http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=140962005Sun 6 Feb 2005
Georgia is stunned by top politicians' deaths
CHRISTOPHER CLARE
GEORGIA was yesterday plunged into crisis after it was revealed a political associate of dead prime minister Zurab Zhvania had apparently committed suicide.
There were fears of a return to the old Soviet ways of dispensing with political foes by alleged accident or suicide after the third death in the government in as many days.
Zhvania, a moderating force in the Georgian government, and a colleague died apparently of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a faulty heater last week.
Georgy Khelashvili, 32, a political associate of Zhvania, was found dead at his home of a gunshot wound on Friday night, a Tbilisi police official, Irakli Pirkhalala, said yesterday. Khelashvili was a member of the presidential commission on pardons and part of Zhvania’s United Democrats political bloc.
But within hours of the announcement of the suicide, officials changed the story and said Khelashvili was not known by the dead prime minister and had in fact held a low civil service position.
Pirkhalala said Khelashvili shot himself with a hunting rifle that he had borrowed from a neighbour on the pretext of taking a hunting trip. He left a note asking for forgiveness, Pirkhalala said. "He left a note to his family and wrote the sort of thing people write when they commit suicide," he said.
Though there was no immediate indication that the suicide was connected to Zhvania’s death on Thursday, it is likely to add to the uneasy suspicions plaguing Georgians after the passing of the widely respected prime minister.
Even before the suicide of Khelashvili, many Georgians wondered whether the authorities were telling them the truth. Georgia has a history of political intrigue and violence.
Historian Grigory Dardzhanian said: "There were plenty of people who envied Zurab, many were hoping that a conflict would break out between him and the president."
Zhvania’s death has sparked concerns among South Ossetian and Abkhaz leaders, who suspect the president, Mikhail Saakashvili, may resort to military force in order to restore Georgia’s territorial integrity.
There are particular worries in South Ossetia about Okruashvili, whom separatists blame for triggering a series of armed clashes last summer while he was interior minister. Concerns about the consequences of Zhvania’s death have also been heard in Russia, which supports both secessionist governments.
During the Rose Revolution two years ago Georgians took to the streets to overthrow the last vestiges of the old Soviet guard. The popular and peaceful uprising led to the resignation of Eduard Shevardnadze and a new dawn in the former Soviet republic’s politics.
Officials confirmed on Friday that Zhvania died of carbon-monoxide poisoning apparently as a result of an improperly ventilated space heater at the apartment of a friend, who also died.
Meanwhile, Georgians continued to grapple with Zhvania’s sudden death and its implications for the country’s reform efforts. Zhvania, who was 41, was a key figure in attempts to lift the country out of its post-Soviet economic collapse and political turmoil. He was also one of the leaders of the Rose Revolution.
He earned deep respect and affection and was seen as a moderating balance to the sometimes incendiary boldness of Saakashvili, who was elected president in 2004.
Mourner Ksenia Kuparadze, a 70-year-old pensioner outside the apartment of Zhvania’s grieving mother, where the body was brought on Thursday, said: "After the Rose Revolution, when the country was in complete collapse, he was able to get us out of economic difficulties. Teachers started getting paid on time, pensioners got their pensions."
Zhvania’s body was due to be moved from his mother’s home last night to Tbilisi’s Holy Trinity Cathedral, where a funeral will be held today.
Authorities have called his death an accident, another of the many carbon-monoxide poisonings that have troubled the capital since its central-heating system went out of service in 1992
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This article:
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=140962005
Georgia:
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=11
Websites:
CIA World Factbook - Georgia
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gg.html
Georgian Presidency
http://www.presidpress.gov.ge/
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