ARMENIAN REPORTER
PO Box 129
Paramus, New Jersey 07652
Tel: 1-201-226-1995
Fax: 1-201-226-1660
Web:
Email: [email protected]
December 9, 2006
1. New national Armenian-American advocacy organization opens
headquarters in Washington, D.C.: U.S.-Armenia Public Affairs
Committee (USAPAC) launches operations.
2. Karabakh prepares for constitutional referendum
3. Trauma remains but hope endures, 18 years after the earthquake
4. Your backstage pass to the Armenia Fund Telethon
5. News analysis: On a tightrope in the Caucasus: Russian-Georgian
relations and Armenia
6. Editorial: The South Caucasus is too important to misunderstand
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1. New national Armenian-American advocacy organization opens
headquarters in Washington, D.C.: U.S.-Armenia Public Affairs
Committee (USAPAC) launches operations
Washington, D.C.–A group of Armenian-American activists have
established the U.S.-Armenia Public Affairs Committee (USAPAC) and
three associated entities, which, together, are the platform for a new
Armenian-American advocacy organization dedicated to promoting and
defending Armenian-American interests.
In view of the many challenges faced by the Republics of Armenia and
Nagorno-Karabakh and the leading role played by the United States in
international affairs, USAPAC founders "are convinced of the need for
robust and growing Armenian-American activism in support of the
homeland," the group announced. "By linking with likeminded colleagues
nationwide, USAPAC will develop into a powerful and effective addition
to the Armenian-American lobby."
USAPAC’s affiliated entities include the Council on U.S.-Armenia
Relations, a tax-exempt educational and advocacy charity; the
U.S.-Armenia Political Action Committee, an electioneering entity; and
the Committee on U.S.-Armenia Issues, a voter education group. The
four entities promise to "function as a powerful matrix serving to
expand the breadth and reach of Armenian-Americans’ political
influence, while taking full advantage of all advocacy and
electioneering laws and regulations."
In a message to national Armenian-American originations, USAPAC
stated: "As we explored new ways to respond to the forces arrayed
against Armenian-American concerns and objectives, we looked to one of
the most effective groups in the U.S. that also faces comparable
forces in opposition to its agenda–the Jewish lobby. This community’s
advocacy preeminence can be attributed in significant measure to its
diversity and sheer numbers of national, regional, and local advocacy
organizations that can be relied upon time after time to act with
remarkable coordination. Our community has every reason to emulate
this method of strength in numbers and unity of purpose."
USAPAC has appointed longtime community activist Ross Vartian as its
executive director, and has engaged Rob Mosher as its director of
government affairs. USAPAC has established its headquarters in
Washington D.C.
"There are great opportunities for the Armenian-American community to
expand its advocacy activities. USAPAC will place strong emphasis on
educating the community on issues and political candidates, as well as
political fundraising and grassroots activism," Mr. Vartian said. "Our
goal is to help the Armenian-American community further elevate its
political profile. Over time, USAPAC will enhance the scope of
activities and contribute to advancing the community’s agenda", he
concluded.
Mr. Mosher said, "We look forward to working in cooperation with the
two primary Armenian-American advocacy organizations with Washington
presence, the Armenia Assembly of America (AAA) and the Armenian
National Committee of America (ANCA), as well as other
Armenian-American organizations and individuals committed to Armenian
civic causes."
USAPAC received its initial funding through a grant from Gerard L.
Cafesjian and the Cafesjian Family Foundation.
"This is a truly momentous event in the history of Armenian advocacy
in the United States and I want to express USAPAC’s appreciation to
the Cafesjian Family Foundation and to Gerry Cafesjian personally for
their vision and determination," Mr. Vartian said. "Gerry and his
foundation have worked to advance and assist unique charitable,
economic, and civic-action causes both in Armenia and the United
States for over a decade, and have been active participants in and
supporters of Armenian-American advocacy efforts. We are most grateful
for their support of USAPAC," Mr. Vartian added.
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2. Karabakh prepares for constitutional referendum
Yerevan–Voters in Nagorno-Karabakh will go to the polls Sunday,
December 10, 2006, to participate in a plebiscite on the republic’s
proposed constitution. More than a hundred foreign observers are
expected to join 144 local observers in monitoring the referendum. In
addition to 277 local polling stations, there will be one in Yerevan
for citizens who are outside the Nagorno-Karabakh republic’s territory
on voting day.
PEACE TALKS CONTINUE
In other developments, the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan met in
Minsk on November 28 on the sidelines of a summit of ex-Soviet states.
They discussed the Karabakh peace process.
Armenia’s foreign minister Vartan Oskanian said the presidents
"assessed the meeting as positive in terms of atmosphere and
constructive approaches."
The Azerbaijani president claimed that Armenia and Azerbaijan "are
already approaching the final phase of the negotiations." Mr. Aliyev
stressed, however, "Azerbaijan’s negotiating position remains
unchanged," insofar as any solution must preserve Azerbaijan’s
"territorial integrity."
Meanwhile, Armenia’s defense minister Serge Sargsyan told the National
Assembly that the priority for the Armenian side is the recognition of
Nagorno-Karabakh’s independence by Azerbaijan.
The positive assessments of the Minsk meeting notwithstanding, Mr.
Sargsyan said, there would be difficulties in future meetings: "The
settlement of the Karabakh conflict will be painful for everybody,"
the defense minister noted.
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3. Trauma remains but hope endures, 18 years after the earthquake
After the devastating 1988 earthquake in Armenia, child psychologist
and NYU School of Medicine professor Dr. Louis Najarian was asked to
help survivors suffering from posttraumatic stress disorders.
Journalist Paul Chaderjian spoke with him about his experiences
treating trauma victims–18 years ago, and today–in an interview on
Armenia TV’s "Hotline" program, from which the following is excerpted.
The interview was conducted on November 9, 2006.
PAUL CHADERJIAN: How did you start your work in Armenia?
DR. LOUIS NAJARIAN: Because I was a psychiatrist who spoke Armenian, I
was invited to Gyumri and to Spitak twice just to do crisis
intervention treatment. But then in 1990, the United States, through
the Agency for International Development (USAID), offered a grant for
somebody to go and train local psychiatrists and psychologists. I went
and lived in Gyumri with a family in a domik [a shipping container
used as shelter] for a year, and we established two clinics in Gyumri
and in Spitak to train local people. For the last 18 years, they have
been providing outstanding mental health treatment to the children and
their families. What we also did at that time was a considerable
amount of research on treating posttraumatic stress disorder. And
following September 11 in New York and following the research we’ve
done, it’s been the basis for trauma treatment around the world.
CHADERJIAN: What is trauma, and how have Armenians dealt with the
trauma of genocide?
NAJARIAN: Trauma is any attack on a person, whether it’s physical or
mental, when the person is left helpless. There are basically three
categories. It can be a natural disaster like a flood, a hurricane or
an earthquake. It could be accidental like the plane crash that we had
in Sochi this year. And they can be manmade. Manmade is war, rape, any
kind of assault when life is threatened. It has to be life-threatening
to qualify for posttraumatic stress disorder.
