Author: Chatinian Lara

UNPO, Netherlands
Sept 2 2006
Abkhazia: Echoing Kosova?
2006-09-01
Abkhazia’s case for independence from Georgia has echoes of Kosovo’s
from Serbia, reports Thomas de Waal from the Black Sea territory.
Below article, written by Thomas de Waal, was published by Open
Democracy on 10 May 2006, titled “Abkhazia’s dream of freedom”
“A mile from the Black Sea in central Abkhazia you can see the
crimson-and-mustard striped domes of New Athos, a grand 19th-century
monastery built at the height of the czarist empire. Nearby is a
green-roofed wooden building camouflaged by the bedraggled palm trees
into the hillside, a house that you would only spot if you knew it
was there. It is Joseph Stalin’s dacha – or rather one of them,
because this small strip of enchanted coastline was his favoured
holiday destination.
When I visited in February 2006, the dacha was shut up, but you could
peer through the crystal-paned windows to see a long oblong table and
sixteen chairs in a meeting room, a cinema booth with the reels of
film still stacked there and a billiard table with dusty white balls.
The rest of the grounds had gone to ruin as surely as Stalin’s Soviet
Union and we clambered through broken walls and decades of matted
leaves to an eyrie, where the generalissimo would have taken his
evening stroll and looked out across the Black Sea.
As I wandered round this forlorn estate, I wondered what the ghost of
Stalin would make of it. Not only has his superpower fallen apart,
but even tiny Abkhazia, his favourite holiday spot, is a destitute
territory detached from Georgia and outside international
jurisdiction.
Yet his affection was one of the reasons for the disaster that has
befallen Abkhazia. It was fated to be perhaps both the most
privileged and most cursed part of the Soviet Union. Privileged,
because everyone from Leon Trotsky to Mikhail Gorbachev, but
especially Stalin, came and rested here; cursed, because although the
Soviet elite loved Abkhazia it did not necessarily care about its
inhabitants.
A twilight country
Abkhazia was one of those once-cosmopolitan Soviet territories all
too vulnerable to the jealousies and rivalries produced by what Terry
Martin has called “the affirmative-action empire”. In the 1920s it
was a thoroughly multi-ethnic land with trading links across the
Black Sea, a thriving tobacco industry and Turkish the lingua franca.
The Abkhaz, who are ethnic kin of the Circassians of the north
Caucasus, were the largest ethnic group but not the majority.
By 1991 the Abkhaz comprised less than one fifth of the population,
thanks in large part to mass settlement by ethnic Georgians in the
mid-Soviet period, encouraged by Stalin and his chief Georgian
henchman, Lavrenti Beria. The Abkhaz resented the Georgianification
brought by the incomers, while the Georgians resented the way the
small “titular” minority dominated all major positions in the
republic.
That is all a distant memory. The Georgians are gone, driven out at
the end of the bitter war of 1992-93. Abkhazia’s population, once
half a million, is now less than half that. Sukhumi, once a city of
Greek tobacco-merchants, then of Georgian workers, is still
half-ruined, grass growing in the streets.
Abkhazia has become one of those twilight territories that exist on
the map and have a functioning government, parliament and press, but
are international pariahs, unrecognised, told by visiting dignitaries
that they are actually part of Georgia.
Yet virtually nothing is left to remind you of Georgia and the
younger generation does not even understand the Georgian language.
Instead the Russians have adopted Abkhazia and are gently annexing
it. The currency is the rouble, Moscow pays Russian pensions and
gives out Russian passports, the Russian tourists have started coming
back and Russian companies and ministries are renting out guest
houses and sanatoria. Above the resort town of Gagra stands the
elegant Armenia Sanatorium, an illustration of Abkhazia’s bizarre
history. Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev got married here in 1992 – he
was part of the broad anti-Georgian alliance of Cossacks, north
Caucasians and Russian special forces that helped the Abkhaz – and
now the sanatorium is leased out to the Russian defence ministry.
Yet it would be a mistake, one most distant observers make, to regard
Abkhazia merely as some kind of rogue Russian puppet-state. In terms
of democracy and civil society, it is no more criminal or corrupt
than any other part of the Caucasus. Its black economy is more
developed because all transactions are done in cash, but it is also a
lot poorer so there is less to steal than in Georgia, Armenia or
Azerbaijan.
As for the Russians, the Abkhaz are Caucasians after all and know
their history, in which Russia has been the imperial overlord as much
as Georgia has. Most people are grateful that someone is restoring
