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British Foreign Office Issues Report On Armenian Diaspora

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  • British Foreign Office Issues Report On Armenian Diaspora

    BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE ISSUES REPORT ON ARMENIAN DIASPORA

    13:00, 16 Dec 2014

    The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office released a report entitled
    "Armenia's Diaspora - Its Role & Influence."

    The report presents the UK's assessment of the realities of the
    Armenian Diaspora and editorializes some of the real achievements of
    the Diaspora, while at time minimizing the role the Diaspora plays
    in the every-day life of Armenia.

    Keeping in line with its long-held policy of denying the
    Armenian Genocide, the report refers to the events of the 1915 as
    "inter-communal violence of 1915."

    Below is the full text of the report:

    Armenia's Diaspora - Its Role & Influence

    KEY POINTS

    Armenia has, in proportional terms, the largest Diaspora of any former
    Soviet state, much of it concentrated in Russia, the US and France.

    This has been a huge source of support for the Armenian state. But it's
    also periodically acted as a brake on Yerevan's scope for manoeuvre,
    particularly over the Nagorny Karabakh dispute and relations with
    Turkey. This is likely to remain the case in future.

    The most politically active Armenian Diaspora community is the US one,
    whose focus on achieving official US recognition of the 1915 'genocide'
    is likely to intensify over the coming two years. By contrast, the
    Armenian community in Russia remains largely disengaged from political
    lobbying - but might we see this change over time?

    DETAIL "We live different lives, Armenia and the Diaspora. Here it
    is real politics, while the Diaspora lives with the ideas of unreal
    politics, and they cannot change their ideas so quickly." (Levon
    Ter-Petrosyan, then-President of Armenia, 1993)

    Of all the former Soviet states, Armenia has the largest global
    Diaspora community, in proportion to the size of its national
    population, by some margin. Whilst precise figures are open to debate
    (given in particular the tendency of some Diaspora activists to
    inflate the numbers), it is generally reckoned that there are around
    8-10 million people of Armenian descent currently living outside
    Armenia (whose own population is currently estimated at around 2.9
    million). The largest Armenian communities are based in Russia (2.3
    million), the US (1.5 million), France (400,000) and the Lebanon
    (230,000), with sizeable populations (80,000 or more) also residing
    in Ukraine, Syria, Argentina, Poland, Turkey1, Iran and Canada.

    The 'gap' between the size of the Diaspora and Armenia's own population
    is growing. It's estimated that Armenia's population has shrunk by
    almost 1 million since 1992 as a result of an exodus of Armenians to
    join these Diaspora communities. Most (70%) of these are believed to
    have gone to Russia and other CIS countries, with only 10% joining the
    Armenian community in the US. The latter remains largely comprised of
    descendants of former residents of the Ottoman Empire who fled the
    territory of modern-day Turkey during and after the inter-communal
    violence of 1915 - this was supplemented by a 'second wave' of Armenian
    immigration into the US from the Middle East (Syria, Lebanon, Iran)
    in the 1970s-80s.

    Estimates of the true size of the Armenian population of Turkey
    are particularly problematic, given the reluctance of some ethnic
    Armenians there to identify themselves as such, and also in view of
    the seasonal fluctuations in the size of the Armenian migrant workers'
    community in Turkey (often based there illegally).

    Britain's Armenian Diaspora remains fairly small (around 18,000),
    and drawn from a wide number of other Diaspora communities (Cyprus,
    Iraq, Syria, Iran, Lebanon).

    What role does the Diaspora play in Armenian society?

    Diaspora support has played a crucial role in Armenia's economic
    survival and development. Since 1991 Armenia has received several
    billion dollars' worth of financial support from US-based Diaspora
    Armenians alone. Among the most prominent donors has been the
    Lincy Foundation run by California-based magnate Kerk Kirkorian
    [sic], which on its own has invested nearly $300 million in Armenia
    since independence. More recently, however, it has been the Diaspora
    community in Russia that has provided the most significant financial
    flows into the Armenian economy - as of 2008, remittances from
    Armenians working in Russia accounted for 15% of Armenia's official GDP
    (some believe the real figure, taking into account 'shadow' payments
    outside the official banking system, may in fact be twice as high).

    But the Diaspora's contribution cannot be measured purely in
    terms of investment and aid levels. It has arguably played an
    even greater, although less easily quantifiable, role in terms of
    developing Armenia's 'human capital stock', providing generations
    of young Armenians with training & study opportunities in the West,
    and exposing them to a world outside the confines of the former USSR.

    Diaspora Armenians have also made significant 'in-kind' contributions
    to improving the Armenian economy, health and education systems through
    technical advice and support. This also extends to the unrecognised
    'Nagorny Karabakh Republic', which has received proportionally very
    high levels of Diaspora support since 1992 in the form of both funding
    and technical assistance (e.g. Armenian Diaspora doctors, teachers,
    engineers, etc. undertaking voluntary secondments to institutions
    in NK).

    The Diaspora plays a key role in leveraging support for Armenia
    from foreign governments - nowhere more so than in the US, which has
    provided $2 billion in aid to Armenia since 1992, making it one of
    the largest recipients of US aid per capita in the world. Lobbying
    of the US government and Congress by Armenian Diaspora groups has
    been crucial to securing this outcome. The most active of these are
    the Armenian Association of America (AAA) and the larger Armenian
    National Committee of America (ANCA), the latter being affiliated
    to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaks), a nationalist
    Armenian political party currently in opposition to the ruling regime.

