Shevardnadze Says USA Betrayed Him
BBC News
The ousted Georgian president, Eduard Shevardnadze, has said he feels let down by the United States, who he says helped to remove him from power.
As Foreign Minister during the last days of the USSR, Eduard Shevardnadze was a key player in the ?perestroika? process that ended the cold war.
Mr Shevardnadze said he could not understand why he had been abandoned after giving Washington full support in foreign policy, including on Iraq. He said that he resigned when he saw a crackdown would only lead to bloodshed. He left after opposition protests against flawed elections led to a takeover of parliament last weekend.
Correspondents say Mr Shevardnadze appeared tired and a little bewildered as he spoke to reporters at his residence outside the capital Tbilisi. He is said to have aged visibly in the past two weeks.
He said that, as Soviet foreign minister, he had played a major part in rescuing the world from the Cold War, and, as president of Georgia, he was a good friend to the USA. “When they needed my support on Iraq, I gave it,” he said. “What happened here, this I cannot explain.”
He said he suspected the involvement of USA ambassador Richard Miles, who was posted to Belgrade before the overthrow of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. The USA has denied any involvement. “In relation to the ambassador, I have serious… suspicions that this situation that happened in Tbilisi is an exact repetition of the events in Yugoslavia,” Mr Shevardnadze said. “Someone had a plan.”
The main opposition leader, Mikhail Saakashvili, has already said that he went to Belgrade earlier this year to study the events there three years ago and wanted to repeat them in Georgia.
He added that he called a state of emergency because he saw a threat to the integrity of Georgia. “Everything was ready - the army, the internal troops, the police - but I looked at the huge crowd,” he said. “I saw in their faces it would be impossible to calm them, that they were not afraid of anything, and I knew there would be bloodshed. That morning I told my colleagues the only way out was my resignation.”
He was clearly hurt by comparisons with Mr Milosevic and with former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu, who was shot by firing squad after being ousted in a popular revolution in 1989. “Who in the world would believe that Shevardnadze could be Ceaucescu or Milosevic?” he said, adding that he had been the first to offer support to Romania’s new leaders after the uprising.
He said he had nothing bad to say about Mr Saakashvili. “I want to advise him to avoid chaos,” he said. “Chaos already happened in the country and he can change the situation.”
Published Thursday, November 27th, 2003 - 01:50pm GMT
Article courtesy of BBC News
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BBC News
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