Emzar Kvitsiani wants to go home

Georgy Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza

The former envoy of the former Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze in the Kodori Gorge of Abkhazia, Emzar Kvitsiani, addressed the new authorities of the country to let him return to Georgia. Kvitsiani wants guarantees that he won’t be arrested in the Tbilisi airport, when he flies from Russia, where the former official lives since 2006.

The former leadership accused Kvitsiani of treason and establishing illegal armed groups. The case is the events of 2006 in the Kodori Gorge where from the beginning of the Georgian-Abkhazian war of 1992-1993 and up to the five-day war of 2008 official Tbilisi jurisdiction operated.

Emzar Kvitsiani took part in the first Abkhazian war on the Georgian side. After the war he headed the territory army of the local Svans – an ethnic group of the Georgian nation. In summer 2006 the Foreign Minister Irakly Okruashvili put an ultimatum to the Svans: to lay arms and don’t prevent Georgian troops from coming to the Kodori Gorge. Kvitsiani understood clearly what would be a result of another adventure of the central authorities. And he was against launching troops in the Gorge, but he failed to resist the Georgian Army.

Kvintsiani escaped from Kodori to Russia where he lives now. In August 2008 his worst predictions came true: the Abkhazian armed groups forced out Georgian troops from the Kodori Gorge together with the Georgian population, only a small part of the Svans managed to came back home. There was no former governor among them, as the Abkhazian authorities had as many issues to him, as the Georgian leadership.

Thus, Kvitsiani had only one hope: a process of rehabilitation of people who were repressed under Saakashvili’s governance. However, the ruling coalition Georgian Dream didn’t include him into a list of political prisoners and political refugees, which consisted of more than 200 opponents of the former regime. Emzar Kvintsiani hasn’t received a response on his request to stop the criminal prosecution against him. And the fact that the new authorities keep silence means a lot. It seems Ivanishvili’s government doesn’t want to create a precedent of cancelation of a criminal case against “a rebel” who resisted the authorities with weapon in his hands.

The other reason for rejection of rehabilitation is also interesting: Kvitsiani lives in Russia; and it wouldn’t happen without close contacts with corresponding Russian services. Due to contacts in Moscow and brilliant diplomatic playing, Kvitsiani managed to maintain peace in Kodori during 13 years of his governance in the region.