their economy. But Abkhaz intellectuals are nagged by anxiety,
worrying that they have broken away from what the Soviet dissident
Andrei Sakharov called the “little empire” of Georgia only to be
swallowed up by a resurgent nationalist Russia that seeks to use
Abkhazia for its own ends in its efforts to humiliate pro-western
Georgia.
In a small but brave act of protest in October-December 2004, the
Abkhaz made it clear they were not Russian poodles. Moscow decided
that it wanted former prime minister Raul Khajimba to be the next
president and sent PR-experts, pop stars and Kremlin advisers to
Abkhazia to make sure he was safely elected. But the opposition
candidate, former energy boss Sergei Bagapsh, was declared the winner
of the election and fought a desperate battle to have the result
recognised. In the end, after weeks of failed intimidation and
bullying of the Abkhaz opposition, Moscow climbed down and Bagapsh
became president with Khajimba his vice-president.
Bagapsh was in genial form when I visited him. I believed him when he
said he bore no grudge against the Russian officials who had tried to
destroy him but now greeted him amiably as though nothing had
happened. Bigger things are on his mind. He wanted to talk about
Kosovo and its status talks, which are expected to lead to full
independence.
President Vladimir Putin had deftly stirred things up on 31 January
2006 when he said at a Kremlin press conference: “If someone believes
that Kosovo should be granted full independence as a state, then why
should we deny it to the Abkhaz and the South Ossetians?”
Bagapsh argued fiercely that where Kosovo should lead, Abkhazia
should follow. Bagapsh said: “If the issue of Kosovo is settled (in
favour of independence) let’s say, and not the issue of Abkhazia,
that is a policy purely of double standards.”
It is an argument to which I am quite sympathetic. The Abkhaz are
entitled to look around and see double standards: that the west wants
to “reward” Kosovo for its loyalty after the Nato intervention
against Slobodan Milosevic, while retaining a soft spot for Georgia
by insisting that its territorial integrity is inviolable. Yet if you
were on the receiving end of Georgian armed thugs threatening your
existence rather than Serbian armed thugs, that distinction seems
rather arbitrary. The two cases are certainly not so far apart to be
judged by entirely different standards.
That applies too to the counter-argument that Serbs or Georgians
might wish to make. There is also the matter of those refugees. The
Serbs comprised a far smaller proportion of the population of pre-war
Kosovo. Thousands of them have left. They are the ones who have the
right to set the Kosovo government an exam on whether it is fit to
become a proper sovereign state that looks after its minorities.
Sukhumi waits
In Abkhazia that exam would be even harder. True, some 40,000
Georgians have returned to the southern district of Gali inside
Abkhazia. But they live a precarious existence there, preyed on by
militias and gangsters – Georgian as well as Abkhaz – and vulnerable
to immediate expulsion should the Georgian-Abkhaz peace process break
down.
What about the remaining Georgians, I asked Bagapsh, estimated to be
up to a quarter of a million and comprising half Abkhazia’s pre-war
population? If you followed the Kosovo model to its logical
conclusion, then they should be allowed full right of return.
Naturally, the president replied that Abkhazia should get its
independence first, then invite the Georgians back. But he did at
least concede that “there are more obligations sometimes than
privileges” in being a sovereign state and that it was a tricky
process.
One thing is certain: there is something deeply unsatisfactory about
the intellectual framework around the “frozen conflicts” of the
Caucasus – Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh. The
unrecognised separatist territories are told that the Soviet borders
are inviolable and that in effect any moves they may make to
democratise themselves are irrelevant. The Kosovo process is useful
because it challenges those assumptions. Surely, now that the
precedent has been set, the debate has to be about democracy and
minority rights more than about territorial integrity.
I remembered what a Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian had said to me, a
question I found unanswerable at the time. “So we were inside
Azerbaijan for seventy years. How many years do we have to spend
outside Azerbaijan for the world to recognise that we have left them
behind for good – twenty, thirty, seventy?”
If the Abkhaz can put together a democratic case for greater
recognition by the outside world, I for one will be glad. And if
Stalin spins a little more in his grave on Red Square, so much the
better.”
Thomas de Waal is Caucasus editor at the Institute for War and Peace
Reporting in London.

