Soviet Union: Rumblings in The Republics

In Georgia hostilities deepened as renegade national guardsmen joined civilian efforts to oust Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the republic's authoritarian president. About 60 rebel guardsmen were reported killed in a clash with republic troops . . . The seizure of power in Tadzhikistan by Rakhman Nabiev, a hard-line former Communist Party chief, prompted thousands of people to defy a newly imposed state of emergency. Crying "Communist coup!," protesters vowed to resist Nabiev's administration . . . Armenia and Azerbaijan signed an agreement calling for a cease-fire and negotiations to end their dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan, but the fighting continued. Among those who helped broker the agreement was Boris Yeltsin. The Russian president, who is suffering from a heart ailment, subsequently announced that he would take a two-week rest.