Now, what we have in our people from the Genocide is the fact that it
has not been recognized, has not been allowed closure. We have
followed and studied families in New York, where the trauma of the
Genocide for the survivors was not resolved. Mostly because Armenian
people generally don’t talk. They don’t express themselves
emotionally. They keep it all inside and as result of that, the first
generation, my grandparents, who survived the Genocide passed on the
trauma to the next generation.
The psychological helplessness of the unresolved issues, the trauma
that they were attacked, that they were helpless and that they
couldn’t protect themselves: that finds its way into one’s
personality, and it ends up leaving several results. Some people
become very passive, some people become inappropriately aggressive.
If you remember back to the 1970s and the 80s, when some Armenians
were going around killing diplomats out of frustration–that’s one way
to deal with the trauma. Another way is my way. I’ve contributed and
devoted my professional life to work through this trauma. Another
important way for the people, for the Armenian nation, wherever they
are, is for the recognition to bring closure. Until that happens,
there won’t be closure in the traumas that have been passed on from
generation to generation.
CHADERJIAN: How do you help trauma victims?
NAJARIAN: Well, here’s one example. The parents or grandparents would
say, "As e mer paghte," or, "This is our fate," because there was the
Genocide and then the earthquake. It becomes part of an expectation.
What you have to do is help children express their feelings, express
their frustration, and find choices. The key word in our work is to
choose, to have choices, to accept what you can’t change.
In Gyumri, we had to tell some of the people, "Walk to work a
different way; don’t look at the same destroyed buildings; look at
some different ones. Any difference will help resolve that, but
ultimately to be able to express it, to be able to draw out their
feelings, we use art therapy, we use play therapy.
One very important game is called "the earthquake game." The children
would make a building in their backyard, then they would knock it
down. They would turn what happened to them passively into a kind of
activity. The grandparents would say, "Don’t do that; forget about
it!" We’d say, No let them do it, let them play it out. They’re
expressing actively what happened to them passively. That’s one way of
working it out.
I’ll give you another example from the Genocide. I have a good friend,
one of whose parents was saved by Turks, the other parent saved by
Armenians. He was in conflict. He became extremely wealthy
financially, and created an institute to study the Armenian genocide.
This was his way. He has a wonderful program of 15 to 20 graduate
students (some even from Turkey), who come to study genocide, whether
it’s in Africa, wherever it is. That is another way. And that’s how
people can resolve issues around trauma.
CHADERJIAN: How long is the usual course of treatment?
Najarian: We have come to learn that it takes six to eight brief
sessions. That’s brief therapy. In six 45- to 50-minute sessions, we
can resolve the traumatic issues.
Now, you may say, How can you do that? Well, it’s a method that’s been
established for identifying and dealing with the recurrences, the
nightmares, and then helping people go through the process that
resolves a traumatic reaction. If a person had previous emotional
problems, the sessions won’t resolve those problems. That then goes
into more traditional psychotherapy–a talking treatment, not
medicine–which our staff has learned to do very well, and they do it
very well in Yerevan, too. We’re very please with the progress over
the years.
CHADERJIAN: Explain your work. What is it that you have learned? And
how is it that psychiatry itself can benefit from your experience, to
help treat other past or future trauma survivors?
NAJARIAN: Well, we’ve developed a method to treat trauma. We treat it
in a brief way–in a very active, engaging way–and the best thing I
can convey to you is that we’ve learned. I was not a trauma
specialist. I came to Armenia because I spoke Armenian and wanted to
work in the homeland. That was the main reason. It was repaying the
debt of my grandparents, with whom I once lived.
Many other things have happened since then. As you know, there was an
outpouring of aid and help around the time of the earthquake. There
was a honeymoon response from the world, especially from the United
States. Eventually, over the subsequent 3 or 4 years, that interest
subsided for many reasons.
There was a new interest in helping in a different way, in partnering.
I’m involved on the boards of a couple of private organizations, one
being the Children of Armenia Fund. The main focus is children in
education, because we see the future of this country is children. I
can tell you, but when I lived in Armenia for a year, I learned that
the only people we would work with and try to train had to be under 30
years old. If they were over 30, they were already in some other
system, and they didn’t want to learn a new one. Those people under 30
are now 40 to 45. They’re in the foundation: those are the people we
work with now. The others, they were friendly. We went and ate with
them, we went drank with them, they taught us how to drink, but they
weren’t going to learn anything new. The new ones were young and
hungry to learn.
Now the new phase that I’ve been involved with is partnering. People
are still interested in children, and this Children of Armenia Fund is
a relatively new organization, whose focus is to provide services for
children but also to train people to provide those services and to
work in the villages. It’s part of rural development. We work by
ourselves in the villages. I’ll give an example, because we just
finished one village in Karakert, which has about 5,000 people and
about 1,200 children. With a little bit of money of our own, maybe
half a million dollars of our own foundation, we partnered with USAID,
the United Nations developmental project, and the World Bank. We went
in and taught the mayor how to govern his village. We helped renovate
a furniture factory. There are eight people now making furniture and
selling it. The two schools that we renovated bought the furniture
form the furniture factory. We donated $10,000 to the dziran (apricot)
plant. We got the irrigated water, and now they’re farming the apricot
plants. Now we’ve finished in that village. We’ve moved on to the next
village, but the focus is for children and to teach people how to
govern and to do it themselves.
This is a model, and the UN sees it as a model in Kosovo, in Bosnia,
and in other disaster places. At the same time, we’re doing research
on these children who have been traumatized. And in a place like
Darfur, where 200,000 people have been displaced, our method will be
beneficial to them, and we’re prepared to use it and transfer it all
from this little country of Armenia.
CHADERJIAN: What can diasporans suffering from posttraumatic stress
disorder, anxiety, or depression, do to improve their mental health?
NAJARIAN: What the population can do is become engaged, become active.
Whether it’s through the church, or one of the cultural or social or
political organizations, there are many activities to engage you, and
the way to work it through is to get engaged and active.
CHADERJIAN: How can someone know if he or she is suffering from
trauma? Is there any type of behavior that should be noted?
NAJARIAN: Well, aside from the usual mental-health functioning, are
you happy with your work? I can give you one phrase. They asked the
master Sigmund Freud "What’s normal?" He said, "That’s easy: it’s to
love and work." That’s normal.
So if you engage with relationships with people and you can
work–enjoy your work, and not hurt anybody–that’s normal. If you
suffer from anxiety or depression or withdrawal or apathy, that
requires some evaluation. With Armenian matters in particular, if a
person finds himself in the Armenian community, and they’re reading
one of the papers, or they’re watching one of the television programs,
and everything they say is critical; or if they feel apathy towards
everything–that’s a signal. They should look a little deeper into
themselves. Why are they withdrawing? Why are they not engaged in
something? You have to find one area to be engaged in as part of you
identity, and every Armenian has their identity.
CHADERJIAN: And if you’re NOT engaged, is that a sign of something?
