Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
June 8 2007
Journalists from around the region receive conflict resolution
briefing and get to talk to leading parties in Armenia on eve of
elections.
By Salla Nazarenko, IWPR’s Cross Caucasus Journalism Network
coordinator.
The second training seminar by the Cross Caucasus Journalism Network
was staged in Yerevan, Armenia, in advance of parliamentary elections
on May 12.
The seminar gathered fourteen journalists from different regions of
the Caucasus, including Chechnya, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria
in the North Caucasus and Abkhazia, Nagorny Karabakh, South Ossetia,
Georgia and Armenia in South Caucasus.
The training component of the seminar concentrated on conflict
resolution. Yerevan-based trainer and expert Tevan Poghosyan gave the
participants an overview of conflict resolution theory and practice,
using practical exercises and role-play situations.
In a round table discussion with well-known political scientist
Alexander Iskandaryan, the participants asked questions about the
region’s various conflicts, with subjects and themes thrown up by the
debate turned into stories in participants’ own newspapers around the
Caucasus region.
`I got so much new information here. I feel like I look at conflicts
in an entirely different way now,’ said Zurab Makhriev from Nazran,
Ingushetia, after the training session.
The journalists attending the session also had a chance to experience
political life in Armenia on the eve of elections.
They met representatives of the Republican Party, Dashnaktusyun, the
National Democratic Party, the Heritage Party, the People’s Party of
Armenia and the National Democratic Party.
The politicians discussed their electoral prospects, the transparency
of the ballot, the role of oligarchs in national politics and, more
generally, the future of Armenia.
`This was very interesting, and it made me hope that next time there
will be a seminar like this right around election day, so that we
could report on the elections,’ said Eter Turadze from Batumi,
Georgia.
As a result of the training session in Yerevan, the participants came
up with numerous new ideas for cross-border articles, including a
Russian-Georgian-Armenian story about the struggle of Caucasus
migrants in Russia and an Armenian-Azerbaijani story about Armenian
exports to Azerbaijan and vice versa.
Further ideas are being discussed via email and telephone, and strong
professional ties have been established between those attending these
sessions.
As Zelimkhan Yakhikhanov from Grozny, Chechnya, put it, `I think that
the Cross Caucasus Journalism Network is a useful and unique idea. It
gives us a chance to widen our thinking, to get to know more about
each other. I hope I will be able to see a training seminar like this
in Grozny.’
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress