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Nagorno Karabakh: Stalin's Shadow Looms Over Trans-Caucasus Pipeline

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  • Nagorno Karabakh: Stalin's Shadow Looms Over Trans-Caucasus Pipeline

    NAGORNO-KARABAKH: STALIN'S SHADOW LOOMS OVER TRANS-CAUCASUS PIPELINE
    by Rene Wadlow

    World War 4 Report, NY
    April 1 2006

    The president of Azerbaijan, Ilhan Aliyev (son of the long-time
    president Heydar Aliyev), and Robert Kocharian, president of Armenia,
    met outside Paris, in Rambouillet Feb. 10-11, to discuss the stalemated
    conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Rambouillet had also been the scene
    for the last-chance negotiations on Kosovo just before the NATO
    bombing of Serbia began in 1999.

    During the two years of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, 1992-1994,
    at least 20,000 people were killed and more than a million
    persons displaced from Armenia, Azerbaijan and the 12,000 square
    miles of Nagorno-Karabakh itself. Armenian forces now control
    the Nagorno-Karabakh area-an Armenian-populated enclave within
    Azerbaijan. Since 1994, there has been a relatively stable ceasefire.

    Nagorno-Karabakh has declared its independence as a separate state.

    No other state-including Armenia-has recognized this independent
    status, but, in practice, Nagorno-Karabakh is a de facto state with
    control over its population and its own military forces. Half of
    the government's revenue is raised locally; the other half comes
    from the government of Armenia and especially the Armenian diaspora,
    strong in the United States, Canada, Lebanon, and Russia.

    In addition to Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian forces hold seven small
    districts around the enclave, some 5,500 square kilometers that
    had been populated by Azeris and that are considered as "occupied
    territory." One of the ideas being floated during these negotiations
    is an Armenian withdrawal from these occupied territories accompanied
    by international security guarantees and an international peacekeeping
    force, probably under the control of the Organization for Security
    and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) which has been the major forum for
    negotiation on the Nagorno-Karabkh conflict.

    The USA, France, and Russia are the co-chairmen of a mediating effort
    called the "Minsk Group" after an OSCE conference on Nagorno-Karabakh
    which was to have been held in Minsk-but then indefinitely postponed
    as there was no clear basis for a compromise solution. Part of the
    negotiating guidelines of the Minsk Group meetings is that no official
    report is made on the negotiations, so that analysis is always an
    effort at putting pieces together from partial statements, leaks,
    and "off-the-record" interviews with the press. This blackout on
    direct statements opens the door to highly partisan analysis in both
    countries, where the press has always been hard line. There are those
    who believe that both presidents are "ahead of their people" in their
    willingness to compromise and to move beyond the current "no war,
    no peace" situation which is a drain on economic and social resources.

    However, in both countries, the media is under tight control of the
    respective governments-so the militaristic tone of the press is not
    against government policy. The blackout on press statements is also
    due to the monopoly on both sides of a small, tight group of people
    responsible for the negotiations. Informal "Track Two" meetings are
    very difficult and the few held were met by general suspicion or
    hostility. There is a need for a broader-based pubic peacemaking
    effort to counter the current narrow, militant rhetoric.

    The Nagorno-Karabakh issue arises from the post-Revolution/Civil
    War period of Soviet history when Joseph Stalin was Commissioner
    for Nationalities. Stalin came from neighboring Georgia and knew the
    Caucasus well. His policy was a classic "divide and rule"-designed
    so that national/ethnic groups would need to depend on the central
    government in Moscow for protection. Thus in 1922, the frontiers
    of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia were hammered out in what was
    then the Transcaucasian Federative Republic. Nagorno-Karabakh,
    an Armenian-majority area, was given a certain autonomy within
    Azerbaijan but was geographically cut off from Armenia. Likewise,
    an Azeri majority area, Nakkickevan, was created as an autonomous
    republic within Armenia but cut off geographically from Azerbaijan.

    Thus both enclaves had to look to Moscow for protection. This was
    especially true for the Armenians. Many Armenians living in what
    had been historic Armenia which came under Turkish control had
    been killed during the First World War; Armenians living in "Soviet
    Armenia" had relatives and friends among those killed by the Turks,
    creating a permanent sense of vulnerability and insecurity. Russia
    was considered a historic ally of Armenia.

    These mixed administrative units worked well enough-or, one should
    say, there were few criticisms allowed-until 1988 when the whole
    Soviet model of nationalities and republics started to come apart. In
    both Armenia and Azerbeijan, natioanlistic voices were raised, and a
    strong "Karabakh Committee" began demanding that Nagorno-Karabakh be
    attached to Armenia. In Azerbaijan, anti-Armenian sentiment was set
    aflame. Many Armenians who were working in the oil-related economy
    of Baku were under tension and started leaving. This was followed
    somewhat later by real anti-Armenian pogroms. Some 160,000 Armenians
    left Azerbaijan for Armenia, and others went to live in Russia.

    With the break up of the Soviet Union and the independence of Armenia
    and Azerbaijan, tensions focused on Nagorno-Karabakh. By 1992,
    full-scale conflict broke out in and around Nagorno-Karabkh and went
    on for two years, causing large-scale damage. The Armenian forces of
    Nagorno-Karabakh, aided by volunteers from Armenia, kept control of
    the area, while Azerbaijan faced repeated political crises.

    The condition of "no peace, no war" followed the ceasefire largely
    negotiated by Russia in 1994. This status quo posed few problems to
    the major regional states, all preoccupied by other geo-political
    issues. Informal and illicit trade within the area has grown.

    However, interest in a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
    has grown as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline opened in May 2005.

    The pipeline is scheduled to carry one million barrels of oil a day
    from the Caspian to the Mediterranean by 2009. The pipeline passes
    within 10 miles of Nagorno-Karabakh.

    The crucial question for a settlement is the acceptance by
    all parties and by the OSCE of an independent "mini-state." An
    independent Nagorno-Karabakh might become the "Liechtenstein of
    the Caucasus." After 15 years of independence, Karabakh Armenians
    do not want to be at the mercy of decisions made in distant centers
    of power but to decide their own destiny. However, the recognition
    of Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent states raises the issue of the
    status of other de facto mini-states of the region, such as Abkhazia
    and South Ossetia in Georgia, Transnistria in Moldova, and Kosovo in
    Serbia. Close attention must be paid to the potential restructuring
    of the area. Can mini-states be more than a policy of divide and
    rule? The long shadow of Joseph Stalin still hovers over the land.

    ------

    Rene Wadlow is editor of the online journal of world politics
    Transnational Perspectives and an NGO representative to the UN,
    Geneva. Formerly, he was professor and Director of Research of the
    Graduate Institute of Development Studies, University of Geneva.

    This piece originally appeared in Toward Freedom, March 21
    http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/773/

    http://www.ww4report.com/node/1800
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