1989 Sukhumi riots

The Sukhumi riot was a riot in Sukhumi, Abkhaz ASSR, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union, in July 1989, triggered by an increasing inter-ethnic tensions between the Abkhaz and Georgian communities and followed by several days of street fighting and civil unrest in Sukhumi and throughout Abkhazia.

The riots started as an Abkhaz protest against opening of a Georgian university branch in Sukhumi, and concluded with looting of the Georgian school which was expected to house the new university on July 16, 1989. The ensuing violence quickly degenerated into a large-scale inter-ethnic confrontation. By the time when the Soviet army managed to temporarily bring the situation under control, the riots had produced at least eighteen dead and 448 injured, mostly Georgians, marking the start of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict.

The lingering ethnic discord in Abkhazia exacerbated when, on March 18, 1989, the Abkhaz élites, who viewed an increasingly active movement for Georgia's independence as a threat to their political privileges of a "titular minority" and the status of autonomous republic, signed a petition to the central Soviet government at a mass meeting at Lykhny, Abkhazia, demanding the rights to secede from Georgia. The move caused mass protests from the Georgian community, which accounted for by far the largest single group in (45,7%) of the population of the Abkhaz ASSR, and were resolutely opposed to any diminution of their links with the Georgian republic, holding rival demonstrations within Abkhazia and within Georgia proper. The protests climaxed in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and evolved into a major anti-Soviet and pro-independence rally on April 9, 1989, which was violently dispersed by the Soviet Interior Ministry troops, resulting in the deaths of twenty, mostly young women, and the injury of hundreds of demonstrators. At a plenum of the Georgian central committee the following day the Communist party first secretary, Jumber Patiashvili, resigned and was replaced by the former head of the Georgian KGB, Givi Gumbaridze. The April 9 tragedy removed the last vestiges of credibility from the Soviet regime in Georgia and pushed many Georgians into radical opposition to the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the Abkhaz remained largely loyal to the Soviet rule partly to antagonize the Georgian movement and partly to obtain Moscow’s sympathy towards their cause.

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