the eXile
August 11, 2006
Hot Afternoons in Armenia’s Frozen Zone
By Yasha Levine ([email protected])
STEPANAKERT, NAGORNO-KARABAKH — It took my taxi driver and me an
hour to get out of Yerevan. Most of it was spent waiting in line to
fill up his gas tank. Not with gasoline. No, it was the kind of fuel
you’d pump into your gas powered BBQ. Ruslan, like most other
Armenians living off gypsy cabbing, didn’t have a drop of petrol in
his tank when I first got into his Volga. He’d modified it to run on
natural gas stored in a large canister in the trunk of his car.
It wasn’t as if Ruslan was some tree-hugging, Prius-seeking
hippie-of-the-Caucasus. It was all economics: and the way things work
in Armenia today, if they work at all, is that gasoline is way too
expensive to be profitable. If he were to use petrol, he’d have to
hike his taxi prices so high that he’d be out of business.
Gasoline costs the same in Armenia as in, say, the United States,
even though the Caspian oil reserves, among the world’s largest, are
right off the coast of Baku just a few hundred miles away. Yet
Armenia gets no benefit from that oil at all. In fact it’s one of the
poorest countries in the northern hemisphere. Azerbaijan imposed a
total economic blockade on Armenia ever since the two fought a bitter
civil war over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region between 1988 and
1994. Nagorno-Karabakh was an ethnic-Armenian region within
Azerbaijan that for years now has been essentially independent and
run by the separatist Armenians.
So at $4 per gallon, it would have cost Ruslan at least $75 in normal
automobile gasoline — his month’s salary — to drive me the 300
uphill miles from Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, to Stepanakert,
the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh. The same trip cost him about $12 on
natural gas.
If internal combustion engines couldn’t be modified to run on natural
gas, Armenia wouldn’t have much use for the western standard roads
built with millions of dollars that the Armenian Diaspora, many of
whom live in the US and Russia, shells out every year. Without that
money, Armenians would be back to riding beasts of burden. These
days, only the Iranian cargo truckers and the Armenian military get
to use real gasoline. All other cars, buses and trucks run on natural gas.
In fact, natural gas not only powers the cars, but also the power
plants. And Russia is Armenia’s sole supplier of natural gas, sold at
a steep discount to world prices. Without the cheap Russian gas piped
in via neighboring Georgia, Armenia would collapse. That means, of
course, complete dependence on Russia.
There’s another minor downside to Armenia’s natural gas dependency.
The containers used to house the liquefied gas have a tendency to
turn into high-powered shrapnel bombs if over pressurized or
overused. Every once in a while, they blow up and shred everything
within a 500ft radius.
“Don’t worry. I have a good canister made in Italy. It doesn’t burst,
it just rips,” Ruslan told me. He noticed me looking at eight
corroded and scarred canisters stacked under the belly of a 70’s
Soviet truck about two feet away from my face. “But those, on the
other hand, are old and very dangerous. If one of those canisters
blows up, all of them will.”
It’s a good thing that the truck was waiting to fill up. It was
pushing 105 degrees out and the canisters were exposed to direct sunlight.
I hired Ruslan to drive me to the decade-old Republic of
Nagorno-Karabakh, the tiny Yosemite-sized chunk of land that sparked
an all out ethnic turf war between Azeris and Armenians and made
Armenians the victorious underdogs heroes of every Caucasian
separatist movement.
In 1994 the Armenians won and forced Azerbaijan to a ceasefire. In
the meantime Nagorno-Karabakh organized itself into a sovereign
country with its own army, elected officials and parliament. But it
still hasn’t been recognized by any country other than Armenia and is
still classified as one of the “frozen conflicts” in the region,
along with the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia.
But this “frozen conflict” may soon heat up, if you believe what
Azerbaijan’s playboy/gambling addict/president, Ilham Aliyev, says.
Not that Azerbaijanis should get too excited about another war: If
Armenians are still the fighters they were ten years ago, then
statistically, it’s the Azeris who’ll do most of the dying. While
matched evenly in soldiers, the Azeris had double the amount of heavy
artillery, armored vehicles, and tanks than the Armenians; but when
it was over, the Azeri body count was three times higher then that of
the Armenians. Azeri casualties stood at 17,000. The Armenians only
lost 6,000. And that’s not even counting the remaining Azeri
civilians the Armenians ethnically cleansed.
Since the strategically-important Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline opened up,
pumping Caspian Sea oil to the West via Turkey, the Azeri president
has been making open threats about reclaiming Nagorno-Karabakh by
force. The $10 billion in oil revenues he expects to earn per year
once the pipeline is fully operational is going to his head. $10
billion might not seem that much — but for Azerbaijan it constitutes
a 30% spike in GDP. In every single interview, Aliyev can’t even
mention the pipeline project without veering onto the subject of
“resolving” the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Aliyev started spending the oil cash even before the oil started
flowing and announced an immediate doubling of military spending. A
little later he announced the doubling of all military salaries.
Aliyev’s generals aren’t squeamish about bragging that by next year
their military budget will be $1.2 billion, or about Armenia’s entire
federal budget.
