Motorcade to Wheelchair: At 29, Ex-Minister Recalls

TBILISI, Georgia -- In the four years since independence, Georgia has seen more turmoil than during 70 years under Soviet rule. Civil war and ethnic violence have practically forfeited the creation of a sovereign government, leaving many Georgians disillusioned with the long-yearned-for goal of independent statehood.


Yet, turbulent times make for unusual stories. One particularly tragic example of this is Georgy Karkarashvili, one-time defense minister of the 5.6-million-strong republic.


Three years ago, Karkarashvili was the commander of the Georgian forces in the secessionist Black Sea republic of Abkhazia, a military high-flier, promoted to general at the age of 26. He was subsequently appointed defense minister by head of state Eduard Shevardnadze, for seven months becoming perhaps the world's youngest incumbent in that job.


Today, at 29, Karkarashvili is largely paralyzed and is being looked after by his family in a Tbilisi suburb.


Last January, he became a victim of the violence in which he took part over the past four years, receiving six bullets in an assassination attempt in Moscow that killed his former deputy.


But he has not given up his political ambitions. The former assassins "were not my enemies, but the enemies of Georgia," he says, sitting in a wheelchair in his drawing room. "The danger is that they could come into government, aided by Russia. They must be dismissed."


After a pause, he adds: "Luckily, everybody knows their faces now. In two months, they should be in prison." Then he makes it clear that he is referring to the wake of the recent attempt on Shevardnadze's life, which has brought serious charges against the notorious leader of Georgia's Mkhedrioni militia, Jaba Ioseliani, and triggered the firing of Security Minister Igor Georgadze.


Karkarashvili, a tall man with a trimmed black beard, speaks slowly, his voice trembling and his gesticulation suffering from the limited control he has over his body.


His reluctance to appear in public is understandable. In Georgia, especially in Abkhazia, he is remembered as the fierce young general who proclaimed on television in August 1992, at the start of the war in Abkhazia, that if 100,000 Georgian lives were needed to wipe out 97,000 Abkhazians, then so be it.


Now he has adopted a more conciliatory tone. Asked if Georgians and Abkhazians could live together in the future, he said: "In Eastern Abkhazia they have already started to do so. Abkhazians and Georgians are trading with each other. [Georgian] farmers are coming in to look after their fields. The market economy will settle the conflict."


It is, however, not clear, how this will really come about. Karkarashvili, who as defense minister presided over the total loss of Abkhazia and the expulsion of most of the Georgian population in September 1993, believes, like many in Tbilisi, that the conflict will be settled very soon: "Next February or March, Georgia will have solved the question."


It is clear that no such solution will be possible without the consent of Russia, whose armed forces first provided military aid to the Abkhazians and are now, as peacekeepers, controlling the boundary between Abkhazia and Georgia.


?Despite their earlier statements to the contrary, the followers of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the late former president of Georgia, will run for the Georgian presidency and parliament Nov. 5, Interfax reported.


Academician Vano Kiguradze, chairman of the Central Election Commission, told Interfax that the movement called The Voice of Zviad Is the Voice of the People has actively joined the race.


Georgia's first president Gamsakhurdia was deposed and exiled in 1992 by a military coup, following which Shevardnadze took over power. Gamsakhurdia died a year later, possibly by committing suicide.