Tengiz Kitovani

Tengiz Kitovani ( tengiz k’it’ovani; 9 June 1938 – 13 November 2023) was a Georgian politician and military officer who was a prominent military figure in the Georgian Civil War (1991–1993) when he commanded the Georgian National Guard.

Kitovani also served as a minister of defense until being gradually sidelined by Eduard Shevardnadze who had earlier been invited to lead the nation after a successful coup d'etat launched by Kitovani and his allies against President Zviad Gamsakhurdia.

Early life and career

Born in Tbilisi on 9 June 1938, Kitovani graduated from the Tbilisi Fine Arts Academy and taught at a boarding school in the town of Tetritsqaro.

Kitovani entered national politics early in 1990 when the independence movement reached its climax in then-Soviet Georgia. Elected to the Supreme Council of Georgia the same year, he was closely associated with Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a Soviet-era dissident who went on to become the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council and eventually the President of Georgia in 1991. Later, Shevardnadze would accuse Kitovani of provoking an armed conflict in Abkhazia, claiming that Kitovani disavowed his order and advanced with his military to Sukhumi. Kitovani however blamed Shevardnadze for preventing him from following up an offensive on Sukhumi with an attack on the Abkhaz stronghold in Gudauta, home to a Russian military base which supplied the secessionist forces with instructors and munitions.

Conflict with Shevardnadze

During the war in Abkhazia, Kitovani developed a power centre rivalling Shevardnadze's and on several occasions challenged Shevardnadze, now Head of State, on defence matters, suggesting that he should be responsible only for foreign policy. Kitovani stood as a candidate in Georgia's parliamentary elections of 11 October 1992 and was elected in the single-mandate constituency of Bolnisi. In the aftermath of the elections, Shevardnadze attempted to replace him as Minister of Defence with a professional soldier, General Anatoli Kamkamidze but was unable to do so. Amid persistent rumours that he was planning a new military coup, Kitovani was finally forced into resignation in May 1993 – though a protégé, Gia Karkarashvili, was named as his replacement, and he was able to retain some of his power – partly, according to widespread rumours in Tbilisi, through his control over Georgia's "energy mafia" and his "special relationship" with Russian defence minister Pavel Grachev.

However, Shevardnadze was able to exploit the military setback in Abkhazia to embark on a crackdown on the paramilitary groups and ultimately their leaders. After the pro-Gamsakhurdia rebellion had been quashed with Russian aid by December 1993, Shevardnadze was able to increasingly consolidate his power and deprive both Kitovani and Ioseliani of influence over national security policy.

After spending some time in Russia, Kitovani returned to Tbilisi and, together with Tengiz Sigua and Boris Kakubava, leader of a faction of ethnic Georgian IDPs from Abkhazia, founded the National Front for the Liberation of Abkhazia in the autumn of 1994.

On 13 January 1995, Kitovani, with the support of Tengiz Sigua, led a force of some 700 lightly armed supporters in a march against Abkhazia. They were stopped by Georgian police and arrested. Kitovani was tried for having organized an unlawful armed force and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment in October 1996. He served four years of his eight-year term and was pardoned by Shevardnadze on medical grounds on 22 May 1999.

Emigration and return

From the early 2000s, Kitovani lived in Moscow from where he harshly criticized the Shevardnadze government on several occasions. In February 2002, he responded scandalously to the mysterious suicide of Nugzar Sajaia, Shevardnadze's close ally and an influential Chairman of Georgia's National Security Council, making allegations that Sajaia was a homosexual and had ordered the 2001 murder of journalist Giorgi Sanaia. Later that year, Kitovani accused Shevardnadze of being behind the 2002 assassination of Kakhi Asatiani, a businessman and former football star. He also upheld Russia's claims that some 700 Chechen fighters had spent that winter in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge. He further claimed that Russian General Gennady Shpigun, abducted and killed in Chechnya in 1999/2000, was in fact held captive and put to death in Pankisi, with the body then taken to southern Chechnya. Georgia dismissed all these claims.

Georgian Prosecutor-General Nugzar Gabrichidze claimed that Kitovani had been in close contact with National Guard veterans who staged a failed mutiny on 23 March 2003. Kitovani, however, denied any links with the mutiny.

Kitovani returned to Tbilisi, in December 2012, after the change of government in the aftermath of the October 2012 parliamentary election. In early 2014, President Giorgi Margvelashvili stripped him of his Georgian citizenship.

Kitovani died on 13 November 2023, at age 85.

Notes

References

David Darchiashvili, "Georgian Defense Policy and Military Reform", in: Bruno Coppieters (2005), Statehood and Security: Georgia After the Rose Revolution. MIT Press,