ZVIADIST APPOINTED MINISTER IN AJARIA.

Ajar Supreme Soviet Chairman Aslan Abashidze announced yesterday the appointment of Leonard Devderiani as Minister for Special Assignments of Ajaria. Devderiani, who has until now lived in Moscow, was Georgia’s trade representative to Russia during the rule of the late president Zviad Gamsakhurdia. He has since associated with the Moscow-based Zviadist opponents of Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze. That circle is suspected of having had a hand in last February’s assassination attempt against Shevardnadze and the ensuing kidnapping of UN observers in western Georgia. (Russian agencies, August 4)

The appointment amounts to yet another defiant gesture by Abashidze against Tbilisi. It is a logical development of the Ajar leaders’ recently announced intention to form an alliance with adversaries of Shevardnadze, ranging from hard-line leftists to ultranationalists. The silver lining is that this policy of the Ajar leaders presupposes some participation in Georgian politics, rather than outright secession. That participation is itself limited, however, as can be seen from Ajaria’s current boycott of the parliament in Tbilisi.

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