The Western press seems to think he’s bluffing to shore up domestic
political support. But Azeris consider Nagorno-Karabakh their
historic homeland and don’t consider the 10-year ceasefire as a final
defeat. Azerbaijan has been keeping their Karabakh refugees in tents
and boxcars to prove it. And if Georgia takes military action against
Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Azeris may do the same.
There is a Bush Administration/War On Terror factor here that I won’t
get into, and it is this: America has been a strong supporter,
militarily and otherwise, of both Georgia and Azerbaijan, which has
given both countries more confidence to solve their problems with
armed force. Moreover, a big part of the neocon plan to attack Iran
involves stirring up that axis of evil’s sizeable Azeri minority.
I went Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh to find what the Armenians, who
seemed so lost and doomed in all of this, are saying — and the kind
of trenches they were digging.
“Did you know that Azerbaijan is doubling its military budget and
threatening to take back Karabakh by force?” I asked Ruslan.
He just shrugged his shoulders.
“So what if they spend more money on their military than we do, it
doesn’t mean anything. Let them spend ten times more, it won’t
matter. The Turks don’t have a mind for machinery. They don’t know
how to operate it and when they break it, they don’t know how to fix
it. They’re horrible mechanics and engineers. Right now, all of their
machinery is rusting out,” he said coolly.
“So you call Azeris Turks?” I asked.
He smiled. “No, not Turks. Defective Turks.”
Ruslan was a scrawny 23-year-old bakinets , an ethnic Armenian from
Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku. He fled the city with his mother after a
roving mob of Azeris tore his father to bits with their bare hands.
That was in 1988, just when the Azeri pogroms against the Armenians
were igniting in Sumgait and Baku. Ruslan and his mom got out through
Georgia and bounced around Abkhazia and Ukraine before settling in a
kamunalka apartment filled with Armenian refugees in Yerevan. The
rest of his family settled in a village 30 miles from Yerevan.
Ruslan went to school and was drafted into the Armenian army at 18,
and served in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh has its own constitution, president,
parliament and army, but it’s a sovereign country only on paper.
Without Armenians from Armenia-proper like Ruslan willing to pay and
die for the cause, Karabakh would never hold its own against the
Azeris next door.
“So, do you think the Turks are going to try to take Karabakh back?
Do they have a chance?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Ruslan replied. The “cool road mix” CD that his
friend handed off to him looked like it had been ground against
asphalt and was skipping on every track, but he was intent on getting
Shakira back on. Even when we went out drinking in Yerevan the night
before, I had to drag his army stories out of him. He seemed bored as
he told the story of how his army pal shot down a female Azeri sniper
from a tree with a few blasts from his AK.
“If they were to attack, would you fight for it?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he repeated. “But if they do, I can tell you that
we’re not going to stop at our borders of Karabakh, like we did last
time. If they attack, this time, we’re marching to go all the way to Baku.”
We took a detour to stop by Ruslan’s family’s village about an hour
outside of Yerevan. They were also bakintsi and were smart enough to
trade in their standalone house in Baku when they fled for a few
acres of farmland and a couple mud brick shacks in what used to be an
exclusively Azeri village within Armenia. After they arrived,
Ruslan’s uncle went off to fight in Karabakh and never came back.
Ruslan’s grandmother gave me a skewed look when I asker her if any
Azerbaijanis still lived in the village. “No, there are no more Turks
living here. Everyone in the village are Armenians from Baku,” she
said. 600,000 Azeris from all over Armenia and Karabakh were booted
or fled from Armenia following the Karabakh war. In return, 250,000
Armenians were sent packing back to their historic homeland.
In Azerbaijan, Ruslan’s family was made up carpenters, plumbers and
housewives. But in Armenia they went native and took up farming. Just
like Ruslan’s natural gas option, it wasn’t by choice.
While Ruslan’s grandmother laid the table, his grandfather showed me
his samogon gear. He just began distilling a new batch from homegrown
peaches.
“If you lived in the city, how did you learn to farm,” I asked him.
“We had to, so we learned.”
Ruslan’s grandmother set the table exclusively with homegrown
produce. The bread, the apricot jam, the fresh pears, the kefir, the
cheese, the eggplant spread and the vodka were all domashnye . They
still raised chickens and when the grandfather had more energy, he
used to have a few cows.
“Ah! Who needs that Karabakh,” is all I got out of gramps on the
subject. He lost his son there and so preferred to explain his
samagon distillation techniques.
Gramps was a broken man. He’d never been to Karabakh and didn’t plan
on going. In fact most mainland Armenians had never visited the
place. Why waste the fuel? What’s there to see? Why did they even fight
for it?
But that evening, after we were waved passed the Karabakh’s border
control without having our documents checked, I finally saw why
Nagorno-Karabakh was worth fighting for. The place is like a
condensed version of the best scenery of Northern California and the
Sierra Nevadas put together: 6,000 ft mountains, rolling
golden-sunburned pastures, sandstone hills, steep limestone cliffs,
and mountain streams. It’s easily the most beautiful region in
Armenia. Even the women were better looking there than in Armenia
proper: thinner, taller, and shapelier.
