What’s going on with Mikheil Saakashvili? On the evening of November 11, news came that he was ending his hunger strike. However, the very next day, denials followed. A friend of the ex-president Liza Yasko, following a meeting with him, said that he was ready to end the hunger strike only on condition that he was transferred from the prison hospital in Gldani to a civilian multidisciplinary clinic. However, Georgian Justice Minister Rati Bregadze said that after the hunger strike ends, Saakashvili will be returned to the Rustavi prison.
On November 10, the European Court of Human Rights called on Saakashvili to end the hunger strike. He also, by his decision, obliged the Georgian authorities to provide adequate treatment and the safety of the ex-president. It should be reminded that the politician, who after his illegal return to Georgia on the eve of the municipal elections on October 1, was detained by the police, went on a hunger strike, which has already “turned” 43 days old.
Is it a lot or a little? The first political hunger strike of a prisoner in history lasted, by the way, only 9 days. This prisoner was Nikolai Chernyshevsky, who was starving in the cell of the Alekseevsky Ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress, demanding to see his wife. It was in 1863. During the hunger strike, he continued to write his novel What to Do, and it just came to Vera Pavlovna’s third dream. He was allowed to meet with his wife. So Chernyshevsky became the author of not only the famous novel, but also a new method of political struggle. Doctors did not bustle around Nikolai Gavrilovich, in European capitals no one cared about him. And no human rights. But at the same time, the concept of “hunger strike” had a very clear meaning. A “hunger strike” is when a person does not eat anything. Nothing at all. And if at the same time he still does not drink anything, then this is a dry hunger strike. Counts, that her person can withstand no more than 10 days. But here is the story of last spring: the Russian blogger Vygranovsky held out on a dry hunger strike for 40 days. But then he died anyway. When I began to leave it.
At the same time, Vygranovsky was starving not for political, but for medical reasons. So he “cleansed” his body. Fasting therapy is a fairly common practice. Saakashvili practiced something similar when he took weight loss courses in European clinics. And he paid a lot of money for this, but not his own. As it turned out, during his presidency, Saakashvili lost weight in expensive Western clinics at the expense of the state budget. Soon he will have to answer before the law and for these waste.
Therefore, in the current historical situation, it is very important not to confuse a real hunger strike with medical fasting. A real hunger strike is distinguished by the willingness to go to the end and the level of demands. It is absurd to sacrifice your life for the sake of, for example, your favorite evening dress being handed over to your camera. It is clear that a person will end a hunger strike for household reasons sooner or later. It is more difficult with idealistic motives.
Dissident Anatoly Marchenko in 1986 went on a hunger strike in Chistopol prison demanding the release of all political prisoners of the USSR. He fasted for 117 days. Around the 40th day, they began to force-feed him. Marchenko voluntarily ended his hunger strike, and died a few days later. It was on December 8, 1986, and on December 31, Gorbachev made a decision to release political prisoners.
In March 1981, supporters of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) began a hunger strike in Mays Irish prison to protest the deprivation of their status as political prisoners. 10 of its participants died, but they lasted for different times. The initiator of the action, Bobby Sands, died 66 days after its start, another prisoner, Kieran Docherty, 73 days later. He lasted the longest, and the minimum period from the start of the hunger strike to death was 46 days. Saakashvili was personally acquainted with the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and admitted that he was fascinated by her. Now he should remember the words of the “iron lady” about the death of the Irish: “It was their choice.” Unlike the totalitarian USSR, prisoners in democratic Britain were not force-fed.
Against the background of these really great people, it is somehow even embarrassing to talk about Saakashvili’s hunger strike. And it’s not even about the frames in which he is eating something, and the information that he drinks juices and takes various drugs. And he does not look very emaciated on the 43rd day. The main question is: what is he starving for? Apparently, he and his entourage are now seeking one thing: transfer from prison to a private clinic. And we are talking about one specific clinic – the Tbilisi medical center “Vivamedi”, where the whole 5th floor for the ex-president has long been vacated. Doctors, clearly not strangers to Saakashvili, recommended that he be transferred to this clinic on the 20th day of the hunger strike (his condition was already called “critical” at that time). Isn’t it all strange?
I believe that all this is not without reason. Saakashvili really does not want to spend 6 years in prison. It is possible that the transfer to the clinic is needed to organize his escape. It is not for nothing that they insist and demand that it be there: perhaps, all agreements with the personnel and management have already been reached there. It is quite difficult to organize reliable security for such a clinic, especially since it will continue to work to receive ordinary patients.
Well, to finally understand everything about Saakashvili’s hunger strike, it is enough to recall one of the leaders of the terrorist organization, the Red Army Faction, Holger Meins, who died in prison on the 59th day of the hunger strike. He was 33 years old, and with a height of 183 cm, he weighed less than 39 kg at the time of death. Compare with Saakashvili on the 43rd day video and feel the difference.
