TREND News Agency, Azerbaijan
Feb 18 2008
Russia in Global Affairs
18.02.08 11:44
Azerbaijan, Baku 16 February / Trend News / Fuad Akhundov, political
scientist. This article was published in the journal Foreign Affairs,
No 1, (January-February 2008). Copyright The Council on Foreign
Relations, Inc.
Who is to blame for the Karabakh stalemate?
Hopes have been dashed that the end of the Cold War would lead to a
strengthening of common security. One of the reasons is the bitter
exacerbation of `local’ conflicts that mainly erupted on the
territory of the former socialist federation – the USSR and SFRY
(Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia).
The Nagornyy Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which
is perceived by Baku and many international organizations, primarily
the Council of Europe and Organization of the Islamic Conference, as
the aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan, occupies a unique
position.
Diplomats from many countries are today trying to settle this
conflict, like many others. The co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group,
Yuriy Merzlyakov, is dealing with this on the Russian side. It hardly
needs to be said that a lasting settlement and the conclusion of a
durable and stable peace are impossible without an understanding of
the essence of the conflict, especially on the part of the mediators.
Attempts to make the conflict fit an average and impossibly
simplified model are certainly counter-productive.
Manipulation of self-determination
One of these simplified models (alas, popular but no more reliable
for that) is to put the right of nations to self-determination
alongside the principle of territorial integrity. This is the
position from which the speaker of the Armenian parliament, Tigran
Torosyan, commented on the Karabakh conflict in the journal Russia in
Global Affairs (No 4, 2007).
It is difficult to consider such an interpretation correct. Many
researchers, in particular Yuriy Reshetov, say that the right of
nations to self-determination is in no way synonymous with the `right
to secession’. It can and should be realized in the shape of
autonomies, local self-government, etc. Moreover, the concepts of
people, nation and ethnic group must not be confused. Russian
President Vladimir Putin has spoken about the danger of `a broad
interpretation’ of the right of nations to self-determination in
relation to local conflicts on the territory of the former socialist
federations. Commenting on the West’s pursuit of the recognition of
Kosovo’s independence contrary to the wishes of the Serbian
authorities, he asked, `Does it not occur to you that accepting by
force the principle of self-determination will encourage negative
processes not only in the post-Soviet area?’ `Why provoke this? I
think that it is extremely damaging and very dangerous.’
Responsible politicians and diplomats have always realized the danger
of a broad interpretation of the right to self-determination. The UN
Charter, the founding document of international law, does not contain
any wording that would allow the right to self-determination to be
taken as a sufficient basis for the endless fragmentation of states,
the notorious `self-determination of streets’ and `sovereignty of
courtyards’. The evolution of the principle of self-determination can
be followed in the process of the creation of the UN Charter. The
provisions of Article 1 on self-determination were absent from the
proposals considered at the Dumbarton Oaks conference – they were
included in the Charter at the San Francisco conference in the form
of amendments by the great powers.
The documents summing up the examination of the amendments note that
the principles of the equal rights of peoples and of their right to
self-determination `are two component parts of a single norm’. The
conference documents also record that the principle of the equal
rights and self-determination of peoples is in conformity with the
aims of the Charter of the United Nations Organization `in so far as’
it includes only the rights of peoples to self-determination `but not
the right to secession’. In this way, the origin and charter content
of the principle of equal rights and self-determination clearly show
that this principle from the very beginning excluded secession as a
way to realize it. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights also did
not envisage the right to self-determination of its people.
The principle of the self-determination of nations developed during
the collapse of the international colonial system. Vast colonies,
overseas territories with names such as British Tanzania and Belgian
Congo, were freed from the colonial yoke. Governments, thousands of
kilometres from European capitals, could no longer effectively wield
authority in land that they once controlled. Vast territories with
impressively numerous populations were left without mechanisms of
state government at all and a legislative framework had to be
`created’ for this essentially unique process. The principle of the
self-determination of nations was the only legal basis here. However,
the African `raw materials wars’ (for example, the rebellions in the
province of Katanga in the former Belgian Congo and the internecine
strife in Nigeria’s Biafra) soon revealed the potential consequences
of appealing to the right of nations to self-determination, when the
distant European metropolitan states had lost their power here. The
result was a series of bloody wars to destroy and dismember states,
establish the authority of separate princes, tribal chiefs, etc. On
the basis of cruel `anti-colonial’ and, more important, post-colonial
experience the following was confirmed in the UN structures.
First, the right of people to self-determination should not be
confused with the rights of minorities, as the authors of the UN
Charter did not intend to give this right to minorities.
