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  • The state of democracy in Armenia

    The state of democracy in Armenia
    With Emil Danielyan

    Moderator: Nicole Rosenleaf Ritter
    Wednesday, July 7, 2004; 04:00 pm CET


    In his recent article "A Dictator in the Making," noted Armenian analyst
    Emil Danielyan writes that repression against the political opposition "is
    turning Armenia into a vicious police state where human rights are worth
    nothing when they threaten the ruling regime?s grip on power." Do you agree?
    Mr. Danielyan will be on hand in a live discussion on Wednesday, 7 July, at
    4:00 p.m. CET to discuss the situation in Armenia and to answer your
    questions. Emil Danielyan works for the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
    bureau in Yerevan, where he is a correspondent and editor of the
    Armenian-language daily news site http://www.armenialiberty.org. He is also
    a frequent contributor to TOL and other publications covering the
    post-communist region. Join in the discussion on the 7th, or submit a
    question in advance below.


    The transcript follows.

    Editor's Note: Transitions Online moderators retain editorial control over
    Live Internet discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests
    and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.



    Prague, Czech Republic: Hello and welcome to everyone who is joining us for
    the discussion. Emil, thank you for being with us today.

    Emil Danielyan: Thank you for this opportunity to communicate with your
    readers.


    Prague, Czech Republic: So what can be done to change the situation in
    Armenia. Opposition did its best and got no result.

    Emil Danielyan: It's a good question which is difficult to answer. First of
    all, the overall situation with human and civil rights in Armenia must not
    depend on whether or not the Armenian opposition is fighting for regime
    change. Those are natural rights that are guaranteed by Armenia's
    constitution and stem from its international obligations. I believe that
    Armenian citizens must simply resist their country's slide into
    authoritarianism with various forms of peaceful protest. I, for example,
    sympathize a lot with several local NGOs that have recently joined forces to
    fight against the blatant human rights abuses. I wish more Armenians had
    been involved in such activism. But my greatest disappointment is with the
    West which has largely turned a blind eye to these alarming developments. If
    the United States and Europe are unwilling to go to great lengths in
    advancing Armenia's democratization (which I believe they can), they must
    admit that openly. That would be more honest than what they are doing now.


    Minsk, Belarus: What is your opinion about the Dictator of Belarus ? Belarus
    parliament adopted new law for KGB yerstoday.. KGB transform to stalin NKVD
    of USSR Dr.Valery Hrytsuk [email protected] P.S. Armenia is near at
    Belarus

    Emil Danielyan: Frankly, I have no in-depth knowledge of Belarusian
    politics. But I do know that the regime of Aleksandr Lukashenko is arguably
    the most undemocratic and authoritarian in Europe (the South Caucasus
    included). It is "natural" for such regimes to rely heavily on a
    Soviet-style security apparatus. Fortunately, Armenia's political and media
    environment is still more pluralistic than that of Belarus. However, the
    overall direction in which my country is moving is certainly the one which
    Belarus took when Lukashenko came to power a decade ago.


    Yerevan, Armenia: Emil, when riot police attacked opposition supporters
    camped out overnight on Baghramian Avenue during the early hours of the
    morning, did you see any sign of provocation from the crowd that justified
    the use of water cannon, electric batons and stun grenades? As I understand
    that you had to literally run for safety during the attack, did you consider
    identifying yourself as a journalist so as to avoid being beaten as Hayk
    Gevorkyan was and so that you could cover events from the sidelines?

    Emil Danielyan: I didn't see any actions by the crowd that might have
    provoked such a brutal reaction from the riot police. The protest was
    absolutely peaceful. At that moment it didn't really matter whether you are
    a journalist, a woman or an elderly person. On the contrary, having a camera
    was likely to get you in greater trouble. I was simply lucky to escape
    unschathed.


    Brussels, Belgium: Armenia's defence minister, Serzh Sarkisian, is often
    said to be the second-strongest man in the country. To an outsider, the
    notion of an army man being so strong and the prominence of the army in
    Armenian life since the Karabakh war seems profoundly disturbing and
    ominous. How would you describe the relationship between Kocharian and
    Sarkisian? Is Kocharian making any attempt to reduce the army's influence?
    Or is the army a weapon that Kocharian is completely confident about?

    Emil Danielyan: The Armenian army as such does not have much influence on
    politics and is not a separate institutionalized player as is the case in
    countries like Turkey or Algeria. It's just that Armenia's defense minister
    (a civilian) is the closest and most powerful associated of President
    Kocharian. They have always worked in tandem, both in Armenia and Karabakh.
    Serzh Sarkisian is indeed the second most powerful man in the country is
    Kocharian's most likely successor. His pervasive influence on economic
    affairs is indicative of the serious problems with the rule of law in
    Armenia. Lucrative business still requires strong government connections
    here.


    Taipei, Taiwan: If both Armenia and Azerbaijan are really eager to solve
    their problems on Nagorno-Karabagh and Nakhichevan, why don't move the
    people (from NK to Nakhichevan and from Nakhichevan to NK) and then change
    their names of both places (Nakhichevan as NK, and NK as Nakhichevan)?

