GEORGIA: OPPOSITION PROTEST MARKS 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF SOVIET CRACKDOWN

As Georgians prepare for April 9 opposition demonstrations meant to force President Mikheil Saakashvili’s resignation, memories are also returning to an earlier April 9 protest 20 years ago -- one that resulted in the deaths of 20 people and marked the launch of a full-throttle campaign for independence from the Soviet Union.

Full article from eurasianet.org here:


... back on April 9th, 1989...

Sixty-year-old pharmacist Lali Bezhanishvili recalls that she never imagined that "a massacre" would take place. Around daybreak on April 9, she went to search for her 15-year-old daughter among the demonstrators in central Tbilisi. Bezhanishvili said she knew that there were soldiers and armored machines stationed nearby, but did not worry.

"I thought they were there just to scare the protesters, nothing more," recalled Bezhanishvili. "I vaguely remember I found Eka among the crowd and took her by her hand . . . Then I saw approaching soldiers. That’s the last thing I remember."

Bezhanishvili’s daughter Eka, her neck reportedly broken by a truncheon, was among the 16 people who died on April 9 when soldiers moved in. Bezhanishvili herself suffered a broken shoulder blade, and had all her front teeth knocked out, and experienced gas poisoning. She spent 60 days hospitalized and lost her memory for some six months.

Overall, 20 civilians, mostly women, died from wounds received during the crackdown, according to then Healthcare Minister Irakli Menagarishvili. More than 200 were injured or gas-poisoned.