Georgian Bridges Blown Up

Authorities in the rebellious Black Sea region of Adzharia blew up the three main bridges linking it with Georgia on Sunday, and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, pledging to avoid military conflict if possible, gave the Adzharian leadership ten days to disarm and restore constitutional rule.

In the worst escalation of the long-running conflict so far, the Georgian leader said he was prepared to forcibly disband the regional government and call new elections, even as Adzharian authorities said they were ready to “respond to force with force” and warned of the danger of escalation.

Television showed images of the bridges reduced to concrete rubble, effectively cutting off land access to the 1,158-square-mile area that includes the major oil port city of Batumi and a Russian military base. Railroad tracks leading into the region also were dismantled.

Adzharian authorities said they destroyed the bridges to prevent a military incursion by Georgian forces, who spent the past week conducting a major military exercise just outside the borders of the region. Adzharia is officially part of Georgia, but its leader, Aslan Abashidze, does not submit to the Georgian government’s authority and has cracked down on opposition groups that have called for cooperating with the federal government.

Two other regions have formally broken away from Georgia, and one of the biggest challenges facing the newly elected Saakashvili is holding the fractured, economically ailing nation together. The U.S.-educated lawyer assumed power from former President Eduard A. Shevardnadze in the wake of a bloodless revolution last year. On Sunday, he said he was giving Abashidze “one more chance to return to the constitutional space of Georgia, and begin disarmament.”

“If this is not done, I will exercise my constitutional right to disband the Adzharian authorities and call early elections in the autonomous republic,” the president told reporters after a meeting of senior government leaders in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.

In a public letter released Saturday evening, Shevardnadze urged a quick and peaceful resolution. “What is happening in Adzharia marks the beginning of the state’s breakup,” he warned. “I no longer have sufficient information to see who is wrong and who is right, but ... a road to reconciliation must be found, and only peaceful methods must be used.”

Abashidze told the Russian news agency Itar-Tass on Sunday that the decision to blow up the bridges had come after he received reports that Georgian armed forces had put up tents only half a mile from the Adzharian border, and planned a military invasion.

The regional government “decided that it is necessary to take security and preventive measures,” he said.

“We are for a peaceful dialogue with Tbilisi ... but the moves by the central authorities provoke serious apprehensions,” he said. “If blood of only a single man is shed, it will be impossible to stop a fire.”

Adzharia’s Interior Ministry spokesman, David Gergedava, told The Times that the regional government learned that political opponents of Abashidze were planning to enter Adzharia and conduct antigovernment demonstrations.

Once they crossed the bridges, he said, they would have encountered large numbers of unarmed Abashidze supporters standing along the other side of the Choloki River.

Because of the proximity of military equipment from the Georgian exercise, he said, “we had information that as soon as oppositionists enter Adzharia, a conflict could happen with the usage of the military equipment,” he said. “So in order to avoid it, the bridges were blown up.”

Georgian officials have said the military exercise, which has involved about 2,000 personnel equipped with tanks, planes, helicopters and ships and which wound up Sunday just north of Batumi, was routine and not intended as a threat.

“I can state categorically that we can rule out any impulsive and ill-thought-out steps in response to this unimaginable provocation by Abashidze,” Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania told Tbilisi’s independent Rustavi 2 television. A military operation “at present

Saakashvili focused instead on urging Adzharians to abandon support for the regional government, emphasizing that Tbilisi’s quarrel is with Abashidze and his top lieutenants, not Adzharia. He warned of an impending “humanitarian catastrophe” in Adzharia with access cut off at the beginning of the summer tourist season.

Yakov Ryzhak of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.