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  • Democratic Deficit?

    DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT?
    By Catherine Reilly

    http://www.metroeireann.com/article/democr atic-deficit,1727
    Thursday, February 26, 2009, 17:59

    DEMOCRACY in Armenia is making little progress, a leading political
    advisory body has claimed.

    Sabine Freizer, Europe director with the influential International
    Crisis Group (ICG), said that since its damning report on Armenia
    in April 2008, scant improvements to the country's nascent democracy
    have been noted.

    "There are still political prisoners in Armenia, there are still
    trials going on, so no, the situation has not improved significantly,"
    she told Metro Ã~Iireann last Friday.

    The study, Picking up the Pieces, was released by the ICG last
    April and referred to the country's "flawed presidential election"
    in February 2008, and subsequent "lethal crackdown against a peaceful
    protest rally" organised by supporters of unsuccessful presidential
    candidate Levon Ter-Petross-ian.

    The report called for a more independent judiciary and stringent
    tackling of corruption and cronyism within government. In 2008,
    Transparency International ranked Armenia in 109th place out of 180
    countries in a corruption survey.

    According to Freizer: "The government has now solidified its position
    in the country but there are still the problems of political prisoners,
    of lack of dialogue between the opposition and the government. This
    keeps the political situation quite tense and strange.

    " Freizer said that resistance to dialogue exists on both sides, but
    that a "thorough examination" of incidents that took place last March,
    when demonstrators and police clashed in Yerevan after the disputed
    elections, would be a "very important" factor in restoring dialogue.

    "And really a prosecution of some of the police officers who were
    involved, who used excessive force during those demonstrations,"
    she added.

    She also suggested that Armenia is much less adept at implementing
    reform measures than publishing them.

    "Armenia is facing a series of challenges," continued Freizer.

    "As of right now, one of the biggest is the economic challenge of
    the global crisis which is having a serious effect because Armenia
    has a large population that works abroad - mainly in Russia - and
    since Russia has been hit very badly by this crisis, the workers who
    had been sending their salaries to families in Armenia have not been
    able to do that, as a lot have lost their jobs."

    Freizer also noted that international disputes such as the
    Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan continue to affect Armenia
    socially and financially.

    "Due to this conflict, Armenia has to spend a large percentage of
    its budget on the military, and basically remains very much in war
    mode. Also, Armenia's border with Turkey has been closed since the
    mid-1990s and it is forced to de pend largely on Russia, both for
    financial assistance and investment, and general economic trade and
    cooperation."

    Freizer believes that the international community hasn't taken enough
    high-level interest in assisting Armenia towards the resolution of
    outstanding issues, including the Nagorno-Karabakh situation.

    "There was a ceasefire signed in 1994," she commented, "but in the past
    15 years there has not been any other document signed except for a very
    short document last autumn [the so-called Moscow Declaration]. This
    was facilitated directly by Russian President Medvedev. And that
    shows that if high-level officials do get involved, the chances of
    some degrees of compromise are higher.

    "Instead, what we've had for the past six years is the OSCE Minsk
    process, with three diplomat co-chairs [Russia, France, US] who are
    regularly working on it, trying to negotiate between the sides."

    However, she criticised the absence of a designated EU co-chair
    in this diplomatic process, and the EU's general approach to the
    Nagorno-Karabakh situation.

    "Now what generally happens is that Brussels works directly with
    Armenia but doesn't in any way touch the Nagorno-Karabakh [issue] in
    any of its projects or proposals or programmes. It's the same with [the
    EU approach to] Azerbaijan. So Nagorno-Karabakh is kind of left as an
    empty zone, which is very unusual in the middle of Europe, to have such

    a situation as you do today in Karabakh."

    She continued: "There needs to be much greater political involvement
    in the talks. We are actually at a moment where there is optimism
    that there might be an agreement on basic principles sometime this
    year, but this optimism has kind of been in the air since 2005,
    so this process is extremely slow. Now is really the time for more
    international involvement."

    Meanwhile, Freizer said that government-to-government funding to
    Armenia should not proceed without tangible evidence of reform.

    "It's always very difficult to determine whether or not imposing
    sanctions is actually going to hurt the right people. The problem
    with making limits on aid is that sometimes the most vulnerable are
    going to lose out on the humanitarian assistance."

    She concluded: "We were focusing more on the kind of assistance that
    goes to Armenian institutions. There's really no point in throwing
    money at institutions that refuse to reform. There needs to be pressure
    put on Armenia to ensure that they actually implement their reforms
    and not just talk about it in terms of rhetoric."

    What is the Armenian govt's view?

    The 1 March protest was an attempted coup by the opposition, according
    to the Armenian government.

    President Sargsyan, just before he officially took his oath of office,
    informed EU special envoy to the South Caucasus, Peter Semneby,
    that his gove rnment is "ready to co-operate with all those who want
    Armenia to develop", and that "those who incited recent riots had
    committed a crime and should be punished".

    On the issue of corruption, the Armenian government has initiated
    an Anti-Corruption Council - headed by the prime minister - and the
    Anti-Corruption Strategy Monitoring Commission.

    In relation to dialogue with the opposition, Armenia's Foreign Minister
    Eduard Nalbandian is reported to have informed his Czech counterpart
    last week that the Armenian government is ready for talks with the
    opposition, but that it has so far failed to display a readiness
    to talk.

    Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg had told Nalbandian in
    Prague that such a dialogue is essential for Armenia's inclusion in
    the EU's Eastern Partnership programme, which offers six former Soviet
    republics much closer ties with the bloc in return for political and
    economic reforms.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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