NAJARIAN: It is a sign of something. And I’m not saying that it’s a
specific diagnosis, but I’m saying it’s a sign of something. If a
person feels Armenian, but can’t engage with anything Armenian, there
must be some reason for that, and I would encourage the person to look
into that.
There were many examples of such people when we first came with the
volunteers after the 1988 earthquake. People came out of the woodwork
and volunteered for our program. Most of them did very good work.
About 10 percent did not. Who were they? Those were the people who
basically had lost their identity. They got involved in the wider
community, but had nothing to do with Armenians. They felt the
earthquake was an opportunity to come back, but they were paralyzed.
If a person is disconnected, there are reasons for that. They may be
involved somehow in Armenian stuff–they go to church, go to a dance
or some social function, they see the television–but they’re critical
and complain about it, and stay away. They’re detached. They’re not
engaged. There’s some unresolved issue about their Armenian identity,
and most likely it’s something they inherited somehow.
CHADERJIAN: So they’re continuing in that role of a victim?
NAJARIAN: Exactly. And I would say, use that as a signal to look into
yourself, because you can resolve it.
********************************************* ******************************
4. Your backstage pass to the Armenia Fund Telethon
By Paul Chaderjian (exclusive to the "Armenian Reporter")
@ 6:04 a.m., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day (November 23) 2006, California
The elevator’s dull bell dings and its gold-polished brass doors part
to reveal the glamorous Arsinée Khanjian. The award-winning actress,
celebrated for her leading roles in Atom Egoyan’s mainstream and art
films, steps out, ready for her close up and ready to raise $15
million during the Thanksgiving Day Hayastan All-Armenian Fund
international telethon. Waiting for the
Canadian-Hollywoodian-Lebanese-Armenian actress – a cross between
Isabella Rosellini and Juliette Binoche – is a panic-stricken driver
named Vartan. The immigrant from Armenia doesn’t care who’s who in the
group of hosts gathered in the lobby; he just knows he has to deliver
the talent to the studio by 6:30 a.m. He knows there is a rehearsal
before the 8:00 opening of the 12-hour fundraiser, and he’s been hired
to get the talent to the studio on time…
@ 1:35 p.m., Sunday, October 16, 2005, Karabakh
One year earlier, and a world away, in the northernmost remote hills
of the Armenian Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, Valentine, a widow in
her late 30s, is walking with empty buckets to the nearest source of
clean water. Valentine lives with her two kids in the village of
Gishan, north of Stepanakert. Her husband was killed when he was
fighting to liberate this region of Karabakh from Azerbaijan. Her only
source of income is her late husband’s pension of $40 a month. Her
only source of water is a faucet about a 10-minute walk from her home.
"This is no condition to live in," she says. "If they would help me,
please help. I don’t know how to live on 15,000 drams a month. I don’t
how to feed my children. Take me away from this place. This is no
condition." Valentine doesn’t hide the fact that if she had the means
to leave Karabakh, she would. Not only does she have to live without
running water at home, but her house is also falling apart. When it
rains, the roof leaks and the paint and stucco on her brick walls
crumble with the slightest touch.
@ 6:35 a.m., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, California
Thousands of miles away and a year later, southbound on Brand Avenue
in Glendale, in the beige SUV delivering the hosts to the Glendale
Studios, the driver Vartan asks me if I work with Sarkis Kotanjian for
the Armenia Fund. I say no and that I am a volunteer and work for
Armenia TV. He asks whether I work with Artak Herikian, who is also
hosting. I say, no, Artak works for Armenian State Television, H1; H1
is a different television network, and we are all volunteers. He is
puzzled. "I forgot my notes," says Arsinée. The index cards she
carefully prepared for the telethon have been left in her room on the
15th floor. Someone needs to go and retrieve them before eight
o’clock. I check to see if I have my notes in my pocket. My notes are
there. My cheat sheets. With facts and figures about the 160 million
dollars the Fund has raised in 15 years, notes about the thousand
projects it has completed, the trivia about the north-south highway it
has built in Karabakh, the lifeline highway through the Lachin
corridor linking Artsakh to Armenia, the hospitals it has renovated,
the scholarships it has handed out, the apartment buildings it has
built in the earthquake region, the ambulances it bought for the
Martakert region. All this work of nation-building through the
diligent fundraising of its 20 affiliates around the world.
@ 9:35 p.m., Friday, October 14, 2005, Stepanakert
The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh president’s first assistant, Eduard
Atanesyan, is leading me, my cameraman, and our driver up the stairs
to President Arkady Ghoukasian’s office. We are here to interview him
about Martakert and find out why it’s important for diasporans to
support the redevelopment of the region. I know the answer. We need to
stop the depopulation. But I need him to give me the sound bites with
which I can tell the story. "Martakert has both cultural and historic
significance in Armenian history," says the President. "The region was
also one of the most agriculturally productive areas in the former
Soviet Union. When irrigation systems, roads, and commerce were at
their peak, the region was home to hundreds of acres of vineyards,
produced wheat, fruits, and vegetables for regional consumption, and
had the best grazing land for livestock." The Martakert region
suffered the greatest amount of damage during the Karabakh liberation
war between 1991 and 1992. The region was occupied and pillaged. The
11,000-square-mile region was home to more than 42,000 Armenians
before the war. Some 40 percent of the homes were destroyed. A few
thousand of them are still being used, but they lack necessities like
running water. Now, there are only about 19,000 residents. With
virtually nothing in the way of roads, jobs, or income. There is
precious little to keep residents there.
@ 6:45 a.m., Thanksgiving Day 2006, Southern California
We hug. I ask her about her kids and whether she saw them off to their
camping trip when she got home late from the dress rehearsal. She
tries not to reveal her sadness and says the kids have already left.
Rehearsal at two was supposed to have been done by four; we hadn’t
left the studio until seven. Her name is Alina. Alina Dorian. Dr.
Alina Dorian. We are positioned next to each other, often called the
Dynamic Duo, and for four years now, we are paired up to pitch during
the Telethon as a team. We are standing in front of a green wall as a
technician adjusts the lights above to make sure we are well lit
during the show. There are strips of masking tape marking the spot
from where we cannot budge. Dr. Dorian is a modern-day fedayee. What
else can I call her? A professor of public health and disasters, a
mother of three sons, the woman who wrote the Republic of
Nagorno-Karabakh’s national health plan, and the diasporan scientist
whose vision for a free clinic in Stepanakert materialized last summer
after dozens of trips to Karabakh, after taking vacation time from
work and leaving her kids behind for weeks at a time. During the show,
the huge green wall behind us will look like a television or movie
screen. Through the magic of computers, the audience at home will not
see the green, but will see American and Armenian flags, video of
Armenians constructing the north-south highway, scenes of the millions
who gathered in Armenia demanding independence back in the late 1980s,
the raising of the Armenian flag in Republic Square, the economic
blockade, the severe winters in the early 1990s when the population
had no electricity, no food, and little hope. Then we’ll see the
progress, the formation of the Armenia Fund, deliveries of
humanitarian assistance, the orphanages that were given heaters, the
schools that were remodeled, and the highways that were built. Dr.
