Transitions Online, Czech Republic
June 23 2005
The Revolution Business
by Emil Danielyan
23 June 2005
The United States adopts a cautious stance on Armenia’s
democratization. From EurasiaNet.
The United States has stepped up efforts to promote democratization
in former Soviet states in recent years. Accordingly, opposition
leaders in Armenia are hopeful of receiving Washington’s support for
a renewed push to force President Robert Kocharian’s administration
from power in Yerevan. But U.S. officials seem anxious to squelch
such expectations, insisting that they harbor no regime-change
ambitions for Armenia.
During a visit to Georgia in mid-May, US President George W. Bush
offered effusive praise for the Rose Revolution led by Georgian
President Mikheil Saakashvili. Some politicians and pundits in
neighboring Armenia interpreted Bush’s statements as a thinly veiled
call for democratically oriented regime change throughout the
Caucasus. Media outlets in Yerevan have since speculated on who might
be Washington’s preferred successor to Kocharian.
Members of the Bush administration now adamantly deny they want
political turnover in Yerevan. `We are not in the revolution
business,” a senior Bush administration official said in an
interview. The official went on to downplay Washington’s role in the
recent revolutionary trend, saying the United States was `not
responsible’ for the successful popular uprisings in Georgia,
Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. The official noted that the United States
had maintained good relations with the toppled leaders of the three
ex-Soviet states, Georgia’s Eduard Shevardnadze, Ukraine’s Leonid
Kuchma and Kyrgyzstan’s Askar Akaev. “We didn’t do anything to
trigger those events,” he said.
The senior administration official indicated that recent statements
made by President Bush should not be interpreted as a call for street
protests, or other anti-government action that undermines stability
in the region. `The [Armenian] opposition should not launch a
dangerous revolution or seek to humiliate the [Kocharian] regime,”
the senior administration official said, adding that Washington now
favors an `evolutionary process’ of democratization.
Officials at the State Department made a similar point, saying that
the United States supports only the use of `legal means’ in any
effort to bring about political change. U.S. enthusiasm for regime
change seems to have cooled markedly since the 13 May violence in
Andijan, Uzbekistan.
Armenia’s leading opposition parties have never recognized the
legitimacy of Kocharian’s disputed re-election in 2003, and they have
maintained a boycott of the country’s parliament. Apparently
encouraged by the rhetoric of the Bush administration, opposition
leaders have sent signals that they may organize another round of
mass rallies aimed at forcing Kocharian to step down. The
opposition’s first protest effort stalled in 2004 in the face of
stiff governmental resistance.
Of late, the opposition’s rhetoric has taken on a more aggressive
tone. Embracing a pro-Western foreign policy agenda, some opposition
politicians have gone as far as to call for Armenia’s withdrawal from
the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty, and the country’s
accession to NATO. Russia and Armenia have traditionally enjoyed a
special strategic relationship.
Aram Sarkisian, the outspoken leader of Armenia’s most radical
opposition party called Hanrapetutiun (Republic), traveled to
Washington in early June for meetings with White House and State
Department officials. He said the trip reinforced his resolve to
carry out a “revolution.” Sarkisian and other top opposition leaders
feel that they can count on Washington’s support in their
revolutionary endeavors.
“That is a dangerous and false assumption,” countered a State
Department official. He and other American officials indicated that
the U.S. government does not regard regime change as a necessary
condition for Armenia’s democratization.
According to Cory Welt, a Caucasus and Central Asia analyst at the
Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, such
statements can be taken at face value. `From all indications that I
have seen, Armenia is definitely not a target [for the Bush
administration],’ he said. `They tolerate the current regime in
Yerevan.’
Kocharian’s government drew praise from two U.S. senators who visited
Yerevan recently. Senator Charles Hagel, a Nebraska Republican,
professed to be `very impressed with the democratic reforms and
economic development that have taken place in Armenia.’ Earlier,
Senator Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican, downplayed Armenia’s
troubled history of tainted elections.
Coleman’s remarks seemed at odds with the strong U.S. criticism of
the last Armenian presidential election in 2003. The State Department
said at the time that Armenian authorities `missed an important
opportunity to advance democratization.’
The apparent contradiction between Bush’s pro-democracy rhetoric and
statements by other U.S. officials makes it difficult to predict how
Washington might react if the next round of Armenian national
elections, due to occur in 2007, are plagued by irregularities. `I
don’t think the United States knows exactly what it wants right now,
and that’s part of the problem,” said Welt, the political analyst.