Inteview with Dr Laurence Broers – the Caucasus Programme Projects Manager at British organization “Conciliation Resources” and author of projects about the reconciliation of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.
– Dr Broers, many experts in Armenia think that the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh has already reached some level of democracy at the sense of freedom, human rights etc., although it’s not recognized as an independent Republic yet. Does the international community take all this into account in the process of the reconciliation of the conflict, and if not then what is the reason? What is your opinion about this and the democratic developments in Karabakh?
– It’s true that unrecognized states are rarely seen as political systems or units in their own right. In some cases a context of mass displacement is seen by some outsiders as discrediting any discussion of democratization in de facto states, while for others the need to show that it’s another outside party that makes all the decisions in de facto states means that local politics can not be acknowledged. But of course all politics, to some extent, is local.
On Karabakh itself, of course there does need to be a discussion about democratization, governance and human rights standards, and so on. This discussion is necessary for anyone who believes in such values, and for anyone who is interested in resolving the conflict with Azerbaijan – so there are ethical and instrumental reasons to have this discussion. No peace deal will be either just or workable without solid institutions, a rights-based culture, accountability and so on. The population in NK today has the right to a legitimate leadership and to elect that leadership, and if one day there were to be Azeri returnees to NK, for example, real legitimacy and capacity in the local governing institutions of NK would be needed to guarantee their security and wellbeing.
Unfortunately there is sometimes a tendency in Armenia and NK to make comparison with Azerbaijan the only relevant comparison. The attitude can sometimes be: so long as Armenian democracy looks healthier than Azerbaijani democracy, that’s what counts. This is the “competitive democracy” approach, where there is more attention paid to the procedures and ‘visibility’ of democracy than the substance. In this dimension there is a positive outlook – elections take place regularly in NK, there are several political parties and there is turnover of presidents through the ballot box (something we don’t see in de jure states in this region), and if displaced Azeris are excluded, this is no worse than the exclusion of Armenians displaced from Baku, Ganja, and so on.
But compared with 2005-2006, I would say that there has been some stagnation in the trends in NK. This is related to the situation in Armenia, and also less emphasis in the international community on standards in de facto states. NK is still a challenging environment in terms of internal diversity and genuine political pluralism. This is not least because of the rhetorical climate and sense of threat arising from the unresolved conflict, resulting in the ‘securitization’ of politics. As events in South Ossetia have shown, when the security factor is taken out of the equation, even the smallest societies in the South Caucasus make their wish for political renewal known.
– What importance have the presidential elections held in the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh at 19-th July and the democratic developments in general at the sense of reconciliation of the conflict?
– The primary importance of these elections is that they can generate a leadership that is legitimate in the eyes of the population living in NK today. Without a legitimate leadership to represent it, the views and values of this population could not be expressed to the wider world. So these elections achieve, at the very least, this representational function. That is a different and separate issue from whether this leadership is seen as legitimate by the wider world.
About reconciliation – well, it’s hard to imagine a just peace, or Armenian-Azerbaijani reconciliation, without democratic development. Without it, we could only hope for an “authoritarian peace”, one that would presumably benefit leaderships and submerge a lot of difficult issues that would re-emerge later. Take the issue of freedom of expression: real reconciliation means opening up the most painful issues, and some of the darkest days in the history of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, to free scrutiny and critical review.
But there’s also no simple or linear relationship between democratic developments and conflict resolution. More democracy could admit more nationalist forces into power, as was the case in the early 1990s, and an even less favourable environment for peaceful resolution of the conflict – after all, according to opinion polls at the time of the Turkish-Armenian protocols process, a majority of people in Armenia were against reconciliation. Time and work is needed to open up safe spaces for Armenians and Azeris to freely interact. This needs to become something normal and non-threatening, which requires that certain key fundamental freedoms are guaranteed. So rather than «democracy is the answer», the approach could be that «democracy is the means» to transform the situation.
– What attention is paying Azerbaijan to this elections?
– As you know, Azerbaijan sees these elections as illegitimate; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that anyone travelling to NK to observe the elections will be declared persona non grata. This is unfortunate as information about the electoral campaign, the conduct and the results of the elections can offer vital information about the internal dynamics of governance and society in NK. Azerbaijan may one day want to engage leadership and society in NK in different kinds of dialogue; it would be better if this dialogue was informed by close acquaintance with on-the-ground realities. The repeated condemnation in Tbilisi of de facto elections in Abkhazia and South Ossetia did not result in the intended effects, and maybe even lessened the possibilities for constructive Georgian influence in the seceded territories.
The issue remains of the rights of Karabakh Azeris. Sometimes it is argued that because Karabakh Azeris became citizens of Azerbaijan, their needs are taken care of. But this argument does not offer much scope for Karabakh Azeris to be represented as a collective with a specific set of needs in the peace process – or indeed, when the time and the agenda is right, to engage in dialogue with NK. Investment in what might be called the «governance capital» of the Karabakh Azeri community (for example through an elected leadership) could be a long-term investment in the potential for future dialogue between those «in and from» NK. This is perhaps one way for Azerbaijan to carve out a space from which to positively influence debates about NK governance in general.
– By the way, we already know the preliminary results of the elections: the present president of NKR Bako Sahakyan is re-elected by 66,7 percent of the ballots, but the leader of the opposition Vitaly Balasanyan also showed a good result – 32,5 percent, wich is an unprecedented phenomenon in the 20-year-old history of Nagorno Karabakh. What can you say about this?
– It is difficult to comment on the results of an election which I have not witnessed myself. On the face of it, a 67% rating would appear to be a move in the direction of more ‘normal’ politics and away from the 95% ratings associated with Soviet rule. But statistics always hide more complex realities. Presidents in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan have also been elected with reasonably ‘modest’ majorities, yet we don’t accept this as ‘proof of democracy’…
Rather than focusing on a single statistic as evidence of some profound change, I think that commentators and participants in Karabakhi politics should continue to ask questions about how free local politics really is in Nagorny Karabakh. How genuine is the pluralism there? How free do journalists and media professionals, NGOs and civil society really feel? To what extent do those in power respond to the concerns of society without simply blaming problems on the conflict with Azerbaijan? And to what extent does the society in NK itself demand something more than single-issue government? I think these are still very much open questions.
Aram SARGSYAN