Second, the right of people to self-determination must not be
realized in order to destroy the unity of the nation or create
obstacles to the realization of that unity in violation of national
sovereignty.
Finally, the research `Rights of peoples to self-determination’,
carried out in 1981 within the UN framework, says that `the principle
of equal rights and self-determination, enshrined in the UN Charter,
does not grant the unlimited right to secession to a population
living on the territory of an independent and sovereign state and
this right cannot be considered lex lata (published legislation –
Ed.). The right to secession, supported or encouraged by foreign
states, will be a direct contradiction to the principle of respect
for territorial integrity, on which the principle of the equality of
states is founded.’
Furthermore, `It would be dangerous to recognize in international law
a common and unlimited right to secession, because the rights of a
population living on the territory of a state are regulated by the
national constitutional law of that state.’
In the same research the authors mention in particular that `the
principle of equal rights and the self-determination of peoples must
serve the unity of peoples on a voluntary and democratic basis, and
not break-up existing national formations. Any formulations of the
principle that could be interpreted as extending the sphere of its
application and creating the conditions for it to be applied to
peoples that are already part of an independent and sovereign state
must be avoided. Acting in any other way would mean condoning
separatist movements in sovereign states and could serve as a pretext
to threaten the national unity and territorial integrity of states.’
The scholars said that the right of peoples to self-determination is
recorded in international documents `not in order to encourage
separatist or nationalist movements’.
The authors also expressed their certainty that `the world community
is sufficiently mature to be able to distinguish genuine
self-determination from self-determination as a cover for secession.’
Natalya Narochnitskaya, deputy chairwoman of the Russian Federation
State Duma Committee for International Affairs and head of the Duma
commission to study the provision in practice of human rights and
basic freedoms and monitor their provision in foreign states,
expressed the quintessence not only of the theoretical development of
international law but of the political experience suffered by the
international community: `Appeals must not be made to the right of
nations to self-determination, above all because international law,
contrary to illusions, does not recognize such a right. Otherwise
this would be a bomb beneath any federative or multi-national state.
This immediately creates a precedent, this immediately gives grounds
for analogies: for example, Chechnya in Russia, the Basques in Spain.
The international community will never accept this, especially since
it really is not recognized in international law. The right to
self-determination is interpreted now in international law as the
right to cultural autonomy, that is, as the right to continue
national life even within the framework of a state where another
nation dominates.’
Valentin Romanov, professor in the department of international law at
the Russian University of Friendship of the Peoples, said: Although
self-determination is called a principle in the UN Charter, it does
not feature amongst those principles in accordance with which, it
says in Article 2, `the Organization and its members shall act’. The
principle of self-determination is not a self-sufficient concept but
one of the bases of peaceful and friendly relations between nations.
In addition, the UN Charter inextricably links self-determination
with the equal rights of peoples, that is, not only the rights of the
self-determining community but also those of the `not
self-determining’ part of the population must be respected, the life
and fate of which is affected by the process of self-determination.
Analysis of international documents (and not quasi-academic
interpretations of them) leaves no doubt: the thesis on the right of
nations to self-determination is not applicable to local conflicts on
the territory of the former USSR as a whole and the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in particular. Moreover, it cannot
serve as a basis for the secession of part of the territory of a
recognized sovereign state. It is revealing that in quasi-states
instead of the interpretation of self-determination generally
accepted in international law, the so-called Leninist interpretation
is applied – `self-determination up to and including secession’ –
which first appeared in documents of the Russian Social Democratic
Workers’ Party (Bolshevik). This interpretation went on to feature in
the documents of communist parties of different countries. However,
it is not difficult to see that a different interpretation of
self-determination has been accepted in international law, where
`secession’ is directly declared to be impermissible.
The process of self-determination and all the more so of secession
can be realized only by legitimate methods: secession is possible
where it is envisaged in national legislation. Clarification, as life
has shown, is highly necessary. The process of the
`self-determination’ of the Armenians of Nagornyy Karabakh was
accompanied with genocide and ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis in
lower and upper Karabakh. The tragedy in Khojaly on 26 February 1992
was the bloodiest, but not the only, episode.
Most important, the participation in fighting on the territory of
Azerbaijan of regular military units of the Armed Forces of Armenia,
manned with conscripts, does not allow us to talk of
self-determination. It would be more appropriate to recall Germany’s
`protection’ of the `oppressed German population’ of Czechoslovakia,
Poland and other European countries in the late 1930s.