Dorian in front of a computer-generated Armenian flag is the perfect
image with which to demonstrate to the young people watching, the
young volunteers, and the generations to come the idea that fedayees
NOW – modern-day, 21st-century Armenian fedayees – fight with
intellect and education.
@ 2:00 p.m., Tuesday, May 2, 2006, Martakert
It’s been six months since the telethon that raised nearly $8 million
for the Martakert redevelopment plan, and I’m on a two-day road trip
with representatives of the Western Region of the Armenia Fund. We are
here to unveil the plans developed by architects in Los Angeles for
how to renovate the aging and rundown hospital. Tenders have been
announced, bids have been received, and contractors are being hired by
the Yerevan office. Now, a massive water-pipeline project is under
construction to bring drinking water from natural springs in the
mountains to the city of Martakert and other nearby villages, and four
new ambulances are serving the population of the region. There are
also acres upon acres of land being tilled and planted by Martakert
farmers, thanks to more than a dozen new tractors. In addition to the
machinery, farmers have received expert help from scientists, have
been given wheat seeds, and have hope of bringing to market some of
their produce this year on the roads constructed by the Fund.
@ 7:00 a.m., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale
Another hug. More hellos. Salpi Ghazarian is in the make-up chair. I’m
waiting my turn. She has traveled from Yerevan for one day to
participate in the Telethon. We need clones of Salpi, I say, because
she’s not only an advisor to the foreign minister, but she’s also a
journalist, a librarian – the most articulate, bilingual, well-read,
and get-it-done person I know. My mother and Salpi happened to sit
next to each other at a teachers’ conference in 1989. I was a producer
at the Disney Channel, and she was on a committee that was about to
launch a weekly television program for the Armenian National Committee
in Los Angeles. Mothers boast about their sons and soon Salpi had my
number to get an Armenian not involved in the Armenian community to
help his people launch a television show. In 1998 when I had strayed
away and was reporting drive-by shootings in Fresno, Salpi assigned me
to go to Yerevan for the first time and write about the Presidential
elections. In 2003, she recommended me when the Cafesjian Family
Foundation needed someone with Western media experience to work with
its television station in Yerevan. For the next 13 hours, Salpi,
Arsinée, and the others have to communicate what we know while studio
technicians, Executive Producer Ara Madzounian, and nearly 200
volunteers create a television event with cameras, microphones, and a
few pre-taped reports from Karabakh. This year, the focus is on the
southern Karabakh region of Hadrut. The collective team, all from
various careers, countries, and subcultures, will create an
unprecedented event, a global connection between Armenians in all the
remote corners of the world, in the homeland, in the diaspora, via
television, cable, satellite, radio, and the Internet. This wasn’t
possible 10 years ago, but now it’s the Information Age. Everyone can
be a filmmaker; everyone can produce a television show. Cameras are
cheap, computers can edit, and thousands of cable channels are hungry
for material. On this day, this annual Thanksgiving tradition since
Armenia’s independence, Armenians who know something about television
have gathered to use their skills to raise money for the homeland,
specifically for the Hadrut region in southern Karabakh, and to
validate the essence of cultural unity. Telethon 2006 will also create
and reaffirm the psychological ties that bind all members of the small
tribe of people known as Armenians.
@ 2:05 p.m., Saturday, October 15, 2005, Stepanakert
There are landmine warning signs as we drive through the muddy trail
that is supposed to be a road. We are heading to Martakert to shoot a
couple of stories for Armenia TV, and I promise myself not to return
here until the north-south highway is fully constructed. I’m carsick
and my cameraman and driver won’t stop smoking. It was a six-hour
drive from Yerevan to Stepanakert, and now there is another two-hour
drive to Martakert. The cameraman doesn’t understand why I am dragging
him here. He doesn’t understand the curse of the diaspora, the
psychological price one pays for the amenities, the clean bathrooms,
the paved roads, the isolation of being an outsider, the longing for a
homeland, a place to belong. This region is like an island: a place
that time forgot, that war ravaged, and that left its remaining
citizens without hope. The plan to rebuild Martakert through the
upcoming Telethon 2005 includes a massive redevelopment plan, created
by experts in their fields. Scientists, academics, planners, and
social workers put their heads together to come up with a
multi-pronged program that includes road improvement projects, the
creation of new roads to connect rural villages with bigger cities,
the building of new schools, a gas and water distribution system,
agricultural irrigation systems, the establishment of regional and
central health care clinics and hospitals, and even minute details
like job training, counseling and giving repatriates hard currency for
coming back to the area and for having children. The biggest issues
were basic needs like water and health care. If a villager were to
need emergency medical service here, his or her only hope would be to
stay alive until reaching the hospital in Stepanakert, because the
area has no medical emergency response system. If it was winter or the
roads were muddy and not maneuverable, a heart attack could mean
death, a woman in a complicated labor could see the loss of a child, a
mother, or both. "If someone has an emergency, your neighbor is your
nearest hospital," says a farmer whom I interview on our way up to
Martakert the following morning.
@ 8:00 a.m., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale Studios
…3 …2 …1 …and Hrair Sarkissian, the floor director, cues the talent to talk.
We’re on live. No going back. No room for mistakes. The message has to
be clear. The unscripted words have to be concise, to the point. What
are we saying and why are we saying it; we have to know before the red
light on the camera comes on and Hrair gives us the cue. There is
panic at the phone banks. Thirty thousand names transferred from the
European phone-a-thon have crashed the server connecting the 60
operators fielding calls from prospective donors. The teenagers who
were chosen from a pool of 500 applicants, who trained on the system
weeks ahead of the Telethon, who are all wearing their white "I [a
pomegranate with a heart shape inside] Armenia" t-shirts can’t record
the calls they are receiving in the computer. The system has crashed
and the cyber-experts are trying to fix the problem. What may seem
like chaos for an outsider is nothing but the controlled chaos of live
television production. Computers don’t work, but there is a back-up
plan. Armenia Fund Western Region executives keep the kids motivated,
animated, and on task. Without computers, with calls coming in, with a
live television show underway on the same stage, the collective
anxiety attack from malfunctioning hardware is resolved with human
software – pens and paper, just as it was planned. And about that
pomegranate on the Telethon 2006 logo. Clever. Helena Gregorian
designed this year’s campaign and logo. She designed last year’s
campaign as well. "I always felt that the noor (pomegranate) was a
prominent symbol of our culture," she says. "It also symbolizes
fertility and life and was something that no matter where you where in
the world or your age, as an Armenian you could identify and
understand it. When I was given the direction that they were looking
for – ‘Seerom em eem yergire’ or ‘I love the homeland’ – I thought
about this for a good while. Once I looked at the final concept, I
thought, How could it be anything else?"
