ArmeniaNow.com
Preparing for `war’: Analysts/politicians say National
Assembly election is `crucial’

By Gayane Lazarian
ArmeniaNow reporter

Rhetoric and movement and accusations and even murders have signaled,
already, what is likely to become a contentious race for seats in
Armenia’s next Parliament. One analyst says the contest `will resemble
a war’.

Shavarsh Kocharyan

It is eight months until voters will go to polls, but in this startup
period one theme unites those interested in knowing who will fill the
131 seats: the May 2007 election and the 2008 presidential election
will be crucial for Armenia.
`The pre-election situation is unique. On one hand, the authorities
continue to implement non-democratic methods of government. On the
other hand, the Constitutional reforms have for the first time created
an opportunity to change the situation and liberate Armenia from
authoritarianism,’ says the Chairman of the National Democratic Party
of Armenia Shavarsh Kocharyan.
Stepan Zakaryan, member of the Peoples Party of Armenia, believes the
presidential election 2008 will be conditioned by the parliamentary
election in 2007.
`Usually elections to the National Assembly are conditioned by the
presidential elections. Today the situation is the opposite and this
is a new thing,’ Zakaryan says. `The mobilization of the Republican
Party is the response of the authorities to the new situation that
unifies the administrative and the criminal resources.’
Political analyst Suren Surenyants qualifies the situation as a fuse
of authorities and the criminal structures and says the latest
dramatic murders (see ??) are evidence of the latter. He says also,
any illegitimate regime would find itself in a critical situation like
this.
Hrant Khachatryan, the chairman of the Constitutional Right Union,
believes the coming election will give opportunity to make the
relations between the criminal and the anti-criminal forces clear.
Surenyants says the pre-election period is a new phase for the
opposition to appear in a new format.
The Country of Law (`Orinats Yerkir’) political party has made a
statement on its new initiative aimed at ensuring legal electing
process at the coming 2007 parliamentary elections. For this purpose
two main leads were stressed: legislative changes, calling upon the
National Assembly to make amendments to electoral code, and civic will
expression in form of civil movement, which would unite political
powers, NGOs, civil, social movements.
`Otherwise the country will face political upheaval,’ says the
vice-chairman of Ornats Yerkir, Mher Shahgeldyan.. `Such a crisis
would shake the citizens’ confidence and would be accompanied by moral
decline. Armenia will have problems with joining the international
family. And the international democratic community will lose its
interest in Armenia,’
Raffi Hovannisian, the chairman of the Heritage (`Zharangutyun’)
Party, believes none of the opposition parties can, alone, prevent
election fraud.
`The society should decide for itself to whom Armenia belongs, who
will be the true master of the country. I am for big solutions by the
opposition, because local ones are not productive,’ says
Hovannisian. `We are cooperating with the old and new players of the
opposition.’
However, Armenian society strongly holds on to the belief that the
opposition in the country is weak. It is a belief grounded in the
opposition’s inability to unseat the current regime through eight
years of trying, and a perceived helplessness that can be traced to
the infamous events of April 2004 when excessive authoritarian force
literally beat down the opposition, in view of the Presidential
Palace.
Many believe the parliamentary election will result in the
reproduction of the regime.
Surenyants explains that such reproduction of power would mean a
factual loss of independence.
`What can the opposition do if all the leverages are in the hands of
the criminal authorities?! Murders in the streets have become a common
matter!’ says Aram Martirosyan, 57, Yerevan resident.
Surenyants says the opposition is blamed because the incumbent
authorities still run the country.

