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AFTERWORDS
Afterword by Ali Abasov
Ideas and thoughts lying outside the scope of this brochure but being of great importance from my viewpoint for the understanding of the problems touched upon in it often emerged during the time when the Moscow edition of the brochure was being prepared for publication. It is these ideas that consititute the contents of this afterword with which I decided to address the Russian readers.
The history of the creation of our work, which began from the mutual desire “to explain to the opposite side the degree of its mistakes”, was dramatic and full of unexpected turns which were reflected on the topics of the brochure. Appraisals and approaches were changing in parallel with the submergence in the subject. Temporarily, we had to turn ourselves into the participants of the conflicting events, to run to extremes and narrowness of evaluations or to try to take the objective stand and understand the logic of the thinking and actions of the opposite side, to seek ways for reconciling the clashing positions. In short, we had to revisit and understand our recent history. The following question is important: Can the reader travel the same thorny path with the aid of our brochure? I think yes, he can if he perceives it only as a prologue to independent serious reflections.
I comfort myself with the thought that the brochure became such a prologue despite objective and subjective obstacles. It received attention abroad and led to a number of mostly positive reviews.
The texts of the first edition in English and Russian are presented on the website (http//www.ca-c.org) of the well-known “Central Asia and Caucasus” magazine (Sweden). It was proposed to publish it again. This edition is realized thanks to the enthusiasm of one of the first co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group, Ambassador Vladimir Kazimirov, who supplemented the brochure with his comments and the foreword and undertook the publication of the texts of international documents on the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict in this brochure.
After leaving the work of a mediator in this conflict in 1996, he continued to deal with the Karabakh problem, showing immutable interest in corresponding publications conducting hard discussions in both Azeri and Armenian periodicals, taking part in conferences, offering his variants, one of which the reader can find in this edition.
Once intended as a political scientific research effort, the brochure finally took on the character of a humanitarian vision of both the conflict itself and for ways of resolving it. It is strange that during the whole period of the conflict none of the “fathers” of the two peoples had made such an attempt before us, ordinary citizens of our countries who do not have special regalia or achievements for their societies. True, we started this brochure as “political scientists” but fortunately finished it on the “humanitarian note”, focusing attention on the disaster which threatens the region as a whole and each country separately and which can cast us into the Middle Ages in the legal field of which we often find ourselves today. I think the participation of Ambassador Kazimirov, who introduced upheavals and nuances of diplomatic battles into the text of the brochure, made it possible to outline more clearly the boundaries of humanitarian and political approaches not only to this conflict but to most conflicts in the post-Soviet space as well.
Alas, in the modern political world the authorities of all countries and not only of the Azerbaijan Republic and the Republic of Armenia, as the author of the foreword thinks, appear from the “positions of national egoism” which are equaled to the “positions of national interests”. Unfortunately, this is the ethics of modern politics and it is already because of this that one should agree with his thoughts that the invasion of western powers with their geostrategic interests into the region “was not instrumental in solving the conflict but rather complicated the way to lasting peace”. And certainly the following conclusion of the experienced diplomat should be taken into consideration: “of course, it should be acknowledged that peacemaking can not be sterilely pure. Every mediator-state also considers its national interests.” It can be stated that today’s conflicts in the political aspect are the variety and contradictions of one’s own and others’ national interests concentrated around the problem and giving it a new sounding. I think that it is in this key that one should start reflecting on the “transformation” of the Transcaucasus into the South Caucasus. It is hardly possible to agree with the opinion that “this renaming is being actively introduced by Westerners as well as Russophobes with obvious political goals: to oust Russia from the region, shading the fact that in spite of Urartu and Kolkhida (this list can be continued – Manna, Midia, Atropatena…) it came into today’s “world circulation” in many respects through Petersburg and Moscow.” Suffice it to note that the word Nakhichevan accepted in Russian since “olden times” emerged at best only after 1828 when the Nakhchivan Khanate was abolished following an agreement with Iran and like earlier other khanates became part of the Russian Empire. And this is, as they say, not even history but yesterday.
It is difficult to accept the accusations concerning our voluntary or not “indulgence” towards the West and the “vital interests” of the Unites Sates in the region. In my opinion the chapter about the international aspects of the conflict demonstrates the opposite. Oil – the curse of Azerbaijan – was that alluring goal for foreign powers trying to gain a firm foothold in Azerbaijan in the 1920s and for Lenin in standing up for vitally important interests of creeping Bolshevism by means of the Baku oil and for Hitler in rushing to Baku for the triumph of the delirious ideas about a “Millennial Reich”.