Many analysts think that the capture of the town of Shusha on 9 May
1992, the overwhelming majority of the population of which were
Azerbaijanis who did not want `self-determination in the shape of
secession’, and Lachin, beyond the boundaries of the former Nagornyy
Karabakh Autonomous Region (NKAO), were evidence of a war for
territory. Moreover, it is impossible to recognize as an `act of
self-determination’ the capture of districts adjacent to the former
NKAO, the population of which has been completely driven out of their
homeland.
That is, unlike other conflicts, the factor of Armenia’s territorial
pretensions is present in the Nagornyy Karabakh Armenian-Azerbaijani
conflict.
To illustrate, in 1988 when, according to the Armenian side,
`deputies of the Regional Soviet of Nagornyy Karabakh passed a
resolution’ (the sitting was illegal, as ethnically Azerbaijani
deputies, who made up 30 per cent of the Soviet had not been informed
of the sitting), the resolution specifically referred to `joining the
NKAO to Armenia’. Two years later the Armenian parliament adopted a
constitutional act on joining Nagornyy Karabakh to Armenia.
Realizing that this was a blatant territorial claim, the Armenian
side is today trying to present it as the right of the nation to
self-determination, that is, secession from Azerbaijan. The Armenians
of the North Caucasus, and there are about as many as the population
of Armenia, can equally successfully demand secession from Russia and
so on. Imagine that someone who does not have their own home seizes a
house which has a legal owner and throws the owners and their
possessions out onto the street. In court the lawyer begins to talk
about the right to housing as one of the main human rights, that
everyone should have a roof over their heads and society does not
have the right to accept that someone should live on the street, it
has a duty to fight poverty and to help the homeless get a roof over
their heads. These remarks have a basis, but the right to housing and
the need to tackle poverty in no way justify the seizure of someone
else’s house. References to the self-determination of nations in
order to legitimize the self-proclaimed quasi-states represents
`adjusted legislation’; attempts to present an illegal act as
postulates of international law, which sound similar but in fact are
not, are a blatant confusion of concepts and terms.
Something else is obvious too. The Armenians of Nagornyy Karabakh
cannot be considered a nation in the juridical sense. The
interpretation of the nation, commonly accepted internationally, as a
stable historic community of people, living within specific borders
and aware of themselves as a single whole, cannot be applied to the
community of ethnic Armenians living on the territory of one of the
regions of Azerbaijan. Moreover, this definition shows that the
understanding of a nation is today devoid of an ethnic basis. The
existence of the Republic of Armenia already creates sufficient
opportunities for the Armenian people for self-determination and the
development of statehood. Against this background, the question can
and should be raised of local self-government, development of the
humanitarian sphere, but not of secession and not of the creation of
a fourth state, moreover the second Armenian state, alongside the
other three in the South Caucasus,.
Prejudice dressed up as objectivity
While discussions on the spurious contradiction between the rights to
self-determination and territorial integrity constantly feature on
the pages of academic journals, attempts at systemic analysis of the
conflict are much rarer. Vladimir Kazimirov tried to do something
along these lines ( Russia in Global Affairs, No 5, 2007), but
unfortunately his article is more likely to confuse the reader than
fill in the gaps. The pre-history of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict
is so complex and tragic that the conflicting sides themselves today
refrain, at least publicly, from similar emotional clarifications of
who threw the first stone. This has gone out of political fashion
both in Baku and Yerevan. However, Kazimirov who has not taken part
in the real settlement for a long time and who has lost sight of the
development of the situation, considers it necessary to appeal to the
past. The `historical information’ that he presented is full of
inaccuracies and is openly biased and tendentious.
Even a cursory analysis of the situation in the Nagornyy Karabakh
conflict zone, of the actions and statements of the sides, leaves no
doubt: it is a matter of one state’s territorial claims upon another.
This is, if you like, a conflict of philosophies: tolerance versus
mono-ethnicity, harmonious coexistence with neighbours versus the
tactics of constant territorial claims on neighbouring states.
There are not many states in the world where the representatives of
one people exceed 99 per cent of the population. The best known
examples are Japan and Iceland, islands that developed in conditions
of natural isolation. Armenia is the only mono-ethnic state in the
multi-ethnic and multi-faith Caucasus, where even neighbouring
villages often speak different languages. And it is not surrounded by
water but by multi-ethnic countries – Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey and
Georgia.
Armenia too has not always been ethnically pure. At the time of the
creation of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic within the current
borders of the Republic of Armenia, that is, with the inclusion of
Geychi and Zangezur, there were as many Azerbaijanis as Armenians
according to some statistics, and more, according to others.
