United Press International
April 28 2006
Outside View: Armenia seeking a new place in the world
By Raffi K. Hovannisian
UPI Outside View Commentator
Published April 28, 2006
YEREVAN, Armenia — Yerevan-Armenia, the great regional power that
extended from sea to sea in the first century before Christ and for
ages played a central role in the history of Western Asia, has been
reduced to a land-locked rump in modern times.
Millennia of foreign conquest and domination, occupation and
genocide, have delivered to today’s world a nation that is long on
culture and civilization, but short in statecraft. The catastrophic
dispossession of the Armenian homeland by the rulers of the Ottoman
Empire; the subsequent Bolshevik-Turkish pact partitioning Armenia
and effectively tendering Karabagh, Nakhichevan and other integral
parts of the Armenian patrimony to Soviet Azerbaijan; and Armenia’s
inclusion in the Soviet empire may form the basis of an explanation,
but they do not excuse Armenia’s current smallness.
The nation’s historic losses and intermittent statelessness are
only prologue. The real story is in a failed leadership that seeks to
rationalize the steady decline of the Armenian factor in world
affairs by reference to external adversaries and geopolitical
limitations.
In fact, the major constraint is the insecure myopia of a
semi-feudal, soft-authoritarian regime with a parochial mindset that
makes a mockery of Armenia’s ancient values and, in the very name of
democracy, smothers human rights, civil liberties, free speech and
assembly, and the rule of law. Of course, Armenia is not alone in
this demeanor.
In the 15 years of the country’s newly rediscovered statehood,
authority has never been transferred from incumbent to challenger by
free and fair elections. They have always been forged —
unfortunately always by the administration. The sitting presidency is
no exception to this deplorable rule of illegitimate government.
For Armenia to reclaim its democratic advantage in the region, to
become a competitive contributor to peace, development and security,
and to realize its strategic credentials at an increasingly critical
crossing on the global map, it must transform itself both at home and
abroad.
Fresh Elections: In view of its series of falsified elections,
and most recently the constitutional referendum held last November,
Armenia requires an electoral transformation. Our American, European,
and other international partners have the capacity to make this
happen through the empowerment of Armenian citizen and society alike.
This is the expectation of the Armenian body public. An orchestrated
theft of votes and conscience is alien to the long-standing Armenian
quest for rights and redemption. Armenia must satisfy the highest
possible criteria for electoral legitimacy and accountable
governance.
Rule of Right: The supremacy of rights with due process and an
equal application of laws needs in short order to become the
foundation of the state. From corruption and conflicts of interest to
responsibility for grave crimes and other misconduct, all citizens
must face the same standard of justice — starting from the very top
and going all the way down the hierarchy. The self-confidence of an
independent judiciary, elusive as it may seem, is pivotal on this
score. Raise their salaries and strictly hold them to the law.
International Standing: Armenia’s democratic transformation, much
like Georgia’s attempt, will find its reflection in international
affairs. The republic’s sovereignty is a supreme value and the most
meaningful means for pursuit of vital national interests. Armenia
must become a bridge of balance and understanding in the wider
region, intersecting as it does Western civilization and Eastern
tradition, the CIS and the Middle East, and the future linkage
between its southern neighbors and the trans-Atlantic hemisphere.
Official Yerevan should take its rightful place in the regional
security system and, in dialogue with NATO, the European Union,
Russia, China, and other centers, strive within the next decade to
achieve security and energy independence — or at least
diversification.
Turkey: In all of history, no bilateral agreement, concord, or
treaty has ever been negotiated or entered into force between the
sovereign republics of Armenia and Turkey.
A brave new discourse and enlightened statesmanship must guide
the initiative to normalize the Turkish-Armenian relationship in a
multi-track process that takes into account, not escapes, the
historical record and hammers out solutions to a comprehensive agenda
of outstanding issues, including but not limited to establishment of
diplomatic ties without preconditions; political, economic, and
ultimately security-related cooperation; the restoration of rights of
the dispossessed; the guaranteed voluntary return of deportees or
their progeny to their places of origin; respect for and renovation
of the Armenian cultural heritage; and delimitation of boundaries
directly between the parties involved.
As it stands, however, Turkey continues to enforce a blockade
against Armenia, an act of war and a material breach of the pact
which Turkey’s Kemalist regime and Soviet Russia signed in 1921 and
on which Ankara relies for assertion of its eastern frontier. Without
resolution of this strategic connection — rather the absence thereof
— neither Turkey nor Armenia can ever join the EU, and no enduring
settlement will ever be found in the case of Mountainous Karabagh and
its struggle for liberty, democracy, and self-determination.
Karabagh and Azerbaijan: There can be no true movement on this
regional conflict as long as a) Armenia and Azerbaijan remain in
essentially undemocratic hands and thus without civic mandate;
b) the republican entity of mountainous Karabagh, which declared
its independence according to a plebiscite held in 1991 under the
Soviet Constitution and relevant norms of international law, is
excluded from the peace process;
c) Azerbaijan refuses to cease and desist from its xenophobic
rhetoric and its outrageous desecration of Armenian religious
treasures, including an entire cemetery of medieval “khachkars”
(cross-stones) finally and fully destroyed in broad daylight by
uniformed soldiers in Nakhichevan last December; and
d) the Turkish-Armenian divide stays intact and insurmounted.
Short of this, the consequences of the war unleashed by
Azerbaijan against Karabagh in 1988, resulting in thousands of
casualties, hundreds of thousands of refugees and scores of
reciprocal expulsions on both sides, must be approached on the
humanitarian level. A pilot program to demilitarize a local segment
of the conflict zone, allowing for the conditional return and
restitution of both Armenian and Azerbaijani refugees, might under
the circumstances be the only rational avenue for the initial
cultivation of mutual confidence and gradual reconciliation of
peoples. In all events, for the long-term development, prosperity,
and equity of the region, Azerbaijan, Karabagh, Armenia, and Turkey
must abide by the same supervisory regime and terms of engagement as
they relate to demilitarization, repatriation, opening of frontiers,
transportation and communication, and potential peacekeeping.
An old nation with a young state, Armenia does indeed face a
constellation of contemporary challenges, foreign and domestic, which
must be overcome creatively and fundamentally. Neither wishful
evolution nor artificial revolution will carry the day. Only a
peaceful, system-wide, citizen-driven transformation — anchored in a
correlation of the national will and international imperatives — can
shift the paradigm and provide the land of Ararat with one ultimate
opportunity to close the democratic deal, to turn swords into shared
interests, and to redefine its identity, place, and promise in the
new era.
Freedom and justice in the world begin at home.
—
(Raffi K. Hovannisian, Armenia’s first Minister of Foreign
Affairs, is chairman of the Heritage Party and founder of the
Armenian Center for National and International Studies in Yerevan.)