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EUROPE MUST HELP GEORGIA AND ARMENIA, OR RUSSIA WILL
In Georgia and Armenia I saw how vital European integration will be to
a fragile post-Soviet spring
Sigrid Rausing
The Guardian, Wednesday 17 April 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/17/europe-help-georgia-armenia-russia-will
Yerevan, the Armenian capital, with Mount Ararat in the background.
'This could have been a landscape of extraordinary beauty; instead it
was depleted and scarred by nearly a century of bad or indifferent
governance.' Photograph: Maxim Shipenkov/EPA I recently travelled
to Georgia and Armenia to meet human rights groups. After two days
in Georgia we drove east, the hilly landscape gradually turning
mountainous, sheep and cattle tended by shepherds in littered,
post-Soviet villages. For a long time the road followed a small river,
plastic trash snagging on rocks and branches. This could have been
a landscape of extraordinary beauty; instead it was depleted and
scarred by nearly a century of bad or indifferent governance.
Crossing the border into Armenia, the river was still there, the
litter now older, almost indistinguishable from the brown water and
grey rock. There were remnants of the Soviet state - giant concrete
chutes channelling water from the steep mountains, occasional blocks
of flats now, like the rubbish, taking on the colour of the dark
earth. In one valley ruins from the earthquake in 1988 stood like
archaeological remains.
Every village we drove through was half abandoned - the falling down
houses haphazardly mended with metal sheets or planks of wood. Whole
families move if they can, otherwise women and children remain while
the men join the migrant labour force in Russia, sending meagre
remittances home. I know there were children in these villages,
because occasionally laundry - the only colour in this bleak world -
hung from wires, drying in the still dusk. We saw no people, and no
shops. We saw no other cars.
In Britain we sometimes forget the harsh reality behind the talk of
human rights in transitional states. Human rights language is the same
the world over, bland and institutional. Thus in Georgia many groups
talked about "prison reform". The issue in fact was the widespread use
of torture, revealed when secret footage was released of detainees
raped with broom handles or burned with cigarettes, guards looking
on, indifferent to the screams. The victims were ordinary criminals;
this was part of police and prison routine. After the release of the
footage, thousands of people took to the streets, the minister for
corrections had to resign; 16 out of 17 prison directors were fired.
Some claim the footage was staged; no one, however, disputes that
those things went on.
Other groups talked about "corruption" and "transparency". Here is one
case: an Armenian shopkeeper is visited by tax officials, demanding
a bribe. He refuses, and takes them to court. Several years and many
court cases later he wins his case, but by now the same tax officials
have so terrorised his suppliers that he can't stay in business.
In Armenia campaigners talked about "hospital reform". Many people with
learning disabilities rather than mental illness are institutionalised
in mental hospitals. Even if you are let out, once in the system you
can be committed at any time in the future by a doctor's order.
The human rights activists (some former dissidents) we met steadfastly
rely on, and believe in, the European court of human rights in
Strasbourg, despite the fact that tens of thousands of cases are
languishing there in a seemingly permanent backlog. It's all they have.
European solidarity is an empty concept to most British people,
at least judging from the media. But democracy and the rule of law
on the margins of Europe matter to all of us. Georgia and Armenia,
and 14 other nations, are in talks with the EU under the European
neighbourhood policy. It offers a degree of economic integration
in return for a commitment to democracy and human rights, the rule
of law, market economy principles and sustainable development. Free
trade for good governance - it's a win-win deal.
In Georgia and Armenia, however, so long after the fall of the Soviet
Union, the state is still weak - and occasionally thuggish - the
economies are largely oligarchical, and there is a lack of watchdog
institutes - that function is almost entirely given over to civil
society. As in all former Soviet republics, there is a history of
institutional brutality and indifference lingering on in the army,
the prisons, hospitals and orphanages.
And yet people in Yerevan, the capital, talked hopefully of an
Armenian spring. Serge Sarkisian, the president (and Putin ally), won
a second term in the recent election, but not with anything like the
Soviet-style 90% majority pollsters had suggested. Significant numbers
of ballot papers had been spoiled. (The fact that one candidate,
a former dissident, was shot and wounded in January may have
contributed to voter disaffection.) The main opposition candidate,
the American-born Raffi Hovannisian (37% of the vote), held a shadow
swearing-in ceremony on 9 April.
In this region, as in any other, individuals come and go, and
sometimes, as we have seen in Georgia, good people turn bad. European
integration is the best bet for good governance. The alternative
for Armenia is Russia, where NGOs receiving foreign funding are now
required to register as "foreign agents". European trade agreements
and human rights requirements must be better than that, for them and
for us.