`Armenianization’ took place artificially, in no small part by means
of many `resettlements’ and ethnic cleansing and not only in the
Soviet period but from the start of the 19th century when Russia
arrived in the Caucasus. That time saw the beginning of the
resettlement within the borders of Russia of hundreds of thousands of
Armenians from Persia and Turkey. In 1828 the Russian ambassador in
Tehran, Aleksandr Griboyedov, responsible for the resettlement of
Armenians, brought to the tsar’s attention inappropriate Armenian
propaganda against local Muslims, who were being constricted as it
was. The permanent ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis began at this
time and continued under Soviet power.
In particular, mass deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia was
carried out on the basis of a Stalin decree in 1948-53. While the
formal reason in the cases of the Crimean Tatars, Chechens and other
peoples was `punishment’ for collaboration with the German occupiers,
Azerbaijanis were resettled just because they were Azerbaijanis.
Other repressed peoples were deported from their main places of
residence, while Azerbaijanis were deported only from Armenia, which
clearly had to be `cleansed’.
They also decided to `cleanse’ all the place names in Armenia and
more than 2,000 names were changed by multiple decrees of the USSR
Cabinet of Ministers.
However, even the Soviet period was insufficient for such an epoch
making alteration of the Armenian order. According to the head of
Armenia’s State Committee for Land Registry and Property, Manukh
Vardanyan, `the process of renaming inhabited settlements in the
country, the names of which have Turkic roots, should be completed
already this year (2007 – Ed).’
Readers have only to look up in the Greater Soviet Encyclopaedia or
its concise version familiar names in Armenia or Azerbaijani Nagornyy
Karabakh and they will find in brackets the date that the name was
changed and its historical name. For example, Yerevan ( Erivan in
honour of Revangulukhan), Sevan (Gekcha, translates as `fine’ from
Azerbaijani), Stepanakert (Khankendi, translates from Azerbaijani as
the `khan’s village’) etc. The next wave of resettlements and ethnic
cleansing came in 1985 and in 1988-89. Russians (Molokans), Kurds and
representatives of other ethnic groups were also deported in the last
wave.
The conflict over Nagornyy Karabakh did not begin in 1988, as Mr
Kazimirov says, but earlier and with the backing of Armenian
ultra-nationalist circles. On 11 December 1985 the Armenian-language
newspaper Gamk, printed in France, published the Political Manifesto
of the Dashnaktsutyun Party. This showed that the party intended to
fight for the creation of a `free and united Armenia’ within borders
that include `Armenian territories established under the Treaty of
Sevres with the districts of Nakhichevan, Akhalkalaki and Karabakh’.
Not only Azerbaijani, but also Armenian politicians acknowledged that
it was the `Spyurk’ (Armenian diaspora) parties that set the
adversarial tone on the Karabakh issue. Trying to show `objectivity’,
Mr Kazimirov resorts to blatantly stretching his points. For example,
he `balances’ the ethnic cleansing in Armenia in 1988-89, which
according to the closest calculations killed at least 200 people,
several dozen with especial cruelty, and drove 240,000 from their
homes, with amorphous accusations of `expulsion of Armenians from
Nakhichevan’. Armenian ultra-nationalists have exaggerated this myth
in recent years, but have not presented (and are hardly likely to
present) any proof to the international community. Attempts to
`balance’ the Khojaly genocide with Armenian myths of the `tragedy’
in the village of Maraga are similar.
Mr Kazimirov fails to mention another important component of the
conflict: the Armenian side from the very beginning of the
confrontation with Azerbaijan resorted to terrorist methods. The
victims were influential individuals in Nagornyy Karabakh, including
influential law-abiding Armenians (in order to frighten the others).
The murder on 14 April 1992 of the chairman of the NKAO regional
soviet, Artur Lazarian, of the head of Stepanakert airport A.
Shukhanyan and of one of the leaders of the Stepanakert city
committee of the CPSU, Valeriy Grigoryan, are just the tip of the
iceberg.
On the territory of Azerbaijan Armenian terrorists caused many
explosions on buses and underground trains, including by the hand of
North Caucasian fighters who had been trained at Armenian secret
service bases. A number of terrorist attacks were carried out in
Russia. It is enough to remember Col Vladimir Blakhotin, commander of
the USSR Interior Ministry Internal Troops in the North Caucasus and
Trans-Caucasus, murdered in April 1991 in Rostov-on-Don by a group of
Armenian fighters who arrived from Nagornyy Karabakh. The
investigation of explosions in the Baku metro and at the railway
station pointed to a criminal group led by Armenian special services
officer Dzhaan Oganesyan, the members of which also carried out
several terrorist attacks in Russia, including in Chechnya.
