Down with Big Brother by Michael Dobbs

Author:Michael Dobbs [Dobbs, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-77316-6
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-03-22T16:00:00+00:00

EVERYONE DOWN ON THEIR KNEES,” shouted Tsereteli as the troops began their slow march up Rustaveli Avenue, in the direction of the parliament building. “They won’t beat you if you are on your knees.”17

A chant of “Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name” echoed from the loudspeakers around the plaza. “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”

“Give us this day our daily bread,” shouted the hunger strikers, sitting on the grass alongside the broad steps leading up to the parliament building, itself set back some fifty yards from the avenue.

Ten thousand voices-young, defiant, seemingly ready for any sacrifice—joined in the prayer. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us.”

The demonstrators could see the headlights of four armored personnel carriers moving toward them through the darkness, occupying the width of the avenue. Behind the APCs they could see a line of Interior Ministry troops, thwacking their plastic shields with heavy rubber truncheons. Behind those troops came several companies of paratroopers, who had been given the task of guarding the parliament building once the plaza in front of it was cleared. Except for the sharpened metal spades that were part of their regular equipment, the paratroopers were unarmed.

Cries of “Georgia, Georgia” filled the air, as the spetsnaz troops moved forward behind the APCs, herding people in front of them. By 4:10 a.m. the troops had formed a human barricade of shields and armor across the middle of Rustaveli Avenue, splitting the crowd in two. Riot police swarmed down side streets next to the parliament building, trapping everybody sitting in the vicinity of the fourteen stone steps and the adjacent patch of lawn. By barricading the side streets with trucks, the demonstrators had sealed off their own means of escape.

The patch of lawn next to the parliament building was filled with frantic people, crammed into an increasingly tight space. As the troops pushed inward from both sides, the hunger strikers struggled to their feet, kicking and screaming. Several dozen riot police were equipped with aerosol cans of a toxic nerve gas, known familiarly as cherry gas, or cheryomukha, which they sprayed at the demonstrators. Others lashed out with rubber truncheons. At one point the police line seemed to be breaking. Rodionov ordered paratroopers into the breach. In order to gain some breathing space, they struck out with the only weapon at their disposal, their metal entrenching tools. In the general crush of human bodies, the weakest were trampled underfoot and were soon struggling for breath.

“They’re killing people in there. Help them,” shouted the demonstrators outside the police barricade. “Fuck the bastards.”

Determined to rescue the hunger strikers, the demonstrators found a large wooden pole, which they attempted to ram through the line of shields and rubber truncheons. Occasionally a bloody figure ran through a chink in the line, assisted by Georgian militiamen, many of whom were beaten by Soviet soldiers as they helped the demonstrators form an escape route. Soon the entire avenue became a battleground.

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