Gorbachev Asks for Calm in Georgia : Soviet Leader Says Call for Independence Won’t Be Tolerated

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, in his first public statement on nationalist unrest that left 19 dead in Soviet Georgia, appealed for calm today but stressed that he would not tolerate demands for independence.

In an address to the Georgian people, Gorbachev said the clashes had damaged democratization and his perestroika restructuring drive.

“We stand for the consistent expansion of the rights of the republics, of all national formations, for filling them with real content,” Gorbachev said, in reference to growing demands in Georgia for greater autonomy from Moscow.

‘Resolutely Against This’

“Restructuring of inter-ethnic relations is not the replanning of the borders or the breakdown of the national-state structure of the country. We are resolutely against this,” he declared.

In the address, which the Georgian news agency Gruzinform said would be published in the Georgian press, Gorbachev appealed to Georgian patriotism “as a man who has deep respect for the traditions of the Georgian people, its high and noble qualities.

“It depends on you to restore peace to Georgia. This is the moral duty of everyone who holds sacred the memory of his ancestors, who values peace and harmony in his homeland and, most of all, who thinks about his people, his future.”

His statement came as a Soviet spokesman announced that the death toll from Sunday’s clashes when troops used clubs to break up a crowd of about 8,000 people chanting nationalist slogans had risen to 19 with the death of a girl in a hospital.

Sixteen people, most of them women, were killed during the clashes. Two more were later reported to have died in hospitals of injuries sustained during the incident.

Nationalists Blamed

Gorbachev suggested in his statement that nationalists were responsible for the bloodshed.

“The actions of the irresponsible people led to tension in the republic. False goals confused a section of the population; blood of innocent people was shed,” he said.

The clashes followed a week of demonstrations in Tbilisi attended by up to 100,000 people. Many of them held banners calling for “Russian invaders” to go home and waved black, white and red Georgian national flags.

Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov told a news briefing today that the Communist Party leader in Georgia had offered to resign after the clashes and said the party authorities were considering his request.