Opposition Sees All-Out Civil War in Fight to Oust Georgian Leader

Georgian opposition forces said Monday that their power struggle with President Zviad Gamsakhurdia has escalated into a civil war and that fighting will spread through this mountainous republic.

As fighting raged for most of the morning along Rustaveli Prospekt, the main avenue of the capital, leading opposition politicians said Gamsakhurdia could stop the bloodshed by surrendering and resigning.

According to the Health Ministry, a week of battles has left nearly 60 people dead and 300 wounded.

“If this continues much longer, there will be a sea of blood,” said opposition leader Georgy Chanturia during a news conference. “I’m afraid that it will not only be on Rustaveli, but throughout Tbilisi and Georgia.”

The unrest in Georgia has left the South Carolina-sized state of 5.4 million residents politically paralyzed as 11 other former Soviet republics work on developing the new Commonwealth of Independent States.

The fighting pits soldiers loyal to Gamsakhurdia against an opposition coalition led by intellectuals and rebel national guardsmen. The conflict has involved several thousand people and has been fought around the Parliament building, where Gamsakhurdia has taken refuge.

Opposition forces Sunday were pushed back from the area around the mammoth Parliament building, but fighting persisted Monday three blocks away near the opposition headquarters in the old Georgian Institute for Marxism-Leninism. Skirmishes also were spreading around this city of 1.5 million, with random shootings reported between bands of armed fighters.

Asked if rebel forces were preparing to storm the Parliament, where Gamsakhurdia has hundreds of well-armed supporters, rebel Maj. Gela Lanchava said, “Yes.” He added that the attack would probably take place shortly.

By early evening, fighting had subsided, and it was not clear if opposition forces had sufficient military muscle to take the heavily fortified building.

Gamsakhurdia claims the opposition is encouraged by “some friends” of former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and former Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, an ethnic Georgian.

Besides the three Baltic states, Georgia is the only republic not to join the commonwealth of former Soviet republics. Commonwealth members have agreed not to consider its membership until the fighting ends, and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin has ordered former Soviet troops under his control to leave Georgia.

But the main rebel commander, former Georgian National Guard chief Tengiz Kitovani, accused Gamsakhurdia on Monday of getting help from ethnic Chechen fighters in neighboring Russia and said he will complain to the Russian Parliament.

Chanturia said that more than 1,000 Georgian veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan are considering helping the opposition after the leader of their veterans’ union, Nodar Georgadze, was arrested Sunday.

The opposition said Monday that Foreign Minister Murman Omanidze also had been arrested and reportedly is being held with Georgadze in the boiler room of the Parliament.

“This is no longer an attempt to smoke Gamsakhurdia out of the surrounded government house. The fighting has moved to a much larger area. There is civil war in Tbilisi,” said Georgy Chaindrava, another opposition leader.