World press on Eduard Shevarnadze's death (July 8, 2014)

The National Interest published an article by Denis Corboy, William Courtney and Kenneth Yalowitz eentitled "Remembering Eduard Shevardnadze."

"In 1999, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze confided to an American diplomat that the Kremlin had asked to use military bases in his country to attack Russia's rebellious region of Chechnya, on Georgia's northern border. Shevardnadze said that after careful thought, he declined. "The is the first time in two hundred years we have told the Russians no, and they will never forget it," the article begins.

"Shevardnadze came to international fame as Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's foreign minister from 1985 to 1991, and his partner in loosening the grip of Soviet rule through the glasnost (openness) and perestroika (rebuilding) campaigns," the authors inform.

"Shevardnadze earned the enmity of hardliners in Moscow by helping Gorbachev let go of Warsaw Pact allies in Central and Eastern Europe, leading to the overthrow of all six communist regimes. He negotiated the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, and the peaceful reunification of Germany,' the article reads.

As the Georgian president Shevarnadze was trying to restore order and combat separatism and crime, but the political and ecomic elite of the country was much ahead him.

"In 1992, following a coup against Georgia's disastrous first president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Shevardnadze accepted calls to return home to restore order. His record was uneven. Armed groups waged war against separatists in Abkhazia, and Shevardnadze failed to stop them. In South Ossetia, he reached a shaky cease-fire with Russian President Boris Yeltsin, forestalling a wider conflict. Georgia lost control over both territories," the authors inform. "Over time, Shevardnadze neutralized a number of Georgian gangs, and by the mid-1990s, he brought the country to an uneasy peace. The hundreds of thousands of Georgians displaced from the separatist areas, however, posed humanitarian and security challenges."

"Soon, however, Shevardnadze, like Yeltsin a few years earlier in Moscow, began to lose confidence in and influence over his young and dynamic reformist allies. He became uncomfortable with the sharp give and take of political debate. Reforms slowed, corruption deepened, and the economy stagnated," the article reads.

"Despite his personal contradictions, Shevardnadze kept Georgia independent during a critical period of its history and helped lay a foundation for its democratic future," the authors of the article conclude.