Hrant Khachatryan

`I should say also that the opposition is powerful. Its resistance
was broken in the 2003 only by means of fraud and the use of force and
mass detainments on April 12th 2004,’ says the analyst. `This means
the authorities used the method of force against the organized
opposition.’
The People’s Party of Armenia says there is need to restore in voters
a belief that their voice does matter.
Grigor Harutyunyan, a member of the National Assembly from the
People’s Party, says: `All those who have participated in the fraud
during the last election must be held to answer. We have to have
independent air on TV, because the fair elections will be impossible
without it. Election is not limited to the very act of
voting. Elections begin much earlier.’
Shavarsh Kocharyan is confident the people, the opposition and the
international organizations are the three structures able to hamper
the reproduction of the incumbent regime. But in order for this to
happen, voters must see an alternative to the authorities.
`Unfortunately the developments in the opposition during the recent
year do not facilitate the emergence of an alternative. Never since
its independence has the country encountered a situation like this
when the disappointment of the society is accompanied by the
opposition’s loss of authority,’ he says.
The Constitutional Right Union believes the reason of the lack of a
developed political field is embedded, because the state never created
a serious precondition for it; moreover, it has always been impeding
its development.
Hrant Khachatryan mentions besides making statements and speeches, the
opposition is engaged also in fortifying its political positions to
have grounds to expect a real unification as well as to get means to
fight against fraud and criminal intimidation. He says the opposition
forces are now engaged in identifying the number of efficient members
able to withstand the election violence.
Davit Hakobyan, the chairman of the Marxist Party of Armenia holds to
another opinion. He believes there are no grounds for the unification
of the opposition and it will take part in the parliamentary election
split.

Kenya Times, Kenya
Change policies on foreign aid
By Mundia Mundia Jnr
The Kenyan politicians and world donors should own up by taking
responsibility for not consulting Kenyans when they choose to agree to
overburden the country with the money that ends up suppressing the
citizenry. The IMF and World Bank policy-makers only hold political
paramountcy under the guise of helping to implement development
programmes. Their presence in the country only encourages national
fragmentation due to the coupling effect of neo-politics of economics.
Kenya, like Ethiopia, ought to renegotiate or phase out
foreign-financed projects and de-link their national and political
programmes from foreign donor funding. Unfortunately, many
politicians in and out of government unwittingly side with aid
agencies, for their own gains, to fleece wananchi and partially
destabilise the nation.
Politicians voluntarily create never ending constitutional,
politico-economic and electoral stalemates to give a chance to the
Western World and donors an opportunity to peg their economic demands
on Kenyans and the Government. Currently there is a major problem
affecting the Ministry of Health whereby less money is being spent on
the management of Tuberculosis especially in our unbalanced economic
set up as a result of massive poverty and misuse of resources.
Certainly, the political fatigue that Kenyans are facing is due to
lack of political will by politicians to even publish the Political
Parties Bill and the Witness Protection Bill that is meant to protect
whistle blowers. There would be some challenge as how John Githongo
would be treated by the same government that gave him placement. The
latter’s case, which the World Bank and IMF are still concerned about
due to the involvement of the Anglo Leasing scandals is to help tackle
the cases as one of the conditionalities set by the foreign agencies.
Also, since the amendment of the Public Officers Ethics Act in May
2004 nothing much has bore fruits.
Kenya’s major donor, the World Bank, that has vested political
interests (though it denies) and wananchi are desperate now and in the
coming months as we approach the 2007 general election for robust
steps to be taken in the fight against gross corruption. With
efficiency of politicians on such matters, Kenyans have to adapt to
new ways of financing their programmes.
Instead of allowing the two to enhance spending money on wasteful
blanket projects and hiring expensive foreign technical experts, we
should capitalise on our locally acquired knowhow to safeguard our
people.
Western aid is perceived by many as the ultimate panacea for Kenya’s
challenges, including political. This aid only mutates with time from
the economic target to a more politically resistant manoeuvre for
neocolonialism. Many foreign investors through the support of locally
registered foreign agencies have invaded our society in order to
ensure they subsidise their Western businesses locally with massive
profits taken back to their homeland. Foreign criminals have taken
advantage of this hospitality loophole. The Armenian case is one in
many where wicked `business personalities’ who come at the pretext of
being foreign investors, are allowed by government operatives to
illegally enrich themselves through elitist thuggery and manage to
escape criminal responsibility.
We will never fight corruption which backtracks our economy when such
is allowed in our systems of governance or else the `good governance’
talk would only be a fancy strategy of opportunism to deceive locals
and indirectly enrich the Western World culprits.
Exit deceit, enter the World Bank and IMF strategies. Economic
inequalities on aid donors that provide donor funds are yet to be
exposed due to political interference mainly because their vested
political and economic interests primarily dupe parliamentarians with
elusive pipe dream projects for the nation under the guise of
sponsoring superior financial assistance and development. Another
scheme by aid agencies is that foreign policies are formulated to
ensure Western taxpayers foot the bill of many disastrous projects
worldwide including famine relief, hurricane funds, finances for
fighting malaria, HIV/AIDS, corruption and political conflicts. These
even worsen lives of the affected recipients due to prescriptions of
unrealistic conditionalities that only favour such institutions.
Has Kenya uplifted the life expectancy of its citizens, decreased
HIV/AIDS epidemic, reduced infant mortality and promoted literacy with
such aid assistance?
World Bank and IMF through the Ministry of Education have cleverly
made Kenyans believe that primary education is `free’. This beats
logic in that the government through the taxpayer’s money and some
from the donors is used to foot the education bill nationally.
It is more of a political tool of deceit than economic. If not I
stand to wonder if the 5.8% growth rate is being used by politicians
to impress the Western world, cushion the slow pace of fighting
corruption or are politicians telling Kenyans that government is
seriously collecting all its taxes to the coffers.
Thus, matter of factly, the World Bank and IMF need to showcase their
economic efficiency to the locals instead of professionally sit on our
pressing poverty and further fleece our skeletal economy.
The locals should be involved in collective policy making and resource
management on what affects us most and have aid agencies as partial
sponsors and economic instructors.
Generic necessities Our interethnic and political harmony depend
heavily on our own political continuance of locally-based economic
prosperity and not to pander to the whims of the political class, IMF,
World Bank, NGOs and other foreign agencies.