Ruslan promptly introduced me to two of his army buddies, Vadim and
Veretan. Vadim rolled up to my hotel in his father’s 80’s 3 series
BMW. He was clearly privileged: his father used to be the KGB
director for one of Karabakh’s districts and as a result Vadim had a
cushy job working as an ambulance driver. Veretan worked as a
technician at Karabakh’s only TV station that broadcast its signal a
few hours each day.
After I picked up the $45 tab for the four of us at the most
expensive restaurant in Stepanakert, Vadim and Veretan agreed to show
me around their country — provided that I pick foot the bill for the
pricy petrol.
As we were climbing up to the Shushi, a town perched right above
Stepanakert, Karabakh’s capital, Vadim said, “You could fire whatever
you want from there and it will hit Stepanakert. Mortars, RPGs,
Kalashnikovs, anything.”
Shushi used to be Karabakh’s Azeri capital and the region’s
second-largest town before the Karabakh war broke out. Although the
Azeris had a military and strategic advantage, located up above the
Armenian-controlled Stepanakert in Shushi’s insurmountable old
fortress and prison, they made a fatal strategic mistake. The Azeris
should have shelled Stepanakert into a heap of rubble before the
Armenian resistance had a chance to build up its arms and attack. But
the Azeris were so overconfident that they didn’t want to destroy a
city that they were sure would soon be theirs.
The Armenians weren’t as soft. Under artillery cover, they launched a
surprise attack by climbing a 90 degree slope to storm Shushi in 1992
by foot. It was the same slope from which Armenian girls jumped to
their deaths to avoid being raped by Azeris. With that kind of
motivation, the Armenians had no qualms about turning Shushi into a
mini Sarajevo.
All the Azeris are gone now. And the few Armenians that remain live
in squalor, even by Karabakh’s standards. There is no foot traffic,
no car traffic and no stores — just a kiosk selling icons and a
western-style hotel catering the Armenian Diaspora. A renovated
church in which a few grossly overweight Americans snapped photos, a
burned out early 20th century Soviet building, a prison, and two
gutted mosques with minarets were all this town had to offer.
“When Armenians liberated Shushi this church was filled to the top
ceiling with boxes of munitions. Fucking Turks. They have no respect
for anything but their Islam.” Vadim said. Veretan nodded in approval.
The apartment buildings that weren’t leveled were looted and picked
clean of windows, pipes, sinks, toilets and anything else remotely
valuable. The few functioning buildings are a disaster waiting to
happen — a checkerboard of lopsided balconies, windowless rubble,
rust, and peeling paint.
“It’s a good business. You buy an empty apartment for about $4,000
and sit on it. Slowly, water is being hooked up to them again and
they are being restored. In a few years, you can make a good profit.”
Not bad. Most of the apartment buildings were gutted out and ready
for unlimited personalized remont possibilities. And what’s more, all
of them had aerial views into the valley bellow. But the four grand
was way out of these peoples’ league. By official statistics from the
office of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, the country’s average
monthly salary was $50, but that’s for those lucky enough to find
jobs. Shushi’s residents can’t even afford gas for heating and
cooking. Every balcony had a store of firewood that was sure enough
to last the winter.
Stepanakert, wasn’t as depressing as the other half-abandoned towns
and villages. It was the capital, after all, and the symbol of
Armenian victory: the Armenian Diaspora wasn’t going to just let it
decay. Despite the fact that Stepanakert has no industries to speak
of, the city of 40,000 Armenians had all the trappings of a
developing provincial capital.
Except for a few shrapnel-scarred buildings, you wouldn’t even guess
that the city had once come under heavy shelling. There were hundreds
of small fruit stands, restaurants, dozens of Internet cafes and
taxis circling the city center. A couple of Western-style hotels
built by and catering to the Armenian Diaspora popped up in the past
few years, and a luxury apartment complex was being built right
across from the government building.
“About 20% of the population lives in chocolate, the rest live in
total shit. That 20% contains all the friends and relatives of
government or army officials,” Vadim said, pointing to the luxury building.
The Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army has about 20,000 active military
personnel. But taking into account the region’s tiny population of
140,000, Karabakh tops even Israel and North Korea as among the most
militarized countries in the world per capita. 1 out 7 people is
actively serving in Karabakh’s army. North Korea, by comparison, has
a ratio of only 1 out of 20.
Although you have to go outside the city side to see the
surface-to-air missile batteries that dot the country, Stepanakert’s
streets are teeming with men decked out in green camo uniforms,
leisurely rolling around on their green UAZ army jeeps.
“You know, people in Karabakh say this joke when a baby is born. They
say, ‘Is that a girl or a lieutenant?'” Ruslan explained to me on our
drive into Stepanakert.
Vadim put it another way. “There’s not much else to do in Karabakh.
There are no jobs and the army pays well… You have a choice, you
can either farm or serve.”
“People here are building castles, but we should be building
underground! Cities, bomb shelters, schools… To wage war, you don’t
need to invade with troops. It’s enough to send missiles. We need to
build underground so that when they level our cities, we’ll survive
and be able to fight,” Murad Petrosyan, the founder of an independent
Karabakh monthly newspaper called What is to be Done and a host on a
Karabakh TV political talk show , told me.
