April 9, 1989 Massacre
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The April 9 tragedy refers to the events in Tbilisi, Georgia on April 9, 1989, when an anti-Soviet demonstration was dispersed by the Soviet army, resulting in 20 deaths and hundreds of injuries. April 9 is now celebrated as the Day of National Unity (Georgian: ეროვნული ერთიანობის დღე), an annual public holiday.
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[edit] Prelude
The anti-Soviet nationalist movement became more active in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1988. Several strikes and meetings were organized by anti-Soviet political organizations in Tbilisi. The conflict between the Soviet government and Georgian nationalists deepened after the so-called Lykhny Assembly on March 18, 1989, when several thousand Abkhaz demanded secession from Georgia and restoration of the Union republic status of 1921–1931. In response, the anti-Soviet groups organized a series of unsanctioned meetings across the republic, claiming that the Soviet government was using Abkhaz separatism in order to oppose the nationalist movement.
The protests reached their peak on April 4, 1989, when tens of thousands of Georgians gathered before the House of Government on Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi. The protesters, led by the Independence Committee (Merab Kostava, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Giorgi Chanturia, Irakli Bathiashvili, Irakli Tsereteli and others) organized a peaceful demonstration and hunger strikes, demanding the punishment of Abkhaz secessionists and restoration of Georgian independence. Local communist authorities lost control over the situation in the capital and were unable to contain the protests.
[edit] The killings
In the evening of April 8, 1989, Colonel General Igor Rodionov, Commander of the Transcaucasus Military District, ordered the troops to mobilize. Local militsiya (police) units were disarmed just before the operation. On April 9, at 3:45 AM, Soviet tanks and troops under General Aleksandr Lebed surrounded the demonstration area. The demonstrators met them dancing and singing national songs. Soldiers began attacking the demonstrators; reportedly toxic gas was used. Twenty people, mostly girls and older women, were killed, and over 4,000 were injured. Disarmed police officers were trying to evacuate panicked people. As seen in a video, taken secretly by opposition journalists, the soldiers did not allow emergency doctors to help injured people. Captured on film, a young man beating a tank with a stick became a symbol of the Georgian anti-Soviet movement.
[edit] Aftermath
On April 10, in protest against the crackdown, Tbilisi and the rest of Georgia went out on strike and a 40-day period of mourning was declared. People brought massive collections of flowers to the place of the killings. A state of emergency was declared, but demonstrations continued.
The government of Soviet Georgia resigned as a result of the event. Moscow claimed the demonstrators attacked first and the soldiers had to repel them. At the first Congress of the USSR People's Deputies (May–June 1989) Mikhail Gorbachev disclaimed all responsibility, shifting blame onto the army. The revelations in the liberal Soviet media, as well as the findings of the "pro-Perestroika" Deputy Anatoly Sobchak's commission of enquiry into the Tbilisi events, reported at the second Congress in December 1989, resulted in embarrassment for the Soviet hardliners and army leadership implicated in the event.
[edit] Legacy
The April 9 tragedy radicalised Georgian opposition to Soviet power. A few months later, a session of the Supreme Council of Georgian SSR, held on November 17-November 18, 1989, officially condemned the occupation and annexation of Democratic Republic of Georgia by Soviet Russia in 1921.
On April 9, 1991, on the second anniversary of the tragedy, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia proclaimed Georgian sovereignty and independence from the Soviet Union according to the March 31, 1991 referendum results.
A memorial to the victims of the tragedy was opened at the location of the crackdown on Rustaveli Avenue on November 23, 2004.