International Crisis Group, Belgium
Abkhazia Today

Europe Report N°176

15 September 2006
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Conflict over Abkhazia, squeezed between the Black Sea and the
Caucasus mountains, has festered since the 1992-1993
fighting. Internationally recognised as part of Georgia and largely
destroyed, with half the pre-war population forcibly displaced,
Abkhazia is establishing the institutions of an independent state. In
twelve years since the ceasefire, the sides have come no closer to a
settlement despite ongoing UN-mediated negotiations.
Tensions rose in July 2006 when a forceful Georgian police operation
cleaned a renegade militia out of upper Kodori Gorge, the one part of
pre-war Abkhazia not controlled by the de facto government in Sukhumi.
Since then Georgian-Abkhaz negotiations have been frozen. While
Georgia asserts that it is committed to a peaceful resolution of the
conflict, its military budget rose in 2005 at a rate higher than any
other country in the world. Bellicose statements by some officials do
not increase confidence. Georgia insists that the problem is Russia,
whose increasingly assertive policy in the region includes support for
Abkhazia.
Abkhaz seek independence, arguing that they have a democratic
government, rule of law, defence capabilities, and economy worthy of a
state. In the past decade they have made strides to re-establish a
sense of normality. The first round of the 2004 presidential election
offered voters a choice and a genuine contest. Yet disputes over the
result and Moscow’s intervention, including closing the border, led to
a power sharing arrangement between the two top contenders. The
entity’s population includes Abkhaz, Armenians, Russians and ethnic
Georgians. The latter, who live primarily in one district (Gali),
represent at least a quarter of today’s residents. But over 200,000
remain displaced in Georgia proper, unable to participate in life in
their homeland.
For Georgia the unresolved conflict is an affront to its state
building project, impeding the consolidation of national security,
democratic institutions, economic development and regional
integration. The many internally displaced persons (IDPs) impose heavy
political, economic and psychological burdens. For over a decade,
Tbilisi had no integration policy, relying instead on short-term,
emergency solutions. Although a national integration strategy for
IDPs is now being drafted, the displaced are the poorest section of
Georgian society. They are disappointed by the government’s failure to
keep its promises of returning them to their homes, or provide a
better life for them in Georgia, yet have little capacity to mobilise
politically.
This report looks at the causes of conflict, conditions in Abkhazia
and reforms affecting Georgian IDPs. A subsequent report will assess
the negotiation and peacekeeping mechanisms, with specific
recommendations on what should be done to facilitate resolution.
Tbilisi/Brussels, 15 September 2006

