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Protest Topples Georgia Leader

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Times Staff Writer

Bowing to pressure from tens of thousands of protesters, President Eduard A. Shevardnadze resigned Sunday, triggering wildly jubilant celebrations marked by fireworks, flag-waving and dancing in the streets.

After a tense meeting with key opposition leaders that was mediated by the Russian foreign minister, Shevardnadze told reporters he was convinced there would be “a lot of bloodshed” if he exercised his authority to stay in power.

“I have never betrayed my people, and therefore I believe that I must resign,” he said.

Mikheil Saakashvili, one of the opposition leaders who met with Shevardnadze, earlier told a rally of about 50,000 people in front of the opposition-occupied parliament that they would march on the president’s home if he refused to step down.

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Nino Burjanadze, another key opposition leader who is speaker of the outgoing parliament, assumed the duties of acting president as provided for in the constitution, which calls for an election to choose a new president within 45 days.

Shevardnadze won respect in the West for helping end the Cold War as foreign minister under former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, and he has followed a generally pro-Western policy as president. He allowed free speech and opposition political parties but never built a genuine democracy.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher released a statement saying Shevardnadze has been “a close friend of the United States.”

He said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had called the departed president and the interim president. The statement said the U.S. is “ready to support the new government in holding free and fair parliamentary elections in the future as required by the constitution.”

Saakashvili, 35, was educated in the U.S. and France and has an image of a forceful figure able to mobilize supporters with his strong rhetoric. The 39-year-old Burjanadze, in contrast, has developed an image of quiet competence. They worked as a team to overthrow Shevardnadze through the recent weeks of protests, but could be competitors in the upcoming election.

The opposition claimed that Shevardnadze had in effect stolen an early November parliamentary election through a fraudulent vote count -- a charge backed up by foreign observers and the U.S. State Department.

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Demonstrators’ anger was also driven by the belief that since coming to power in early 1992, Shevardnadze, 75, ran a corrupt and ineffective government.

“We feel very wonderful, because evil has left Georgia,” said Dimitri Geladze, 57, one of the protesters. “Today is St. George’s Day, and it’s especially good that such a thing happened on this day. There’s a legend of St. George, that he killed a dragon and saved a woman and child. This was like that too. We are St. Georges in this case, and we killed the dragon.” St. George is the country’s patron saint.

Opposition supporters generally expressed confidence that the new leadership will be able to assert effective control of the national government and its security forces.

“It’s a very small country,” said Beka Jandieri, 33, who was at the rally with his wife and 5-year-old son. “These are our friends and relatives in the police and army.... In my opinion, in Georgia everything will be OK.”

The opposition’s triumph may not prove complete, however, because it could trigger further challenges to the country’s territorial integrity. Aslan Abashidze, the strongman leader of Adzharia, an autonomous region on the country’s Black Sea coast, declared a state of emergency Sunday and vowed to defend his territory against the new powers in the capital.

The regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia broke away from Tbilisi’s rule in secessionist wars in the early 1990s and now function as quasi-independent states, and some fear Adzharia could join them in that status.

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Abashidze, a Shevardnadze ally, told his local parliament that the developments in Tbilisi could lead to Georgian armed units being sent into the region.

“Unfortunately, the leaders of this movement are not concealing their aggressive attitude to everything, particularly Adzharia,” he told reporters in comments carried by Russian state-run television. “Everyone will stand up to defend their home, the autonomous republic, from invasion. A revolution knows no mercy, and we must defend our people.”

After mediating the resolution to the confrontation in Tbilisi, Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov flew to the Black Sea city of Batumi, in Adzharia, to meet Abashidze.

The hand-over in Tbilisi amounted to a transfer of power between generations, from a man whose roots lay deep in the Soviet Communist Party to two youthful lawyers who can be expected to move the country toward closer ties with the U.S. and Western Europe.

The United States has major economic and strategic interests in Georgia, and on a per-capita basis the country of about 5 million has been one of the largest recipients of American aid. A $3-billion U.S.-backed pipeline that will carry oil from the Caspian Sea region across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to a Mediterranean port is under construction. Zurab Zhvania, a third top opposition leader, said that on Monday the new authorities would launch consultations with foreign governments on financial and other aid.

Shevardnadze’s whereabouts after his resignation were not immediately clear. There were conflicting reports Sunday evening about whether he would remain in Georgia or had left the country. Shevardnadze told reporters after his resignation that he would live “at home.”

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The German government announced Sunday night that it would welcome the deposed president if he went into exile. Germans credit Shevardnadze with helping reunite Germany in the late 1980s as Soviet foreign minister.

“He would be welcome ... because of his merit during German reunification,” said Bela Anda, spokesman for German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

A German newspaper reported last week that Shevardnadze recently bought a villa valued at $13 million in the German city of Baden-Baden.

Shevardnadze’s office denied the report. But one bitter poster carried at Sunday’s rally used the report to attack the president. It showed a drawing of Shevardnadze next to a cow, carrying a travel bag labeled “Baden-Baden,” and had a caption declaring that sex was banned in his home village “so people like you are not born.”

Some demonstrators, however, were more generous.

“We should probably thank Shevardnadze for not using force against his own people,” said Giorgi Gigoshvili, 22, a student. “Let him live here.”

Gorbachev also praised Shevardnadze’s decision.

“He is by no means a coward and surely understood that the time had come to take such a step to prevent the breakup of Georgia,” Gorbachev said in remarks quoted by the Russian news agency Interfax. “I believe he did the right thing.”

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Even Saakashvili had kind words once the battle was won: “The president has accomplished a courageous act. By his resignation, he avoided spilling blood in the country.... History will judge him kindly.”

Defense Minister David Tevzadze told reporters before the resignation that he had “received warnings that there should be no action that could lead to bloodshed.”

Nana Kurtanidze, 29, a businesswoman who spent much of the last two weeks at protest rallies, said she had been prepared for the possibility that the police or army would be ordered to disperse the crowds, but had believed the goals to be worth the risks.

“We were standing here in the rain, in the cold,” she said. “We all have small children, but still we were here. We are standing here for the sake of our children, because we want them to live in a free, independent country. Our country will finally become democratic. We are proud that we were able to do it.”

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Times staff writer Jeffrey Fleishman in Berlin contributed to this report.

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