Siege of Sukhumi

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Moaning from pain and shock, Elgudzha Bagaturia staggered into the brick house where fellow Georgian soldiers were taking cover from small arms fire. A stream of blood gushed from a hole in his neck, courtesy of a grenade hurled by Abkhazian insurgents trying to take the city of Sukhumi, the capital of their autonomous region within Georgia. Suddenly, an exploding shell shook the house from the left. Then another concussion, this time from the right. The enemy artillery was zeroing in on its target. "Outside everyone!" shouted Misha, the black-bearded commander. "They have found us."

So they had. Ten minutes after his comrades laid Bagaturia on a dirty blanket and pulled him into the street, a shell smashed the building, killing two wounded soldiers left behind. Dodging explosions, the Georgians zigzagged past overgrown oleander bushes and neglected vineyards toward the comparative safety of downtown Sukhumi. As they dragged Bagaturia through the former resort, once one of the Black Sea's most idyllic vacation spots and now a bombed-out coliseum where Georgians and Abkhazians are locked in combat, an old woman cried out, "How are things out there? Is the enemy advancing? What will become of us?" The soldiers had no answer for her.

Neither did Eduard Shevardnadze, the courtly head of state who has been struggling to hold Georgia together since he took office last year. The intervening 18 months have taxed the talents of the consummate diplomat with a series of crippling crises: economic collapse, political chicanery, ethnic rebellion and even a guerrilla-style insurgency waged by the country's former President, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, whose lust for power remains undampened by the popular coup that deposed him nearly two years ago. The revolt in Abkhazia, where a small minority of ethnic separatists want an independent state, has put the fate of Georgia on the line. In Sukhumi, where he has set up headquarters, Shevardnadze has vowed to keep his nation whole or die trying.

What is happening to Georgia today could be repeated all along the fringes of the old Soviet empire tomorrow. The particular feuds may be different in Tajikistan or Azerbaijan, but they all share the brutality of internecine war. Many of these gerrymandered republics are being torn apart by long-suppressed ethnic hatred erupting like flash fires along Russia's periphery, but few conflicts have reached the incendiary combination of confusion, violence and anarchy that exploded last week in Sukhumi.

The tiny enclave of Abkhazia, whose historical roots stretch back to more than a thousand years before Christ, has emerged as the keystone to Georgia's future as an independent state. Under pressure from Moscow, the insurgents suspended their drive for autonomy and endorsed a cease-fire in July. But when Shevardnadze's forces turned to the task of breaking a blockade imposed on the Georgian capital of Tbilisi by Gamsakhurdia's rebels, the Abkhazians struck again. Two weeks ago, fighters launched a ferocious attack on Sukhumi. Within 48 hours, surprise had enabled them to seize the heights overlooking the city and pour artillery, mortars and missiles down on the civilian population.