PanARMENIAN.Net
Program of Chirac Visit to Armenia Confirmed
16.09.2006 13:08 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ French President Jacques Chirac will pay tree-day
official visit to Armenia September 29, Armenian Ambassador to France
Edvard Nalbandyan stated in an interview with the Public TV Company of
Armenia. `Chirac is arriving in the region for the first time and he
will visit only Armenia,’ the diplomat said, adding the visit program
is already confirmed. In his words, Chirac will be accompanied by his
spouse Bernadette Chirac.
`The French delegation will include ministers, MPs, Senators, state
and political figures, businessmen, culture figures,’ Nalbandyan
reported. Official talks of the presidents, as well as meetings of
French ministers with their Armenian counterparts are planned in the
course of the visit, he said. He specially noted two events in the
program of Chirac’s visit. `These are the opening of the Square of
France and Charles Aznavour concert in the Republic Square in Yerevan
on September 30, which will open the Year of Armenia in France,’
Nalbandyan said. Chirac’s visit will finish October 1.

Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
16 Sep 2006
BOOK REVIEW
In-Sen!

Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by
Amartya Sen
Reviewed by Chan Akya
I finally managed to finish reading Amartya Sen’s Identity and
Violence: The Illusion of Destiny, having had to put the book down out
of sheer tedium more than once in the past few weeks. This article is
not only a book review, though; having had enough time to work on the
arguments, my attempt will be to define the illusion of illusions. As
in previous posts, I will highlight the economic underpinnings of
today’s conflicts, which have long since crossed
over from a sociological phenomenon.
Given the number of world events that have occurred during recent
years, including the daily bloodbath in Iraq, the Israel-Lebanon
situation, a foiled terrorist attack in the United Kingdom, terrorist
outrages in India and a hardening of US rhetoric, it would be fair to
say that my attention was drawn back to this book a multitude of
times. Hoping against experience, I expected later parts of the tome
to put forward more cogent arguments than the “can’t we all just get
along” rhetoric that populates the first few pages.
UK examples
Sen’s basic premise, repeated ad nauseam throughout the book, is that
narrow definitions of identity help to foment violence. Using
Jean-Paul Sartre’s quote that “the anti-Semite makes the Jew”, Sen
goes on to explain that the prejudicial treatment of Muslims is the
main cause of their turning to violence. That argument, which is
specious on many counts prima facie, fails Sen in the most mundane
fashion – by homogenizing the causes for Muslims to adopt violent
means, Sen himself falls into an identity trap of tarring all the
“oppressors” of Muslims with the same brush. Implicitly, he assumes
that everyone treats Muslims badly, thereby eliciting a necessary
backlash.
That argument falls flat when you consider the relative freedoms
offered in the West for Muslims to practice their religion. Using the
UK as an example, Muslims enjoy substantial religious freedom, and can
claim the protection offered to everyone else by the courts and the
bureaucracy. Yet this is the same community that has been polarized
and indeed galvanized into extremism over the past few years. Based
in Cambridge, Sen had a singular opportunity to demonstrate the
underlying frustrations that have pushed British Muslim youth toward
extremism; it is quite sad that he misses the opportunity in the book.
In study after study, [1, 2] British education authorities have
pointed out that students from Caribbean, Pakistani and Bangladeshi
backgrounds lag their peers from Indian and “white” backgrounds. The
lagging communities have turned away from society as a result, with
people from a Caribbean background more likely to commit petty crimes
such as theft, and therefore 10 times as likely to be subjected to
random stop and search. [3] The response from the other two
communities has been jarringly different, with Bangladeshis more
likely to become business people, particularly in sectors such as
hotels and restaurants.
While many British businesses are successfully managed by Pakistanis,
that community also appears to contribute the greatest proportion of
cannon fodder to extremist causes. One of the reasons given for
Pakistanis to join extremist causes, by Sen and others, is that the
British police are more likely to stop and search Asians than white
people – even though the same statistics show that people of Caribbean
descent have a worse experience.
Unlike Sen, I believe the answer lies in assessing the opportunities
for advancement and the sense of entitlement that people possess. Even
if the UK (apparently) provides all ethnic groups with opportunities
for advancement, some groups such as Armenians and Bangladeshis take
these up better than other groups such as Pakistanis. This leaves us
with the other part of the paradigm, namely entitlement and needs.
Saudi Arabia and the need for Islamic reform Looking at Saudi society
as a parallel example, basic needs of the population are well
fulfilled. However, social structures do not allow for mobility, as
the ruling family controls most physical wealth, access to capital and
even the informational infrastructure. In essence, there is no upside
for young people, and nothing to gain through hard work or innovation.
To say that Saudi Arabia missed the greatest opportunity for
development in recent decades would be trite, but also true. The
