January 10, 2003

Journal Seeks to Forge U.S.-Caucasus Connection; Commercial Publisher to Lead Yale U. Press

By PETER MONAGHAN and JENNIFER K. RUARK

WORSE THAN EDITORS: Even after the end of Soviet rule, writing remains a perilous occupation in Georgia and surrounding states of the Caucasus.

So David Zurabishvili, an award-winning author of children's books, learned last July, when 10 thugs severely beat him and his colleagues in the offices of the Liberty Institute, in T'blisi. It was not Mr. Zurabishvili's books they objected to, but the institute's efforts to speed the transition to a civil society with a free press, democratic