RICE: WITH KARABAKH CONFLICT UNSETTLED, CONFLICTING SIDES GOING TO END UP FALLING BEHIND REGION
PanARMENIAN.Net
29.04.2008 16:53 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made
remarks at the Peace Corps 2008 Worldwide Country Director Conference.
Touching upon developments in the Caucasus, Dr. Rice said, in part,
"The Caucasus, particularly the – not so much Georgia, but Azerbaijan,
to a certain extent Armenia, there is important work to be done there
to bring that part of the Caucasus closer to standards that we thought
they were once meeting. And it has been a disappointment," she said.
"Now, one of the problems has been that because of the situation in
Nagorno Karabakh, all kinds of bad policies are tolerated, let me
put it that way, or excused by political leaders. And I often say to
them that if they don’t solve Nagorno Karabakh, they’re going to end
up falling further and further behind the region because the region
is moving on.
"Another time that it felt a bit that way was in 2005, with the
Orange Revolution and the Rose Revolution and the Cedar Revolution,
and it felt again like the tide was inexorable. And then I know that
there’s been a sense that perhaps that tide has receded some over
the last several years, but I think of it a little bit differently,
which is it’s more like a stepwise function. Things move up and then
they level off for a while.
"And the question is: Can you prevent them from sliding back? Because
there will be another step up.
When people’s expectations are raised that they’re going to have a
voice, when people’s expectations are raised that they’re going to
have real choices, democratic choices, for leadership, when people
get accustomed to circumstances in which their personal freedoms are
not abridged, if you can find the support in civil society, if you can
find the support in nongovernmental organizations, if the United States
stays with that program, I believe you’ll see another step up. So that
it’s not an inexorable trend, but it is one that keeps moving carefully
upward. And I think that’s how we have to think about what’s happened
in the territory – much of the territory of the former Soviet Union.
"Even Russia itself – you know, I was in Moscow as a graduate student
in 1979. Russia is not the Soviet Union. Let me be very certain for
you. I was in the Soviet Union. I knew the Soviet Union. Russia is not
the Soviet Union. And Russians have certain expectations about personal
freedoms. They have certain expectations about economic freedoms. I
think it’s going to make a difference in the long run, maybe even the
medium term, to what kinds of politics is actually tolerated in Russia.
"So we have to keep building the foundation. We have to keep, through
programs like the Peace Corps, helping people’s horizons to change
and their expectations to change, and what they will and will not
accept to change. We’re never going to be able – the United States
on the outside – to impose democracy. The good news is, I always
remind people, you actually don’t have to impose democracy; you have
to impose tyranny. And so if you get people thinking in a different
way about what their expectations, rights, ought to be, I think you
will see that over time this great wave of democracy will continue,
even in places where right now it may seem somewhat remote."