User:AlexandreAssatiani/Black Pantyhose Battailon

The Black Pantyhose Battalion, also known as the Black Stockings and the Furies, are a group of female partisans of the late first President of Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, and his widow, Manana Archvadze-Gamsakhurdia. The group has, at times, served as an armed militia fighting for Gamsakhurdia, notably during the 1991-92 Georgian coup d'état. Refusing to recognize any government as legitimate since Gamsakhurdia's death in December 1993, the group has often been involved in public protests against the Shevardnadze and Saakashvili administrations.

Involvement in the Georgian Civil War
The exact origin of the Black Pantyhose Battalion remains unknown, although it is probable that the group came to existence organically, through the rallying of women supporters to Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia and his wife, First Lady Manana Archvadze-Gamsakhurdia, during the early anti-Gamsakhurdia protests that paralyzed Tbilisi due to the first President's authoritarian tendencies following the country's independence from the Soviet Union in April 1991. The group was involved, according to US-based NGO Human Rights Watch, in provocation attempts during anti-governmental protests led by opposition leaders in September 1991. Described as "legions of middle-aged women adoring the President", most women are said to come from the western Georgian region of Mingrelia, home region of Zviad Gamsakhurdia.

The involvement of the BPB in the conflict that would rock Georgia's first year as an independent republic remains controversial, with some analysts calling it "bad". On September 22, 1991, during a protest of hungerstrikers opposing the authoritarian tendencies of Zviad Gamsakhurdia by the Georgian Parliament building on Rustaveli Avenue, government troops were used to violently disseminate the crowd. According to a witness testimony involved recorded by Human Rights Watch, this is the first open involvement of the Black Pantyhose Battalion, called the "furies" in the NGO's report : "Government troops were led by the Georgian Minister of the Interior, Dilar Khobuliani. He was backed up by his entourage plus about 100 MVD men in plainclothes, plus 50 guardsmen, and 100 militiamen. These armed forces were supplemented with about 200 of Gamsakhurdia's so-called 'furies' [ed.: pro-Gamsakhurdia women who dress in black and attack his critics.] About 40 NDP members first sat down during this attack to try to protect themselves."

From December 22, 1991 to January 6, 1992, President Gamsakhurdia and his government bunker themselves down under the Parliament building, leading to a devastating coup d'état nicknamed the "Tbilisi War". During the conflict, which led to the death of at least 113, Russian media outlet Interfax mentioned the BPB as one of the leading factions in charge of protecting Zviad Gamsakhurdia, claiming that a majority of the 300-500 presidential guards were armed members of the Battalion. By the end of the coup, Gamsakhurdia would be overthrown and a Military Council would take power until the later arrival of Eduard Shevardnadze as head of state.

Under Saakashvili
While the group slowed its activities during the Shevardnadze presidency, the BPB reemerged but did not take up arms following the 2003 Rose Revolution that brought to power Mikheil Saakashvili, who peacefully overthrew Eduard Shevardnadze. However, the lack of criminal charges against the former president and the de facto clemency brought upon by the new president failed to reconcile the group with the new administration. They regularly held protests outside of Shevardnadze's residence in Tbilisi. In one protest, demonstrators are quoted as saying, "He is a criminal, he should never have been left as a free man- he and his allies must be tried for the crimes they committed by overthrowing the legal government in 1991 and then killing Gamsakhurdia."

In April 2005, during a memorial ceremony for the 9 April 1989 shooting of Georgian protesters by Soviet troops in Tbilisi, members of the BPB, led by Manana Archvadze-Gamsakhurdia led a protest to prevent Sandra Roelofs, Saakashvili's First Lady, from paying tribute to the dead. During the protest, they surrounded the First Lady until a police intervention.

In November 2009, members of the BPB staged protests to ask for the release of Tsotne Gamsakhurdia, who was accused of planning the murder of his neighbor.

Since 2013
Since the arrival of Georgian Dream to power in the new parliamentary republic, the BPB's activities have significantly decreased. The last major protest organized by the group was held shortly after Eduard Shevardnadze's death in July 2014, when women led by Manana Archvadze-Gamsakhurdia stood in front of the deceased former president's home and screamed anti-Shevardnadze chants. As of 2019, there are no records of any gathering by the BPB.

Political Views
While there is no ideological thought at the center of the BPB, the Battalion supports Zviadism, the term coined to describe partisanship toward late President Zviad Gamsakhurdia. This has often coincided the group with ultra-nationalism and a deep opposition to the presidency of Eduard Shevardnadze, who was seen as one of the masterminds behind the 1991-92 Georgian coup d'état. As there is no central organization of the BPB, few details exist on the identity or goals of today's Battalion.

As the BPB never recognized Gamsakhurdia's overthrow and continued to consider him as Georgia's president until his death on December 31, 1993, the group recognizes only a vacancy in the presidency (thus refusing to assume the legitimacy of Presidents Shevardnadze and his successors). Instead, the BPB recognizes Manana Archvadze-Gamsakhurdia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia's widow, as Prime Minister until the latter chooses to recognize the results of a future presidential election. There is no record of the group recognizing other individuals as members of the "alternative cabinet".

Society's Views
The Black Pantyhose Battalion is often seen in a negative light by the general Georgian society. Described as "bad", "fanatical", and "provocateurs" by some political experts, they have failed to garner much support along the years and are seen as one of the last bastions of Zviadism in today's Georgia.

The term "Black Pantyhose Battalion", or "Black Stockings" is not an official name of the group and is more often used pejoratively to mock the black clothing of the female partisans of Gamsakhurdia.

Activist groups of women that fought for Chechnya's independence during Jokhar Dudayev's Chechen Republic of Ichkeria are said to have inspired themselves from the BPB. Interestingly, Zviad Gamsakhurdia spent part of his exile in Grozny, where he became a friend and adviser to Dudayev.

View Also

 * Georgian Civil War
 * Zviadists
 * Women in combat