laitinandsuny - Armenia and Azerbaijan

32 Pages·2002·0.22 MB·English

LAITIN & SUNY: ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN
A A :
RMENIA AND ZERBAIJAN
T W O K
HINKING A AY UT OF ARABAKH
David D. Laitin and Ronald Grigor Suny
Dr. Laitin is professor of political science at Stanford University. His most
recent book is Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in
the Near Abroad (Cornell University Press, 1998). Dr. Suny is professor of
political science at the University of Chicago. His most recent book is The
Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States (Oxford
University Press, 1998).
H
ot wars demand attention and economic development may be perma-
before cold wars or simmering, nently threatened. Our conviction is that
potential conflicts. But even as there is a way out; indeed, a solution is at
most of the energy of envoys hand. But thinking a way out of the
and emissaries concentrates on the Karabakh conflict requires rethinking some
Balkans, it may be opportune to look at a conventional notions of nationalism and
crisis less violent at the moment but equally ethnic conflict. Separation of antagonistic
dangerous in the long run. The Armenian- peoples may be necessary, at least in the
Azerbaijani war over Karabakh, now in short run, but a lasting solution also re-
cease-fire but without solution, has gone on quires the building of links between those
for more than a decade. The problems of peoples who, after all, will be living next to
extracting enormous oil and gas resources one another in future centuries.
in the Caspian region and piping fuels It is commonly held, and reported by
through the South Caucasus and possibly journalists, that the hatred between
Turkey to Western markets has encour- Azerbaijanis and Armenians is of ancient,
aged new diplomatic efforts and visits to even tribal, origin and that, precisely
the region by prominent veterans of because of its antiquity and persistence, the
international negotiations like Zbigniew conflict defies easy solution. Little histori-
Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger. Less cal evidence supports this view. At the
visibly, diplomats and peace activists have same time, a few historians have argued
worked to untie the knot that has kept that the hostilities are actually about 70
armies poised and hundreds of thousands years old, a resurgence of a suppressed
of refugees languishing in camps. Negotia- struggle that flared up periodically, most
tors have concluded that without resolving violently in the last period of Russian state
the Karabakh issue the region’s security collapse, 1918-19. We argue that long-term
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MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOL. VII, NO. 1, OCTOBER 1999
antagonisms (and cooperation) between majority of ethnic Muslims). This dis-
the Christian and Muslim peoples of the course is based in a narrative of the
South Caucasus, stemming from the distant nation’s antiquity and its people’s (nearly)
past, have only weak links to the contem- continuous presence in a historic “home-
porary conflict. Indeed, one might say that land.” Even as it proposes rights and
the origins of the current conflict are justice for oppressed nationalities, in fact
“shrouded in the mists of the twentieth the national discourse creates new prob-
century.” Profoundly shaped by the 70- lems of making political and cultural
year experience of Soviet rule and the boundaries commensurate – as Woodrow
larger global context of twentieth-century Wilson learned at the end of World War I.
nationalism, the war between Armenians This is especially true in the Caucasus,
and Azerbaijanis can only be resolved where much of its history has been one of
when local perspectives and interests that migration, intermingling of different reli-
derive from the experiences of Soviet rule gious and linguistic groups, not to mention
and nation formation are put in bold relief. overlapping polities and contested sover-
Three contemporary contexts frame eignties from ancient to modern times. Yet
the outbreak and persistence of the nationalists persistently draw harder and
Karabakh war: the processes in which clearer boundaries between their own
modern nations have been made, the people and those living closest to them
specific form of nation-making that took (who share much of each other’s culture),
place within to obscure
the Soviet distinctions
Union, and the The international community recog- within their
dynamics of own nation and
nizes the right of polities based on
the Soviet to exaggerate
ethno-nations to sovereign state-
collapse. First, differences
Armenia and hood, thereby giving extraordinary with their
Azerbaijan live political power to groups that man- neighbors. For
in a world in example,
age to be recognized as nations.
which nation- Patrick
states, in order Donabedian, a
to be legiti- French diplo-
mate, are required to represent a cultural mat in Erevan, quotes the Greek geogra-
community of people who believe that their pher Strabo, who attests that by the second
shared characteristics entitle them to century BC the entire population of
sovereignty in their historic “homeland.” Greater Armenia (including today’s
The modern discourse of the nation Karabakh) spoke Armenian, implying that
confers upon national communities the right today’s Armenians are the direct descen-
to political control over the specific territo- dants of those speakers.1 On the other
ries that they inhabit, as well as those side, A. Abbasov and A. Memedov of the
contested (like Karabakh with its over- Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences write
whelming majority of ethnic Armenians, that the early settlers were Caucasian
and Nakhichevan with its overwhelming Albanian tribes, precursors of today’s
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LAITIN & SUNY: ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN
Azeris, and that the Armenians, unlike sharp lines between “us” and the “other.”
