Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Letter: Deceptive Calm In Nagorno-Karabakh

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Letter: Deceptive Calm In Nagorno-Karabakh

    LETTER: DECEPTIVE CALM IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH

    ISN
    Sept 1 2008
    Switzerland

    In the breakaway Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh inside Azerbaijan
    there is a feeling of short-term security and long-term dread.

    Image: WikipediaBy Ben Judah in Stepanakert for ISN Security Watch
    (01/09/08)

    Outside the Defense Ministry in Stepanakert, the capital of
    Nagorno-Karabakh, a dozen teenage conscripts, some barely over 17, are
    waiting for orders. Laughing and trying to sneak coffee or cigarettes
    into the base without being caught, they readily confess how lucky
    they feel.

    Intensely wary, like everyone I spoke to in the enclave, they asked
    for their names to be changed. Sergei knows he's lucky. "We are
    spending our days guarding the HQ; however, our friends are down at
    the frontlines. There is shooting everyday down there...you know...the
    volume goes up and down on the killing."

    Sergei translates for some of the other boys. One claims to have seen
    an Azeri troop build-up through his binoculars; others stress that
    the enemy is scared of their troops and is wary about attacking.

    I ask Sergei how many of the conscripts think there will be war
    within the next year. Of the group of 12 or so, two shake their
    heads. When I ask is if war will come "eventually," they all seem in
    agreement. Sergei tries to explain: "They cannot allow us to live on
    our land. When that happens what else can you do but fight?"

    Across the road from the Defense Ministry, a small building barely
    bigger than a large post office houses the Foreign Ministry. A senior
    official who refused to disclose his name gave me a curt briefing on
    the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.

    He sits before a map of the Caucasus showing six carefully drawn out
    states. Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh are all displayed
    in this cartography as sovereign and equal alongside Armenia, Georgia
    and Azerbaijan.

    He begins, "We have been working with the OSCE group since 1994
    and are committed to a solution. The other side, however, is still
    refusing to acknowledge and therefore there can be no movement. What
    makes this conflict so intractable is that they are Muslims, we are
    Christian. They are violent by nature."

    The conversation turns to recent events in the Caucasus and the
    official gestures to the map: "We are not like South Ossetia or
    Abkhazia - we are not a Russian puppet. We are more independent than
    them. However, this is a tough situation. These are uncertain and
    serious times."

    And then he hisses, "just remember before you start accusing Russia
    that your country is doing whatever it can to help the Muslims
    swallow us."

    My encounter in the Foreign Ministry brought me face-to-face with what
    Caucasian expert and historian Tom de Waal has termed the deepening
    of the "hate-narratives" that simplify and distort the conflict into
    easily digestible and mutually exclusive world-views.

    Most of the other people I encountered in Stepanakert, having lived
    through the bitter war that followed the break-up of the Soviet Union
    held this world view close to heart. When I asked a taxi driver what
    his feelings were toward Azerbaijan, he laughed and asked: "What are
    your feelings towards cockroaches? They breed fast and you want them
    out of your house!"

    In the same way that the frozen conflict in Georgia began to heat up
    slowly in 2007 with sporadic shootings and a cranking up of rhetoric
    that eventually led to war, there have been disturbing signs of a
    thaw in Nagorno-Karabakh.

    In March, during the Armenian election crisis, a small group of Azeri
    troops tried to pierce the lines near Stepanakert and the resulting
    fire-fight - the most intense since the unofficial cease-fire came
    into effect in 1994 - caused deep concern for stability in the region.

    Azeri rhetoric continued to rise with calls from Baku that it may be
    "forced to re-take the region by military means."

    However, since the war broke out in Georgia, things have frozen
    over once more; yet they are far from being resolved. Nothing is
    certain in this great power game, and this has left the inhabitants
    of Nagorno-Karabakh on edge.

    In the village of Shushi, 5 kilometers from Stepanakert, local
    businessman Nelson Ketchurian shared his fears with me.

    "I have been trying to make a living here since the Azeris withdrew
    from Shushi. They used this town as a position to bomb Stepanakert
    and almost destroyed it. How do I know that will not happen again?

    "Right now I think they are scared of us and they will not attack. We
    don't want war. We are peaceful people. But I think they do - and
    sooner or later, war will be coming back. Right now we just can't say -
    and it's hard living like this, never knowing."

    In Stepanakert, the streets are tidy and clean and the massive
    investment made by the Armenian Diaspora has returned economic
    vitality to the town. But in the midst of an atmosphere of calm and
    short-term security, almost banality, recent events in the Caucasus
    have triggered a sense of long-term dread for those living on the
    fault-lines of this frozen conflict.

    Ben Judah is a senior correspondent for ISN Security Watch, currently
    writing from the Caucasus and Russia.

    The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author only,
    not the International Relations and Security Network (ISN).

    'Letters' is an ISN Security Watch series in which our correspondents
    give their thoughts on day-to-day life in their communities and areas
    from which they report.
Working...
X