Leaders replaced after riots in U.S.S.R.

MOSCOW The Communist Party chief and other leaders in the Sovietrepublic of Georgia were replaced Friday as a result of theconfrontation between Soviet troops and nationalist demonstratorslast Sunday that left 19 people dead and hundreds wounded.

Replacing party boss Dzhumber Patiashvili is Givi Gumbaridze,45, head of the Georgian KGB for the last two months. The party alsoreplaced Prime Minister Zurbab Chkheidze with a senior partyofficial, Nodar Chitanava, the news agency Tass said.

Officials said the party later will consider a request by therepublic's president, Otari Cherkezia, to be relieved of his post, analmost sure sign that he, too, will be ousted.

Under the circumstances, the shakeup in the Georgian CommunistParty apparatus was predictable. After violence broke out last yearin Armenia and Azerbaijan, the party leaders in those republics alsowere criticized and quickly replaced.

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev's policies of greateropenness have given rise to national movements in nearly all of thecountry's 15 republics, but now he and other Kremlin leaders aremaking it clear that they see such movements as a serious threat totheir over-all program of social and economic restructuring, known asperestroika.

At a press conference here Friday, Foreign Ministry spokesmanGennadi I. Gerasimov said the nationalist demonstrations in Georgiaamounted to "a stab in the back for perestroika."

Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, is still closed to Westernreporters, but sources there said nationalists were especially angrywith Patiashvili, and that graffiti all over the city calls him amurderer.

On the stairs of the city's central government building, thesite of Sunday's violence, residents have constructed a memorial.Nearly 2,000 people staged a "sympathy rally" Thursday after thefuneral of one of the people killed, 42-year-old psychiatrist ZiaDjinjaradze. More funerals, and possibly more demonstrations, areplanned for today and tomorrow.

An 11 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew is still in effect, though ForeignMinister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, a former leader of the Georgianparty, reportedly told a group of Georgian scientists that he ishoping to lift the curfew early next week.

Earlier this week, massive strikes shut down dozens offactories, institutes and schools. But most people have gone back towork and, except in a few cases, workplaces and city transportoperated normally today.

Nevertheless, the atmosphere in Tbilisi remains tense. Themilitary commandant's office announced that it has detained 328people for curfew violations in the last 24 hours.

The government, led by Shevardnadze, has said it has discoveredthat most of the Sunday fatalities came from asphyxiation. Butactivist sources there said soldiers used heavy riot clubs and sharpshovels to hit people. The military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda deniedthat sharpened shovels were used, or that the soldiers were drunk.