Two dead in Georgian protest violence

Reports out of Tbilisi indicate that at least two people were killed early today (26 May) during a police crackdown on demonstrators outside the Parliament building on Rustavelli Avenue.  Police moved in shortly after the midnight, when the permit for the opposition rally expired, intent on clearing the area for today’s Independence Day parade, which former Parliament speaker Nino Burjanadze had promised to disrupt.

Authorities say that two men were struck by cars in a “convoy” fleeing the scene of the police raid on remaining protesters late on the evening of 25 May after most demonstrators had gone home.  The convoy is said to have consisted of opposition activists who were speeding away as police moved in to disperse the remaining several hundred protesters shortly after midnight.

One of the dead was a 37 year-old police officer, while the other was a 54 year-old protester, both of whom were run over by a car or cars in the convoy as it sped through Freedom Square, a few hundred kilometers east of Parliament.

Georgian officials say that one of the occupants of the convoy was opposition leader Nino Burjanadze.  An Al Jazeera video is available here that shows police battling protesters late on Wednesday night.  Water cannons are plainly visible, and police can be seen beating a number of demonstrators.  It should be noted that almost all the demonstrators are armed with plastic truncheons as described here yesterday.  They were ready for battle.

The video is most notable, however, for footage supplied by the Georgian Internal Affairs Ministry which (at approximately 47 seconds into the Al Jazeera video), purporting to show the final car of the convoy running over at least one person and driving on.  The Ministry says this was the police officer. If the video actually does represent what the government claims, then it appears that a convoy of cars, one of which may have been carrying Nino Burjanadze, simply ran over and killed the officer, then fled the scene.

Many witnesses have reported that police used unwarranted violence against demonstrators.  Transparency International Georgia and the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association released a joint statement saying that “excessive force” was used by police, accusing them of beating demonstrators ”who did not show resistance towards police.”

John Bass, the US Ambassador to Georgia, told reporters today that he was concerned by reports of excessive force used by some officers during the dispersal of protesters last night.

But the Ambassador repeated remarks he had made the previous day that “there were clearly a number of people included in that protest who were not interested in peacefully protesting, but were looking to spark a violent confrontation.”

With that I agree.  It is a sad day for Georgia, and don’t hold your breath waiting for anyone to accept even partial responsibility for what happened.

Ms. Burjanadze accused the police of trapping the remaining protesters last night, not allowing them to leave as they moved in on them with truncheons and water cannons. The police and the Saakashvili government committed “a crime against mankind,” she proclaimed.  But she went on to make a cynical comparison to last night’s events with Soviet Army behavior on April 9, 1989 – a sacred date in modern Georgian history, when Soviet forces put down a peaceful protest in Tbilisi against Soviet rule.  When the melee was over, twenty Georgians were dead and hundreds wounded.

Last night, Georgian police and Burjanadze’s partisans, both armed and spoiling for a fight, got what they wanted.  And as Nino sped away, two men lay dead, possibly killed by her car.