When was Jumber Patiashvili removed from his position as First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party by Gorbachev ?
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 .