ruling family’s overarching greed to control all wealth restricted it
from venturing into various business areas that could have easily been
funded with oil wealth. Instead, the family may have allowed itself to
be persuaded by economic “hitmen”, [4] paying for projects that in
essence repatriated oil profits to the United States.
The result is that despite oil wealth, Saudi Arabia has neither the
hardware talents of China nor the software exports of India that could
supplement its oil revenues. Its population stands around, rich on oil
wealth but poor in human-development terms. [5] Comparisons to the
Spanish Empire, which plundered the world’s gold without creating any
industry to sustain its wealth and therefore imploded, seem too
obvious from this point.
Attempts to circumvent social strictures have put Saudis against both
the ruling family and religious institutions. This mixture of
feudalism with ecclesiastical orthodoxy disallows social reforms in
the most violent fashion. Thus an attempt to provide democracy within
traditional Bedouin society is bound to fail, while railing against
the world’s Jews conforms to the establishment’s policy of channeling
anger externally.
Here then is a case where people could define themselves as any number
of things – Saudi citizen, Arab, Sunni Muslim, religious worker,
government employee, etc – but choose instead the label of
anti-Semite. After the events of September 11, 2001, provided Arabs
with a sense of the possibility to wage asymmetric warfare on the
West, other targets such as the United States and Europe have been
added to the list. It is my contention that Arabs have chosen the
label of “anti-West”, rather than having had it foisted on them.
Going back to the British example, the unemployed Pakistani is likely
to hail from an economically backward area. Poverty, rather than
ethnic background, acts as the key incitement of race hatred. [6] When
you mix people with nothing to lose (British Pakistanis) and those
with nothing to gain (Saudi youth), the result is such tragedies as
the London transit-system bombings in July last year, and the (foiled)
plot to blow up airliners this year. The common thread to the misery
is unfortunately provided by the shared religion, hence the phrase
“Islamic extremists”.
My points in a previous article [7] about Islam failing its followers
centered on extremists hijacking the moderate agenda. Instead of
focusing on measures that could free pent-up social frustrations, the
extremist agenda of focusing on external threats has taken center
stage, with disastrous consequences. Religious reform would remove
the link, which is why extremists target moderates more aggressively.
What about Garfield?
All that about Sen’s putative victim to one side, where does the
United States fit into all this?
As I wrote in a previous article, [8] the US has lost its competitive
edge in manufacturing. Ford contemplates dismembering itself, while
General Motors mulls an alliance with the French (mon Dieu!). The
simple fact is that after the Cold War ended, US innovation stopped
dead in its tracks. Evaluate the engineering aspects of any American
car, and you are likely to walk away completely unimpressed. A
six-liter engine used by US car companies produces the same power as
an engine half that size from the Germans, and one-third of the size
by the Japanese (tuned, admittedly). Leave out engineering, and simple
design dynamics don’t work either – Detroit has not produced a single
desirable car in the past decade.
The United States came to the forefront of righting human-rights
wrongs such as racism, but only when its economic prosperity was
threatened by the status quo. Now, America’s lost competitiveness in
manufacturing come alongside its declining demographics (when keeping
immigrants out of calculations), and rising threats from the likes of
India and China in all areas of the global economy that it currently
dominates. In this high-pressure economic environment, rising
geopolitical risks argue for an unwelcome acceleration of the
country’s transition. Much like a worker who becomes a wife-beater
when threatened with losing his job, the US lashes out, with its anger
directed toward garnering any resource advantage that it can to
lengthen its reign at the top.
Sen’s book fails because he refuses to evaluate the impact of
underlying economic imperatives on social behavior, instead looking at
prejudices as a “given”. The United States is fated to relinquish its
position as an economic superpower sooner rather than later. The
Middle East has no institutions to support the transition of its
society from oil-based wealth to that derived from competitive
products and services. The countries that have the skills to become
the next economic superpowers, namely China and India, should stay on
the sidelines as the tragedy unfolds.
Notes
[1] “Educational Inequality” by David Gillborn and
Heidi Safia Mirza, November 2000.
[2] “Ethnic Segregation and Educational Performance at
Secondary School in Bradford and Leicester” by Ron
Johnston et al, March 2006.
[3] British Crime Survey 2002/03.
[4] Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John
Perkins; see also Usinfo.state.gov for the US
government’s denial.
[5] United Nations Development Program Human
Development Report, 2005. [6] The Economist, December
13, 2001. [7] See Islam and the absence of Chinese
terrorists, Asia Times Online, August 26, 2006.
[8] Garfield with guns, Asia Times Online, September
2, 2006.
Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by
Amartya Sen. W W Norton (March 27, 2006). ISBN:
0393060071. Price US$24.95, 224 pages.
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights
reserved.