    Emil Danielyan: I don't think the Armenians (especially those living in
    Karabakh) and Azerbaijanis will ever agree to such an unusual solution. At
    issue is Karabakh, not Azerbaijan's Nakhichevan exclave. And as far as this
    discussion is concerned, I must stress that the Karabakh issue is only
    indirectly connected with domestic Armenian politics.


    Vienna, Austria: In the West, we often hear about Armenia as relates to the
    diaspora. What remains of the influence of the diaspora on the country these
    days? Are they a help or a hindrance in moving Armenia forward?

    Emil Danielyan: The Diaspora influence on Armenia's political, economic and
    social life has been marginal. They have rightly poured millions of dollars
    worth of assistance into this country since independence, but have done
    little to promote Armenia's democratization and make its post-Soviet rulers
    respect human and civil rights. For example, the only Diaspora reaction to
    the dramatic events in Yerevan was a toothless statement by an
    Armenian-American lobbying group calling for "dialogue" between the two
    rival camps. Many Diaspora Armenians fail to understand that their
    historical homeland can not become prosperous without having free elections,
    freedom of speech, an independent judiciary and things like that. They often
    dismiss international criticisms of the Armenian authorities' human rights
    record as being part of a U.S. ploy to make us stop campaigning for
    international recognition of the 1915 genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman
    Empire and become dependent on modern-day Turkey. For them, the recipe for
    development is nationalism, not liberal democracy. The Diaspora
    organizations in the US and Europe must stop ignoring this country's
    fundamental flaws.


    London, Britain: In the article that you wrote for TOL, you wrote about the
    police being given "a new KGB-style function of keeping track of and
    suppressing opposition". How secret is this new role? How widely is this
    known in Armenia, and do you get a sense of growing fear in the country?

    Emil Danielyan: The revival of KGB-style policing is particularly visible in
    small towns outside Yerevan where everyone knows each other, there is no
    civil society and independent newspapers, and the authorities find it much
    easier to persecute oppositionists. The recent draconian imprisonments of
    several such activists are a vivid example of that. The entire
    law-enforcement apparatus was given functions of secret police ahead of the
    opposition campaign. That kind of policing has eased since the end of the
    opposition rallies in Yerevan last month, but I have no doubts that it will
    intensify again in the event of another anti-Kocharian campaign. As for a
    sense of fear, I must admit that for the first time in my life felt kind of
    scared while doing my job last April. If journalists experience fear during
    their work then there is really something wrong with their country.


    Armenia, Yerevan: Emil, you are considered one of the best and most
    professional journalists in Armenia today and the authorities can't be happy
    with the coverage that RFE/RL gave to last year's elections and the
    opposition protests that occured in April and May. Do you ever feel under
    pressure not to write some of the articles and analysis that you do? Has any
    direct pressure been asserted on either yourself or RFE/RL? In general, are
    journalists protected and able to work freely in Armenia?

    Emil Danielyan: To my knowledge, there have been no instances of
    intimidation or direct pressure on any of the RFE/RL reporters in Armenia in
    recent years. Maybe the fact that we work for a US-funded broadcaster gives
    us additional protection, I don't know. But as I write in my article, the
    April events saw the worst-ever violence against Armenian journalists. That
    can not fail to make us feel more jittery, and I guess we now think more
    about the consequences of our critical reporting than we did before this
    crisis. But so far I have faced no government reprisals for freely
    expressing myself.


    Leipzig, Germany: Armenia's history in the 1990s was turbulent and bloody,
    with tanks on the streets and the 1999 massacre in parliament. What would
    you say are the chief differences between then and now? Is the repression
    and violence being perpetrated by Kocharian now really something new?

    Emil Danielyan: The scale and the nature of the repressions is definitely
    something new. After all, we didn't have rank-and-file opposition activists
    sentenced to 18 months in prison in the past. And it's not an exaggeration
    to say that Armenia has obvious political prisoners for the first time in a
    decade. Fundamentally, Armenia's current political system is no different
    from what we had in the mid- and late 1990s. It's just that there is now
    more government recourse to brute force despite the fact that we a member of
    the Council of Europe and should have been more democratic.


    Yerevan, Armenia: Emil don't you think that Armenia needs another 10 to 15
    years of development to overcome all the hardships of transition period -
    enough time for Komsomol activists to leave the sceen to new generation of
    Armenian politisions.

    Emil Danielyan: Well, there were plenty of Komsomol guys in East Germany,
    Poland or Hungary in 1989, but that didn't prevent those countries from
    developing into established democracies. The problem is that Armenia's
    oligarchic system is becoming more and more entrenched and it could be more
    difficult to change it in the future. Prospects for democratization should
    improve if there is real economic development that would strengthen civil
    society and make citizens less dependent on their government. But that
    primarily depends on the overall situation in the South Caucasus, notably
    the resolution of the Karabakh conflict.


    Prague, Czech Republic: Emil, thank you very much for your thorough and
    thoughtful answers, and thanks to all the people who sent in questions.
    Please join us again for the next TOL discussion.

    Emil Danielyan: Thank you too.
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