National, International, Armenia, and Community News and Opinion

The Armenian Reporter | February 28, 2009
National
Washington briefing
by Emil Sanamyan
Obama proposes 2010
budget, as Congress
funds 2009
President Barack Obama made
his first budget proposal since taking
office, calling for an overall increase
in funding for the State Department
and other international
programs to $51.7 billion, or $4.5
billion more than the Fiscal Year
2009 spending estimate, the White
House announced on February 26.
Country-by-country breakdowns,
including that for Armenia, were
not available at press time. But the
overall increase may help reverse
the trend of recent years with U.S.
aid programs for post-Soviet states
declining from $452 million in 2007
to an estimated $346 million in
2009.
Meanwhile, on February 25, Congress
passed the Omnibus spending
bill for Fiscal Year 2009. According
to the Democratic Party
managers’ report accompanying
the legislation and made available
to the Armenian Reporter, the legislation
set aside $48 million in aid to
Armenia and $8 million to Nagorno-
Karabakh. There was also $3 million
in foreign military financing for Armenia
and Azerbaijan, each.
Overall, Armenia aid program remains
one of the largest in Europe
with only Kosovo ($120.9 million),
Ukraine ($71.5 million), Russia ($60
million), and Georgia ($52 million)
receiving more funding. Aid to
Azerbaijan was set at $18.5 million.
The legislation mirrored closely
the spending levels proposed by
the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee
last summer. (See this
page in the Armenian Reporter for
July 17, 2008.)
There is also substantial cut in
Millennium Challenge Corporation
programs, set at $875 million, down
from $1.35 billion requested by the
Bush administration.
HRW study cover.
Reports review
Armenia’s post-election
crisis
Allegations of misconduct by
Armenia’s law-enforcement agencies
during post-electoral collisions
last year should be thoroughly
investigated, the New
York-based Human Rights Watch
(HRW) urged as part of a detailed
study released on February 25.
The watchdog also called on the
United States and the European
Union to make their engagement
with Armenia contingent on such
an investigation.
The 64-page HRW report, “Democracy
on Rocky Ground: Armenia’s
Disputed 2008 Presidential
Election, Post-Election Violence,
and the One-Sided Pursuit of Accountability,”
is perhaps the most
comprehensive available account
of Armenia’s latest post-election
crisis.
The study is based on interviews
with 80 witnesses, participants,
and victims of the March 1–2 clashes
in Yerevan, conducted in March
and April last year.
Also released on February 25 was
the State Department’s annual
study of human rights practices
worldwide. Its Armenia chapter, in
addition to compiling human rights
issues throughout 2008, retained a
controversial reference to the Armenian
republic of Nagorno-Karabakh
as a “region of Azerbaijan.”
There were community and
congressional complaints when
the reference was first introduced
into the report in 2006. State Department
officials claimed at the
time the reference did not signal a
change in U.S. policy. There was no
public reaction when the reference
was repeated last year.
Thomas de Waal. Armenian Reporter.
Expert recommends
change of rhetoric on
Karabakh
“Both internationally and locally,
the language used about the [Karabakh]
dispute needs to change for
progress to be made” in the peace
process, the leading Western expert
on the conflict Thomas de Waal
argued in a paper for the Conciliation
Resources, a British charity.
The 20-page paper titled, “The
Karabakh Trap: Dangers and dilemmas
of the Nagorny Karabakh conflict,”
released online on February
24, provides a review of the status
quo in the Armenian-Azerbaijani
standoff and outlines potential future
scenarios.
As immediate steps, Mr. de Waal
recommends “less use by international
officials of formulas about
‘territorial integrity’ and “self-determination’
which obscure more
than they reveal” about the conflict;
he also urges “an end to the
talk of war” by Azerbaijan and a
distinction between the rights of
Karabakh Armenians and Armenian-controlled
former Azerbaijanipopulated
areas.
“On both sides, [there is a need
for] mention of regret for the
shared tragedy of war, of the deep
common culture and of the necessity
and value of living together as
neighbours and partners in the future,”
the expert concludes.
Mr. de Waal is author of Black
Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan
through Peace and War, the only
thorough study of the conflict
available in English, released as a
book in 2003.
Polls note Muslim
suspicion of U.S.,
worldwide religiosity
Most Muslims oppose terrorist attacks
against civilians but are also
suspicious of the United States and
endorse the al Qaida objective of
removing American military bases
from the Middle East, according to
surveys conducted last year and released
on February 25.
The World Public Opinion poll
found that a significant number
of respondents in eight Muslim
countries studied support attacks
on U.S. military forces deployed in
the Middle East. While majorities
hold a negative view of Osama bin
Mediators fault Azerbaijan for threatening war
Laden and al Qaida, they also believe
that Islamist groups should be
allowed to participate in the political
process.
In Turkey, 87 percent of respondents
believed the United States intends
to “weaken and divide” Muslims
and 77 percent thought the
U.S. naval presence in the Persian
Gulf was a “bad idea.” Turks were
split on attacks against U.S. forces
in Iraq, with 40 percent disapproving
and 39 percent approving of
such attacks.
