic elections conformed to world standards. Such kind of elections already took place on the 28th of October 1990. Georgia has a legitimately elected president and parliament, and without them nobody has the right to announce new elections, so that the 'elections' you announced will be false and illegitimate, and new laws about elections, introduced by you, will not have any juridical competence. Such kind of elections will be boycotted by the people as they have already once declared their will and the next legal elections should take place in 1994. Besides, under such conditions, when nearly all Georgia is in state of emergency and curfew, even to think about elections is out of question according to world standards. So the announcement of elections by the junta during a state of emergency does not correspond with any world standard.

Now let's see how you understand the relation of Georgia with Russia today. As has been mentioned above, you have some pretentions that you have dedicated your whole life to struggle for the independence of Georgia. I don't know anything about the independence of Georgia, but I know that all the time you were giving all your strength to preserve the unity of the Soviet empire. But when the colossus on its argillaceous legs was broken, you were struggling to preserve the dying Russian empire, but its disintegration is inevitable like that of all empires.

You are doing your best to secure that Georgia is still transmuted into a Russian colony and its military bridgehead. Why doesn't today's Russia recognize the independence of Georgia and doesn't it establish diplomatic relations with it? Because Georgia declared its independence and doesn't want to be any longer its military bridgehead and colony. Besides, Russia demands that Georgia must recognize Shida-Kartli and Abkhazia as parts of the Russian Federation. "You'll go, only without South Ossetia and Abkhazia," claimed the government of Gorbachev. The position of today's Russia does not differ much from its predecessors.

You have declared that the relationship between Georgia and Russia is more than a diplomatic relationship. Such kind of relations are not known in international law and practice. What can be meant by them, may be colonial slavery? But you have to remember that the Russian empire is doomed the same way as your attempts to establish a pro-Russian totalitarian neocommunist regime in Georgia. Georgia has declared its independence on the 9th of April 1990 and it remains faithful to its choice (by the way, this year officially you did not even observe this date).

Hence, with extreme cynicism and blasphemy from your side, you came in sight against a background of the threecoloured flag of independent Georgia and Merab Kostava's portrait. For that flag of faithfulness you have sent many people to prisons and Merab Kostava, who was kept imprisoned in the Gulag, was in the end killed by your agents in a car accident.

Now let's see how your words and affairs coincide concerning the occupational army of the CIS in Georgia. You have declared that Russia and Georgia should begin negotiations concerning the withdrawal of their armies, as Georgia will never become a member of the CIS. However in practice the contrary happened. While the other members of this 'commonwealth' are driving away the Russian armies or subordinate them to their jurisdiction, you increased them day by day in Georgia. As it turned out, from the first day of your arrival in Georgia you phoned to Moscow and asked to leave these armies in Georgia, as has been declared on Moscow television by your friend, the 'democrat' G.Popov. By consent of your junta they brought to Georgia, driven away from Karabakh, the punitive 366 motor-infantry regiment. Before that the junta lifted the occupational status from all CIS-armies, which was established by the Supreme Council of Georgia in 1991. Now, as it seen based on the collusion with Genscher, you are planning to construct houses for military servicemen, demobilized from Germany. It's natural that he who has not the support of his own people, seeks a foothold in hostile occupation armies. That has always been the case in our long suffering history, it was so in the Soviet period, and it will be so until in Georgia exists the occupational regime of the CIS or Russia in face of your junta.

I cannot restrain myself from mentioning the deplorable situation of our youth in consequence of the situation that is now created in Georgia. You and your red 'professors' always propagated in youth the wolf's heroism and cult of 'thieves-in-law', narcotics, and thanks to that youth hated books and was fond of narcotics, sub-machine guns, robbery and thuggery. Many of them you have turned into little monsters, obedient servants of a criminal regime, that mercilessly deals with the participants in meetings and does not spare the lives of women, children and the elderly.

But we also have good youth, that will ask your responsibility for everything. You should remember that the truth cannot be defeated by prisons, bullets and bonfires. "Injustice and violence cannot reign forever, once and for all unconquerable is only the truth," as used to say our outstanding poet Akaki Tsereteli. Now, at last, I have to give you the main question: who did call you to be our leader? Who invited you into Georgia, who did this work, this youth, who did not give you rest in Moscow, but wrote you letters and petitions that you "come for help in Georgia"? Where are these documents? But the truth outdated the falsification. Now for everybody it became clear that you were invited into Georgia only by one man, the criminal and recidivist Dzhaba Ioseliani, whose hands are dirty from the blood of our own people, and who will be anathematized by our own people, together with you. It is true that his emissaries had brought you to Georgia, and you were met by a small group of criminals and betrayers at the airport. But from that day the Georgian people called you 'Judas' and the scanning of this name will not stop in Georgia as long as you walk on Georgian land.

Why do you fear the truth, why don't you respond to the questions of students and journalists, which was even published in the newspapers? Why don't you receive journalists? May be you are thinking that now we are in the middle ages and your black affairs will be hidden forever? Believe me that soon the West will be aware of all this and know whose hands are trying to conduct its Transcaucasian politics. You will suffer a defeat in the battle with your own people, as were defeated Nadzibula and Babrak Karmal, your closest friend. The same result awaits you in the war against the people of the North Caucasus, that you are planning together with the forces of the empire.