And what about the vital interests of the Russian Empire that since the XIX century carried out the massive colonization of the region using large-scale demographic changes? The mines laid by the historic past that appear to have lost their destructive force today have become highly explosive again. The search of the “maps of lost minefields” has been renewed. It is natural that the question of how much truth exists in these “maps” and what relation the “truth of its time” has to our time is a subject of a separate investigation which promises many surprises sometimes turning into discoveries. Thus, the episodic figure in the brochure – Colonel William Haskell with his “exotic Willy plan”, after the acquaintance with the sources and publications, must be recognized as all but the first international mediator who still in remote 1919 tried to correlate the positions plying between the sides of the conflict and offering variants for reconciliation. One should really know history, who and how thought, thinks, and acted and the reader himself will have to solve the question about the role of “demonization” in conditions of totalitarian thinking that safely continues to rule. It is this diversity of opinion that should present to the reader the general mosaic of the conflict picture, that will allow him to compare it with other post-Soviet conflicts, mull over the situation in Moldova, Georgia, Chechnya, which raised the issue about the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.
Small countries always have to pay a high price for the “vital interests” of great powers, only the methods of violent abolishment of their statehood and forced emigration against the background of repression have changed today. In the case of all variants of the realization of these “vital interests” whoever’s or whatever “phobias” are out of the question. This is the response to the consolidation of foreign “vital interests” in severe conditions of reality of political values. In this sense, it is possible to agree with one of the conclusions of the foreword: “on the whole, the authors failed to observe the objectivity or at least “equidistance” with respect to notorious “external factors”… Of course, they are not aware of everything that happened at different stages at the negotiating table – it is not always published”. It is an important idea, as today the ways of solutions are still considered by inertia behind the back of peoples and without their participation. Perhaps someday the memoirs of the co-chairmen of the Minsk Group, leading political figures, will appear and we will be able to find there many things which are important but concealed from the public today. What we indeed can hardly agree with is the statement that “none of the leaders defending polar claims has yet dared to tell his nation honestly that in the course of the settlement it is impossible to get everything they want, that they have to be satisfied with less or even the least against the background of grandiose ambitions and promises.” President Levon Ter-Petrosyan not only “dared” but also tried to ground his viewpoint. He had to resign because of his position.
There is also the other side of the “coin” – false patriotism, offended by any remark, any criticism immediately considered to be anti-national statements directed against the interests of the state. This “Soviet” habit took root in our consciousness and we continue to live with it permitting ourselves to boldly criticize any state but not permitting the same towards our own country. This is just a manifestation of totalitarianism. We should not give a hostile reception to the criticism when its object is not a country or a people but a regime which rules them, and in case of totalitarianism – a system or even a person directly or indirectly claiming to be the personification of the people’s will, which, ostensibly, is beyond criticism. Our “criticism” of Russia, as well as the criticism of Azerbaijan and Armenia, is directed at the people in power who were raised to power by chance but who just like all of us did not get rid of the totalitarian way of thinking. All of us are victims of totalitarian thinking but our distinction is that “people in power” are responsible for conflicts or for keeping them suspended. That is why I do not want their image to be compared by anybody to the image of Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. The criticism should be directed only against the authorities making one or another decision and only when these authorities are legitimate, that is really elected by the will of people decided by free and transparent election. Only in this case may the will of the authorities be compared to the will of the state and even partly to the will of that part of the people which voted for these authorities. In Azerbaijan, this will is usurped and this usurpation is raised to a law with hurried communiqués of the presidents of the Russian Federation, Turkey and the U.S. Undersecretary of State who congratulated the “winner” on the day of the falsification and the extermination of the opposition of Azerbaijan. About what the authors’ voluntary or involuntary support of the West is it possible to speak if the great countries arbitrarily declare “vital interests” and their responsibility for one region or another on certain conditions (“loyalty”, “adherence to communism or democracy”, etc.) and then they themselves break these commitments? An international mechanism that will allow small countries to keep their sovereignty and not maneuver between the interests of “great powers” is needed. And we will not need either the assistance of Russia (causing the accusations of consumerism while these rules of the game were created not by “consumers”) or the democracy lessons of the United States (often proving to be idle talk) if we are allowed to independently build up our own statehood and develop civil institutions of society. And the experience of fighting for democracy of the American people, the experience of the Russian people’s building their democracy before our eyes are important and instructive for the peoples of the South Caucasus.
Anyway, it is not a matter of “love” or “not love” for modern-day Russia. The Russian Federation and almost all post-Soviet republics except for the Baltic countries are strategic partners, “brothers in misfortune”, which are among the so-called “late-comer peoples (nations)”. And the only way out of this stagnant state is democracy and none of us can boast of having advanced it greatly. The way of economic build-up with a subsequent propagation of democracy “from above” is a false way. It is necessary to change the people’s mentality, to develop stable institutions of democracy, civil society which permanently pushes the state towards a legal state. Otherwise, it is possible to remain “latecomers” peoples forever.
