2004 Adjara Crisis - at The Choloki Bridge

At The Choloki Bridge

The situation escalated on March 14, when the central Georgian officials took advantage of Abashidze’s being in Moscow and headed to Adjara to hold campaign for parliamentary elections scheduled on March 28. However, pro-Abashidze armed groups blocked the administrative border of Adjara at the Choloki River and prevented President Mikheil Saakashvili and other members of the government to travel to the Autonomous Republic. The Adjaran authorities claimed Saakashvili was going to take control over the region by force.

In retaliation, Georgia’s central authorities imposed partial economic sanctions against its defiant region in a bid "to exhaust Adjaran regime's resources". Tensions defused between Tbilisi and Batumi on March 16 after President Saakashvili and Aslan Abashidze met and struck a deal that allowed for economic sanctions on Adjara to be lifted. An agreement has been reached over disarmament of paramilitary forces in Adjara, release of political prisoners, joint control of the customs and port of Batumi, and providing conditions for free election campaigning in Adjara. However, Abashidze refused to disarm his paramilitary forces in April. On April 19-April 21, Batumi-based military commanders Major General Roman Dumbadze and Murad Tsintsadze officially announced their insubordination to central authorities’ orders. On April 24, Adjaran Senate approved Aslan Abashidze’s proposal to impose a curfew in the region. However, dozens of soldiers of Adjaran leader Aslan Abashidze’s elite special purpose unit began to leave the region and pledged loyalty to the country’s central authorities. Several Adjaran officials also did so. Local opposition resumed series of protests in Batumi, being broken up severely on April 30.

At the end of April, Georgia launched its largest ever military exercises at the Kulevi training ground, near the Black Sea town of Poti. The Large-scale war games, some 30 km away from Adjara’s administrative border, was a show of strength, amid confrontation between central authorities and the self-minded Adjaran leader. In retaliation, the two key bridges connecting Adjara with the rest of Georgia over the Choloki River were blown up by Abashidze's forces to prevent incursion in Adjara allegedly planned by the country’s central authorities. On May 3, the U.S. Department of State condemned Abashidze’s activities and accused him of “trying to provoke military crisis”.