Soldiers check the sights on their Kalashnikovs, military cadets dig trenches and a crane moves concrete barriers into position at the entrance to Georgia’s autonomous Black Sea region of Adzharia – where any euphoria over this country’s “rose revolution” comes to a swift end. As thousands of demonstrators were partying in the streets of the capital Tbilisi over the bloodless overthrow of President Eduard Shevardnadze last month, the strongman leader here declared a state of emergency and labeled the revolution a coup. Now, Adzharia says it won’t participate in the Jan. 4 vote to replace Shevardnadze and is refusing to recognize the country’s interim leadership or parliament. That raises the question of whether the region – whose leaders claim they want to remain part of Georgia – will become another separatist headache for this former Soviet republic in the Caucasus. Interim president Nino Burdzhanadze travels to Adzharia on Wednesday to meet Aslan Abashidze, the 65-year-old former Soviet bureaucrat who has ruled here since Georgia’s 1991 independence, and press for the region to take part in next month’s election. In contrast to the freewheeling Georgian capital, Adzharia exhibits a distinctly Soviet mood – complete with omnipresent men in long, black leather jackets looking sideways at outsiders. Full Story
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