Rereading the brochure many times in connection with the Moscow edition I paid attention to one peculiarity: as a matter of fact, almost all proposals on settling the conflict in one way or another were directed to the greatest possible separation of the two peoples which not long ago lived in the same territory and were neighbors in adjacent Azerbaijan and Armenia, having the longest border between each other in the region. They failed and will always fail to “separate” the two peoples despite all tragedies and stable distrust of the sides towards each other. This means that it is necessary to find variants of “return” to the former coexistence without which the conflict will never be exhausted. Of course, at the first stage certain “segregation” and the deployment of peacekeeping forces between the sides seem unavoidable. But in the future, this policy will lead the region to the deadlocks of new conflicts.
The second variant, the integration of the region into a common political and economic space of uniting Europe which some of post-Soviet countries are likely to join, is also natural. The statements of a number of political figures of the South Caucasus also touching upon the question of admitting the SC countries into the European Union demonstrate a possibility for the ultimate resolution of conflicts within the framework of the security system of this nascent system. The recent Cypriot events initiate new approaches to the conflicts in the South Caucasus offering the model of two-community autonomies based on the system of developed international security guarantees. No one can give clear answers yet and nobody knows a future resolution of today’s challenges. But the fact that the conflicts of the South Caucasus contain the development of the whole region and are the main obstacles in the way of integration into the European architecture has become evident practically for everyone. It is possible, of course, like Old Hebrews to roam for 40 years (“next to nothing” remains!) in search of conflict solutions waiting for the physical death of all their witnesses. But how far does this solution correspond to the dynamics of political processes, how does it keep within the vortex flows of globalization changes in the world, which in this period will turn us from the “latecomer peoples” into the outsiders of the world? Anyway, it turns out that there is only one way-out for all post-Soviet countries even for those which fortunately avoided the hell of ethnic clashes – the development of democracy in their states. And who knows, maybe on this way we will succeed in adding new lines and even pages to the endless book of history of the development of democracy on Planet Earth.
Today many politicians and analysts return to the same question: is the military solution to the conflict possible? I think that, just like any other solution, it is possible if it becomes expedient owing to political and economic reasons which are far from humanitarian aspects of the problem and the genuine will of the peoples on whose shoulders the burden of retribution for such a solution will be laid again should these developments occur. The resource of the participation of civil society in making decisions left by the ruling elites and some states lenient towards them is insignificant. It is insufficient even for the peoples to elect their authorities as sovereign peoples, to end the practice of rigging election results, which turned democratic elections into a formal, spectacular but fruitless procedure. Perhaps only the events in Georgia inspire fragile optimism subjected to numerous risks.
Perhaps those who insist that neither side of the conflict can get “everything” are right. But this rightfulness is, so to speak, political. And in the humanitarian aspect, both sides can get everything, as this “everything” is an ultimate peace. In this sense the juggling of figures and percentages of lost territories (10% or 20%) and refugees (800,000 or 1,000,000) in both cases is a political act. The humanitarian one consists of the fact that the total number of displaced persons and refugees of both sides is close to 1,500,000 people and the vast territory becoming “no man’s land” is mined, desolate and inhabited only by military men and so cannot serve its main purpose – life of a man earning his bread. However paradoxical it might seem but in our case it is “exact figures and percentages” that are conditional, relative and sometimes contradictory (I relate it to the whole text of the brochure). Thus, the number of displaced persons and refugees who had to pay for “our and your freedom” during the time counting the second decade, despite a terrible death rate especially in the first years probably increased and at any rate it will still grow if the conflict is not resolved. I will cite the data of the independent expert A. Yunusov. “Before the beginning of the Karabakh conflict in 1988, 390,000 Armenians (about 6% of the population of the republic) lived in Azerbaijan, of them 180,000 – in Baku and 145,000 – in the NKAR. According to the census of the population in 1989, 85,000 Azeris (about 3% of the population of the republic) lived in Armenia. In fact, there were much more Azeris there as 208,000 former citizens of Armenia who had fled to Azerbaijan were registered in Azerbaijan in January 1990.
The losses of the sides during the period from 1988 to 1994:
During the conflict, as well as during the military operations, 11,000 citizens of Azerbaijan died… During the same period, up to 30,000 people were wounded, including more than 7,000 who became disabled forever. According to the official data of the government of Azerbaijan, about 5,000 citizens of the republic are recorded as missing.
During the same period, 6,000 people died and 20,000 were wounded from the Armenian side. According to the Armenian side, more than 500 Armenians had gone missing.
The armistice is permanently broken by both sides with the use of firearms and machine-guns… The exact number of victims after 1994 is not known. According to unofficial data, during this period the Azeri side lost 2,500 servicemen as killed and up to 3,000 as wounded (data on Armenia are not cited – A. Abasov).