PanARMENIAN.Net
Armenian Leader Noted Need for Development of Foreign Economic Ties
16.09.2006 13:55 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian President Robert Kocharian yesterday met
with heads of the diplomatic corps of Armenia in foreign countries,
reports the Press Office of the Armenian leader. Kocharian noted the
importance of those meetings, adding that they provide an opportunity
to make certain corrections in development of Armenia’s foreign
policy. He said more activity should be displayed in promoting foreign
policy priorities and emphasized the importance of work to extend
economic ties. During the meeting the interlocutors touched upon the
Armenia-Diaspora Forum.
Kocharian said that a number of issues, the solving of which will
allow working with more coordination in the future, are on the agenda
of the Forum.

PanARMENIAN.Net
Year of Armenia in France Not to Be Limited to Cultural Events
16.09.2006 14:09 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ 500 events in 125 French towns are planed within the
Year of Armenia in France, stated Armenian Ambassador to France Edvard
Nalbandyan. In his words, on those days largest museums, theaters,
concert halls of France will open their doors. Specifically, Louvre
will provide one of its largest halls – Melpomen – for an exposition
called Holy Armenia. Some 30 Khachkars (stone-crosses), as well as
exhibits from Holy Echmiadzin Treasure House and the Historical Museum
of Armenia will be displayed there in February-May 2007.
E. Nalbandyan also reported that for the first time the royal
collection of Armenian manuscripts will be exhibited at the National
Library of France. The Year of Armenia in France will not be limited
to cultural events, he added. `A conference, organized in cooperation
with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Paris, with participation
of the business community and economic bloc ministers of Armenia and
France, will be held in November. In February 2007 for the first time
Armenia will take part in the largest in the world Paris International
Agricultural Saloon. Within its framework a conference for discussing
agricultural cooperation between the two countries is planned to be
organized in cooperation with Crédit Agricole Bank. Another
conference – dedicated to IT – will be held in Paris in March 2007,’
the Armenian diplomat reported.