@ 7:25 p.m., Saturday, November 4, 2006, Martakert Regional Hospital
A year has passed since the 2005 telethon, and four brand-new
ambulances are now serving the Martakert Regional Hospital and nearly
20 thousand residents in the area. The Waas brand four-wheel drive
vehicles are equipped with state-of-the-art emergency medical care
technology. From cardiopulmonary resuscitation equipment to emergency
care medication, the ambulance is serving the population of Martakert,
not only responding to emergencies, but also bringing women in labor
to the hospital from remote villages some 35 miles away and also
reaching out to rural communities with monthly house-call visits. The
shift doctor on this Saturday night is actually excited about the idea
of going out with the ambulance. For a man who has had to sit in a
20-year-old Ford when responding to an emergency, riding a real
ambulance is like being on an E-ticket ride in Disneyland. Having real
equipment and a real ambulance with which to treat his patients is
something this gray-haired physician could have never imagined after
years of hardship at this hospital.
@ 8:55 a.m., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Southern California
The server remains crashed. The volunteers on the phones are writing
down donors’ names on pieces of paper. Rock and Roll. What else can
they do?
On stage two is the star of the year, Andre. I introduce him, Andre,
last name unknown, a Karabakhtsi who represented Armenia at the
EuroVision talent show with his song "Without Your Love." His
controversial video featuring a priest professing his love to a woman
in red upset the Catholicos, and Andre became a pop idol overnight.
Take 2: Andre was chosen by State Television as Armenia’s
representative at the Eurovision Song Contest. With his hip look and
his way-too-pop tune, Andre beat our nearly two dozen other acts to
win 8th place in the concert. A huge number of votes came from Turkey.
Today, he is performing "Mi Bood Choor," a song asking for a drop of
water from the homeland. In his talk after the song, Andre asks
viewers and his fans to call in this time and vote with their dollars
and to vote for Armenia Fund and for Karabakh.
@ 3:30 p.m., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale
Two young boys who wanted to raise money for Armenia sold lemonade in
front of their house. Their parents brought their earnings and them to
the studio: $101. There is applause. A younger generation learning
about giving, learning about the idea of cultural preservation, the
homeland. Across the stage is Harut Sassounian, longtime community
leader, activist, writer. He is here on behalf of Kirk Kerkorian’s
Lincy Foundation, and he is about to make an announcement that Mr.
Kerkorian is going to give the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund another $2
million.
@ 9:17 a.m., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Southern California
Pulses of light travel thousands of miles, carrying images and sound
of things Armenian through a vast network of fiber, up into space,
through space age satellites and down through cable television control
rooms, over-the-air antennas, broadcast stations and cable networks.
The light-speed communication makes it possible for the hosts to talk
live with Kevork Toroyan, who is in a studio in Boston. More live
connections are ahead with Paris, Yerevan, Buenos Aires and Moscow. In
a studio in the region where the first Armenian is said to have
arrived in the New World in 1618, the chairman of the East Coast
affiliate of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund talks about the dozens of
agricultural experts he has taken to Martakert and Stepanakert this
year. He speaks of the countless hours of grassroots fundraising his
organization makes a yearly reality to benefit the homeland. Thanks to
the efforts of the East Coast office this year, the penetration of the
electronic signals broadcasting the Thanksgiving Thursday Telethon has
increased into even more homes east of the Mississippi, and for longer
stretches of time. A text message appears on my cell phone, and it’s
from Houri Vartanian on California’s Central Coast. "Looking good,"
she writes. "Energetic. U R great." I know that our images are
electrons flowing through the airwaves, radio frequencies, 0’s and 1’s
on people computers, and I’m wondering if anyone is watching the web
stream on their cell phones. I’m sure in time we’ll be even more
connected. More than we are during these 12 hours.
@ 11:25 a.m., Saturday, October 15, 2005, Stepanakert
I’m interviewing Michel Tankrez, who is the representative of the
Hayastan All-Armenian Fund in Nagorno-Karabakh. He tells me that one
of the initiatives being proposed to help repopulate the border
regions in the Republic is a $5,000 allowance for newlyweds. Couples
who choose to get married would be given $5,000, and these loans would
be forgiven if couples were to have three babies within six years of
their marriage. Each child born would translate to a $1,000 credit,
and the entire loan would be dismissed if the newlyweds had three
children. The Armenia Fund is also considering given repatriates $500
to $1,000 in an attempt to lure former residents of the region back.
Tankrez says the dollar amount would be adjusted if there are
newborns, or depending on the number of family members.
@ 11:30 a.m., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale Studios
Nune Yesayan, dubbed by the media as Armenia’s ambassador of song,
takes the Telethon stage to perform Sayat Nova. She has just returned
from a tour in South America, and she as well as the host introducing
her know that her fans down south are watching her performance.
Musician Armen Mardirossian, the man who composed the theme of the
2006 Telethon, is accompanying her on the piano.
@ 11:35 a.m., Saturday, October 15, 2005, Stepanakert
The interview continues on the main street of Stepanakert. Michel is
talking about issues the population of Martakert, Hadrut, and other
remote parts of Karabakh are facing. The Soviet-era factories are
gone, and people don’t have the skills to take up specialties like
animal husbandry or agribusiness. Previously, the area was home to
factories, timber mills, flour mills, and vineyards. Now the residents
of the area have to be retrained because those factory jobs are gone.
And there is more. These regions have a great need for communication
infrastructure. There is one paper in the city of Martakert, but
outlying areas have no communication with the center of the region.
Right now, all that Armenians in the region can watch and listen to
are broadcasts from across the border, 24-hours-a-day of Azeri TV, 24
hours a day of Azeri radio, Azeri music, Azeri news, Azeri fashion,
Azeri culture and Azeri dramas. No other choice. No other options.
However, the government has plans for television and radio broadcasts
and wants to connect all the villages to the Internet.
@ 11:49 a.m., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Southern California
Another text message appears on my cell phone from my colleague Armine
Amiryan in Armenia. It reads, "You are great. I am proud of you.
Everyone is speaking about you." Along with the text message comes
news that the server is working, and people from Australia, Dubai,
Russia, the Middle East, and across the U.S. are making online
donations using their credit cards. Bits and bytes are bringing
Armenians together.
@ 6:34 p.m., Wednesday, May 3, 2006, Goris-Stepanakert Highway
Deep Canyons, picturesque valleys, and green fields are the essence of
Nagorno, or Mountainous, Karabakh. From Armenia, the shortest and
safest road is the Hayastan All-Armenia Fund highway through the
Lachin Corridor, a road that has been the metaphoric and literal
connection between the diaspora, the Republic of Armenia, and the
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. "I’m grateful to our diaspora who stood
behind us during the independence movement and during the liberation
war," says Ghoukasian. "And together we have already solved many
problems. The proof is in the road that you took to reach Stepanakert.
That’s the Goris-Stepanakert highway. It was built by the means of the
diaspora and there is now a very important symbolic move – that which
links Karabakh to Yerevan and to the diaspora." President Arkady
Ghoukasian says he is convinced that without the diaspora and without
Armenia, it would have been difficult for Karabakh to have its big
victory on the battlefield. And today, the President says, without
Armenia and the diaspora, it would be difficult to ensure Karabakh’s
economic development.