We met in the patio of my western-style hotel in Stepanakert built by
an Australian-Armenian. It was noon and already pushing 105 degrees.
An obnoxious group of French-Armenian kids signing Armenian songs
just set off for their day trip around the Republic of
Nagorno-Karabakh. The threat from Azerbaijan just didn’t seem real.
“So you take Aliyev’s threat seriously? You think that Azerbaijan
will try to take Karabakh back by force?” I asked him.
“It won’t happen now, but if the political situation won’t change in
the next two or three years, yes, I think that he’ll invade”
“But won’t Russia object?” I asked.
Russia is Armenia only real military ally. Russia started moving
military hardware to its 102nd military base in northern Armenia
after the US-backed Georgian president, Saakashvili, started trying
to boot the Russian military from his country. In 1997, Armenia
signed a friendship treaty with Russia that outlines mutual military
assistance in the event of a military threat and allows Russian
troops to patrol Armenia’s borders with Turkey and Iran. Today, about
5,000 Russian troops are stationed in northern Armenia.
But according to Petrosyan, the Russians are playing both sides and
seek to undermine Western influence by destabilizing the region.
“Local politicians are na ve. They don’t realize that it’s profitable
for Russia to have the Karabakh question unresolved. Russians come
here, pat the politicians on the shoulder and say ‘Don’t worry, we
will support you.’ They believe it and spread the propaganda that
there will be no war, that it will be safe.”
“The only thing that will stop the Turks is international recognition
for Karabakh. We need to become more democratic, more transparent and
less corrupt. That’s the only way. The problem is that no one cares
about building a good society here. We’ve inherited corruption from
the Soviet Union that needs to be dealt with.”
Democracy as Armenia’s biggest resource is an idea that Armenian
politicians parrot all the time. The idea that the West will
naturally align and protect democratic counties like theirs is a
dream everyone blindly believes. Armenians accept Russia’s military
protection and at the same time take comfort in America’s oath to
promote and protect democracy in the world.
But Petrosyan isn’t so much a democrat. He thinks that Karabakh
should follow in the footsteps of Singapore’s and Hitler’s
national-socialist programs.
“We need to follow their lead. I say this on my TV program all the
time. There may be bad things about these countries and societies,
but the important thing about them is that they had only the common
national good in mind when it came to organizing their country’s
social programs. That is something that Karabakh does not have.”
Petrosyan, incidentally, was just appointed to head an ethics
committee to oversee Karabakh’s elected officials.
Armenians occupied about 16% of Azerbaijan-proper’s land during the
Karabakh war. And while the Armenians are holding onto most of it as
a buffer zone to protect Nagorno-Karabakh, one area in particular,
known as the Latchin corridor, is the main artery connecting Karabakh
with mainland Armenia. The buffer zone may be open for negotiation,
but the Latchin corridor is not.
“For most people in Karabakh, the Karabakh question is a non-issue,”
a journalist for British-funded Karabakh newspaper called Demo told
me. “For us the war is over and we don’t want to fight. But there can
also be no talk of negotiations to give Karabakh back.”
“But will mainland Armenians stand behind you? Are they ready to die
for it?” I asked.
“Armenia is behind us all the way. Just look at who is in the office.”
Armenia’s previous president, Levon Ter-Petrossian, had to resign
after he appeared ready to agree to return most of the
Armenian-controlled Azerbaijani territories in Karabakh during
negotiations. Robert Kocharyan, Karabakh’s first president and prime
minister, replaced him and now rules Armenia. Kocharyan was born in
Nagorno-Karabakh, fought in the war and was among the founding
fathers of Karabakh’s military. He’s holding down fort in Armenia to
make sure Karabakh gets what it wants.
“We fought once and we’re ready to do it again. We have no choice but
to defend Karabakh. And anyway, our young ones are itching to prove
themselves. But I don’t think that it is very likely that Azerbaijan
will attack. They know too well that we have the capability to strike
their refineries and oil distribution systems,” the Demo journalist
added smugly.
“Can that card that trump Azeri hatred?”
The Demo guy didn’t answer. He just put his hands behind his head.
Like so much of my time there, I couldn’t understand if this gesture
expressed a kind of weary indifference or fatal overconfidence.
Whatever the case, one thing lacking here was a sense of urgency to
resolve the conflict to both sides’ satisfaction. But as the region
is rapidly changing due to the opening of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline,
and the effects of the War On Terror, neither indifference nor
confidence seem to be very good strategies for the Armenians of Karabakh.
*******
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EUROPA (press release), Belgium
Aug. 29, 2006
Benita Ferrero-Waldner
European Commissioner for External Relations and European
Neighbourhood Policy
Political reform and sustainable development in the South Caucasus:
the EU’s approach
`Caspian Outlook 2008′ Bled Strategic Forum
Bled, Slovenia, 28 August 2006
Chairman,
Ministers,
Excellencies,
Ladie s and Gentlemen,
Let me first thank the organisers of the Bled Strategic Forum for
their excellent initiative in bringing us together. It is a great
opportunity to take a fresh look at an area of the world which is of
particular strategic importance for Europe.