RIA Novosti, Russia
Army Reserve: not yet “Individual” or “Ready”
19:36 | 15/ 09/ 2006

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti defense commentator Viktor Litovkin) – Southern
Shield 2006, a major exercise currently running in the Volga-Urals
Military District, lacks media coverage as well as attendance by
ministers and dignitaries, and it would have barely been noticed at
all – but for the partisans.
“Partisany” is Russian militarese for reservists who understandably
tend to wear their uniforms as if they were suits or working
clothes. This time, commissioned officers, as well as enlisted men,
drafted from the reserves from across the military district (the Perm
Territory, Udmurtia, and the Orenburg, Penza, Samara and Sverdlovsk
regions), made up 3,500 of the 9,000-man force earmarked for the
exercise.
The customary procedure for such cases is to deploy the reservists in
one or several local military units, equip them, divide them into
battalions and hold preliminary “reminder” training sessions according
to their specialties learnt during conscript service in the past,
including a small shooting exercise. After that, the military units
thus created are transferred to a training field (in this case the
Totsky and Donguzsky training centers, Orenburg Region) for a
live-fire exercise, which about wraps it up for the reservists for
years to come.
Colonel Sergei Sofyin, a district military commissioner in Perm,
complains it is very hard to draft enough men for a reserve exercise
these days, what with too few people showing up when summoned by
mail. In his district, a third of summons were left unanswered, and
there is little belief that the police search for dodgers will bring
any success. Other commissioners confront the same disregard for duty.
The explanation lies in the existing law on military duty and military
service. Reserve soldiers in Russia can be drafted for a training
cycle until they are aged 50, no more often than once every three
years, for no longer than two months at a time and 12 months overall.
The problem is that the government, in addition to military pay and
free food and kit (while the former is scarce, the latter has to be
returned at the end of the cycle), guarantees reservists their jobs
and average monthly pay wherever they work. It seems like a good deal,
but because dividing employees’ pay into taxable salaries and
nontaxable shady “bonuses” is a well-established tax-reduction
practice in most Russian firms, willful participation in a national
defense effort often turns out too costly for the participants
themselves (because the government compensates only the taxable part)
and for their employers (because private companies may lose God knows
how much money from the absence of a valuable worker or
manager). Needless to say, an owner or CEO’s week out in the field may
literally bring a firm to its knees.
Hence upsurges in sick, parental, and other leaves, unexpected
business trips to other parts of the world and sudden attacks of
forgetfulness to check your mailbox for the last month or so. Even if
the military can and are willing enough to prove that a dodger had
received the summons letter and threw it away (which is a rare
occasion because the lawyers on the other side of the legal
battlefield are usually smarter), the fine for dodging is chicken
feed.
There is more to dodging by reservists, though, than just grass-root
economics. Some men might be interested in getting away from home and
family for a fortnight, sleeping in the field, shooting real
Kalashnikovs and watching out for senior officers as the squad is
sharing a bottle of vodka inside the tent, like they used to when they
were young. But others, leading increasingly active and engaged lives,
see reserve training as an utterly boring and uninstructive
enterprise.
Indeed, in the absence of a new global military threat – or so the top
brass say on TV – the military’s mobilization concept, involving
two-week courses during which old recruits can hardly learn new combat
tricks, looks empty and shallow to many, including Dr. Anatoly
Tsyganok, Military Sciences Academy professor and head of the Military
Forecasting Center at the Institute for Political and Military
Analysis in Moscow.
A modern war, be it regional or major, leaves little chance for an
army made of men of a certain age who are more used to the pen than
the rifle. A war-winning fighting force employs high-end weapons,
countermeasures, intelligence systems, smart missiles, and smart
people who know how to handle them. Smart people clearly do not come
at the cost of a week’s training, which calls into question the very
raison d’etre of reserve training in its current boyscout-style form.
Tsyganok cites deep-rooted “World War III” fears among the upper
echelons of the military and security community. Maybe so. But why do
they, while inculcating those fears, still favor outdated World War II
concepts in trying to fence it off? Or maybe they are scared to lose
funds currently allocated for mobilization if a single ruble is left
unspent – no matter how wisely?
The debate, however, does not solve the core problem of a ready
reserve in the military. As long as war remains an extreme but widely
accepted practice of resolving deadlocked international and ethnic
issues, reservists are going to be needed for active military duty as
well as for anti-terrorist and other tasks in times of national
emergency. Such a ready reserve, though, should consist of
well-trained professionals capable of confronting a technologically
advanced enemy within days of being called up. One good example is the
United States, which has successfully used its Individual Ready
Reserve in all its recent wars – leaving aside the debate about their
fairness and lawfulness.
Another good example lies on the other end of the spectrum. Quite like
the U.S., post-Soviet Belarus runs a regularly trained reserve, rather
than a massive mobilization force. Minsk offers 250 to 380 hours of
reserve training a year for two to three years – depending on
education – at local military units or Army Assistance Volunteers
(similar to Russia’s ROSTO and DOSAAF) to eligible young men who for
various reasons could not be drafted into active service. This could
serve as a good example for Russia, whose Defense Minister Sergei
Ivanov, has famously denounced people whom he described as “dancers
and suchlike” for misusing their peaceful occupations as a pretext for
draft evasion.
“[Reserve training] is, in fact, more useful to the individual than to
the army,” said Colonel General Leonid Maltsev, Belarusian defense
minister. “Anything might happen to anyone of us tomorrow, and a man
needs to be ready to protect himself and defend his doorstep and
family. Every man needs some military skills in everyday life.”
Quite so. And all the more so, the Belarusians might add, provided
these skills are imparted in an environment of true territorial
defense – effectively on the same doorstep that the man is probably
going to defend some day.
The Collective Security Treaty Organization, a regional security
grouping including Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia
and Tajikistan, already holds territorial defense exercises every
other year, mixing reservists with active-duty servicemen in
simulations of high-technology land and air battles and intelligence,
telecoms, and command-and-control operations.
This should probably be the future for Russian national reserve
training as well. With a fighting force increasingly manned by
professionals and college graduates who, if they did not receive
military-officer training in universities, would soon be eligible for
active enlisted service, the manpower supply will eventually surpass
the Defense Ministry’s demand. Meanwhile, draft service terms will
shrink to 18 and subsequently to 12 months, thus making it impossible
to turn a rookie into an effective operator of state-of-the-art
weaponry. This combined effect will inevitably push the generals into
a new reality in which reserve training will be locally based – either
in military units or in academies.
This reasoning may still turn out to be little more than wishful
thinking. Russia’s top military are holding all the cards. Let’s just
hope they will not play their hand just to counter the successful
European and North American experience.