So, your transformation into democrat proved to be a common change of appearance, but practically speaking you remained the same as you used to be, truthful to totalitarianism, to the state terrorism, a communist at heart, which has been proved by your present activities in Georgia, where you have revived the nomenclatural partocracy and a repressive totalitarian regime.

I remember the well known maxim of Kant: "Scrape off the surface of a German philosopher and you will open in him the theologian".

This thought I would interpret in the following way for our present reality: "Scrape off the surface of a democrat of perestrojka and you will open in him the communist partocrat".

How must you ensure your transformation when you, instead of making confessions in front of the people about your heavy crimes, you are adding sin after sin and are continuing everything as before?

The empire has sent you to us, for fulfilling its dark projects, this is known by everybody in Georgia and that's why the people went to meet you hostile. Remember that the Georgian people is not the Politburo, and nobody can bribe them with dollars or D-marks.

Now, let's return to that anonymous letter I mentioned in the beginning. Now I am convinced that this letter did not belong to any Russian or Armenian 'nazi'. This letter was composed by the imperial KGB and you, in which in short was set the plan for the annihilation of Georgia. Much of this plan became reality, it started with the genocide of the Georgian people, the violation of the territorial integrity of Georgia, though one empire collapsed, but another is standing on the verge of disintegration. So the plans of the empire and you are not fated to be realized. The Georgian people woke up and from now on nobody will be able to dictate slavery on them. The empire is collapsing, but Georgia will stay alive for ever.

Now, resulting from the above mentioned, I accuse you of:

  1. the systematical persecution and suppression of the Georgian national liberation movement with the help of merciless repressions, arrests and imprisonments of Georgian patriots and human rights defenders. The execution of the Georgian patriot V.Zvania, the execution of young persons in the so-called 'aero plane case', the execution of the absolutely guiltless priest Teodor Chikhladze, the murder of the journalist Vazha Shamanauri in the hospital for mental diseases of Tbilisi in 1983.
  2. the organization of an international plot against the legitimate authorities of Georgia, the organization of an unprecedented campaign against them on a world scale.
  3. misinformation and disorientation of Western countries concerning the processes taking place in Georgia.
  4. the organization of a criminal revolution and military coup d'‚tat in Georgia, the creation of a criminal junta, the usurpation of authority, the destruction and burning of the center of Tbilisi.
  5. the establishment of a kleptocracy in Georgia instead of democracy, the transfer of the authority to criminal surroundings, and submission to it of law protection organs.
  6. the liquidation of the achievements of the democratic elections of October 28, 1990 and May 26, 1991 and the persecution of the legitimate parliament and president.
  7. the legitimating of the stay of the CIS occupation army, the taking away from them of the occupational status, the bringing in of additional contingents of these troops, including the 366 motor-infantry regiment from Karabakh, the planning of construction of houses for demobilized soldiers from Germany.
  8. the revival of the nomenclatural partocracy and communist mafia.
  9. many years of selfless service to the imperial KGB as its agent.
  10. involving in the secret service of the KGB a considerable part of the Georgian population.
  11. state terrorism, the shooting at and dispersal of peaceful meetings and demonstrations in January-February of the current year (1992) by the hands of criminal elements, which was coordinated by you, as all the actions of the junta.
  12. the occupation of Western Georgia by forces of the junta and CIS, the robbery and genocide of the population, the stirring up of tribal hatred and separatism.
  13. the legalization of narcotics and narcobusiness, the turning of a considerable number of Tbilisi youth into narcoman and criminals.
  14. the persecution during 20 years of me personally and my family, even children under age.
  15. the robbery and burning of the memorial museums of the classic of Georgian literature - Konstantine Gamsakhurdia (in Tbilisi and Pitsunda).
  16. the massive repression and terror against the supporters of the legitimate authority.
  17. the unseemly collusion with Germany at the expense of the interests of Georgia.
  18. the genocide of Georgian people on instruction of the imperial center.
  19. high treason.

Concerning everything mentioned above I am waiting for your urgent written reply and I challenge you to debates on TV (as the former minister of foreign affairs of the USSR, but not as the chairman of the non-existing 'State-Soviet') through your beloved Moscow television which in every step shows solidarity and sympathy for you. These debates will have the character of TV- bridges.

I am ready to take back my words if the slightest falsification, inaccuracy or exaggeration in them will be proved.

President of the Republic of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia
April 19, 1992.

P.S. This letter I had already written when your interview came into my hands, published in 'Der Spiegel' on April 14, 1992, in which is shown your full ignorance of newest history. Specifically you have declared to the surprised journalist that Hitler was elected in the same democratic way as Gamsakhurdia. He politely remarked to you that does not respond to reality, but on the other page he used this expression in inverted commas, with what he laughed at you. I don't know what mark you had at school in history, but such kind of mistake isn't forgivable even for the good pupil of a secondary school, not to speak about the "greatest outstanding expert" in the affairs of Germany, and even more for the friend of Genscher. It is known that Hitler was appointed Reich's-chancellor of Germany by president Hindenburg, as you have ever been appointed as the first secretary of the Central Committee of Georgia by Brezhnev. In this is your spiritual relation. Besides, the party of Hitler could not gather the majority of votes in the Reichstag elections, as your party in the elections of October 28, 1990 in Georgia. So it is necessary to consult at least a popular textbook before you give interviews of world importance.

OPEN LETTER TO EDUARD SHEVARDNADZE
by Zviad Gamsakhurdia

(translated from the Russian by the Zviad Gamsakhurdia Society in the Netherlands)


 

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