Sigrid Rausing travelled to Georgia and Armenia with the Open Society
Institute
In Georgia and Armenia I saw how vital European integration will be to
a fragile post-Soviet spring
Sigrid Rausing
The Guardian, Wednesday 17 April 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/17/europe-help-georgia-armenia-russia-will
Yerevan, the Armenian capital, with Mount Ararat in the background.
'This could have been a landscape of extraordinary beauty; instead it
was depleted and scarred by nearly a century of bad or indifferent
governance.' Photograph: Maxim Shipenkov/EPA I recently travelled
to Georgia and Armenia to meet human rights groups. After two days
in Georgia we drove east, the hilly landscape gradually turning
mountainous, sheep and cattle tended by shepherds in littered,
post-Soviet villages. For a long time the road followed a small river,
plastic trash snagging on rocks and branches. This could have been
a landscape of extraordinary beauty; instead it was depleted and
scarred by nearly a century of bad or indifferent governance.
Crossing the border into Armenia, the river was still there, the
litter now older, almost indistinguishable from the brown water and
grey rock. There were remnants of the Soviet state - giant concrete
chutes channelling water from the steep mountains, occasional blocks
of flats now, like the rubbish, taking on the colour of the dark
earth. In one valley ruins from the earthquake in 1988 stood like
archaeological remains.
Every village we drove through was half abandoned - the falling down
houses haphazardly mended with metal sheets or planks of wood. Whole
families move if they can, otherwise women and children remain while
the men join the migrant labour force in Russia, sending meagre
remittances home. I know there were children in these villages,
because occasionally laundry - the only colour in this bleak world -
hung from wires, drying in the still dusk. We saw no people, and no
shops. We saw no other cars.
In Britain we sometimes forget the harsh reality behind the talk of
human rights in transitional states. Human rights language is the same
the world over, bland and institutional. Thus in Georgia many groups
talked about "prison reform". The issue in fact was the widespread use
of torture, revealed when secret footage was released of detainees
raped with broom handles or burned with cigarettes, guards looking
on, indifferent to the screams. The victims were ordinary criminals;
this was part of police and prison routine. After the release of the
footage, thousands of people took to the streets, the minister for
corrections had to resign; 16 out of 17 prison directors were fired.
Some claim the footage was staged; no one, however, disputes that
those things went on.
Other groups talked about "corruption" and "transparency". Here is one
case: an Armenian shopkeeper is visited by tax officials, demanding
a bribe. He refuses, and takes them to court. Several years and many
court cases later he wins his case, but by now the same tax officials
have so terrorised his suppliers that he can't stay in business.
In Armenia campaigners talked about "hospital reform". Many people with
learning disabilities rather than mental illness are institutionalised
in mental hospitals. Even if you are let out, once in the system you
can be committed at any time in the future by a doctor's order.
The human rights activists (some former dissidents) we met steadfastly
rely on, and believe in, the European court of human rights in
Strasbourg, despite the fact that tens of thousands of cases are
languishing there in a seemingly permanent backlog. It's all they have.
European solidarity is an empty concept to most British people,
at least judging from the media. But democracy and the rule of law
on the margins of Europe matter to all of us. Georgia and Armenia,
and 14 other nations, are in talks with the EU under the European
neighbourhood policy. It offers a degree of economic integration
in return for a commitment to democracy and human rights, the rule
of law, market economy principles and sustainable development. Free
trade for good governance - it's a win-win deal.
In Georgia and Armenia, however, so long after the fall of the Soviet
Union, the state is still weak - and occasionally thuggish - the
economies are largely oligarchical, and there is a lack of watchdog
institutes - that function is almost entirely given over to civil
society. As in all former Soviet republics, there is a history of
institutional brutality and indifference lingering on in the army,
the prisons, hospitals and orphanages.
And yet people in Yerevan, the capital, talked hopefully of an
Armenian spring. Serge Sarkisian, the president (and Putin ally), won
a second term in the recent election, but not with anything like the
Soviet-style 90% majority pollsters had suggested. Significant numbers
of ballot papers had been spoiled. (The fact that one candidate,
a former dissident, was shot and wounded in January may have
contributed to voter disaffection.) The main opposition candidate,
the American-born Raffi Hovannisian (37% of the vote), held a shadow
swearing-in ceremony on 9 April.
In this region, as in any other, individuals come and go, and
sometimes, as we have seen in Georgia, good people turn bad. European
integration is the best bet for good governance. The alternative
for Armenia is Russia, where NGOs receiving foreign funding are now
required to register as "foreign agents". European trade agreements
and human rights requirements must be better than that, for them and
for us.
Sigrid Rausing travelled to Georgia and Armenia with the Open Society
Institute