Securing a Way Forward in Karabakh: The sound of progress and the
rumblings of war
KARABAKH 25: BUILDING A REPUBLIC | 07.03.13 | 22:05
Rebuilding goes on in Stepanakert as fresh buildings replace those
damaged by war.
By JOHN HUGHES
ArmeniaNow Chief Editor
To know Armenia is to know that there are nearly as many differences
of opinion on almost any topic, as there are citizens. To know the
Armenian Diaspora is to know that uniting them under the name
`Diaspora’ by no means makes this vast group `homogeneous’.
To know Nagorno Karabakh is to know this: While dividing a region,
Karabakh unites a nation.
Enlarge Photo
A week after Safarov Affair,protestors in Yerevan expressed their
anger as NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen visited Armenia.
Enlarge Photo
Karabakh’s airport was to have opened in May 2011, but tensions and
threats have delayed its operation.
Enlarge Photo
Major General Arkadi Ter-Tadevosian, a Karabakh war hero
When the first freedom fighters put their lives at risk in the
Karabakh Liberation Movement their war cries rode on Armenian dialects
that not only identified the Karabakhi or the Yerevantsi or the
Gyumretsi, but also the `Hyphenated Hyes’ of Lebanese-Armenians, the
Syrian-Armenians, the American-Armenians . . .
Whether shouting `Ka-ra-bakh!’ or `Gh-ra-pah!’ or `Art-sakh!’; whether
calling it `Mountainous Karabakh’ or `Nagorno Karabakh’ or `Nagorny
Karabakh’, Armenians shed their diverse labels to speak one word on
the matter: `Ours’.
To others, however, the diminutive self-declared republic is the
lynchpin of a conflict that has global impact, with potential
influence on lives in distant places where the word `Karabakh’ has
never been heard.
World diplomats know it too well. The expense incurred by
internationals who have jetted here and there holding conferences,
seminars, debates, conflict-resolution courses, etc. to ponder `The
Karabakh Problem’, could perhaps by now have made millionaires of
Karabakh’s population of just 140,000.
While to the Armenian side, Karabakh has been `liberated’, the
Azerbaijan side insists that 20 percent of their country is under
`occupation’. Standing in between the definitions have been dozens of
third-party mediators who have spent more than 20 years chasing a
solution that, of late, seems more elusive than at any time.
Over the years, and usually connected to the Minsk Group of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), mediators
(including presidents) representing Russia, Kazakhstan, the United
States, Sweden, France, Finland, Belarus, Germany, Turkey, Italy have
weighed in on peace talks.
Yet one country hardly connected to either side – Hungary –
effectively silenced the already-fading voices of reasoning when in
August it released a murderer who Azerbaijan turned into a national
hero.
The `Safarov Affair’
Ramil Safarov was found guilty of premeditated murder and was
sentenced to life in prison in April 2006, after confessing to
brutally hacking to death 26-year-old Armenian Lieutenant Gurgen
Margarian while the Armenian slept in his dormitory room in the
Hungarian capital. The killer had gone to a Budapest hardware shop to
buy an axe for that very purpose. He was intent on killing the other
Armenian in the dorm, but the second soldier was sheltered by another
foreigner when alerted to the attack. Margarian and Safarov were in
Hungary for NATO-sponsored Partnership for Peace English language
courses in February of 2004.
Throughout eight years while Safarov was imprisoned in Hungary,
Azerbaijan had repeatedly tried to obtain his extradition. Each time,
Hungary had refused.
Kinga Gonzc was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary during a period
when other attempts were made to extradite Safarov. In an interview
with Armenia’s Mediamax news agency, Gonzc said that during her
tenure, Azerbaijan’s requests were denied `because we didn’t want to
spark a conflict between the two countries whose relationship has been
tense for decades because of Nagorno Karabakh.’
Safarov’s release on August 31 did exactly as Gonzc had feared.
