Troops cordoned off the deserted streets of central Tbilisi yesterday after Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili declared a state of emergency and shut down independent media to quash six days of anti-government protests.

Opposition leaders said they were suspending protests to avoid more injuries. More than 550 demonstrators were hospitalized on Wednesday after the government crushed protests using riot police armed with batons, rubber bullets and tear gas.

Schools were closed until next week, only state corporations were allowed to broadcast news and meetings were banned under the emergency measures which will last until November 22, subject to parliamentary approval.

NATO criticized Georgia's state of emergency, saying the imposition of emergency rule and the closure of media outlets were "not in line with Euro-Atlantic values". Saakashvili has vigorously pursued membership of the Western military alliance.

Former Soviet master Russia said the violent crackdown on protesters in Tbilisi had "evidently shown what democracy Georgia-style is" and appealed to the United Nations and the Council of Europe to pressure Georgia to stop using violence.

The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Georgia's senior diplomat in Moscow to announce counter-measures after Tbilisi expelled three Russian diplomats on Wednesday, accusing them of spying and fomenting unrest, charges denied by Moscow.

"We are expelling three senior diplomats from the Georgian mission," a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said, without giving further details.

Saakashvili faces his worst crisis since he came to power in a bloodless revolution in 2003. A close US ally, he has attempted to portray his small former Soviet state as a beacon of democracy and stability in the volatile Caucasus region - an image which now lies in tatters.

Georgia has a history of volatility. It was ravaged by civil war in the early 1990s and separatist rebellions, largely peaceful, are under way in two regions of the country. Tbilisi sees the hand of Moscow in both.

Saakashvili wants to take Georgia - an east-west oil transport link wedged between Russia and the Middle East - into NATO and the European Union, policies which have set him on a collision course with Moscow.

Domestic opponents have criticized him for an authoritarian style that brooks no dissent, for continuing human rights abuses and for failing to tackle poverty and unemployment.

The US State Department yesterday called on the government and the opposition to avoid actions that could lead to further violence and the European Union sent its top envoy for the region to Georgia.

Agencies

(China Daily 11/09/2007 page7)