PanARMENIAN.Net
Belgian Senator Shared Impressions of Karabakh Visit with RA FM
02.09.2006 15:19 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Today Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian met
with chairman of the committee for foreign relations and defense at
the Belgian Senate, Mr François Roelants du Vivier, reported the RA
MFA press office. During the meeting the Armenian Minister assessed
highly the efforts of the Senator targeted at the development of the
Armenian-Belgian relationships. For his part Mr du Vivier expressed
satisfaction with the level of cooperation between Armenia and
Belgium.
He also shared the impressions of his visit to Karabakh with the
Armenian FM. By the guest’s request Vartan Oskanian briefed on the
current stage of the talks. Besides, the interlocutors discussed the
Armenia-EU Action Plan within the European Neighborhood Policy,
regional development and the Armenia-Turkey relations.

PanARMENIAN.Net
Baku: Armenian and Azeri FMs to Meet Mid September
01.09.2006 14:20 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ `The recurrent round of negotiations on the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict settlement at the level of Foreign Ministers will be
held either in Paris September 12-13 or in London September 14-15,’
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov told journalists upon
the outcomes of the talks held with OSCE Minsk Group French Co-chair
Bernard Fassier, reported Day.az. According to the Azeri FM, the
precise date and place of the meeting will be coordinated with the
Armenian side.

Armenian delegation headed by Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan leaving for
Stepanakert

ArmRadio.am
01.09.2006 11:35
Armenian delegation headed by Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan will leave
for Stepanakert today to participate in the celebration of the 15th
anniversary of declaration of NKR independence, MEDIAMAX agency reports.
Representatives of a number of countries have been invited to participate in
the celebration.

AHMEDOGLU: “KASPRZYK HAS NEVER GIVEN OBJECTIVE INFORMATION CONCERNING AZERBAIJAN”
Today, Azerbaijan
Aug. 30, 2006
Fires in territories, bordering to Nagorno Karabakh, have been lasting
for about two months.
Recently, the personal envoy of the OSCE chairman-in-office Andrzej
Kasprzyk monitored the territory in order to clarify causes of the
fires. According to the diplomat, “hot weather, which has early set in,
and strong winds are reason, which caused fact that area in contact
line’s zone, enveloped in fires, turned out to be considerably bigger,
comparing with ones in previous years.”
Political Innovations and Technologies Center Chairman Mubariz
Ahmedoglu commented on arisen situation.
Mr. Ahmedoglu, personal envoy of the OSCE chairman-in-office Andrzej
Kasprzyk stated that fires in territories, bordering to Nagorno
Karabakh, were not caused by Armenians, as the Azerbaijani side
maintains, but they were caused by heat, wind, and other natural
phenomena. To what extent, in your opinion, his words correspond
with reality?
When the fires began, the weather was not hot. If they had been
lasting for 15 last days, i.e. when the weather was really hot,
his words could be considered seriously. The matter concerns other
thing here. Armenians realizes very good; they should return Agdam,
Fizuli, and other occupied areas to Azerbaijan; that is why, they
committed arsons. As for Kasprzyk…It is worth mentioning, he has
never given objective information concerning Azerbaijan. Even during
his stay at the fire line, he succeeded in not making notes of shots
from the Armenian side.
Let’s ignore Kasprzyk’s words. Finally, Armenian officials and mass
media went much further, maintaining that the fires were made by
Azeri soldiers, who shot fire-bullets at territories, controlled by
Armenian servicemen…
No Azeri would set fire to native land under any circumstances. It is
enough to remind old parable in order to prove absurdity of Armenian
statements. Two women came to King Solomon, each of them maintaining,
she was mother of baby. The King ordered to bring the baby and
pronounced sentence. The child should be cut up in two parts in
order to give each woman one part, because none of them could prove
its right on the child. One of the women stayed absolutely calm,
while the other one fell to the king’s foots, crying and refusing
her claims on the child. The wise king ordered to hand over the baby
to the woman, who immediately refused her mother right in order to
rescue the child. Probably, no further commentaries are necessary.
URL:

GARNIK ISAGULYAN IS LOOKING FOR ALLIES
Lragir.am
29 Aug 06
Garnik Isagulyan, adviser to the president of Armenia, is looking for a
political ally. The source informs that Isagulyan has actively started
the search for supporters. We have learned that he has already come
to a preliminary agreement with a figure, who is Isagulyan’s colleague
without political partnership, namely another adviser to the president
Seiran Avagyan. By the way, Avagyan remembered on these days that he
is a political figure and held a meeting of the Democratic Liberal
Union he leads on August 26.
For the time being he is the only visible and definite candidate of
ally for Garnik Isagulyan. We have learned, however, that Avagyan
is not enough for Isagulyan, and he is likely to continue the search
for a political companion. It should be noted that Isagulyan started
the search long ago. Simply so far he was looking for a presidential
candidate, not a political ally, and announced that Serge Sargsyan
is the best and the best prepared candidate. Meanwhile, Isagulyan’s
search for a political ally means that his search for a presidential
candidate was not successful. Otherwise, if the courtesy to Serge
Sargsyan were successful, Isagulyan would not need a political ally,
because the Republican Party would become his “natural” ally.
And since Robert Kocharyan did not like Isagulyan’s courtesy to Serge
either, there is nothing the adviser can do but to find some way of
staying in the political sphere.

OSKANIAN MEETS U.S. COCHAIRMAN BRYZA
By Karine Kalantarian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Aug. 28, 2006
Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian held a meeting with OSCE
Minsk Group cochairman from the United States Matthew Bryza on
Monday on the sidelines of the two-day international forum “Caspian
Prospects 2008” in the Slovenian town of Bled, Armenian Foreign
Ministry spokesman Vladimir Karapetian told RFE/RL.
Karapetian did not report the details of the meeting. He said that
Oskanian did not meet his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mamedyarov.
Karapetian also said that Oskanian’s speech at the forum dealt with
the Armenia-EU relations as part of the New Neighborhood Policy.
More than 180 representatives of a number of countries, including
President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev, are attending the forum.

NATO INFORMATION CENTER TO OPEN IN ARMENIA IN SEPTEMBER
ArmRadio.am
24.08.2006 17:57
RA Government took the decision today, according to which t will
provide means from its reserve funds for renting the area for the
NATO Information Center in Yerevan, MEDIAMAX Agency informs.
In 2007 the rent will be paid from the state budget.
The NATO information center will be established and managed by the
“Armenian Center for Trans-Atlantic Initiative” NGO.