@ 1:45 p.m., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale
On the air is a segment produced by the students of the AGBU’s
Demirjian-Manoukian school. These passionate teens have been working
all year to raise money for Armenia Fund. They have held walk-a-thons,
car washes, bake sales, and even a fashion show. Penny on penny,
dollar by dollar, their laborious projects have added up to… drum
roll please… 117 thousand dollars.
@ 6:36 p.m., Wednesday, May 3, 2006, Goris-Stepanakert Highway
We’re racing back to Yerevan’s Zvarnotz airport to welcome Mark
Geragos. He’s been named to the Board of Trustees of the Hayastan
All-Armenian Fund, and he is arriving in Armenia for the annual board
meeting. The famed attorney’s arrival in the homeland comes on the
same day that Armenia is mourning the crash of Armavia Flight 967 into
the Black Sea. In the days following the crash, Armenia Fund announces
a $25,000 donation to the families of the victims. The news of the
crash has a numbing affect – especially on a day when the staff of the
Martakert Regional Hospital celebrated the launch of the hospital’s
renovation project. The hospital has exchanged hands several times,
and it is where the victims of the liberation war received life-saving
treatment. Before news of the crash came, hundreds had gathered for
the unveiling of the architectural plans that will mean running water
inside surgery rooms, patient rooms no longer having to be heated with
wood fires, modern x-ray machines, and four new ambulances.
@ 4:30 p.m., Thursday, November 23, 2006, Glendale Studios
Isaac and Vartan Voskanian are standing in front of the Armenia Fund
banner that features a prominent pomegranate between the letter "I"
and the word "Artsakh." The Voskanian family donated $10,000 in 2005
to help pay for one of the ambulances serving Martakert. This year
they are making a $25,000 donation to buy another ambulance for the
Hadrut region. Freida Voskanian (Arby’s mother, Isaac’s wife) is at
home, watching as she prepares the family’s Thanksgiving dinner. The
four ambulances cost the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund more than
$100,000. They were purchased by donations made during the 2005
Telethon. Emergency care was only one of the multi-level assistance
programs. In addition to health care, the Martakert Redevelopment
Program focused on water. "First and foremost is our need for water,"
says one farmer. "There is water in the region, and plenty of it. The
Tartar River flows nearby and takes the ample resource north to
Azerbaijan. If our people could have water, they could plant crops.
They could get rich. And the government could get rich, and all the
roads could be constructed."
@ 2:35 p.m., Sunday, October 16, 2005, Stepanakert
In an open parcel of land in the middle of the capital city, young men
and women are learning how to unearth and defuse mines. Landmines are
a daily threat for people in the region, and the Armenia Fund is
helping a non-governmental agency, HALO Trust, work daily to continue
mine-clearing operations. Hovik Chaparian, my cameraman, videotapes
the trainees as they use metal detectors to locate the replicas of
explosives, and dig the dirt as if there were real bombs buried there.
They wear protective masks and shrapnel-proof vests; but kids playing
in the fertile and mined open fields of Karabakh, and farmers who want
to grow crops, are not protected. Most don’t even know the danger
right under their feet. According to HALO Trust, six bombs exploded
from January up until this day in October 2005. Two people were killed
as a result and six others were wounded. The most recent explosion
happened in the village of Chankatakh, where a 13- year-old boy
discovered a mine and pulled the ring of the grenade without knowing
what it was. In 2004, 25 mines exploded, killing 10 people and
injuring 32. In 2003, there were 25 accidents. Nine killed, 27
wounded. The government says a majority of the explosions happen when
people are tilling the soil for harvest, while others happen because
of carelessness.
@ 7:45 a.m., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale Studios
Maria Mehranian, chief financial officer for a multimillion-dollar
engineering corporation and chairwoman of the Western Region Armenia
Fund, is practicing reading the teleprompter. She is delivering the
opening message to thousands of viewers from New York to Los Angeles,
from Yerevan to Australia. Dozens of terrestrial broadcast stations,
cable networks, satellite channels, and the Internet will be taking
her message to a wide demographic of non-Armenians, European
Armenians, American-Armenians, and people in Stepanakert and the
villages of Karabakh, where the people who fought in the liberation
struggle have dedicated their lives to their ancestral homeland and
the region that gave birth to the Mashdotz alphabet. "The letters
scrolling on the prompter are too fast," says Mehranian. "It’s fast
then slows down. There are too many gaps in between the sentences."
@ 1:15 p.m., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale Studios
On stage introduces Nune Yesayan, her former voice teacher, jazz
legend Tatevik Hovanisian, and musical prodigy Tigran Hamasyan. Nune
has sold out concert halls all over the world. From Lincoln Center in
New York to the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, from the Kodak
in Hollywood to the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, from the Karen
Demirdjian Complex (known as the Hamaleer) to the Opera. She’s a pop
icon with media mentions in the "L.A. Times" and "New York Times,"
CNN, the "Boston Globe," and the paper you are now reading. Across
from her is a modern-day jazz legend, Datevik Hovanisian. She’s
performed with a Who’s Who of the jazz world, recorded hundreds of
songs, performed on stage, on television, and on movie soundtracks.
>From PBS to BET, she’s been everywhere and was once dubbed "the first
lady of Jazz" in the Soviet Union. Did I forget to mention that her
musical genes come from father and mother? The latter happened to be
Ophelia Hambartsumian, the renowned master of Armenian folk songs.
Behind the keyboard is a 20-year-old USC student who can only be
described as a child prodigy. This year, the Thelonious Monk Institute
of Jazz presented Hamasyan with its First Place award in the
International Jazz Piano Competition. The honor two months before the
Telethon came to a kid from Gyumri who began to play the piano at the
age of 10. Since then, he has performed around the world at concerts,
festivals, and competitions, winning First Prize at the Monaco Jazz
Soloist Competition. In a rare performance, these three legends in
their own rights came together for one cause, the Hayastan
All-Armenian Fund, and the music they made together was magic. The pop
star, the jazz legend, and the child prodigy, on one stage, at the
same time, connecting three different worlds, three different
histories, and thousands of homes throughout Armenia and the Armenian
diaspora. "We are all connected," says Madzounian. "The collaboration
was something that had never been tried, and that moment in the
Telethon was a rare and precious moment. It would probably never
happen again."
@ 4:45 p.m., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale Studios
Another panic attack. Another rare moment that everyone hopes will
never happen again. The switcher in the second floor control room is
on the fritz. When Madzounian tells the technical director which one
of the cameras on the stage he wants to route through to millions of
homes, the buttons on the switcher don’t respond. "It was a total
nightmare through the end of the show," Madzounian says, reflecting on
the experience. "This was the biggest challenge during the Telethon
and one of the reasons live programs are more difficult to produce."
Production staffer Harut Arakelian gathers up backup tapes that would
air in case of an emergency like the switcher completely going dark.
For the next four hours, the panic mode continues, Ara and his control
room staff not knowing whether they have control of the show or not.
"The challenge is not creating the errors for the viewer," says
Madzounian, "and it’s hard to have a seamless program when you are
sitting in the control room and the only means of communication with
the hundreds of people coming in and out of the studio are headsets.
