NAGORNO-KARABAKH’S REFERENDUM
Shaun Walker
Daria Vaisman

Open Democracy, UK
Dec 14 2006

The Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan remains poised between peace
and war even after a decisive vote for independence, report Daria
Vaisman & Shaun Walker.

It was all a bit of an anticlimax. The contested territory of
Nagorno-Karabakh was voting on 10 December 2006 for a new constitution
– after twelve years of de facto independence from Azerbaijan, it
was meant to be the final stage on its path to statehood. Yet on
the streets of its capital Stepanakert, no one seemed particularly
excited. Two lonely posters and one small banner advertised the
referendum. While all the major international papers covered a similar
referendum in breakaway South Ossetia on 12 October, here only one
of the wires showed up.

This is surprising, considering that Karabakh has been the bloodiest,
highest profile, and most intractable of the frozen conflicts in
the region. But the neglect was less evidence of indifference to
independence than of a feeling that Karabakh is further down the line
to recognition than its breakaway counterparts; the referendum was
merely confirming its independence, rather than agitating for it.

Nagorno-Karabakh has a special history. The Armenians call it a centre
of their ancient civilisation; the Azeris point to their famous
Karabakh poets and musicians. The spectacular mountains and green
valleys give a dramatic backdrop to a region infused with Persian,
Turkish and Russian influences. Though the region’s ethnic groups
collided over the centuries, Stalin’s nationalities policies in
the early Soviet period exacerbated the tensions. Karabakh, though
always majority Armenian, was attached to the newly created republic
of Azerbaijan in 1921.

Though there were desultory cries for greater control from the Armenian
population of Karabakh throughout the Soviet period, their demands
grew stronger as the union collapsed. Azeri and Armenian friends
and neighbours turned against each other, fuelled by nationalism and
Armenian Karabakh’s irresistible drive for independence.

A still-standing but shaky ceasefire agreement was signed in 1994,
after six years of fighting. The results were dire: more than 700,000
Azeris and 400,000 Armenians were displaced from their homes, and
Karabakh is now a monoethnic shadow of its cosmopolitan past. The
status of Karabakh has been discussed and contested over the decade
since, but with each failed peace talk, the chance for compromise on
either side fades further. With its symbolic importance and its value
as a cause around which political elites can harness public sentiment,
it is the region’s Jerusalem.

A frozen status quo

The Karabakh border with Azerbaijan is a frontline. In fact, the actual
line of control, where nervous young Karabakh conscripts train rifles
at Azerbaijan from clumsily dug trenches, is well outside the borders
of Karabakh proper, in territory occupied as a buffer zone.

With this border closed, Karabakh is only accessible by a single
major road that wends through the mountains from Armenia.

There is no way of knowing where Armenia ends and Karabakh begins –
no visible signs mark the border, and a barely noticeable checkpoint
intermittently stops cars with a friendly request to register in
Stepanakert. Armenia funds approximately half of Karabakh’s state
budget, and trains its military. This makes true independence for
Nagorno-Karabakh difficult to imagine.

Even less likely, however, is a return to Azerbaijan. By the
territorial-integrity standards applied to the other breakaway states,
Azerbaijan should keep Karabakh, as it was part of their territory
during the Soviet period, just as South Ossetia and Abkhazia were parts
of Georgia. Azerbaijan has promised the "highest level" of autonomy,
but Armenian Karabakh is understandably sceptical.

A comparison is sometimes made to the Aland Islands – an archipelago
with a Swedish population that was given to Finland in 1921. Decades
of broad autonomy under Finnish rule left a contented population and an
example that this kind of dispute can be solved peacefully. In 1993, a
mediation group brought the three sides in the Karabakh dispute to the
islands, and suggested a similar arrangement. The Karabakh Armenians,
so goes the apocryphal tale, surprised everyone by agreeing to the
idea. "Yes," they said, "we’re happy to be ruled by Finland."

The peace process

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk
group, a multilateral group led by Russia, the United States and
France, has been charged with negotiating a solution to the conflict.

A series of summits have been unsuccessful, including most recently
at Rambouillet earlier in 2006 despite widespread expectation of a
breakthrough. While the sides have been close to agreement on many
issues, the recurring problem has been the most fundamental one: the
status of Karabakh. As with Jerusalem, there is no status acceptable
to both sides.

