During this early stage of the post-independence period, the former Soviet nomenklaturas in Georgia and Moscow continued having close ties. While most of the newly emerged Georgian nationalists had little experience in the state administration, this group of the former Soviet nomenklaturas had a certain level of professional experience. Having been trained in the Soviet system, this group took a less confrontational attitude towards Russia in comparison with the paramilitary leaders and Gamsakhurdia. This group also pursued the creation of a Georgian military. During the early 1990s, those former Soviet nomenklaturas played a key role in the formulation of the National Guard. However, their approach was moderate as they were afraid that forming a national army might cause a sharp reaction from Moscow (Darchiashvili, 2005, p. 6). In parallel, a number of actors emerged as influential figures in the security sector change process during this period.
3.4.2.1 The paramilitary leaders
The first group of such actors consists of paramilitary leaders including Georgian national movement activists and prominent figures in the informal network. Kitovani and Ioseliani are the primary examples. They pursued the establishment of a Georgian state independent of influence from Moscow and territorial integrity with the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
The nationalist movement leaders appealed for popular support by using their paramilitary forces to enhance the sense of Georgian identify and nationalism. Some paramilitary leaders gathered popular support as a symbol of defiance against the Soviet rule. Java Ioseliani of the Mkhedrioni is one of such icons, because of his record of criminal acts during the Soviet times. Independent movement leaders used paramilitaries among other security forces to reinforce Georgian identity. Paramilitaries and the other security sector actors played a role as an identity symbol for Georgian nationalism and independence sentiment. The sentiment of defiance and pro-independence grew popular in the post- independent Georgia and contributed to mobilising young men to join paramilitary
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groups, resulted in increasing the influence of the paramilitary forces and their leaders.
However, establishing professional armed forces was not their primary goal at that time. Instead of disbanding their own forces or building professional military, the paramilitary leaders retained their own paramilitary forces which were mostly young men who had received little or no professional military training. These forces were not under anyone’s strict control and did not have particular political motivations to participate in paramilitary activities. Most of them switched their affiliations regardless of the political stances of the groups (Darchiashvili, 2005, p. 6). Irregular armed forces in the post-independence period were therefore quite informal, loose associations of armed volunteers, without proper military training and a strong command and control structure within. In other words, they were not military forces, but rather political and social associations with arms and armed members.
In addition, some of the paramilitary leaders extended their influence. As discussed earlier, so-called ‘thieves-in-law’ expanded their influence by penetrating their influence both in informal and legitimate economic activities. The Mkhedrioni, “based on the thieves’ traditions” (Kupatadze, p. 118), is the most significant paramilitaries that emerged as an influential player in such an environment. In the absence of functioning authority, Georgia was “divided into fiefdoms presided over by warlords and their private armies…gangs and paramilitary thugs roamed the streets and territories towns and villages; corruption and violence were rife” (Ekedahl and Goodman, 2001, p. 263, cited in Slade, p. 127). This way, the paramilitary leaders enabled to retain their own, personalised armed forces rather than giving up their political and economic leverage.
Thus, for the paramilitary leaders, establishing professional regular armed forces was not the main priority but consolidating their own power was. In order to generate and restore support and power, their paramilitary forces needed to remain informal, irregular armed groups. Fragmented, personalised paramilitary forces were necessary to restore the paramilitary heads’ political leverage and economic interest in the fragile statehood of Georgia during this period. As a
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result, paramilitary forces remained highly personalised along with the individual leaders and they could be used to consolidate their power and occasionally purge political rivals.
3.4.2.2 Zviad Gamsakhurdia: The President
Gamsakhurdia is one of the most prominent figures among independence movement leaders. He is a distinct actor as his position as the President and his relation to other political leaders significantly influenced the course of the security sector formation.
Gamsakhurdia’s style in mobilising political support was based on his Georgian ethnocentrism, claiming Georgian culture’s superiority over other cultures. Gamsakhurdia regarded that ethnic sentiment was “at a level suitable for helping him to achieve popularity” (Nodia, 1996, p. 77). Born to a famous Georgian novelist, Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was a literature lecturer at Tbilisi State University in the middle 1970s, when Georgian intellectuals began the nationalist protest against Moscow. Among the nationalist intellectuals, Gamsakhurdia had the most radical attitude towards other ethnic groups in Georgia. Together with Merab Kostava, Giorgi Chanturia and other intellectuals, Gamsakhurdia protested various Soviet policies on Georgia and the Georgian language. After the death of Kostava in October 1989,26 Gamsakhurdia became the most popular Georgian politician for his romanticised nationalism, especially among ethnic Georgians, in particular, the Western Georgians or the Mingrelians. As he further pursued for more political influence and support, Gamsakhurdia’s nationalistic style became increasingly radical. He refused to stop hostilities by the Georgians against other ethnic groups and pronounced threats against minorities who ‘would not behave in a proper manner’ (Nodia, 1996, pp. 77–78). His Georgian-centric policies spread dismay among non- Georgian ethnic groups, and incurred conflicts between Georgians and the other ethnic groups.
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Another characteristic feature of Gamsakhurdia is his populist and (some-said) paranoid personality. Gamsakhurida appealed for popular support by employing extreme nationalist rhetoric resembled to those used by Stalin in the 1930’s, such as ‘Enemy of the Nation’ (Stalin’s version: ‘Enemy of the People’) (Nodia, 1996, p. 80). Such extreme populist rhetoric garnered popular support for Gamsakhurdia on one hand, on the other, it generated an image of Gamsakhurdia as a dictator and other Georgian democrats increasingly distanced from him.
The more he gained popular support, the more his attitude towards political rivals became radical, sometimes even violent. He grew a sense of paranoia, believing other political leaders and ‘Tbilisians’ were betraying him. Gamsakhurdia’s failure to condemn an attempted coup in Moscow in August 1990 increased opposition against him. As one critic states, Gamsakhurdia was “obsessed with the problem of personal loyalty and failed to develop rational political behaviour”.27 The political chaos in the early 1990s in the aftermath of the independence was shaped by the personal rivalry between Gamsakhurdia and his political opponents and escalated to armed struggles.
In 1990 and 1991, Gamsakhurdia’s priority was to establish dominance over prominent political rivals, especially Kitovani and Ioseliani. Instead of introducing economic policies to stabilize the economic and other social disturbance in the aftermath of the Soviet dissolution, Gamsakhurdia introduced a number of security sector change that aimed to curtail their influence during the short period of his time in power, until he was ousted by the coup in early 1992. For example, in early 1991, Gamsakhurdia ordered to create the Special Purpose Police Unit (OMON) with an intention to counter the influence of Kitovani who controlled the National Guard. The National Guard was ordered to become a subunit of OMON, but Kitovani refused to follow the order.