THE NEWLY APPOINTED FOREIGN MINISTER OF FRANCE BERNARD KOUCHNER AND HIS APPROACHES TO KARABAKH CONFLICT
By Nikolay Hovhannisian
AZG Armenian Daily
01/06/2007
The most important sensation of the presidential elections of France on
May 6, 2007, was that first time in history the tenure of the President
of France held not French, but Hungarian by origin Nikolas Sarkozy. He
became the 7th president of post-war France, following Vensan Orioli,
Rene Koti, Charle de Gaulle, Georges Pompidou, Fransua Miteran and
Jacques Chirac.
The other two sensations following the elections of France were:
firstly, Armenian Patrik Devegian was appointed as a president of the
"Union for a Popular Movement" party; secondly, the portfolio of the
Foreign Minister of France was given to Bernard Kouchner, even though
Kouchner supported Sarkozy’s Socialist rival Segolene Royal during
the campaign.
There was even a period when the socialists were discussing the issue,
what if Sarkozy won, who could in that case defeat Sarkozy, Kouchner
announced, "I can". And after these events Sarkozy offered Kouchner
the important and authoritative tenure of the Foreign Minister of
France, and Kouchner accepted the offer, which raised the criticism
of his party members.
Today the analysts puzzle over the personnel policy of Sarkozy and
the reasons of Kouchner’s acceptance of the offer. They give different
explanations, which in their turn raise new questions.
One thing is evident; a new period starts in foreign and probably in
internal policies of the 5th Republic of France. Sarkozy will say
goodbye to some supremacies of Jacques Chirac’s foreign policy. He
has already announced about the warming of French-American relations,
not so favorable approaches to Russian-French relations, a rough
position to the membership of Turkey in European Union, that Turkey
is a typical Asian country and its place is in Asia, not in Europe,
where no one waits for it, etc.
Humanitarian policy will have a peculiar place in the new supremacies
of the foreign policy of France, and probably will be the axis of
the global policy of it.
This is the explanation of appointing Bernard Kouchner in the post of
Foreign Minister, as he has no equal in this sphere not only in France,
but also in the modern world. Strengthening of the humanitarian aspect
in the foreign policy of France was the reason of Bernard Kouchner’s
acceptance of the offer of Sarkozy.
Bernard Kouchner was born in 1939. He has four children. He is a
doctor by profession. It’s not the first time that Bernard Kouchner
appears in the government of France: Health Minister, then Minister of
Health and Humanitarian Action, founder and president of Humanitarian
Action Association, co-founder of the Nobel Prize winning aid group
"Doctors without borders", etc. He has been in Lebanon, Jordan, Zaire,
Darfur, Salvador, Kosovo and other countries of the world to provide
humanitarian aid. US former permanent representative of UN Richard
Holbruck mentioned about Bernard Kouchner: "He is always against
unfairness, either it is from left or right". Kouchner put forward 2
important theses when realizing his humanitarian mission. The first is
called the "humanitarian intervention" thesis, it allows intervening
in the internal affairs of other country, if there is a violation of
human rights, or the physical existence of people and ethnic groups
is in question.
Kouchner formulated his second thesis like this: "In order to
change the law, sometimes it’s necessary to break the law." This
thesis was put forward in connection with the correlation of
the Law of maintenance of territorial integrity and the right of
self-determination of nations. The Law of maintenance of territorial
integrity is not an absolute thesis for Kouchner. He approaches this
issue from the viewpoint of human rights and physical security of the
people and ethnic groups. And if the Law of maintenance of territorial
integrity contradicts the issue of human rights, safe existence of
people and their self-determination, in that case, the law must be
broken according to Kouchner.
Kouchner, who was the author of the abovementioned theses, could not
ignore such an ethno-political conflict, as Karabakh conflict is. This
conflict focuses the attention of international societies from the
first days of its origin. It is discussed in different instances,
organizations, institutes, various forums, etc. It is also the general
object of various international research projects.
Similar project, titled "Partners of conflicts: building of peace
bridges in South Caucasus" was worked out in August-December of 1995,
in the Center of International Development and Conflict Management
of Maryland University of USA. The members of the project were the
representatives from Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, also from USA
and Israel. The representative of Armenia was me, the author of this
article. The discussions were held in the circles of US Department
of State, sometimes also with the specialists of Mayson and Hopkins
Universities.
Thanks to this project we had an opportunity to get acquainted with
and use very important materials, related to the origin, the reason
of Karabakh conflict, and different states’ policies and positions
to its settlement.
A file focused my attention among these materials. It was titled
"Nagorno Karabakh. A working file delivered to the United Nations
Economic and Social Council, Committee of Human Rights". It was made
by Human rights protectors in Geneva, in 1994, and contained very
important statements and viewpoints related to Karabakh conflict. Let’s
give an example from those files: "Nagorno Karabakh and its neighboring
territories were parts of Armenia for 2000 years.
Azerbaijan first time pretended on these territories only in 1918,
when it became independent.
Among these files, statements and viewpoints was also the important
viewpoint of Bernard Kouchner, who was the Minister of Humanitarian
Actions of France that time. On March 8, 1992 in Paris during a
forum he announced that the 6 km pass of Lachin, which separated
Karabakh form Armenia, was "nonsense", and it was "a political and
geographical mistake".
This announcement of Kouchner testified that he was very conversant
in history and had exact information about the reasons of the origin
of Karabakh conflict, division of Armenian territories, the bargain
of Russian Bolsheviks and Azerbaijani racists. Otherwise he did
not mention that the pass of Lachin was nonsense, and also did not
emphasize that it was a political and geographical mistake. Kouchner
also mentioned that political and geographical mistake might be
corrected. And then he did the next important step and announced,
"It’s better to agree to change the borders, then to murder the
people. It’s better to change the borders then to leave the people
die." It’s worth to mention that Kouchner made this announcement in
1992, when the Soviet and Azerbaijani armed forces were realizing
their "Ring" military action, which was the reason of murder of
thousands of Armenians, emptying many Armenian villages and making
the habitants refugees. He had total information about that inhuman
and barbaric action.
In the case of Karabakh conflict, according to Kouchner the Law of
maintenance of territorial integrity is not fair and human, and it
becomes a law of slaughter of peoples and nations.
As a result of the project in Maryland University, our works
were published in 1997, in USA by Maryland University titled "The
Ethno-political conflicts in South Caucasus, their sources and ways
of settlement".
In the same year in Yerevan was published another book in Russian
titled "Karabakh conflict. Stages, approaches, ways of settlement". And
in 2004 was published "Karabakh problem. The thorny way of freedom
and independence" in English. This book contains the abovementioned
materials and Bernard Koucher’s viewpoint.
15 years passed from the announcement of Kouchner, but he didn’t
betray his theses of "humanitarian intervention" and breaking the
wrong laws related to the borders.