    These lobbying organisations are highly instrumental in maintaining
    international political support for the 'Armenian cause', particularly
    in the US, where their goal remains to secure official US government
    recognition of the 1915 'Genocide' against ethnic Armenians in the
    Ottoman empire.

    Relatively small numbers of Diaspora Armenians have returned to
    Armenia to live permanently, and of these few have risen to prominence
    in politics. The most notable exceptions are Raffi Hovannisian
    (Californian-born leader of the opposition Heritage party) and Vartan
    Oskanyan (Syrian-born Harvard graduate, Armenia's Foreign Minister
    from 1998-2008, now Head of the Civilitas think-tank in Yerevan).

    Is the Diaspora's influence welcome within Armenia?

    Yes - and no. Successive Armenian governments have been fully conscious
    of the vital asset that the global Armenian Diaspora represents for
    a country lacking in mineral resources. Under President Sargsyan,
    a separate Ministry for Diaspora Issues has been created, charged
    with promoting even greater interaction between the Republic of
    Armenia and the global Armenian Diaspora. Significantly Armenian
    Diaspora organisations have shown relatively little interest to date
    in internal governance/democracy-building issues within Armenia.

    However, a view among some members of the global Diaspora is that
    the Armenian government over the last ten years has signally failed
    to harness the Diaspora's potential to rebuild the economy or promote
    democratisation. Economic policy in particular has remained parochial
    and oligarch-bound, and some significant Diaspora investors have
    retreated with fingers burned. The political elite have also been
    dominated by a narrow group of largely Karabakh veterans, whose main
    international links are mostly focused on Russia (through previous
    service in the Soviet military, for example).

    In the area of foreign policy, there have periodically been pronounced
    tensions between ruling administrations in Armenia and the global
    Diaspora, most notably over policy towards Turkey and the NK conflict.

    This was most visible under the leadership of Armenia's first
    President, Levon Ter-Petrosyan (1991-1998), whose relationship with the
    more nationalist elements in the Diaspora was always an uncomfortable
    one, given the latter's distrust of his perceived readiness to make
    excessive concessions on these issues (in particular his refusal
    to prioritise 'genocide' recognition by Turkey as a pre-condition
    for the normalisation of bilateral relations). Under Ter Petrosyan,
    the Dashnak party was banned in Armenia, and his eventual downfall in
    1998 was at least in part triggered by furious Diaspora criticism of
    his support for an 'unacceptable' compromise solution on NK. For his
    part, Ter Petrosyan criticised the Diaspora's 'unrealistic' view of
    Armenia's policy priorities, and more recently, in his reincarnation
    as an opposition leader, has bemoaned the Diaspora's lack of focus
    on Armenia's retreat from democracy under his successors. President
    Sargsyan has, by contrast, attracted less ire from the Diaspora
    (in part in recognition of his Karabakhi roots and his direct role
    in securing NK's 'liberation'): whilst the ANCA strongly opposed
    his signing of the abortive Protocols with Turkey in 2009 on the
    normalisation of relations, the main focus of their criticism was
    the US (for allegedly 'pressurising' Yerevan into signing), rather
    than Sargsyan himself.

    Another important impact of Armenia's Diaspora, of particular relevance
    at present, is on its stance towards regimes such as Iran and Syria,
    where sizeable Armenian minorities remain. The vulnerability of these
    minorities is felt keenly by the Armenian government. In addition to
    Armenia's need, as a small, blockaded country to remain on good terms
    with other neighbours, this explains why it has been found voting
    against, abstaining or absenting itself during voting for UNGA or
    Human Rights Council Resolutions on Iran and Syria.

    Outlook & Conclusions The positives in Armenia's relationship with
    its global Diaspora will continue to outweigh the negatives from
    Yerevan's standpoint. The support the Diaspora provides will remain
    crucial to Armenia's economic survival in a hostile neighbourhood. On
    foreign policy, however, sentiment within elements of the Diaspora
    will remain a significant obstacle to achieving compromise-based
    solutions over the NK dispute and Armenia's relations with Turkey.

    An interesting issue to track will be the position of the Armenian
    Diaspora in Russia, by some margin the largest Armenian community
    outside the country itself. In contrast to the longer-established
    Diaspora communities in the US and Europe, Russia's Armenians have
    hitherto shown little interest in lobbying their host country's
    authorities to take a stronger line on e.g. 'Genocide' recognition.

    Given the nature of the Russian regime, its relationships with Turkey
    and Azerbaijan, and the generally 'apolitical' nature of many Armenian
    labour migrants working in Russia, it is unlikely that this picture
    will change soon. Over time, the possibility that this community
    could also be mobilised as a political lobbying force in support of
    the Armenian 'cause' should not be entirely discounted, However,
    for the time being the public stance of organised Armenian groups
    in Russia is focused on proving its loyalty to the Russian state -
    a similar dynamic for a vulnerable minority as in Iran and Syria.

    http://www.armradio.am/en/2014/12/16/british-foreign-office-issues-report-on-armenian-diaspora/
    Released on the 9th Dec. 2014

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