In Azerbaijan, 67 percent of respondents
believed the U.S. goal
was to undermine Muslims and 66
percent called U.S. military presence
a “bad idea.” Nevertheless,
fully 76 percent of Azerbaijanis also
opposed attacks on U.S.-led forces
in Iraq. (Azerbaijan was the only
country included in the survey to
have had a contingent in Iraq until
last year.)
In a separate Gallup poll of
worldwide religiosity released on
February 9, Azerbaijan was determined
to be the least religious majority-Muslim
country in the world.
Only 21 percent of Azerbaijanis
surveyed responded affirmatively
when asked if religion was an important
part of their life.
By contrast, 75 percent of Georgians
and 70 percent of Armenians
said they were religious. In the
United States two-thirds of respondents
described themselves
as religious. Egypt, Bangladesh,
and Sri Lanka, topped the ranks of
the most religious countries worldwide.
f
President Obama and cabinet members discuss the administration’s budget
proposal on Jan. 24 at the White House. White House photo: Pete Souza.
n Continued from page
to the Minsk Group peace process,
and asked the co-chairs to intensify
their efforts to help the parties
bridge their remaining differences
with regard to the Basic Principles.
“In subsequent public statements,
both presidents underscored their
enduring commitment to the Minsk
Group’s mediation effort. Therefore,
the Minsk Group’s co-chairs will
visit the region before the end of
February to help the parties to accelerate
their efforts to finalize the
Basic Principles. The Minsk Group
co-chairs will not allow the peace
process to be subverted by legalistic
or historical discussions, though
they will remain sensitive to historical
concerns expressed by the parties
to the conflict, all of which must
be addressed in due course. The
co-chairs further believe the abovementioned
reports should have no
bearing on negotiations within the
Minsk Group in pursuit of a peaceful
and political settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, to
which both presidents committed
themselves in their Moscow Declaration,”
the statement read.
On February 20 the Foreign Ministry
of Azerbaijan disseminated
the contents of two documents
that Agshin Mehdiyev, Azerbaijan’s
representative to the United
Nations had been sent to the United
Nations Secretary General. The
first document presents Azerbaijan’s
version of the Karabakh war. It
clearly states in the document that
Azerbaijan can “liberate by military
means” the territories under the
control of Armenian forces.
According to the Russian-language
daily Zerkalo published in
Baku, the second report says that
respecting the territorial integrity
of states is a founding norm of international
law and the principle
of self-determination cannot be
viewed as a right for separation.
And so, according to Azerbaijan,
Nagorno-Karabakh can exercise
self-determination only within the
bounds of Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity.
United Nations
resolutions
Since 2004, Azerbaijan has continually
tried to place the settlement of
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict or
any component of the conflict on
the agenda of the United Nations
General Assembly and thereby win
political points – as General Assembly
resolutions are not compulsory.
On March 14, 2008 – while Armenia
was in a state of emergency
– Azerbaijan succeeded in its efforts
and the United Nations General
Assembly adopted a resolution “reaffirming
the territorial integrity of
Azerbaijan, demanding withdrawal
of all Armenian forces from all occupied
territories there.”
By a recorded vote of 39 in favor
to 7 against (Angola, Armenia,
France, India, Russian Federation,
United States, Vanuatu), with 100
abstentions (among them all other
EU states), “the Assembly also reaffirmed
the inalienable right of the
Azerbaijani population to return to
their homes, and reaffirmed that
no State should recognize as lawful
the situation resulting from the occupation
of Azerbaijan’s territories,
or render assistance in maintaining
that situation.”
Defining that resolution as “bogus,”
Vartan Oskanian, Armenia’s
foreign minister at the time, said,
“I hope that Azerbaijan understood
the message of the international
community. Following the example
of the co-chairs, the majority of the
member-states refused the unilateral
approach.”
Azerbaijan is trying to discredit
Armenia in international bodies
with such resolutions. By taking the
Karabakh issue or any component
of that issue to the United Nations,
the authorities in Baku believe that
they can receive the ready support
of at least the Islamic countries
within that organization.
Earlier, on September 8, 2006,
Azerbaijan scored a point when
the UN General Assembly adopted
a resolution on ecological damage
from fires in the Karabakh conflict
zone. The wording of such resolutions
is more important for Azerbaijan
than their substance, because
as a rule Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity and the issue of the territories
being occupied by Armenian
forces are restated in those resolutions.
And so, the resolution about
the fires was titled, “The situation in
the occupied territories of Azerbaijan,”
a formulation that satisfies the
claims of Azerbaijan.
Earlier still, in autumn 2004,
Azerbaijan accused Armenia at the
United Nations of illegal resettlement
in Nagorno-Karabakh and
its adjacent territories and for conducting
a policy of appropriation.
The effect was that in January–February
2005, the OSCE sent a factfinding
group to the territories.
That group stressed in its report
that Armenia was not conducting
a policy of settlement and appropriation.
In recent years Azerbaijan has
frequently recalled the four resolutions
that were adopted by the
United Nations Security Council on
the Karabakh issue in 1993. During
the Karabakh war, Azerbaijan
was the one that ignored the calls
of the intermediating states and
organizations and did not wish
to stop military activities, expecting
that by regrouping its military
forces it would reach its goal: seize
Karabakh and deport all of the Armenians
from there. Azerbaijan
ignored the demands of those four
resolutions, expecting to force a
political full stop to Armenia and
Nagorno-Karabakh through success
in the military field. f