‘ARMENIAN COMMUNITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE IS DISTRUSTFUL OF THEIR COMPATRIOTS IN ARMENIA’
By Hakob Chakrian
AZG Armenian Daily
24/08/2006
Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople States in a Turkish Paper
It seems that Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, Mesrop II Mutafian,
is getting into the habit of ascribing his own opinion to the Armenian
community and making grim conclusions and prognosis in Turkish printed
media. Still in mid-June when Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II
was getting ready for Istanbul visit, he suggested Turkish papers that
“the Armenian community of Constantinople thinks that the Supreme
Patriarch does not know the proper place for his statements,” thus
trying to forecast “possible unrest during his visit” and to let the
world know about the Armenian community’s “concern.”
Patriarch Mutafian’s gloomy forecast did not though hit the
target. According to Armenian press of Istanbul, the community not
only warmly welcomed His Holiness and enjoyed his presence but also
was surprised at Mesrop Mutafian’s conclusion that “some fears in
the community came true.” The Armenian community strongly criticized
Patriarch Mutafian “for casting shadow on the Catholicos’s visit”
and emphasized: “When His Holiness was still in Istanbul, in his
interview with Hurriyet Patriarch Mutafian showed that he can hardly
follow a logic worthy a religious leader.”
It was the interview with Sefa Kaplan published on June 28 in Hurriyet
that Patriarch Mutafian provided “clarification” to the Catholicos’s
press conference.
In August 6 issue of Hurriyet answering the question of the same
correspondent, the Patriarch made public his attitude to his
compatriots in Armenia not forgetting to speak for the whole community.
Asked by Kaplan “what kind of relations do you have with your
compatriots in Armenia? Do they turn to you with requests?”, Patriarch
Mutafian answers: “Two-three years ago they used to turn to us for
money. Seeing that they were in desperate need we would help them
paying for their ticket to Armenia.
Then we saw that they return to Istanbul from Samsun or Trapizon but do
not return to Armenia. That’s why we decided not to fund anymore. But
the church still remains a meeting place for the latter. On Sundays
Surp Astvatsatsin church is full of Armenians speaking Eastern
Armenian. The Ethiopians and Africa-born Armenians also come. So when
preaching you may think that people do not understand you.”
Asked “what’s the education level of those people”, the Patriarch says:
“Almost all of them are university graduates but they found no jobs
at home. There are even doctors among them who attend patients at
home but earn more than in Armenia.”
Answering a question about the relations between the Turks and
the Armenians of Armenia, Patriarch Mutafian says: “Relations are
rather good. I think if there were exchange programs of students,
intellectuals, artists and media representatives, Turkey-Armenia
relations would improve.”
The most exciting in the interview were perhaps the last two
questions. The correspondent asked: “Are there cases when the Armenian
residents turn to you complaining of bad treatment?”, to which the
Patriarch answers: “As far as I know, they get along very well,
and there were even marriages with the Turks.”
Asked “if the local Armenian community is worried because of the
Armenian residents”, the Patriarch says: “Unfortunately, there is
more distrust than worry towards them. The local community is slow
to trust those people for unknown reasons. There is a firm opinion
in the community that they are ‘untrustworthy and do not keep their
word’. This is an inglorious phenomenon.”
Firstly, it should be said that not all job seekers in Turkey are
university graduates. The Patriarch simply lies fanning the fires of
those who want to see Armenia ruined. As to the community, if they
really consider their compatriots in Armenia untrustworthy, then it
goes against the Patriarch’s words that the Armenians get along with
the Turks and even marry them.
If Patriarch Mutafian ascribes distrust to the Armenian community,
then he carelessly sticks a label of untrustworthy on the Turks who
trust the Armenian residents to the extent of marrying them. In this
case the Armenian community of Constantinople takes the stance of
distrust to Turks because of its Patriarch’s wishful thinking.
It’s obvious that in order to “get well along with the Armenians”
the Turks have to be at least equally bad, therefore the Patriarch’s
suspicion towards his countryman should refer to Turks as well. We
can only remind him the inscription that Lraber, the patriarchy’s
newspaper, carries: “The Lord examines the righteous, but the wicked
and those who love violence his soul hates.”

DAY OF MOURNING DECLARED IN RUSSIA
ArmRadio.am
24.08.2006 12:20
According to RF President Vladimir Putin’s decree, August 24 has been
declared a day of mourning in Russia.
State flags will be lowered all over the country. All TV and radio
companies, cultural establishments have been instructed to cancel
the entertainment events and broadcasts.
“Armenpress” was told at the Russian Embassy in Armenia that between
14:30 – 17.30 a condolence book will be opened in the Embassy.
To remind, August 22 Russian Tu-154 plane crashed in Donetsk region
of Ukraine killing all 170 people on board including 45 children.