I have been asked to talk about political reform and sustainable
development in the South Caucasus. From the European Union’s
perspective, now is certainly the right time, since very soon we will
start implementing the European Neighbourhood Policy Action Plans
with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. I look forward to celebrating
their adoption when I visit the region with the Finnish EU presidency
at the beginning of October.
Generally however, the last weeks and months have shown worrying
trends in the South Caucasus. Three negative strands are coming
together, the combination of which is, frankly, alarming.
First, we have seen little or no progress towards settling any of the
frozen conflicts – Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia. All
parties have failed to deliver on their responsibility to find a
solution.
Second, defence expenditure in the region is going through the roof.
Quite apart from the negative message this sends for resolving the
conflicts, this cannot be good policy-making in a region where human
development indicators are a matter of deep concern. How can
governments justify spiralling defence spending when their countries
are in desperate need of investment in education, health and small
businesses?
Third, increasingly inflammatory rhetoric, as we have seen over the
past months, is shaping public opinion in a counterproductive
direction. There is a serious danger of the rhetoric lowering the
threshold for war. But it is political logic, not military logic
which must prevail. Leaders have a responsibility to prepare their
populations for peace, not war.
These recent developments are worrying for those of us who hoped for
positive movements. All sides should show restraint and adopt a
balanced approach to their neighbours. Harsh rhetoric does not create
an atmosphere conducive to restoring mutual trust and resolving these
conflicts. Any further escalation of tension could re-ignite the
conflicts with devastating consequences for the entire region.
Let me emphasise that point – this remarkable and complex region has
enormous economic promise but, to realise that potential, cool heads
must prevail. Natural resource wealth is finite. Once squandered, the
opportunity to boost the region’s development will not come again.
I do not wish to exaggerate the risks, but it is important that we
are clear about the consequences of failing to pull back from the
brink. I call on the region’s leaders to realise the weight of their
responsibility, not only to their own people, but to the region as a
whole. True leadership and statesmanship means finding the courage to
settle these disputes once and for all.
The EU will continue to play its part in working for peace. The
European Neighbourhood Policy will be a key tool in this regard.
I will talk about the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in more
depth this afternoon. For now, let me briefly explain that it is the
EU’s response to new geopolitical realities following our 2004
expansion. It is our tool for laying the foundations for a much
deeper relationship with the countries of Eastern Europe and the
southern Mediterranean. And it is designed to extend the prosperity,
stability and security enjoyed by the EU to our closest neighbours
and partners.
The most important aspects of the ENP are the following: Firstly, it
brings together our main policy instruments, in a more focused way.
We go beyond classical foreign policy to support reform and
modernisation. Secondly, we thus cover a broader range of issues than
our existing relationships, with greater intensity and throughout all
fields of governance. Thirdly, the ENP will be backed by a new
assistance instrument, the ENPI, with increased and improved
financial and technical assistance.
The ENP operates through Action Plans – such as the ones with the
three countries of this region. These Action Plans, tailor-made for
each country, set out the areas in which we both want to develop
relations further. They contain benchmarks and commitments paving the
way for a deeper relationship.
The ENP Action Plans are designed to promote political reform and
sustainable economic and social development.
As we all know, that’s the most effective way of achieving
prosperity, stability and security. They therefore cover a wide range
of activities, to strengthen democracy, promote the rule of law,
uphold human rights, liberalise trade, develop energy and transport
connections and ultimately even give the countries a stake in the
EU’s internal market.
But uppermost in my mind in thinking about the South Caucasus today
is the ENP’s potential to help support conflict resolution. Why?
Because the most important impediments to the region’s development
are the frozen conflicts.
The European Neighbourhood Policy is not in itself a conflict
prevention or settlement mechanism, but through promoting democracy
and regional cooperation, boosting national reform programmes and
improving the socio-economic prospects of the region, it can
contribute to a more positive climate for conflict settlement.
Resolving or at least de-escalating the conflicts must be the first
priority, but their sustainable resolution is largely dependent on
deepening and anchoring democratic and economic reform throughout
society. ENP tackles the underlying issues which enable conflicts to
fester: bad governance, underdevelopment and insecurity. But only if
society as a whole participates in this transformation process will
the region begin to prosper.
We are also engaged more directly in conflict resolution. The
appointment of an EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus,
Peter Semneby, is a sign of the importance the EU attaches to solving
them.
We will continue our support to the Joint Control Commission for
South Ossetia, the main conflict settlement mechanism for this
region, and honour our 2 million pledge at the OSCE’s international
donor conference for South Ossetia. We will stay involved in
confidence building and rehabilitation in Abkhazia, supporting
reconstruction of important infrastructure facilities and civil
society projects. And we stand ready to respond to the needs
assessment mission to Nagorno-Karabakh, as soon as that mission is
able to depart.
We also fully support the work of the OSCE, which Minister De Gucht
will address in a moment. And later this year our Member States will
discuss a possible enhanced EU contribution to the peace processes.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Returning for a moment to the ENP, which some of us will discuss in
more detail in one of this afternoon’s sessions, let me just recall
that it is a living and evolving policy, designed to respond to
developments and treating all our neighbours equally. Later this
year, the Commission will publish a report on two years of its
implementation, making suggestions for how it might be further
enhanced – both in terms of our partners’ efforts and our own
`offers’.
