Gorbachev Warns Georgian Nationalists

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, in a toughly worded statement aimed at reining in ethnic passions that have triggered bloody riots, warned Georgian nationalists Wednesday that they are damaging his efforts to reform the country, and he flatly rejected demands that the Black Sea republic be granted independence.

The republic’s Communist Party chief volunteered to resign because of his inability to prevent the deaths of bystanders in a demonstration Sunday, and the party is considering the offer.

Residents in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, remained restricted under emergency regulations and long lines formed at bread stores because of a false rumor that food supplies were being cut off.

Protests broke out in Georgia a week ago over demands by nationalists that the republic, which has its own language and flag and was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1921, be granted independence. Like a number of the country’s more than 100 ethnic groups, Georgians have complained that the Soviet government is dominated by people of Russian descent.

The demonstrations in Tbilisi, which residents said sometimes turned into street battles with Soviet troops, have presented Gorbachev with one of his toughest nationalist challenges since he came to power four years ago, and the president responded to that challenge in a statement published in Tbilisi and by the official Soviet news agency Tass.

He assured Georgian nationalists that the Soviet leadership was considering their complaints but added: “Reshaping inter-ethnic relations is not recarving borders or breaking the country’s national-state structure. We are resolutely against this.”

He warned he would reject any effort to “dismantle the socialist system in the republic and push it into the slough of ethnic enmity.”

Nationalists able to demonstrate for the first time because of his policies of reform are now hurting those very policies, he said. The protests, he said, have “damaged the interests of perestroika (political and economic restructuring), democratization and renewal of the country.”

The Foreign Ministry announced, meanwhile, that the civilian toll from Sunday’s protest rose to 19 with the death of another woman, the 13th female victim. Dissidents distributing lists of the names of the dead, however, have contended that 36 civilians were killed and 42 more are missing.

After Sunday’s deaths, Gorbachev sent Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, a native Georgian who once headed the republic’s Communist Party, to Tbilisi to appeal for unity.

But despite lengthy meetings between Shevardnadze and local leaders, Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov told reporters Wednesday that the situation in the capital remains tense.

Emergency measures remain in effect, and foreign journalists continue to be barred from the city of 1.2 million people.

There were several signs that the demands of the nationalists had wide support in Tbilisi. The daily Red Star military newspaper reported that local policemen were often passive in their attempts to arrest protesters and sometimes even cooperated with them.

Red Star also said nationalist extremists were targeting Soviet troops for attacks. Izvestia, the government newspaper, reported that long lines formed Tuesday at bread stores because of rumors that food supplies were being cut off to the city. But those rumors were false, and on Wednesday, 426 tons of bread were trucked into the city instead of the usual 280 tons, the newspaper said.

Gerasimov said the first secretary of the Georgian Communist Party, Dzhumber I. Patiashvili, offered to relinquish his post, saying “the general who lost the battle must resign.”

Gerasimov said Patiashvili’s offer “must be considered by party organs. But it should be noted that his offer is regarded as noble and that public sympathy is with him.”