With Karabakh’s independence already a de facto achievement, the
Armenian side already has a disproportionate share of what it wants.

True, the situation is far from ideal for Karabakh – the regime is
concerned about an attack from Azerbaijan, and lacks the investments
and political status that come with international recognition. But
the imperfect status quo seems more appealing to the Armenian side
than other options on the table, particularly those which seek to
reunite the region with Azerbaijan.

This stumbling-block has led many to advocate a "step-by-step"
approach to resolving the conflict, rather than a "package deal"
to solve the conflict all at once. The idea is to build up trust
first while negotiating on less contentious issues, such as troop
withdrawal from occupied Azerbaijani territories, and then deal with
Karabakh’s status at a later date. But even this approach has failed
to yield results so far.

The regional powers

The United States sees the Caucasus as a strategic energy corridor that
bypasses both Iran and Russia. With the newly built Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
pipeline, which will soon be pumping a million barrels of oil per
day from the Caspian to the Mediterranean, the US is worried that
regional conflict would jeopardise its sizeable energy investments.

Iran, which borders Armenia and Azerbaijan, has helped both sides at
different times. During the height of the conflict, Iran supported
Christian Armenia against its fellow Shi’a state Azerbaijan. With
much of northern Iran populated by increasingly anti-government
ethnic Azeris with ties to Azerbaijan, it’s in Iran’s interests to
keep Azerbaijan occupied with Karabakh.

Despite support for Armenia during the conflict, Russia in recent
years has tried not to take sides, maintaining good relations with
both parties. Karabakh officials remain cool on relations with
Russia, however, and are keen to avoid being lumped in with the
other breakaway states. As one Karabakh official put it, "Of course
we’re very interested in hearing from the others as the status of
Nato-controlled Kosovo’s independence nears. But we have bilateral not
multilateral ties with them." The fear is that Russia is using the
breakaway states as an anti-western policy instrument, and Karabakh
has no interest in taking part.

There is a sense even among the other breakaways that they would
prefer a guarantor other than Russia if they had a choice. Karabakh
does – in large part due to the powerful Armenian diaspora. This is
evident even before arriving; the road between Armenia and Karabakh
is perhaps the best in the Caucasus, and was funded by $25 million of
diaspora money. Maps, tourist brochures and websites about Karabakh
are glossy and professional.

Masis Mayilian, Karabakh’s deputy foreign minister, asked us in
flawless English if we wanted to see the text of a lecture he had
delivered at a university in the United States. It was worlds away
from South Ossetian or Transdniestrian officials – Russian-speaking
and suspicious of anything and anyone western.

While these regions have no voice in western capitals, the Armenian
diaspora acts as an international lobbying group. "The moral and
political support is more important than the investments; they can
lobby our interests in the US Congress," said Mayilian. In October
2005, fifty-nine members of congress sent a letter to President
George W Bush calling Karabakh an independent country of "proud
citizens committed to the values of freedom, democracy and respect
for human rights."

The Azeri factor

There is one thing that may shift the balance in the medium term:
Azerbaijan’s oil windfall, estimated by President Ilham Aliyev to be
about $140 billion in the next twenty years. A good amount of this is
being spent on updating the Azerbaijani military, and with nearly a
million internally-displaced people (IDPs) in Azerbaijan as a result
of the Karabakh conflict, regaining lost territory is a huge priority
among the populace and elites. While an all-out military attack might
be unlikely, having the capability to launch it might shift the balance
at the negotiating table, and give some force to Azerbaijan’s demands.

The Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents met again on 28 November,
at the CIS summit in Minsk, and again no progress was made. If and
when progress does come in the negotiations, it will be a long time
before Karabakh returns to any kind of normalcy. If Azerbaijan recovers
control of some or all of the territory occupied as a buffer-zone,
it will take years of investment to make it habitable again. Walking
around a destroyed Azeri town like Fizuli is rather like visiting ruins
from ancient Rome – all the evidence of former civilisation is there,
but the devastation is so complete that it is difficult to imagine
it as a living community.

Despite the fact that more than a million people remain displaced from
their homes, both Azerbaijan and Armenia have too much to lose from a
new conflict. While a breakthrough in negotiations seems unlikely in
the near future, so does further bloodshed. Instead, the most likely
scenario is more of the same – a fragile status somewhere between
peace and war.

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