You have no total control of how the floor is managed, and donors and
school kids’ excitement coming in and coming down, trying to make
their donations is quite a challenge to handle."
@ 12:30 a.m., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale Studios
A satellite connection links European Armenia Fund chairs to the hosts
in Los Angeles. On the video link are Bedros Terzian, head of the
French affiliate and Gilbert Momdjian, head of the German affiliate.
Terzian announces that the European Phone-a-Thon campaign raised more
than $1.5 million. The newly formed German affiliate announces a
$60,000 donation. During the interview, audiences across the globe
watch footage of young European-Armenians on the phone, talking to
donors, recording pledges, and cheering when there are major
contributions.
@ 8:35 a.m., Sunday, October 16, 2005, Stepanakert
It’s Sunday Morning in Stepanakert. The market is slowly coming to
life with people who have come from the villages by bus or by car, but
even getting a parking spot here is tough. They are here to buy
lettuce, pick up some green onions, or eat some warm jingal bread,
which is dough mixed with 27 types of greens. The grapes attract only
the bees, but very few shoppers at this hour. For sale in the market
are lots of fruits and vegetables. The oranges are bright, and there
are plenty of red and green apples. But stone-faced women wait for
customers who are not there. A man carefully arranges the pomegranates
he has for sale. There are also the green, leafy godem greens and
yellow quinces. A resident who sees the camera kids that he needs to
be paid if we are going to videotape him. The fruit stands are ready
and the jingal bread has been baked and is cooling, the parsley
gathered, but little money is changing hands. There are bottles of oil
and wine, and there is even coffee ready for the employees. Outside
the market, yet more people doing business, sidewalks full of people
coming for fruits and vegetables, all to prepare their Sunday dinner.
And the talk that is heard over and over again is jobs, how to feed
the kids, the future of the republic, and how the people who put their
lives on the line will survive the economic struggles ahead.
@ 5:20 p.m., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale Studios
Young Tatevik, a radio personality in Fresno and newcomer to the
Telethon is rapping in Spanish. She’s talking with Buenos Aires and
Jorge Vartparonian, the chairperson of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund
office in Argentina.
@ 7:56 p.m., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale Studios
Creating the proper living conditions for residents of Karabakh was
this year’s top priority for the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund. The
decreasing population and decreasing growth rate are major challenges.
Giving the region a new lease on life means creating a whole new
infrastructure: roads, fuel distribution, delivering clean drinking
water, giving farmers ample irrigation water, building canals,
building schools and hospitals. And all this will be possible.
Donations continue to pour in, and we’ve already surpassed
13-and-a-half million dollars. We’re out of time – and Ara is ending
the show with this year’s theme song music video, "Yes, seerom em eem
yergire." There are hugs. Strangers who didn’t know each other prior
to the event are now best friends. Bonds are forged. Old bonds are
revived. We’ve created a community in the diaspora. We have empowered
the tribe called Armenians.
@ 8:55 p.m., Tuesday, November 28, 2006, Fresno
My Yahoo Messenger alerts me with a dull ding (déja vu) that I have an
e-mail. It’s from the Glendale Armenia Fund office, and it’s titled,
"Unprecedented $13.7 Million Pledged. Telethon 2006 Marks All Time
High, Breaks Records." I read more. The subhead says, "Armenia Fund
volunteers celebrating yet another successful Telethon." True, I say.
Feels pretty special to have been an extra on the Telethon set, to
have helped in some minute way for projects that will help change the
lives of those like Valentine and the countless others I may never
meet in my lifetime. I read the press release with the datelines of
Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Yerevan and smile. If Genocide was the
lemon, we’re making sweet lemonade. An anonymous PR guy is writing me
and thousands of others and telling us that Armenia Fund and its 20
international affiliates are pleased to announce that an unprecedented
$13.7 million was pledged internationally during various fundraising
events held across the world. Nice. "Armenia Fund’s ambitious drive to
raise critical assistance and funds for Nagorno-Karabakh concluded
with its 9th annual International Telethon," says the e-mail. I know
next year, I’m going to be pitching for 150 rural villages in Armenia.
The goal in 2007 will be to help eradicate poverty in rural Armenia.
I’m ready. Are you?
For photos, visit Photos by Helena Gregorian
*************************************** ************************************
5. News analysis: On a tightrope in the Caucasus: Russian-Georgian
relations and Armenia
by Vardan Grigoryan (Special to the "Armenian Reporter")
Russian-Georgian relations periodically deteriorate. They are
currently going through a tense interval.
Let us distinguish proximate causes from the fundamentals. On the one
hand, Russia this spring blocked imports of Georgian wine and mineral
water. On the other, Georgia in September made a big show of arresting
Russian special-services agents. Russia responded furiously. It closed
the land border between the two countries; it blocked all money
transfers to Georgia; and it expelled some 200 Georgians. These are
the proximate causes.
Russia continues to implement a variety of anti-Georgian measures. In
the political arena, Russia is going so far as to humiliate the
Georgian leadership. On November 28, at the summit of CIS leaders in
Minsk, according to eyewitnesses, President Vladimir Putin of Russia
simply refused to have a private meeting with President Mikhail
Saakashvili of Georgia, notwithstanding the fact that the sides,
through their foreign ministers, had agreed to a private meeting a
month earlier. Mr. Saakashvili, who makes no secret of his desire to
integrate Georgia into Europe politically, economically, and
militarily, would not have gone to Minsk were it not for the promise
of a private meeting with Mr. Putin. The Georgian leader was expected
to appeal for Russia to reconsider its decision to increase sharply
the price of gas sold to Georgia.
So much for proximate causes. The fundamental causes are even more
obvious. Mr. Saakashvili’s foreign and domestic policy directly
threatens Russia’s geopolitical position in the North Caucasus and
even its very presence in the Caucasus. What worries influential
political circles in Russia the most is Tbilisi’s aspiration to become
a full-fledged member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) – an aspiration openly encouraged by the United States. Political
and military experts agree that such a development would breathe new
life into radical (nationalistic and religious) groups in the North
Caucasus that seek independence from Russia. These concerns are not
baseless, though the Russians feed the fire out of their own
interests.
Georgia’s former president, Eduard Shevardnadze, walked on that same
tightrope for many years, extracting many political and economic
concessions from Russia. But the current situation is entirely
different. Saakashvili is not walking the tightrope; he is steadily
moving Georgia to the West, taking his country – and the whole of the
Caucasus – out of Russia’s sphere of influence, where it has rested for
some 200 years.
Russia’s Caucasus policy is to resist Georgia’s moves by openly
sponsoring rge breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Perhaps 90 percent of the people of these two unrecognized,
self-proclaimed republics have been granted Russian citizenship, on
the basis of which the Russian political elite speaks of defending the
interests of its fellow citizens. This is an implied ultimatum to the
Georgians: you are either with us or without your onetime territories.
The means for detaching the territories from Georgia and, naturally,
annexing them to Russia is also discussed: a referendum as to the
results of which there can be no doubt. President Putin and Defense
Minister Sergei Ivanov, responding to charges of neocolonialism,
lately announced: "Russia has no political or other issue with
Georgia. It is Georgia that has issues with Abkhazia and South
Ossetia."
It is no doubt a neat position but also a dangerous one. The Georgians
are well aware that even if they are obedient, those territories are
beyond their control. They may resort to extreme measures – military
action – and Russia will have no choice but to be drawn in.
Analysts, including those in Armenia, consider such developments
possible. They note that Georgia may, in this way, speed up its
integration into NATO and receive enormous economic and military aid
from the United States and Europe as a victim of "Russian aggression."
Russia cannot ignore this risk, as it will be discredited once and for
all in the international arena.
Sergei Markedonov, a leading scholar of ethnic relations based in
Moscow, has written and spoken of this risk on numerous occasions. All
the same, Moscow continues to press the Georgians and constantly warns
Georgia to avoid resorting to armed force to address ethnic issues. It
appears that the warnings are being heeded. President Saakashvili, to
everyone’s surprise, in October and November said several times that
Georgia is inclined to resolve the issues of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia through peaceful means alone – and he demoted his
administration’s most militarist member, Defense Minister Irakli
Okruashvili. Moreover, according to Russian sources, Mr. Saakashvili
is not entirely convinced that in case of armed conflict, the West
will come to Georgia’s aid. It is enough to recall that when Russia
recently proposed a United Nations resolution that was highly critical
of Georgia, it was accepted by the United States and European states
without any serious objections.
* * *
This state of Russian-Georgian relations cannot fail to concern
Armenian society. The situation affects Armenia directly and
seriously.
In the economic arena, Armenia’s land trading route with its largest
trading partner Russia has been interrupted. The political observer
Hovhannes Galajian says, "Russian-Georgian tension always has an
impact on Armenia since the closing of roads or energy channels to
Georgia, as experience has shown, hurts our country almost as much as
it hurts Georgia."
But Armenia finds itself in a complex situation politically as well.
Considering Armenia its only and last ally in the region, Moscow would
like to see a deterioration of Armenian-Georgian relations as well.
Konstantin Zatulin, the well-known Russian political scientist and
politician, was in Yerevan in October as a messenger of sorts. In one
of his public appearances, he said openly that the Armenian political
elite must once and for all choose sides and take an official
position – a negative one, of course – on Georgia’s anti-Russian policy.
The Armenian press has often written that Russian special services are
trying to create ethnic tension in Javakhk, a province of Georgia
inhabited primarily by Armenians, in order to drive a wedge between
Armenia and Georgia. Fortunately, the abovementioned "Armenian
political elite" is aware of the dangers inherent in these processes
and refrains from encouraging nationalist tendencies among Armenians
in Javakhk. Indeed, it seeks to discourage them. But in another issue,
that of making the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline a transit route for
Iranian gas to Georgia, the elite did not resist Russian pressure and
decided to forgo the very attractive economic promise of the pipeline
for political reasons.
The reason is clear, says Aram Sargsyan, leader of the opposition
Republic party. With the gas pipeline from Iran, Georgia could afford
to go without gas imports from Russia. Russia, utilizing all of its
leverage, made sure the pipeline dead-ends in Armenia and pressured
the Armenian government to sell a controlling stake in Armenia’s share
of the yet-to-be-built pipeline to the superpowerful Gazprom.
* * *
Vardan Grigoryan, a political analyst and, from 2000 to 2002,
Armenia’s deputy minister of education, was the editor of the
Russian-language weekly "Epokha" (Epoch).
**************************************** ***********************************
6. Editorial: The South Caucasus is too important to misunderstand
"The Economist’s" November 16 coverage on the South Caucasus generally
and Armenia specifically ("How Armenia Copes with its Isolation?") was
most welcome. Given that the region is the land bridge between
Greater Europe and Asia on its East-West axis and Greater Europe and
the Middle East on its North-South axis, the combustible South
Caucasus merits sustained media attention. With Russia, Turkey, and
Iran facing one another via this compact regional buffer of Armenia,
Azerbaijan, and Georgia, the issues that animate policies and actions
in the region are layered and complex. As the West has learned
painfully in Iraq, proceeding without a full understanding of historic
and contemporary local realities can be catastrophic for all
concerned.
Regrettably, reporting by prestigious newsmagazines such as "The
Economist" has been sporadic and not necessarily as informed as it
needs to be. This knowledge gap was not closed by "The Economist" with
its November 16 reporting.
"The Economist"’s explanation for robust and ongoing United States
support is inadequate. Such support cannot be attributed solely to
Armenian-American activism. More importantly, Armenia’s demonstrated
performance with fundamental market reforms is the determining
variable. Current, detailed and readily available reports, such as
the Wall Street Journal/Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic
Freedom that ranks Armenia 27th in the world (Turkey is 85th,
Azerbaijan 123d, and Georgia 68th), affirms that Armenia is a regional
leader in deep and irrevocable market reforms. Reports from the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund confirm the WSJ/Heritage
Foundation judgment. In keeping with this generally accepted
assessment of Armenia’s economic advances, the U.S. Millennium
Challenge Corporation (MCC) awarded Armenia with its first,
America-to-Armenia government-to-government grant. MCC makes such
grants competitively to nations that "rule justly, invest in people
and foster economic freedom". How was all of this not relevant to
"The Economist"’s explanation for Armenia’s economic performance?
"The Economist"’s account of the geostrategic lay of the land in the
South Caucasus failed to take into account one of the underlying
contributors to its combustibility: the face-off between territorial
integrity and self-determination. Without addressing the clash
between these equal international principles, one will fail to
comprehend how the South Caucasus conflicts can be resolved so that
its full potential can be realized. This is particularly important
for understanding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Karabakh is not, as
"The Economist" asserts, a former "province of Soviet Azerbaijan".
During the Soviet era, Karabakh was severed from Armenia and awarded
administratively to Azerbaijan as an autonomous oblast (region). Upon
the Soviet Union’s dissolution, Karabakh exercised the same legal
right to separate from Azerbaijan as did Azerbaijan in declaring its
independence. The war that ensued in response was launched by
Azerbaijan to forcibly absorb Karabakh. Ultimately, Azerbaijan failed
militarily. The people of Karabakh have democratically and peacefully
determined their destiny ever since.
Finally, "The Economist" fails to accurately reflect the status of the
OSCE-led Karabakh peace talks. By portraying Armenia and Azerbaijan
as equally bellicose, "The Economist" fails to take into account
recurring public threats by Azerbaijan’s president, defense minister,
and foreign minister to arm up with its petrodollar-fueled windfall in
order to unleash another military offensive if Azerbaijan not get what
it demands at the negotiating table. Armenia’s president, defense
minister, and foreign minister repeatedly assert that armed conflict
must be ruled out in favor of difficult compromises by both sides.
How were these stark differences missed by "The Economist"?
The growing international interest in the South Caucasus warrants
continuing, expert attention by the international media. We urge that
"The Economist" return to this topic with greater care.
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