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:
- 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.
- the organization of an
international plot against the legitimate authorities of
Georgia, the organization of an unprecedented campaign
against them on a world scale.
- misinformation and disorientation
of Western countries concerning the processes taking place
in Georgia.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- the
revival of the nomenclatural partocracy and communist
mafia.
- many
years of selfless service to the imperial KGB as its
agent.
- involving
in the secret service of the KGB a considerable part of
the Georgian population.
- 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.
- 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.
- the
legalization of narcotics and narcobusiness, the turning
of a considerable number of Tbilisi youth into narcoman
and criminals.
- the persecution during 20 years of me
personally and my family, even children under age.
- the robbery and burning of the
memorial museums of the classic of Georgian literature -
Konstantine Gamsakhurdia (in Tbilisi and Pitsunda).
- the massive repression and terror
against the supporters of the legitimate authority.
- the unseemly collusion with
Germany at the expense of the interests of Georgia.
- the genocide of Georgian people
on instruction of the imperial center.
- 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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