ARMENIA THIS WEEK
Friday, June 25, 2004
ARMENIAN OFFICERS ATTEND NATO EVENT IN BAKU AMID SECURITY ‘LAPSES’
Col. Murad Isakhanian and Sr. Lt. Aram Hovanisian of the Armenian Defense
Ministry attended this week a final planning conference for NATO’s
Partnership for Peace exercises set to take place in Azerbaijan this
September. Azeri officials prevented Armenian officers from attending the
first planning event held in Baku last January. The exercises dubbed
Cooperative Best Effort (CBE) – 2004 will test interoperability of NATO and
partner militaries in a potential peacekeeping operation. Georgia and
Armenia hosted similar games in 2002 and 2003.
As the Azeri Deputy Defense Minister Araz Azimov revealed this week, his
government was forced to acquiesce to the Armenian presence or “risk
cancellation of the exercises and cooling of relations with NATO.” Following
the January incident, the Armenian government and organizations, including
the Armenian Assembly, urged NATO officials to make sure that Armenia could
take partner as a full-fledged NATO partner or move the exercise to another
country. Alliance officials ultimately succeeded in winning Azeri President
Ilham Aliyev’s pledge that Armenians could take part. Following last
February’s brutal murder of an Armenian officer by an Azeri at another NATO
event in Hungary, security was expected to be tight.
However, radical Azeri groups linked to the country’s hard-line Ministry of
National Security succeeded in repeatedly disrupting the conference as it
got underway on Tuesday. Both Armenian and Azeri commentators questioned the
reasons behind police failure to provide adequate security. Azeri television
footage showed several protestors breaking into the hotel conference room,
disrupting the NATO event underway, with no police posted outside. One of
the perpetrators told the local daily Ekho that they were able to enter the
room twice and succeeded in “scaring” the NATO officers “who were afraid
that we might bring in explosives.” Police subsequently detained half a
dozen radicals, with some of them receiving two-month sentences for
“hooliganism.”
The same groups of radicals had earlier attacked Azeri peace activists, whom
the government accuses of “betrayal” of national interests and demanded that
they stop meeting with Armenian counterparts.
Most Azeri officials and commentators appeared embarrassed over the
incidents. Rauf Mirkadyrov, a leading commentator for daily Zerkalo, wrote
that while “our glorious police never had a problem quashing mass opposition
protests, [in this case] it failed to stop a few dozen protestors.” Foreign
Minister Elmar Mamediarov said that Azerbaijan must implement its
international obligations and “not fear” the Armenian military’s
participation. Member of the President’s staff Ali Hassanov criticized the
attack and insisted that “Azeris are cultured and civilized” people.
U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Reno Harnish urged Baku to improve security
measures, especially during the actual exercises in September. Deputy
Defense Minister General Artur Aghabekian said that Armenia agreed to scale
back its participation in the September CBE-2004 from a full-fledged
peacekeeping platoon to “five to seven officers,” in an apparent compromise
deal with Azerbaijan. (Sources: Armenia This Week 1-16; AAA Press Release
1-30; Ekho 6-22, 23, 24, 25; R&I Report 6-22; RFE/RL Armenia Report 6-22,
24; Zerkalo 6-22, 23, 25; Azg 6-23; Yeni Zaman 6-24)
ARMENIA REAFFIRMS KARABAKH POLICY
President Robert Kocharian told the members of the Parliamentary Assembly of
the Council of Europe (PACE) this week that Nagorno Karabakh (NKR) is an
established state and all Azerbaijani claims on its territory are without
basis. Kocharian reminded PACE members that Nagorno Karabakh had legally
seceded from Soviet Azerbaijan at the time the latter became independent in
1991 and then succeeded in defending that choice on the field of battle.
“The solution shall emerge from the substance of the conflict and not from
the perception of possible strengthening of Azerbaijan through future ‘oil
money’,” Kocharian said. The remarks were in reference to the recent claim
by Azeri President Ilham Aliyev that he was not in a hurry to settle the
conflict and would use Caspian oil profits to strengthen the country’s
military. “[This] approach is a formula of confrontation and not of
compromise,” Kocharian added. He further recalled that had Baku agreed to
the most recent peace proposals, it could have regained most of the formerly
Azeri-populated districts now held by Karabakh.
