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Tengiz Kitovani (თენგიზ კიტოვანი tengiz k’it’ovani; 9 June 1938 – 13 November 2023) was a Georgian politician and military commander with high-profile involvement in the Georgian Civil War early in the 1990s when he commanded the National Guard of Georgia.
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.
Kitovani entered national politics early in 1990 when the independence movement reached its climax in then-Georgian SSR. 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.
In December 1990, Gamsakhurdia decreed the creation of the National Guard of Georgia and appointed Kitovani as its head. However, the two men feuded in August 1991, when Gamsakhurdia sacked him as National Guard commander. Kitovani subsequently claimed that Gamsakhurdia was intending to disband the National Guard, and had been ordered to do so by the leaders of the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, but did not produce the documents he claimed to possess confirming this. Kitovani refused to accept his dismissal and left Tbilisi with most of his troops to entrench himself in the Rkoni Gorge. This was the beginning of the end for Gamsakhurdia, whose inflexible politics forced many of his former supporters into opposition.Wheatley (2005), pp. 54–5.
On 2 January 1992, the deposition of Gamsakhurdia and the formation of the Military Council was announced with Kitovani and Ioseliani as its leaders. Gamsakhurdia was forced into exile on 6 January 1992, and the coup leaders invited the former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze to head the post-coup provisional government – the State Council – in March 1992. As a result of the power-sharing arrangement that was eventually struck between Ioseliani, Kitovani, Sigua and Shevardnadze, Kitovani remained the commander of the National Guard and retained a considerable influence on decision-making. In May 1992, Shevardnadze appointed Kitovani Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister in an effort to bring the National Guard under central control. However, both Kitovani and Ioseliani were reluctant to concede power to Shevardnadze and tended to engage in unilateral actions, and in doing so frequently conflicted with each other.Wheatley (2005), pp. 68–70.
The first and most obvious of such actions were taken by Kitovani during a planned military operation against Gamsakhurdia's supporters who had formed pockets of armed resistance in western Georgia and had taken Georgian government officials hostage. On the night of 13 August 1992, Kitovani's force entered the autonomous republic of Abkhazia, whose leadership had taken a series of steps towards secession from Georgia, in order to establish control over the region's railways sabotaged by Gamsakhurdia's loyal . Although this operation and show of force resulted in the eventual release of the hostages, Kitovani, acting most probably on his own initiative, proceeded towards Abkhazia's capital of Sukhumi and forced the Abkhaz leaders into flight.Wheatley (2005), pp. 72–3. Shevardnadze failed to have Kitovani's force withdrawn from Abkhazia and the country became involved in a thirteen-month-long war which would end in Georgia's loss of control over most of Abkhazia. Another version of these events, often quoted in Georgia, says that Russia, while supporting the Abkhaz, also instigated Kitovani to trigger the conflict and perhaps even promised support for his leadership ambitions in Georgia after a successful operation.Svante Cornell, Autonomy and Conflict: Ethnoterritoriality and Separatism in the South Caucasus – Case in Georgia, p. 183, n. 18. Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Report No. 61. Uppsala. . Later, Shevardnadze would accuse Kitovani of provoking an armed conflict in Abkhazia, claiming that Kitovani disavowed his order and advance with his military to Sukhumi.Tunç Aybak (2001), Politics of the Black Sea: Dynamics of Cooperation and Conflict, p. 189. I.B.Tauris, . Eduard Shevardnadze accuses Tengiz Kitovani of provoking war in Abkhazia. The Georgian Times, 14 August 2007. 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.Parrott (1995), p. 217.
However, Shevardnadze was able to exploit the military setback in Abkhazia to embark on a crackdown on the paramilitary groups and ultimately their leaders. Georgia puts Kitovani on trial while Ioseliani awaits same . The Jamestown Foundation Monitor Volume 1, Issue 163, 28 December 1995. 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.Wheatley (2005), p. 79.
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.J. F. Brown (ed., 1997), The OMRI Annual Survey of Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union – "1996: Forging Ahead, Falling Behind," pp. 227–230. M.E. Sharpe, .
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.Wheatley (2005), p. 87. 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 by Shevardnadze on medical grounds on 22 May 1999. Kitovani released from prison . The Jamestown Foundation Monitor Volume 5, Issue 102, 26 May 1999.
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. Georgian National Guard veterans seize military base. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Newsline, cited in: Hellenic Resources Network. 24 March 2003. Kitovani, however, denied any links with the mutiny. Veterans' Failed Mutiny Unsettles Georgian Politicians. Civil Georgia, 25 March 2003.
Kitovani returned to Tbilisi, in December 2012, after the change of government in the aftermath of the October 2012 parliamentary election. Тенгиз Китовани вернулся в Грузию — ТВ Tengiz. Russian. NewsGeorgia.ru. 21 December 2012. In early 2014, President Giorgi Margvelashvili stripped him of his Georgian citizenship.
Kitovani died on 13 November 2023, at age 85.
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