According to the State Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan, 219,000 refugees (from Armenia and the Turks from Akhysk escaping from Uzbekistan in 1989) and 575,000 forced migrants from Nagorno Karabakh (seemingly, the author means the inhabitants of the occupied regions as well. – A. Abasov), a total of 794,000 people or about 10% of the population of the republic, had been registered in the republic by the end of 2001. According to the official data of the Armenian authorities, 310,000 refugees and forced migrants (8% of the population) who suffered as a result of the conflict were registered in the republic.
The indirect losses suffered as a result of the conflict: as compared with 1989, the birth rate has fallen drastically and infant mortality has increased. In 1989-99, the number of orphans increased nearly threefold in Azerbaijan and twofold in Armenia. At the same time, in both republics the greatest number of orphans was registered among refugees and forced migrants. As a result of the conflict and the ensuing socio-economic crisis in 1994-2000, up to 2.5 million citizens of Azerbaijan (more than 30% of the country’s population) and up to 1 million Armenians (26% of the country’s population) left their countries in search of livelihood. The overwhelming majority of them are males aged 20-40. Such emigration of the male population had a sharply negative impact on the demographic structure of the populations of Azerbaijan and Armenia: it caused a decline in the number of marriages, a drop in the birth rate, a decrease in the average number of family members and a decrease in the population strength in the end1. This is the approximate scale of the humanitarian disaster in the region (without taking into consideration the situation in Georgia).
Maybe we should make use of the recent proposal of the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation V. Trubnikov and involve the Armenians and Azeris of Nagorno Karabakh in the negotiations?2And doesn’t it seem right to leave the solution to the two communities of Nagorno Karabakh that have to live a difficult life or to be at enmity with each other for an indefinitely long time maintaining the tension in the region. There are also proposals in our book for the diasporas of the Azeris and Armenians to start a dialogue, maybe it is also time for the Russian citizens of “Caucasian nationality” to make use of such an opportunity, inducing and attracting to this hard talk their former compatriots throughout the world?!
Therefore I want to conclude my appeal with excerpts from the article entitled “Tiflis, September 5, 1919” published in the “Borba” (“Struggle”) newspaper and devoted to the temporary agreement of the Congress of the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh with Azerbaijan: “The agreement of the Armenians and Moslems in Karabakh already becomes a fact. And this fact, in our opinion, should draw the attention of the whole Transcaucasian democracy…
“The constant danger of internal war, the constantly smoldering animosity of the two nations threaten each of them with physical destruction, undermine their economic strength, deplete their cultures. For the whole of the Transcaucasus this animosity is a constant ghost of foreign interference, a constant danger of becoming a toy of other forces.
“The Karabakh agreement perhaps will not give much. One should not forget that centuries-old animosity is not overcome so soon. Maybe, it will be broken tomorrow again. Maybe the mountainous part of Karabakh will become again the theatre of military operations soon.
“But without overestimating the significance of the agreement, we can’t but welcome it, we can’t but emphasize that in this case we see the first serious experience of settling the Armenian-Moslem dispute not with massacres but by means of mutual agreement…
“Everywhere sooner or later the understanding that this knot can be undone only by long painstaking work, the work having the goal of reaching an agreement acceptable to both sides. The Karabakh agreement is only the first tangible step showing that such an understanding penetrates the masses. Even if it fails to give any real noticeable results today. Even if it fails to be realized due to one condition or another. Still it shows that the possibility of an agreement does exist…Life is stronger than nationalistic recklessness and religious fanaticism. It dictated the agreement in Karabakh. It will also inevitably dictate the general agreement between the Armenians and the Moslems of the Transcaucasus.”
Just like many years ago, only democracy, the social-cultural and political models of which are, if not identical, but very similar for all nations, can reconcile the two nations. And if we accept this thesis then the current stage of overcoming the causes and consequences of the conflicts in the South Caucasus entirely depends on the pace of the democratization of the political regimes in the region. And in this issue, as it seems, there are no contradictions and clashes between true democrats of the region disunited on other issues.
Ali Abasov
Afterword by Haroutiun Khachatrian
Since this book is compiled according to the principle of parity, following the example of my colleague and co-author Ali Abasov, I also have to write my afterword. I must say that I do not agree with all notes by Ambassador Kazimirov either. However, I do not think it is appropriate to polemize with him within this book in which he acts as an authoritative expert on our invitation.
Haroutiun Khachatrian
1The statistics of casualties in the Armenian-Azeri war // Karabakh yesterday, today, tomorrow. – Baku, 2002. – P. 20-22Back to text
2The press conference of V. I. Trubnikov in Baku on February 6, 2004.Back to text
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