Given the EU’s own history and development, the ENP attaches great
importance to regional cooperation. However, rather than expending
effort on developing new or legally binding set-ups – which our
eastern neighbours do not necessarily want or need – such as creating
an institutional structure for our eastern neighbours, we should,
rather, focus on strengthening existing cooperation frameworks such
as Black Sea cooperation. This is of direct interest and use for our
Southern Caucasus partners and others here today.
The EU and its neighbours have a mutual interest in fostering
prosperity, stability and security inter alia through addressing the
root causes of bad governance, lack of economic development,
insecurity and instability that cause the continuing conflicts. As we
have shown in Western Europe over the last 50 years, promoting
prosperity, stability and security is the ultimate
conflict-prevention policy.
Which brings me to plead, once again, for all parties in the Southern
Caucasus to take their conflict-resolution responsibilities
seriously. We must put the long term objective of peace, prosperity
and stability ahead of short term tactical considerations.
In the globalised world of the 21st century, the way to greater
wealth and prosperity is to embrace an open economy and open
political system. That is simply not possible while the region
remains locked in a vicious spiral of tit for tat conflict.
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Sunday, August 27, 2006
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CRITICIZING CRITICS
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When I criticize Communists our crypto-Stalinists accuse me of McCarthyism. When I criticize Muslim fundamentalists our anti-Semites (meant to say anti-Zionists) accuse me of racism. And when I criticize Armenians, I am described as a self-hating pro-Turkish whining ignoramus. If I am to believe my critics, verbal abuse is the most legitimate school of criticism or the only good critic is a dead critic.
*
I am all for analyzing and understanding hatred, intolerance, and prejudice, but may I confess that I feel helpless with individuals who combine prejudice, hatred, and intolerance with perversion; as when an Armenian expresses nothing but visceral contempt for Americans and Jews but has nothing remotely unkind to say about Bin Laden, mullahs, ayatollahs, and fundamentalist fascist fanatics who hate not only Jews and Americans but also modernity, the West, an important fraction of their fellow Muslims, and women in general (which amounts to about 90% of mankind), and in whose eyes all Christians are infidel dogs unfit to share the earth with the children of Allah and the followers of the Guidance.
*
When asked in a televised interview about Muslim terrorists killing defenseless civilians, Bin Laden replied: “Americans have killed many more innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” I find that many pro-Muslim and anti-American Armenians from the Middle East use the same argument to explain and justify Muslim terrorism, which may suggest that there are self-assessed smart people out there who find Muslim propaganda more credible than its American counterpart. What Bin Laden and his followers forget is that Americans dropped atomic bombs on Japan only after calculating that civilian as well as military casualties on both sides of the conflict would have run into millions had they continued the war with conventional weapons, and that even after Hiroshima the Japanese refused to surrender because to them surrender is worse than death.
*
Diplomacy and dialogue become inadequate tools when one’s adversary values death more than life. Muslim extremists believe they will win in the end because, in their own words, “You [in the West] love life; we love death.”
*
Europe thinks “that to achieve peace no price is too high: not appeasement, not massacres on its own soil, not even surrender to terrorists… Europe is impotent, a foul wind is blowing through [it]… the idea that we can afford to be lenient even with people who threaten us… This same wind blew through Munich in 1938… It could turn out to be the death rattle of a continent that no longer understands what principles to believe.” This is not Oriana Fallaci speaking but Marcello Pera, President of the Italian Senate. See WITHOUT ROOTS: THE WEST, RELATIVISM, CHRISTIANITY, ISLAM by Joseph Ratzinger and Marcello Pera (London, 2006). Please note that Pera’s co-author is today’s Pope of Rome.
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Monday, August 28, 2006
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When I ignored his repeated insults, a reader complained that it was getting increasingly difficult to insult me, implying perhaps that I have a thick skin. I don’t. I am as vulnerable as anyone else, but I also make allowances for youth, inexperience, ignorance, poor upbringing, Ottomanism, and a taste for the gutter.
*
My most cherished illusion, which so far I have been unable to shed, is that Armenia is a state and Armenians are a nation — as opposed to being fragmented and scattered collections of disoriented tribes without a common language, purpose, and character.
*
In our environment, the very same people who created our problems and are now actively engaged in perpetuating them say, “What we need is not criticism but solutions.” But since doubletalk is their only medium of communication, they see nothing inconsistent between their actions and words.
*
Never trust anyone who knows more about the law or can afford a better lawyer.
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Tuesday, August 29, 2006
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WHAT IS AND IS NOT CRITICISM
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Criticism whose aim is to prove the critic’s moral, intellectual, or patriotic superiority is not criticism but hypocrisy whose sole aim is to mislead and deceive.
*
The function of a critic is not to solve problems but to expose contradictions. I recognize contradictions because I harbor them. To expose a contradiction also means to identify the individuals who are at its roots.
*
The problem with Nazi Germany was National Socialism or Nazism or Hitler. The problem with the USSR was Bolshevism. And the problem with both Nazism and Bolshevism was contempt for human rights and free speech. (What is the aim of Solzhenitsyn’s magnum opus, THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO, if not a detailed documentation of this aberration?)
