While Syria burns, Gaza explodes and al Qaeda captures
another Iraqi town, another full-blown conflict threatens to further
destabilize the Middle East, this one between Armenia and Azerbaijan. For
months now, Ilham Aliyev, one of the worst dictators alive, has been
indiscriminately shelling the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh, a formerly Soviet
Socialist Oblast located within Soviet Azeri territory populated by ethnic
Armenians.
A little history may be in order. In 1991, the Soviet
Union collapsed, Nagorno Karabakh, or Artsakh as Armenians refer to it,
petitioned Moscow to be re-attached to Armenia. When Moscow ignored
Stepanakert's request, the Armenian enclave declared independence. Azerbaijan,
then ruled by Ayaz Mutalibov, responded with pogroms against Armenians in Baku
and Sumgait and by declaring war against Nagorno Karabakh, mercilessly bombing
the small four thousand square mile enclave. By 1994, Nagorno Karabakh, abetted
by Armenia, won a difficult but decisive victory over Baku. It did not come without
a cost. The war claimed over 30,000 lives. An estimated 300,000 Armenians from
Azerbaijan and 450,000 Azeris from Armenia and formerly Azeri territories went
straggling back to respectively Armenia and Azerbaijan proper. Both countries
have had a persistent refugee problem since. And the lovely cosmopolitan fabric
of the Caucasus was rent once again.
2014-08-09-Location_NagornoKarabakh2.png
Back in Baku, Mutalibov was succeeded by Haidar Aliyev
and then his son Ilham in completely trumped-up elections. The Aliyev clan has
run Azerbaijan as if it were its own personal bank account and backyard for the
past twenty some years. Armenian leadership over the same period has not been
ideal either: corrupt and megamoniacal, it has however avoided the type of morally
bankrupt hereditary dictatorship that the Aliyev clan has imposed on their
country. Needless to say the Aliyevs have become billionaires several times
over while their own people have seen only limited benefits from its booming
oil trade.
Serj Sargsyan, the President of Armenia, is short and
squat and wily in appearance; Aliyev is tall and gangly and with an empty open
stare that suggests an absence of what Agatha Christie's famed detective
Hercule used to call little grey cells. Worse than his perceived lack of
intelligence, Aliyev continues to lie to his people about the causes of the
ongoing conflict between Nagorno Karabakh and Armenia. He insists on painting
the Armenians as aggressors and the Azeris as historical inhabitants of Artsakh
out to innocently defend their lands; the exact opposite is the case. Since
Russia brokered a tentative peace agreement between the two nations in 1994,
Azerbajian has broken the ceasefire over 200 times. But in the past week,
Aliyev has intensified attacks on Armenian border towns. Three days ago, Azeri
shelling killed five Armenians; retaliatory fire claimed 25 Azeris. Aliyev, who
has falsely claimed that he has triumphed over Armenia politically and
economically and that he can do so militarily as well continues to watch his
own soldiers die in numbers which exceed Armenian casualties. As if his own
people they were mere flies, expendable in some futile attempt to regain land
over which it has no legitimate claim.
Russia, which arms both Armenia and Azerbaijan, may of
course be at the heart of recent hostilities. Putin may well be attempting to
kill two proverbial birds with one stone, threatening the West with the
possibility of a new regional conflict, while also trying to convince Armenians
that they need Russian protection. Russia has never been Armenia's true friend
and it is certainly not Azerbaijan's -- if Putin had his way, he'd turn both
countries back into Russian -- scratch Soviet Union provinces or Republics.
While emigration from Armenia has been constant, the
country has also slowly rebuilt its economy and educational institutions with
help from its powerful Diaspora. Furthermore while Azerbaijan may still be
feeling the using of national humiliation at the 1994 loss of territories, all
evidence points to the fact that the Azeris will not fight as hard as the
Armenians who faced the first large scale Genocide of the 20th century at the
hands of Ottoman Turks in 1915. And why should they? Baku is prosperous, and
Azerbaijan a mid-sized country on the shores of the historically scenic Caspian
Sea. What sane father or mother would send his or her sons to die over
contested lands far away in the mountainside near Armenia? The Armenian slogan
of never again, however, still holds for Armenians around the world. Armenia
was the most technologically advanced Soviet Republic along with Russia and its
army is currently considered one of the strongest in the region -- so there is
little chance of Azerbaijan making military inroads. In fact, the opposite is
true -- Armenia may claim even more territory if forced into a full-scale
conflict again. And Baku's gambit is a poor one at that: with an estimated 50
to 75 years of oil reserves left to exploit, it is doubtful that someone as
greedy and narcissistic as Aliyev will risk future billions in an attempt to
liberate a mountainous land inhabited by foreign people and devoid of natural
resources.
Azeris need to understand that Aliyev is not only a
vicious dictator, but that his current policies will ultimately lead to the
demise of this regime and country. The Armenians and Azeris have one mutual
advantage: unlike the Israelis and the Palestinians, for example, who live in a
patchwork of territories within each other's respective lands (i.e. there are
Israeli Arabs within the borders of Israel: Gaza and the West Bank as a pairing
make little geographical sense), Armenia and Azerbaijan today have one neat
border: Armenians on one side, Azeris on the other. Nakhitchevan, a small cone
shaped patch of land which the Azeris depopulated of its native Armenian
population is an exception: it lies to the Southwest of Armenian territory and
borders Iran and Turkey -- but as a result of this last factor, it it also has
a lifeline. (By Armenia I mean Armenia and NKR united, doing away with the
political fiction that the two countries do not de facto act as one united
country).
2014-08-09-TatikuPapik.jpg
Azerbaijan needs to cease its hostilities towards Armenia
and lift its unilateral blockade of the country (as does Turkey, but that is
another not wholly unrelated story). Armenian and Azeri civil societies need to
begin substantive cultural and educational exchanges. Aliyev and his henchmen
need to stop their propaganda campaign against Armenia domestically and abroad:
it fools few foreigners while it brainwashes its own people.
In other words, a true peace process needs to occur. The
United States and Russia -- or the current OSCE Minsk Group -- should
accelerate their efforts in this direction before it is too late. Let's put an
end to historical or territorial recriminations. They make no sense in this
case. Both Azerbaijan and Armenia have enough territory to survive and prosper.
And without each other, neither country will reach its true potential --
economic or otherwise. If hawks such as Aliyev can be overthrown or the Azeris
finally see reason, then Azerbaijan and Armenia, along with their joint neighbor
Georgia can form an economic corridor that would be a shining example to the
world. The alternative -- war and more death -- is not a pretty option to
ponder. Cautious optimism may be in order since Presidents Sargsyan and Aliyev
met with Putin in light of recent events on August 10 and agreed that the
conflict needs to be resolved peacefully.
Finally, as an aside, I would like to say that I am a
pacifist. I do not believe in violence, which history has taught us only begets
more violence. But there are facts on the ground. NKR will l never return to
Azerbaijan, willingly or otherwise. It is time to build peace. Time for
Armenians, Azeris, Georgians and Turks to bring prosperity to the Caucasus
together. Like it or not the four countries, along with Iran to the South,
share more things in common than they do differences. True courage on the part
of Presidents Sargsyan and Aliyev will bring them to the negotiation table, in
an earnest desire to resolve this conflict, once and for all.
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