Georgy Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
The former president of Georgia suddenly returned to the media field at the Munich Security Conference, where he met leaders of Euromaidan Vitaly Klitchko and Arseni Yatsenyuk.
Georgian journalists have always been interested in what the former president is doing now and whether he has plans to return to Georgia. However, for a while nobody knew where Saakashvili was. He left Georgia few days before the inauguration of the new president. The last time the former president was seen was in Brussels, where he negotiated with the head of the European Commission Barroso, in vain trying to get an invitation to the Vilnius summit of the Eastern Partnership.
Some say that the former president lives in the Netherlands with his family, the birthplace of his wife Sandra Rulovs. Several weeks ago Mrs. Rulovs published a heartbreaking letter on a sad story: “My little son asks me: “Mom, when will be going back to beloved Georgia?” And I cannot say anything to him.”
But finally it appeared that Saakashvili lives in New York, where he has spent a significant part of his life, when he studied in Columbia University. This time he was invited to read lectures at Tufts University. The initiator of the invitation was the former commander of NATO troops in Europe, James Stavridis. However, lectures are not Saakashvili’s cup of tea. He still thinks he is a revolutionary who is calling to change post-Soviet space. From the very beginning of developments in Ukraine, he began to call on the West to get involved in Ukrainian affairs to “prevent Putin from reconstruction of the Empire.”
In America, Mikhail Saakashvili is provided with high platforms for promotion of the project of “arrangement” of the post-Soviet space. For example, there is an editorial column in Washington Post. It seems words by the former leader of the Rose Revolution and one of inspirers of Ukrainian Orange Revolution of 2004 are in demand from a significant part of the American elite; and it means certain decisions in the Ukrainian direction.
Speaking with Georgian journalists at the Munich conference, where Saakashvili had no chance to speak publicly (the host side is not the Americans, but the Germans, who treat relations with Russia carefully), Saakashvili said that he wouldn’t comment on Georgian internal policy, even though a tough struggle between the former ruling party United National Movement and the current ruling coalition Georgian Dream continues in the country. “I am sick of Georgian politics! Here, in Munich much more important things happen than internal fights in Georgia,” Saakashvili stated and added that Ukraine and the Euromaidan are much more important to him than events in his motherland, to where he has no plans to return.