Hungary had been given assurances by Azeri authorities that, should
Hungary release him, Safarov would serve out his sentence under
custody in Azerbaijan. Instead, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev pardoned
Safarov even before his plane landed at the Baku airport, where Aliyev
met Safarov, promoted the lieutenant to major, paid him 8.5 years of
back salary, and gave him an apartment.
Documents released by the Hungarians show that they were lied to by
the Azeris. Amidst international outcry came calls for negotiators of
any peace plan to see the `Safarov Affair’ (as the New York Times
called it) as an example of why Christian Karabakh should never be
under the rule of Muslim Azerbaijan.
Writing for the BBC, Thomas de Waal, a Senior Associate at the
Carnegie Endowment, said:
`If there is any silver lining to this dark episode it could be that
the international community pays more attention to the dangers of a
new Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno Karabakh. The conflict
is not `frozen,’ as it is frequently described.
`The current format of quiet mediation by France, Russia and the US is
not strong enough to move the two sides from their intransigent
positions. The reception given Safarov suggests that the situation is
moving closer to war than peace. This slide can be halted, but the
time to start working harder on diplomacy is now.’
Fight over flight
Making the `slide’ even more slippery is an issue over airspace.
In 2008 work began on rebuilding an airport about five miles outside
Stepanakert. The airport was built in 1974 mainly to service flights
>From Yerevan and Baku. It was turned into a military airfield during
the early stages of the war, and in fact has been idle since 1992.
The new airport, with its terminal designed by architect Tigran
Barseghian to resemble an eagle with open wings, is to be the new air
gate of Karabakh.
The $5 million project has created a facility that should be able to
handle about 100 passengers per hour. `Air Artsakh’ airline has been
contracted to operate flights.
On September 28, Karabakh aviation officials received certification
that the airport meets international standards.
In announcing that the airport is ready for operation, the NKR
government-affiliated civil aviation department director Dmitry
Adbashian said: `As an aviator, I think that if a country has no
airport, then it cannot have a full-fledged state.’
Azerbaijan apparently thinks so, too, which may explain why Baku has
threatened to shoot down any plane operating from the new airport. The
official opening of the airport was supposed to take place still on
May 9, 2011, but it was delayed several times over what officials
explained were `purely technical reasons’. Many believe that there
have always been political reasons behind the delay.
When, last year, the opening of the airport was announced, Armenian
President Serge Sargsyan responded to Azerbaijan’s threats by saying
that he would be the first passenger on the first flight. Still, there
have been no passengers, and no flights. And, though not officially
stated, the intensified tensions since Safarov’s extradition/pardon
surely play a role in why the airport remains unused.
Whether viewed from airspace now under threat, or reached across the
snaking highway connecting it to Armenia, Karabakh holds a
significance in geopolitics that is not determined by size or
population.
Look at a map of the extended region, as if you were an international
statesperson. Syria: civil war. Turkey: Ill-at-ease with Syria. Iraq:
war. Iran: Rumors of war with Israel; threats of conflict from America
. . .
Bordering Iran is that Islamic republic’s friendliest neighbor, Armenia.
Contemplation of war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Karabakh has
to consider who would be drawn into, or affected by, any conflict. The
United States needs strategically-placed Armenia’s friendship, but
Azerbaijan’s oil. Armenia needs Iran’s friendship as one of only two
neighbors that has not closed its borders. Russia already owns
Armenia’s resources, and would like its part of Azerbaijan’s as well.
Georgia adores America, hates Russia, has lately not treated its
Armenian population with respect, and would not like to see its own
`enclaves’ — Ossetia and Abkhazia — get any ideas from renewed
fighting in the region stirred by ethnic conflict.
Tiny Karabakh may be alone in its fight, but not in its fight’s
impact. Nobody wins if war restarts. But Azerbaijan appears to be
preparing for that scenario.
In 2011, Azerbaijan increased military spending by 88 percent which,
according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, was the
largest increase in the world. During a June 25 address to a military
academy in Azerbaijan, Aliyev bragged that what he spends on his
military `is 50 percent more than Armenia’s total state expenditure’.