*
Human problems should not be confused with abstract mathematical or scientific problems, which may be solved by a single mind on a piece of paper. To find solutions to human problems is easy (e.g. the problem with alcoholics is alcoholism), implementing them is not.
*
I once heard a preacher say that if mankind had followed Christ, there would have been no need for Karl Marx and other reformers who operated on the assumption that they could change the world by ignoring the Word of God. Whenever I am told, “We don’t need critics, we need solutions,” I think of this preacher and cannot help wondering: “If the Son of the Almighty could not solve our problems, what makes anyone think a minor scribbler can?”
*
Why do I go on? Good question. Two tentative answers follow: When you witness an injustice or a crime, you are confronted with two options: to expose the criminals or to join them in covering it up. Since this example may imply moral superiority on the part of the witness, here is a better and more selfish one: The house next door is on fire. You either ignore it and hope for the best or you call 911, which is what I have been doing – calling 911, even after being told repeatedly by the voice at the other end to shut up and mind my own business, as if my own home were not my business.
#
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
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The Word of God: the quintessential hearsay evidence.
*
You want to be objective? Begin by thinking against yourself. Question your fondest assertions in which the “I” is present. Your “I” may be your most valuable possession but to the rest of the world it is the least significant.
*
I don’t remember to have ever met a man about whom I could not say, “There by the grace of God…”
*
As victims of racism, racism comes naturally to us. For many years I instinctively denied the existence of good Turks, and to this day the combination of these two words – “good Turks” – has to me an oxymoronic aura, like “cold fire,” or “compassionate sadist.”
*
Charm and honesty are mutually exclusive concepts. In the kind of world we live in, being honest means being obnoxious.
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Caravans are magnates for idle dogs and dung beetles.
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Wars between men end, but wars between gods never do.
*
If their Allah and our God ever met, would they need a translator?
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ART LOVER PUBLIC BID LAST FAREWELL TO POETESS OF ALL ARMENIANS SILVA KAPUTIKIAN
Noyan Tapan
Aug 29 2006
YEREVAN, AUGUST 29, NOYAN TAPAN. The art lover public bade the last
farewell on August 29 to Armenian eminent poetess, RA NAS academician,
laureate of state awards Silva Kaputikian. S.Kaputikian was born
on January 20, 1919, in Yerevan. Her works were translated into
many languages. Besides the USSR and RA state awards, she was also
awarded the Nosside International Prize in Rome in 1989. She was a
deputy of the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR in 1975-1980. In
the words of the poetess’ friends writers, S.Kaputikian’s works have
instilled and will continue to instil the spirit of true patriotism
to generations. In RA Prime Minister Andranik Margarian’s words,
an intellectual passed away whose precepts about the Fatherland,
language, faultlessness of the native language are modern and lasting
today as well. “The poetess left an indelible trace in our literature
and in the affair of generation’s education.
Both today’s and future generations are obliged not only to respect but
also to be led by those precepts which the eminent poetess left,” the
Prime Minister mentioned. “Silva Kaputikian is one of those exclusive
poets whose works are written not only for Armenian but also for
foreign readers. By the poetess’ efforts the Armenian literature,
science was presented to the world community.
And if they know in Russia few Armenian writers, one of them is Silva
Kaputikian. Its evidence is her about 20 collections published in the
Russian language,” RA People’s Artist Vladimir Abajian mentioned. In
words of RA Minister of Culture and Youth Affairs Hasmik Poghosian,
death of an intellectual like Silva Kaputikian is a loss for all the
Armenians. “It’s a pity, too pity, that Silva Kaputikian is not with
us any longer. The fact of age, of course, existed, but her mind,
thought was very bright, and she still has much to say and to do,”
Hranush Hakobian, the Chairwoman of the National Assembly Standing
Committee on Science, Education, Culture and Youth Issues mentioned. In
her words, S.Kaputikian’s heritage is so deep, powerful, patriotic
that generations must be brought up by it for centuries. “She lived
magnificently. It was not in vain, that the Armenian people called the
poetess of all Armenians as it is given only to singles,” H.Hakobian
mentioned. S.Kaputikian’s burial was in the pantheon of the Komitas
park of Yerevan.

WORKS OF JOINT SITTING OF COMMISSIONS ON DEMARCATING AND DIFFERENTIATING ARMENIAN-GEORGIAN STATE BORDER CONTINUE ON AUGUST 29
Noyan Tapan
Aug 29 2006
YEREVAN, AUGUST 29, NOYAN TAPAN. The joint sitting of commissions of
the Republic of Armenia and Georgia on demarcating and differentiating
the Armenian-Georgian state border took place in Yerevan on August
28. According to the information submitted to Noyan Tapan by the
RA Foreign Ministry’s Press and Information Department, commission
co-chairmen Gegham Gharibjanian, the Deputy Foreign Minister of
Armenia, and Georgi Manjagaladze, the Deputy Foreign Minister of
Georgia, opened the sitting, then works continued at the level of
experimental groups. The commission works continue till August 29,
after what the co-chairmen will sign a report. An agreement was
reached as a result of the sitting to hold the regular meeting of
the commission in Tbilisi.