PanARMENIAN.Net
Oskanian and Mammadyarov Not to Meet Soon
16.09.2006 14:27 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ In the near future no meetings between Armenian and
Azeri FMs are planned, Armenian MFA Head Vartan Oskanian stated in a
conversation with journalists on September 16. Private meetings with
OSCE MG co-chairs will be probably held, Oskanian said. `I have a
number of bilateral meeting in New York on September 24, including a
meeting with MG co-chairs,’ the Minister said, adding that to a
certain degree the cause of not holding a meeting of Armenian and
Azeri FMs lies in inclusion of the item on `frozen conflicts’ in the
UN GA agenda sponsored by the GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan,
Moldova), reports IA Regnum.

PanARMENIAN.Net
Kars Mayor Going to Work for Opening Armenian-Turkish Border
16.09.2006 14:39 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Conference of the Festival of Cultures of the
Caucasus, planned to be held in Kars, is postponed, Consul of
Azerbaijan in Kars Hasan Zeynalov reported. In his words, it is due to
a collision between a folklore group from Armenia and representatives
of Azerbaijan. As a result the folklore group from Armenia expressed
«protest to Kars municipality» and left Turkey. Noting that he met
with Kars municipality leader, Zeynalov reported that in the course of
the discussion the Mayor said that he will attain opening of borders
and then will try to solve the Nagorno Karabakh issue. The conference
was planned to start tomorrow. Some time ago Kars municipality made a
statement that it will continue activities on opening of the
Armenian-Turkish borders and will attain it without fail, reports APA.