Military analyst Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies
Center in Yerevan, says Azerbaijan has created `an undeclared arms
race’ in the region.
At the same time, the Azeri president has loudly and repeatedly
declared his willingness to use those weapons.
Sabine Freizer, director of the International Crisis Group’s Europe
program said: `This buildup is dangerous because it is accompanied by
clear statements by the Azerbaijani leadership that Azerbaijan can
retake its occupied territories by force.’
Such rhetoric has been met by the Armenian side with a reminder that
Azerbaijan was `supposed’ to have won the conflict soon after it
began.
In a November interview with the Wall Street Journal, Sargsyan
commented on current tensions:
“Unfortunately, I believe Azerbaijan is waiting for an occasion to
start a conflict. I am confident such a mistake would harm the people
of Nagorno Karabakh and Armenia but that most harm would come to the
people of Azerbaijan….We won’t stand aside when the population of
Nagorno Karabakh is going to be destroyed.”
Staying focused
With saber-rattling in their ears, the eyes of Karbakhis focus on
building a republic.
Capital Stepanakert no longer bears the open wounds of war as it did
not so long ago. Fresh, modern buildings awaiting future guests and
occupants stand for hope, where broken and bullet-riddled ones were
for too long a reminder of hatred.
A generation enjoying Wi-Fi in Stepanakert cafes, has inherited a
lifestyle the previous generation paid for in sacrifice of lives, and
with stubborn determination to emerge from the isolation of
destruction.
In the first half of 2012 NKR’s domestic revenues came to about $30.5
million – more than a 12-percent increase from the same period in
2011. The amount of money flowing into the state coffers by taxes
increased 14.5 percent to $20.5 million (67 percent of state revenue)
during that period.
Average salaries have increased, the number of unemployed has
decreased. Overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased about $43
million from 2010-2011, totaling about $335 million.
Arising from the need to make the economy stronger, has also arisen an
idea to institutionalize the obvious need to establish an ongoing
military character.
This autumn, construction began on a military academy in Stepanakert,
funded by Karabakh native Levon Hairapetian, now a businessman in
Russia.
`Our main goal is the adoption of international practices, for which a
special group has been created,’ said Major General Arkadi
Ter-Tadevosian, a Karabakh war hero, better known as `Commandos’.
The academy will be model on similar `cadet schools’ in France,
Russia, and the United States.
While rebuilding, emphasis is also on repopulating.
The government continues to offer benefits to young families and newly-weds.
Last year the government spent a total of $3.36 million toward
encouraging family life. Benefits totaling $666,000 went to 900
newly-weds, while a total of $1.7 million went to accounts set up for
the country’s 2,652 babies born in 2011
Also last year 169 families – totaling 580 members – re-settled in
Karabakh. The numbers represent an increase of 39 families and 136
members over 2010.
Among newest arrivals are David Yeghiazarian, 22, and Tamara
Grigorian, 24 – pioneers of sort who hope to be followed by other
young couples.
David is from Yerevan, Tamara is from Vanadzor. They married in
September and immediately moved to the town of Karvachar (formerly
Kelbajar), adding two to its population of about 700. David teaches
history and social studies at the local school, and Tamara is a
journalist.
`I had a dream to live in the liberated lands of Armenia for several
years,’ Tamara says. `Since I first heard about such places and had an
image of the situation, I realized that young people must go and
resettle there. Young forces are needed here in every sphere. All of
us aim to live in Yerevan, but there is no place for people in Yerevan
any more. There is no free sphere of work in Yerevan, but Karvachar is
waiting for specialists.’
The importance of strengthening those lands, idealized in the move of
the young couple, has never seemed more urgent to Armenia’s interests.
The newly-weds say their parents were not happy that the couple left
Armenia’s capital for life in `disputed territory’. But David says
that, later: `They realized the importance of our step’.
From: A. Papazian
http://armenianow.com/karabakh/44232/karabakh_25th_anniversary_airport_safarov_liberation