Supporters Cheer Pledge By President to Punish Russia

Thousands of supporters of Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, gathered in Tbilisi yesterday to cheer his vow to punish Russia for the devastating attacks of the past few days and sing the country's national anthem.

Waving flags as they streamed to Freedom Square outside the parliament building, the crowd was mix of pensioners, businessmen, students and young reservists who had earlier been called up to fight the separatists and their Russian allies.

One placard showed a picture of Putin with the slogan: "Wanted: crimes against humanity and the world."

Flanked by bodyguards, Saakashvili arrived about an hour after the start of the rally to applause and cheers. "I promise you today that I'll remind them of everything they have done and one day we will win," he said.

Some people said they had never been to a political rally before. "We are a united nation, everybody is supporting Saakashvili. He has defended our country," 28-year-old Arteym Oganeyzov said.

But some were sceptical. "Why did [Saakashvili] take on Russia with 10,000 soldiers? Maybe he was thinking somebody would help us. But nobody did help us," Bacho Janashia, a 24-year-old student said. He added: "We hope Saakashvili disappears from Georgia." Why? "Because he's a bastard."

Georgia, which declared independence in April 1991 when the Soviet Union crumbled, is a nation of about 4 million people with a small US-trained army. Russia, with a population of about 142 million, has a huge, well-equipped military.

Over the last few days Georgia's main TV station has shown movies depicting small armies relying on courage and heroism to fight bigger forces - including the film 300, which shows a band of Spartans fighting a huge Persian invading army.

Georgian troops were yesterday forced out of its second breakaway region, Abkhazia, according to Abkhaz officials and Moscow. Abkhaz forces took down a Georgian flag flying over administrative headquarters in the town of Chkhalta, they said. The claim appeared to be confirmed by the Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili. "We removed everything we had there, police and civilians," he told Reuters, adding that the upper Kodori gorge was entirely in Russian and Abkhaz hands.

Georgia has accused Russia of aiding the Abkhaz forces, after Moscow poured 9,000 troops into the west Georgian region as fighting raged between Russian and Georgian forces in breakaway South Ossetia further east.

Utiashvili said about 600 police officers had been stationed in the gorge. It is the only part of Abkhazia controlled by Tbilisi. The Abkhaz separatists said they had pushed the Georgians from the area. "Units from the Abkhaz military have completed an operation to push out the Georgian army ... from the upper part of the Kodori gorge," a spokesman for Abkhazia's self-styled president, Sergei Bagapsh, was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.