Troops Cut Off Rebels’ Post in Soviet Georgia

Branding its armed opponents terrorists, the government of President Zviad Gamsakhurdia blockaded a rebel stronghold with loyalist troops Thursday night and shut off electricity to the neighborhood, effectively cutting off the opposition forces from their other bases in the city.

“We will take the same practical steps to disarm them that are used everywhere to disarm terrorists,” the Georgian president’s spokesman vowed. “There is a limit to the people’s patience, and if the armed opposition continues to resist, the people will deliver its verdict.”

Gamsakhurdia, opposed by a motley coalition of political forces that have accused the democratically elected leader of behaving like a tyrant, extended by two hours a 6 p.m. deadline for the opposition groups to surrender their firearms. But the ultimatum appeared to be widely ignored.

“No one will give up his weapon because Gamsakhurdia is no longer our leader,” Alexander Malakhadze, a lieutenant in a national guard unit deployed on a hill overlooking Tbilisi’s center, said firmly, a Kalashnikov automatic rifle at his side. The men with him nodded agreement.

Members of the national guard units that have mutinied against Gamsakhurdia said any action against them would provoke a blood bath.

Guard leaders said that two Interior Ministry troops loyal to Gamsakhurdia were wounded and perhaps killed in an early-morning attack on the rebel headquarters. The Soviet news agency Tass reported that four were killed.

However, presidential spokesman Georgy Burdzhanadze denied that any such attack had occurred. The garrison site, a former mountaintop youth camp for the defunct Georgian Communist Party, was empty at midafternoon.

Burdzhanadze leveled a charge of his own: that rebel forces had sprayed bullets on Gamsakhurdia’s home at about 3 a.m. Thursday. Gamsakhurdia was at his office and his family was home, but no one was injured, the spokesman said.

The government kept the public guessing about its plans. Burdzhanadze said the president had no intention of attacking the opposition stronghold in the Tbilisi television center even if its defenders refuse to give up their weapons.

However, the rebels strengthened their defense, bringing in a string of ore wagons from a mine and overturning them on a street around the building.

Early this morning, Tengiz Kitovani, commander of the rebellious national guard, announced on Georgian television that commandos loyal to Gamsakhurdia had attacked his base outside Tbilisi and that 60 of his young recruits had been killed. But a Reuters correspondent, who visited the base a few hours later, found no evidence of any battle.

Tbilisi was tense overnight. Thousands of people poured into the streets after the report. There was sporadic shooting but no serious fighting.