ARF STOPS ITS REPRESENTATIVE’S ACTIVITY AT INTERDEPARTMENTAL COMMISSION WORKING OUT DRAFT “ON RA ANTHEM”
Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Aug 29 2006
YEREVAN, AUGUST 29, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. “The principal
defined by the new constitutional amendments on fixing the RA State
Anthem by the law is baselessly interpreted by some circles as a
constitutional demand to change the functioning anthem.” It is said in
the August 28 statement made public by the ARF Dashnaktsutiun Supreme
Body of Armenia. As Noyan Tapan was informed by the Press Service of
the ARF Armenia Supreme Body, authors of the statement mention that the
interdepartmental commission implementing the function of working out
the draft law “On RA Anthem” “for incomprehensible reasons, considered
its task to unequivocally reject the functioning “Mer Hayrenik”
(“Our Fatherland”) anthem and changing it with a new anthem.” “The
unbridled anti-propaganda of “Mer Hayrenik” was especially obvious. A
country’s anthem is born and established during a time, only in the
case if the logic of historic development makes it an indivisible part
of the people’s fate and biography,” is said in the statement. The
ARF Armenia Supreme Body, considering inadmissible creation of a
incoherent atmosphere about one of the RA most important symbols,
the anthem, the line of actions of the intergovernmental commission
and moods arisen by it, states about stopping its representative’s
activity at the commission and presenting a legislative initiative at
the National Assembly on re-affirming “Mer Hayrenik” as the RA anthem.

RECONSTRUCTION OF AKHALKALAK-ASPINDZA ROAD TO FINISH IN OCTOBER
Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Aug 29 2006
AKHALKALAK, AUGUST 29, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Reconstruction
of the Aspindza-Akhalkalak road is envisaged to finish till late
October. According to builders repairing the road, if bad weather does
not hamper, they will finish works within the envisaged term. According
to the “A-Info” agency, works started still from this May has been
done by now by the envisaged schedule and without destructions. To
recap, the road construction is implemented by the Georgian branch
of the Russian “Tekhnokomspetsstroy” company, the German “Witgan”
company as well participates in the construction works To recap, the
Government of Georgia allocated 11.300.000 laris (about 7 mln dollars)
for reconstruction of the road.

REPRESENTATIVE OF CATHOLICOS OF ALL ARMENIANS PARTICIPATES IN “RELIGIONS FOR PEACE” 8TH ASSEMBLY
Noyan Tapan
Aug 29 2006
KYOTO, AUGUST 29, NOYAN TAPAN. The Armenian Apostolic Church
participates for the first time in the “Religions for Peace” three-day
8th World Assembly which started on August 26 in the Japanese city
of Kyoto. As Noyan Tapan was informed by the Information Services
of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, by blessing of Karekin II
Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, Archbishop Aghan
Baliozian, the primate of the Armenian diocese of Australia and New
Zealand participates in the assembly. He will send the address of His
Holiness to those present. More than 500 representatives, religious
primates, public figures and politicians, participate, in general,
in the assembly. The theme of the assembly is “Religions for Peace,
Confronting Violence and Advancing Shared Security.” The “Religions for
Peace” organization is a cooperation of interreligious councils and
groups the goal of which is to stimulate cooperation among religious
communities of all over the world as well as to assist liquidation
of existing conflicts of the world to strengthen peace and secure
stable development. The first assembly of the organization took place
in Kyoto 35 years ago.

8 WRESTLERS TO PROTECT SPORTING HONOUR OF ARMENIA IN WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
Noyan Tapan
Aug 29 2006
YEREVAN, AUGUST 29, NOYAN TAPAN. The Youth Championships of Greco-Roman
and free-style wrestling will be held successively in Guatemala from
late August to early September. Greco-Roman wrestlers will be on the
floor on August 29-30. Representatives of Armenia Khosrov Melikian
(60 kg) and Hrachia Hovhannisian (66 kg) from Gyumri, Arsen Julfalakian
(74 kg) from Yerevan and Artur Tovmasian (84 kg) from Etchmiadzin are
among them. Free-style wrestlers will start the struggle for prizes
from September 1. Representatives from Yerevan Artur Arakelian (60 kg),
Suren Adyan (60 kg), Edgar Yenokian (84 kg) and Khachik Amroyan from
Martuni (74 kg) will protect honour of the sporting flag of Armenia.

133 GIRLS AND WOMEN CHRISTENED ON OCCASION OF FOUNDATION OF TATEV MONASTERY
Noyan Tapan
Aug 29 2006
GORIS, AUGUST 29, NOYAN TAPAN. 133 girls and women whose name is Tatev
were christened in the Tatev monastery on August 25 on the occasion
of its foundation. Initiators of the event were the Syunik Regional
Governor’s Office and the Syunyats diocese primacy. In Syunik Regional
Governor Surik Khachatrian’s words, the initiative was at the same
time aimed to show that sectarian structures have no place in Syunik,
and the only belief is Christianity and the Armenian Apostolic Church.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress