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A WAR THAT HAS BEEN NEGLECTED SINCE 1994
BY HOVHANNES NIKOGHOSYAN
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/05/03/a-war-that-has-been-neglected
MAY 3, 2012
Using the infamous quote of former British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain, this story below is about "a quarrel in faraway
countr[ies] between people of whom we know nothing". And this
is not about Europe of late 1930's, but about the periphery of
Europe of 2012. I marked this quote listening to a Member of the
Legislative Assembly from Northern Ireland, Mr. John McCallister,
who was delivering a speech about the conflict settlement process in
Northern Ireland at the Organization for Security and Co-operation
in Europe (OSCE)-hosted Ministerial conference in Dublin on April 27.
Fortunately enough for all Irishmen, who suffered three decades of
Troubles in their recent history, through the inclusive contribution of
international mediators, and chief of them US Senator George Mitchell,
as well as the maturity of the leaderships in London, Belfast, and
Dublin, they became able to seal the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
When foreign diplomats or my fellow colleagues from political science
disciplines elaborate on commonalities between the conflict in Ulster
and others in, for example, the former Soviet Union areas, including
Nagorno Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia (both now partially
recognized by few states), and Transdniestria, I always pinpoint on
two key differences: a) decisive international involvement; and b)
maturity of political and community leaderships.
A smoldering conflict is often not about absence of any peace
initiatives. It is substantially about an unwillingness of either
of the parties to commit to negotiated agreements once out of the
meeting room. This is especially true about the peace talks on Nagorno
Karabakh, where the geography of negotiations since the ceasefire
was established in 1994 (and even between the war of 1992-94) covers
the most beautiful cities on the planet-Rome, Helsinki, Prague,
Lisbon, Moscow, Paris, Key West, Madrid, etc.-while any progress is
hardly visible. A "no war, no peace" situation has been the only and
appreciated result of peace talks, which is now under increasing risk
to erupt into conflict as both sides are engaged in a Cold war-style
"deterrence" with extensive military buildup.[1]
Instead of going into the substance of current talks, here I want to
offer another key difference, which still makes it impossible to heal
wounds of enmity.
One of the most tragic events in the Troubles, "Bloody Sunday" of
January 1972, may serve as an example to show one difference between
Great Britain and Azerbaijan-two metropolises that had been trying
to keep their conflict regions inside the common area. While after
"Bloody Sunday" the Westminster immediately rushed into whitewashing
the tragedy and justifying the killings of mostly unarmed civilian
protesters in the streets of Derry, the Tony Blair Cabinet established
the so-called Saville Inquiry in 1998, which came out with a final
report in 2010 and contained rightful and lawful elaborations on the
"usual suspects". This bloody event might be much similar to what
happened in Sumgayit, a town in still Soviet Azerbaijan in February
1988, where Armenians were being executed for the sake of their
ethnic origins, just because few days before, on February 20, the
legislature in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) capital
Stepanakert applied with a petition to the Kremlin to re-join Soviet
Armenia. The same policy of pogroms against Armenians later unfolded
in Baku, Kirovabad, and other cities and villages of Azerbaijan in
the late years of the Soviet Union's existence. Though the Soviets
staged some prosecutions to punish anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgayit
(and not anywhere else), only few suspects got prison terms for
"hooliganism and mass riots". Instead of blaming and shaming for
the ethnic cleansings, which might have put the follow-up events
into another channel, most suspects were freed in the courtrooms or
sentenced to conditional terms. Absence of any "Saville Inquiry",
and moreover a policy of whitewashing the history and blaming
Armenians themselves "for provocations that led to pogroms", is what
qualitatively distinguishes the Karabakh case from the success story
in Northern Ireland. This is what I think the next similar conference,
hosted by Irish Chairmanship of the OSCE, will need to address.
Before conflicting diplomats and mediators may come to terms for
conflict resolution, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Nagorno Karabakh are
still fighting.
The official releases from the Armenian Defense Ministry reported on
April 27 that the Azerbaijani army has been shelling with sniper and
artillery fire the borderland villages of Tavush region in Armenia,
including onto a school and kindergarten.[2] Three soldiers of the
Armenian army are reported to have been killed, another one wounded.
Azerbaijani officials and the media indirectly confirmed the
incident.[3] The Armenian Foreign Ministry urgently asked the Personal
Representative of OSCE CiO to dispatch an emergency monitoring mission
to the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.[4] The two OSCE observers were
already in place on April 30 and recorded the incidents carefully.
Recalling the vocabulary of the so-called Caroline affair, common
in international law to describe justifications of legitimate
self-defense, now the threat to Armenian frontlines is imminent.
Immanency is vested on daily violations of ceasefire regime, including
the recent shelling upon the borderland school and kindergarten,
where ordinary civilians must enjoy the protection of their government
against any threat to their life and health by any force- internal or
external. This quite simple erga omnes obligation is enshrined in any
Constitution across the globe, which gave rise to "Responsibility
to Protect", or R2P doctrine, affirmed by UN Security Council in
Resolution 1674 (2006). As parliamentary elections in Armenia are
due on May 6, this inflammable situation is specifically bold and
affects the domestic political stability and threatens the national
security more than ever, leaving for this tiny country in the Caucasus
no other option than to engage militarily.[5]
Serzh Sargsyan, the President of Armenia, has already manifested an
"inevitable" and devastating answer to punish for the ceasefire
violation,[6] while OSCE Minsk Group co-Chairs (in attendance to
OSCE Dublin conference on April 27) rushed to urge the parties
"to abstain from retaliatory measures".[7] The co-Chairs, who have
attracted much criticism for a long time now, didn't utter anything
about strengthening the ceasefire regime monitoring capabilities.
When there are no early warning mechanisms or permanent observer
missions established on site, the sides will always remain prone to
resuming the conflict.
This is exactly the time when the international community should urge
Azerbaijan to comply with long-negotiated confidence-building measures
- pulling back snipers[8] and allowing installation of ceasefire
violation mechanisms to avoid any new escalation that the region
is obviously rushing into while international conferences discuss
"success stories".
Notes
[1] Military expenditure in the South Caucasus; Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute 2011
http://www.sipri.org/yearbook/2011/files/SIPRIYB1104-04A-04B.pdf
[2] News.am agency, 26/04/2012
http://news.am/eng/news/102879.html
[3] News.az agency, 30.04.2012 (in Russian)
http://1news.az/politics/karabakh/20120430015641090.html
[4] News.am agency, 28/04/2012
http://news.am/eng/news/103258.html
[5] Panarmenian News Agency, 28/04/2012,
http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/105253/
[6] Panorama.am News Agency, 27/04/2012
http://www.panorama.am/en/society/2012/04/27/serzh-sargsyan-mil/
[7] Statement of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, 27 April 2012
http://www.osce.org/mg/90140
[8] Armenia 'Still Ready' For Sniper
Withdrawal In Karabakh, RFE/RL, November 25,
2011http://www.rferl.org/content/snipers_karabakh_armenia_azerbaijan/24402333.ht
ml
From: A. Papazian
BY HOVHANNES NIKOGHOSYAN
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/05/03/a-war-that-has-been-neglected
MAY 3, 2012
Using the infamous quote of former British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain, this story below is about "a quarrel in faraway
countr[ies] between people of whom we know nothing". And this
is not about Europe of late 1930's, but about the periphery of
Europe of 2012. I marked this quote listening to a Member of the
Legislative Assembly from Northern Ireland, Mr. John McCallister,
who was delivering a speech about the conflict settlement process in
Northern Ireland at the Organization for Security and Co-operation
in Europe (OSCE)-hosted Ministerial conference in Dublin on April 27.
Fortunately enough for all Irishmen, who suffered three decades of
Troubles in their recent history, through the inclusive contribution of
international mediators, and chief of them US Senator George Mitchell,
as well as the maturity of the leaderships in London, Belfast, and
Dublin, they became able to seal the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
When foreign diplomats or my fellow colleagues from political science
disciplines elaborate on commonalities between the conflict in Ulster
and others in, for example, the former Soviet Union areas, including
Nagorno Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia (both now partially
recognized by few states), and Transdniestria, I always pinpoint on
two key differences: a) decisive international involvement; and b)
maturity of political and community leaderships.
A smoldering conflict is often not about absence of any peace
initiatives. It is substantially about an unwillingness of either
of the parties to commit to negotiated agreements once out of the
meeting room. This is especially true about the peace talks on Nagorno
Karabakh, where the geography of negotiations since the ceasefire
was established in 1994 (and even between the war of 1992-94) covers
the most beautiful cities on the planet-Rome, Helsinki, Prague,
Lisbon, Moscow, Paris, Key West, Madrid, etc.-while any progress is
hardly visible. A "no war, no peace" situation has been the only and
appreciated result of peace talks, which is now under increasing risk
to erupt into conflict as both sides are engaged in a Cold war-style
"deterrence" with extensive military buildup.[1]
Instead of going into the substance of current talks, here I want to
offer another key difference, which still makes it impossible to heal
wounds of enmity.
One of the most tragic events in the Troubles, "Bloody Sunday" of
January 1972, may serve as an example to show one difference between
Great Britain and Azerbaijan-two metropolises that had been trying
to keep their conflict regions inside the common area. While after
"Bloody Sunday" the Westminster immediately rushed into whitewashing
the tragedy and justifying the killings of mostly unarmed civilian
protesters in the streets of Derry, the Tony Blair Cabinet established
the so-called Saville Inquiry in 1998, which came out with a final
report in 2010 and contained rightful and lawful elaborations on the
"usual suspects". This bloody event might be much similar to what
happened in Sumgayit, a town in still Soviet Azerbaijan in February
1988, where Armenians were being executed for the sake of their
ethnic origins, just because few days before, on February 20, the
legislature in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) capital
Stepanakert applied with a petition to the Kremlin to re-join Soviet
Armenia. The same policy of pogroms against Armenians later unfolded
in Baku, Kirovabad, and other cities and villages of Azerbaijan in
the late years of the Soviet Union's existence. Though the Soviets
staged some prosecutions to punish anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgayit
(and not anywhere else), only few suspects got prison terms for
"hooliganism and mass riots". Instead of blaming and shaming for
the ethnic cleansings, which might have put the follow-up events
into another channel, most suspects were freed in the courtrooms or
sentenced to conditional terms. Absence of any "Saville Inquiry",
and moreover a policy of whitewashing the history and blaming
Armenians themselves "for provocations that led to pogroms", is what
qualitatively distinguishes the Karabakh case from the success story
in Northern Ireland. This is what I think the next similar conference,
hosted by Irish Chairmanship of the OSCE, will need to address.
Before conflicting diplomats and mediators may come to terms for
conflict resolution, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Nagorno Karabakh are
still fighting.
The official releases from the Armenian Defense Ministry reported on
April 27 that the Azerbaijani army has been shelling with sniper and
artillery fire the borderland villages of Tavush region in Armenia,
including onto a school and kindergarten.[2] Three soldiers of the
Armenian army are reported to have been killed, another one wounded.
Azerbaijani officials and the media indirectly confirmed the
incident.[3] The Armenian Foreign Ministry urgently asked the Personal
Representative of OSCE CiO to dispatch an emergency monitoring mission
to the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.[4] The two OSCE observers were
already in place on April 30 and recorded the incidents carefully.
Recalling the vocabulary of the so-called Caroline affair, common
in international law to describe justifications of legitimate
self-defense, now the threat to Armenian frontlines is imminent.
Immanency is vested on daily violations of ceasefire regime, including
the recent shelling upon the borderland school and kindergarten,
where ordinary civilians must enjoy the protection of their government
against any threat to their life and health by any force- internal or
external. This quite simple erga omnes obligation is enshrined in any
Constitution across the globe, which gave rise to "Responsibility
to Protect", or R2P doctrine, affirmed by UN Security Council in
Resolution 1674 (2006). As parliamentary elections in Armenia are
due on May 6, this inflammable situation is specifically bold and
affects the domestic political stability and threatens the national
security more than ever, leaving for this tiny country in the Caucasus
no other option than to engage militarily.[5]
Serzh Sargsyan, the President of Armenia, has already manifested an
"inevitable" and devastating answer to punish for the ceasefire
violation,[6] while OSCE Minsk Group co-Chairs (in attendance to
OSCE Dublin conference on April 27) rushed to urge the parties
"to abstain from retaliatory measures".[7] The co-Chairs, who have
attracted much criticism for a long time now, didn't utter anything
about strengthening the ceasefire regime monitoring capabilities.
When there are no early warning mechanisms or permanent observer
missions established on site, the sides will always remain prone to
resuming the conflict.
This is exactly the time when the international community should urge
Azerbaijan to comply with long-negotiated confidence-building measures
- pulling back snipers[8] and allowing installation of ceasefire
violation mechanisms to avoid any new escalation that the region
is obviously rushing into while international conferences discuss
"success stories".
Notes
[1] Military expenditure in the South Caucasus; Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute 2011
http://www.sipri.org/yearbook/2011/files/SIPRIYB1104-04A-04B.pdf
[2] News.am agency, 26/04/2012
http://news.am/eng/news/102879.html
[3] News.az agency, 30.04.2012 (in Russian)
http://1news.az/politics/karabakh/20120430015641090.html
[4] News.am agency, 28/04/2012
http://news.am/eng/news/103258.html
[5] Panarmenian News Agency, 28/04/2012,
http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/105253/
[6] Panorama.am News Agency, 27/04/2012
http://www.panorama.am/en/society/2012/04/27/serzh-sargsyan-mil/
[7] Statement of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, 27 April 2012
http://www.osce.org/mg/90140
[8] Armenia 'Still Ready' For Sniper
Withdrawal In Karabakh, RFE/RL, November 25,
2011http://www.rferl.org/content/snipers_karabakh_armenia_azerbaijan/24402333.ht
ml
From: A. Papazian