A Mi-8 helicopter was shot down on 20 November 1991 near the village
of Karakend. On board were prominent state figures of Azerbaijan and
observers from the Russian Federation, Maj-Gen I.D. Lukashov and
Lt-Col V.M. Kocharov, and Kazakhstan’s first deputy interior
minister, Maj-Gen S.D. Serikov, who had been sent to the region on a
peace-keeping mission.
International terrorists Monte Melkonyan, Vazgen Sisliyan and others
took an active part in the fighting against Azerbaijan. According to
The New York Times, Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosyan attended
the funeral in Nagornyy Karabakh in summer 1993 of international
terrorist Monte Melkonyan (who was on Interpol’s wanted list). In
2001 Varuzhan Karapetyan, sentenced to life imprisonment for an
explosion at Paris’s Orly Airport, was freed from a French prison. He
was welcomed at a senior government level in Armenia, like other
terrorists who have served their prison terms.
Mr Kazimirov gives up all attempts at objectivity when he gets to the
heart of the matter. He declares without beating about the bush `…an
especially important characteristic of today’s
situation: in no other conflict on the territory of the former USSR
is the desire for revenge by force expressed so openly. Therefore,
the positions and conclusions of the Azerbaijani side demand constant
vigilance.’ And this is said when the international mediators,
including the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen, recognize that it is the
position of the Armenian side, and not the Azerbaijanis, that is
holding up the settlement. Such a one-sided analysis is nonsense in
mediation diplomacy.
Vladimir Kazimirov exclaims emotionally that, `… the OSCE hierarchy …
does not have the right to react lethargically to serial threats by
officials, incidents on the contact line and the inflation of the
arms race.’ The mediators are not judges, but are `bound to defend
their peace mission, long since accepted by the sides’. The answer to
the question why the OSCE does not react to the statements of
official representatives of Azerbaijan is obvious: however great the
striving for a peaceful settlement of the conflict, no-one has yet to
cancel the rights of states to self-defence. Like the principle of
territorial integrity, it is a corner stone of the international
order. Kazimirov attempts to present the matter as though official
Baku’s spurious `aggression’ and `adherence to resolution by force’
and not Armenia’s aggression were the reason for the continuation of
military actions and occupation. As a mediator Kazimirov knows better
than anyone that it is Armenia that has time and again violated the
cease-fire.
Finally, in an attempt to compare the military potential of Armenia
and Azerbaijan at the start of military actions, Mr Kazimirov for
some reason fails to mention that during Pavel Grachev’s tenure as
Russian defence minister `the leasing’ of Russian army subunits to
Armenia and Nagornyy Karabakh became widespread. Illegal arms
supplies were on an astronomic scale: in 1997 the late Russian
Federation State Duma Deputy Gen Lev Rokhlin and Aman Tuleyev
estimated them at billions of dollars. Russian servicemen fighting on
the side of Armenia were often taken prisoner by the Azerbaijanis. At
the personal request of Boris Yeltsin and Pavel Grachev they were
handed over to the Russian side, which Kazimirov knows full well.
The retired diplomat’s attempts to place all the responsibility for
the fighting and its consequences exclusively on the Azerbaijani side
look unconvincing, to put it mildly. As does the persistent attempt
to accuse Baku of violating four resolutions of the UN Security
Council, when their main demand, the withdrawal of troops from the
captured territories, is made of the Armenian side.
Also puzzling is Mr Kazimirov’s assertion that Armenia has often
accepted proposals from the mediators that are not in its favour,
while Azerbaijan has supposedly rejected them.
In reality it is Yerevan that rejected the `package’ and
`stage-by-stage’ settlement plans. Armenia has accepted only the plan
based on the concept of a `common state’. Kazimirov’s desire to find
something criminal in the fact that the Constitution of the
Azerbaijani Republic allows for a referendum to be conducted only on
the entire territory of the country is laughable. Similar norms are
to be found in the legislation of many states.
The main idea of the plan proposed by Kazimirov is to make an example
of Azerbaijan for its calls for a military solution. Drawn up on the
basis of the thesis that `the Azerbaijanis are to blame for
everything’, it a priori will not lead to a lasting peace, just like
attempts to `pacify’ Hitler at the expense of Austria, Czechoslovakia
and others. Against the backdrop of Kazimirov’s blatantly
pro-Armenian position, his calls for `guarantees of the
non-resumption of war’ and even for operations to `enforce peace’ are
perceived in Baku as official Moscow’s intention to take Armenia
under its protection. It is not surprising that the Russian
co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group, Yuriy Merzlyakov, regularly has
to disavow statements by his predecessor as not reflecting Russia’s
policy in the region. Otherwise they would damage both Russia’s image
and the Russian mediation mission.