Praise for Shevardnadze

Eduard Shevardnadze could have retired from public life in 1991 as a revered statesman, savoring the appreciation of a world he helped remake as the last Soviet foreign minister. In partnership with Mikhail Gorbachev, Shevardnadze eased decades of tension with the United States and opened the way for Eastern Europe to be free.

But early retirement was not Shevardnadze's style. The world was reminded of that last week by news photographs of Shevardnadze's bloodied face after he dodged an assassination attempt in Tbilisi, where he is Parliament chairman and the political leader of Georgia.

The bombing of Shevardnadze's motorcade was not the first effort to kill him since he returned to Georgia in 1992 in a stubborn effort to keep his homeland from disintegration and anarchy.

It has been hard, punishing work, and Shevardnadze ought to get more credit and support for his labors than he has at home and abroad.

Shevardnadze's courtly demeanor as Kremlin foreign minister was never the whole story. Diplomacy alone did not get him to the top of Georgia's internal security apparatus or the Georgian Communist Party, the posts that catapulted him to Moscow.

Shevardnadze, by most accounts, was a bruising infighter who knew how to wield power, and enjoyed having it. But he often used it to good purpose, including a drive to rid the Georgian party of corrupt officials in the years he led it.

Since returning to lead an independent Georgia, Shevardnadze has survived civil war and subdued armed bands to maintain some semblance of order and political stability. He was ambushed last week on his way to sign a new Constitution recently adopted by parliament at his urging.

The constitution will give Georgia a strong presidency that Shevardnadze hopes to win in elections later this year. His goal is to give Georgia a viable government that can help promote democracy and a market economy.

Some Georgians distrust Shevardnadze because of his long service in the Communist Party. Others fear he will relinquish too much Georgian independence to gain Russian support for the reunification of Georgia with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two distinct ethnic regions that broke free of Tbilisi after the Soviet Union collapsed.

Despite those legitimate concerns, Shevardnadze has given Georgia a gift his countrymen should not casually discard. With remarkable passion and courage, he has fought to keep his country from self-destructing. So far he has prevailed.

-- The New York Times