http://www.thehill.com/story.asp?id=174Secretary of State Colin Powell plans to attend the inauguration of Georgia's new president, Mikhail Saakashvilli, this weekend, offering Saakashvilli a symbolic stamp of U.S. approval. In addition to the planned festivities of singers, acrobats, dancing bears and a military parade, Powell may be stepping into the beginning of a civil war set off by the new president.
Sources close to the president of a small Georgian republic, the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, say the Adjarans have uncovered a secret plot by Saakashvilli to seize the republic and its port capitol of Batumi in the aftermath of Sunday’s inaugural celebration. Adjarans believe that as soon as Powell leaves Georgia the new president intends to strike against them.
The Adjarans, 400,000 citizens with no army but many guns, this week encouraged their police, customs and border guards, about 5,000 in all, to repel what they fear will be an invasion. A friend of the Adjaran president, a former U.S. intelligence officer with wide international connections, Chet Nagle, flew from Istanbul, Turkey, this week and delivered a letter yesterday from Adjaran President Aslan Abashidze to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asking for his support to “prevent the tragedy of civil war.” Georgia has an army of some 30,000 troops, lots of equipment, and U.S. military trainers and equipment, including some advanced attack helicopters.
As an autonomous republic, Adjara has its own constitution and laws but does not print money or conduct foreign policy. Aslan Abashidze is the elected president of Adjara and from a family well-known for 600 years in Georgia. Abashidze is disliked by the Georgian government but very much liked by the Adjarans whom he has governed in a strict but democratic fashion. Abashidze is a Christian, as is much of Adjara, but he is famous for his kind treatment of the republic’s tight-knit group of about 500 Jewish families. Abashidze ousted Russian troops from the old synagogue in the capitol city of Batumi –they had been using the temple as a “sports club – rebuilt it and gave it back to the Jewish congregation.