Meanwhile, a survey made public this week by a leading Yerevan think tank
revealed that Armenians are nearly unanimous on Karabakh’s independence from
Azerbaijan. Of 1,950 citizens surveyed by the Armenian Center for National
and International Studies (ACNIS) throughout the country, just over 1
percent would agree to Karabakh’s autonomy within Azerbaijan. Almost 60
percent want Karabakh united with Armenia, while 39 percent agree for it to
be independent. Some 41 percent said that they would agree to ceding some of
the territories outside NKR only in exchange for determination of its final
status, while another 32 percent are opposed to any territorial concessions.
68 percent said that they would be ready to “do their utmost” in defense of
Karabakh should fighting resume. (Sources: Armenia This Week 2-13; Arminfo
6-23; 6-23; 6-25)
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Call to readers: The humanitarian situation in the Sudan continues to
deteriorate. Learn more at and .
_doctors_group_asserts_sudan_is_practicing_genocide
The Boston Globe
June 24, 2004
After visit to refugees, doctors’ group asserts Sudan is practicing genocide
Says world response needed now in Darfur
By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Correspondent
The violence in the Darfur region of Sudan includes systematic killings,
rape, pillaging, and destruction of villages that ”are clear indicators of
genocide,” according to a report issued yesterday by Physicians for Human
Rights.
A delegation from the Boston-based advocacy group visited the neighboring
country of Chad last month and interviewed non-Arab refugees from the Darfur
region, who gave firsthand accounts of being assaulted and chased while
their wells were poisoned, livestock stolen, and villages burned by an Arab
militia known as the Janjaweed, working with the Sudanese government.
”What we determined, based on a number of testimonies, is that there are
clear indicators of genocide,” investigator John Heffernan said. ”The main
point here is a consistent program of targeting non-Arabs.”
Under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, which the United States has signed, any member country is
obligated to stop or prevent genocide if it is identified. The international
genocide convention, adopted in 1948, defines genocide as actions intended
to destroy a racial, national, religious, or ethnic group.
There is widespread agreement that the humanitarian crisis in Darfur demands
urgent action, but a coordinated international response is coming too slowly
for many critics. The physicians’ group said that by presenting evidence of
genocide, it hoped to instigate a more serious international response.
”Those countries which have signed on to the genocide convention are
committed to prevent and punish those who are perpetrating it,” Heffernan
said.
Darfur has been the center of escalating violence as the Arab-dominated
central government has fought non-Arab rebel groups over the past 18 months.
In April, a UN official called the conflict ”ethnic cleansing.”
The physicians’ group’s report noted that non-Arabs were consistently
attacked while neighboring Arab villages were spared. ”The Janjaweed
attacked us, and then the government helicopters attacked us. They want to
attack all the black people in Sudan, so that Sudan will be for the Arabs
only,” a refugee is quoted as saying.
Tens of thousands of people have died, and roughly 1 million people have
been displaced within Darfur. Most of these displaced people lack food,
clean water, and medical care and some are even living in ”prison
enclaves,” according to Heffernan. For the refugees in Chad, those
conditions will only worsen as the rainy season begins, making transport of
food or other humanitarian aid impossible, the report said.
The study outlines assault methods it said were intended to annihilate the
non-Arab group. They cite systematic attacks on villages, using coordinated
air and land forces.
The Arab militia worked with the Sudanese government’s troops to destroy
property and pursued fleeing villagers in order to kill, rape, or rob them,
the report charges.
The report called on the Sudanese government to halt the violence, and on
the international community to intervene.
A spokesman from the United Nations said yesterday that although the
secretary general is not prepared to call the atrocities ”genocide,” the
flagrant human rights violations occurring in Darfur are a major concern to
the UN.
”The idea is not to wait until it gets to that point,” said Jemera Rome, a
Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch. ”The Security Council does not need
genocide in order to act.”
She said that the UN should invoke its Chapter VII authority of the UN
charter, which permits the Security Council to take all actions necessary,
including sending a military force, to ”maintain or restore international
peace and security.”
The US government has so far not taken a view on whether the violence
amounts to genocide. In a June 11 interview with The New York Times,
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said, ”I’m not prepared to say what is
the correct legal term for what’s happening. All I know is that there are at
least a million people who are desperately in need.”
Carolyn Johnson can be reached at [email protected].