Adzharia Georgia

Georgia imposed an economic blockade Monday on the rebellious Black Sea region of Adzharia in an attempt to end a tense armed standoff and make good on Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's pledge to assert federal control over his fractured nation.

Ratcheting up pressure against the rebellious leader of an autonomous area on the Black Sea, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Tuesday leveled treason charges against a general who had declared loyalty to the regional strongman. Saakashvili said the general had "betrayed his country" by throwing his support to Aslan Abashidze, the defiant head of the Adzharia region in this former Soviet republic.

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.

The leader of a rebellious Black Sea region resigned early today in the face of sweeping protests against his rule, giving Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili an important victory in his attempt to consolidate his fractured country.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili took charge of the Adzharia region Thursday, securing its port and pledging to entrench democracy there with new elections. Saakashvili flew into the regional capital of Batumi the morning after opposition rallies and weeks of increasing pressure drove away rebellious Adzharian leader Aslan Abashidze. Saakashvili, a 37-year-old U.S.-trained lawyer elected by a landslide in January, strode down palm-lined streets to a chorus of cheers.

His grandfather has a street named after him in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. A monument there recalls that Mamed Abashidze headed the Adzhari nationalist movement and the small Black Sea republic's first parliament in 1918 -- before being shipped off to exile and death in one of Josef Stalin's prison camps. Aslan Abashidze has no monuments in Tbilisi. Indeed, he would be arrested if he set foot there.