most of the other minorities, do not have a Indeed, much of Armenian identity is
long history in Azerbaijan, even in wrapped up in what they have suffered at
Karabakh.2 They too select cultural specks the hands of the Turks, and since the
in the past in order to write an exclusive, Azerbaijanis are “Turks” (Azeri is a Turkic
continuous national history. language), hostility felt toward one people
But analysts err when they reproduce is transferred to another. To an Armenian
the cultural geographies of nationalists and nationalist standing guard at the psychic
attempt to separate surgically the histories boundaries of the nation, intermarriage with
and claims of one people from another. an Azerbaijani, which was something
Those with short historical horizons miss which happened occasionally in relatively
some important features of ethno-religious cosmopolitan Baku in Soviet times, would
communities of the past that distinguish be anathema, a betrayal of what it means
them from nations in modern times. In to be an Armenian. Since Armenians and
earlier centuries, the differences between Azerbaijanis today are not particularly
ethnic and religious communities were less religious, given the long Soviet experience,
sharp. Rather than separate and discon- the objection to intermarriage is not a
tinuous, ethnic groups shared many cultural religious proscription but based on a firm
features of their neighbors; the edges of commitment to sharpen ethnic boundaries.
their differences were blurred; and it This leads to the second kind of
required hard work by scholars and policing: the enforcement within each
activists, journalists and teachers, states- group of what behavior is permissible and
men and warriors through many centuries impermissible and the rules set down for
to sharpen differences between groups and which Armenians or Azerbaijanis are the
homogenize distinctions within groups. If true Armenians or the real Azerbaijanis.
the boundary between us and them were “Ethnic identity implies a series of con-
not maintained, modern nationalists worry, straints on the kinds of roles an individual is
our ethnic group would disappear (as many allowed to play,” writes Norwegian eth-
did), assimilating into other nearby nologist Frederik Barth, “and the partners
ethnicities. This is, indeed, what happened he may choose for different kinds of
to the ancient Caucasian Albanians, many transactions.”3 Thus, Armenians who deny
of whom adopted Armenian Christianity, the fundamental historical role of Karabakh
eventually identifying with Armenians, in Armenian national history are not
while others adopted Islam and eventually coded as dissident; rather they are held to
merged with Azerbaijanis. To avoid be traitors to the Armenian nation. Simi-
disappearance, which some refer to as larly, Azeris police themselves so that
“white genocide,” representatives of ethnic speaking openly about Azerbaijani “mur-
groups – ethnic entrepreneurs – police ders” of Armenians in Sumgait (February
ethnic boundaries, define acceptable 1989) or in Baku (January 1990) would be
cultural features, and sanction cross-overs. heavily sanctioned. Authentic Azerbaijanis
For Armenians and Azerbaijanis, two must blame the Russians, Gorbachev and
kinds of “policing” go on. One raises the the Communists, or the Armenians them-
barriers to mixing, primarily by drawing selves.
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Armenians and Azerbaijanis, like other ethnicity was matched to territory, gener-
ethnic nations with relatively exclusionary ally imperfectly, but nevertheless a strong
ideas of what constitutes the nation, have sense developed that each nationality ought
come out of broader, more inclusive to have its own territory, even its own
communities like Christendom or Islam or polity. The well-respected U.S. State
“the Soviet people” or “Caucasian civiliza- Department geographer Lee Schwartz
tion” toward narrower, more exclusive could not, in fact, devise by computer
communities characterized by ethnic program a set of republican boundaries that
nationalism. The international community would coincide with nationality more
recognizes the right of polities based on accurately than did Stalin’s henchmen,
ethno-nations to sovereign statehood, despite the significant residual minority
thereby giving extraordinary political power populations that Stalin’s scheme left in
to groups that manage to be recognized as virtually all republics.4 Second, within
nations. Yet the international community those units the titular nationality (the one
does not recognize that every ethnic group with its name on the unit) had certain
must be granted its own state or even that advantages and privileges, and in actual
self-determination requires independent Soviet practice (in contrast to stated goals
statehood. The claims to Karabakh, of equal treatment) ethnic “minorities”
whether by demographically dominant were subordinated to the dominant nation-
Armenians or by the Azerbaijanis, in ality of the republic or region. Diaspora
whose republic the region lies, only make populations were encouraged to migrate
sense in a political universe in which back to their purported “homeland.”
culture and history are given the opportu- Armenians steadily left Georgia and
nity to claim territory and statehood. Azerbaijan for Armenia, and Azerbaijanis
The second context in which the either migrated or were deported (most
Karabakh conflict arose was the peculiar notably under Stalin in the late 1940s and
legacy of Soviet nationality policies. For again in the late 1980s, just after the
much of the Soviet period the conventional outbreak of the Karabakh conflict) to
wisdom of most Western writers on Soviet Azerbaijan. Over time, Armenia, Georgia
treatment of non-Russians was that and Azerbaijan became more ethnically
Russification and repression weakened the homogeneous, and even the “Russians”
nationalities of the USSR and made them (who were actually a congeries of Rus-
pliable victims of totalitarian manipulation. sians, Ukrainians, Belorusans and Jews)
What was largely missed in this bleak gradually left the Caucasus for their
picture were the ways in which Soviet “home” republic. In each republic, titular
policies actually consolidated non-Russians Communist elites held power, granted
in territorialized political units and fostered favors to their compatriots, systematically
national consciousnesses. Generally aggrandized power and privilege within
overlooked by Sovietologists until the their ranks, and limited the writ of the
explosion of nationalism in the late 1980s central Soviet state within the bounds of
under Gorbachev, this process of Soviet the republic.5
nation-making had several long-term Though nationalist expression was
effects on the post-Soviet states. First, restricted by official policy, national loyalty
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LAITIN & SUNY: ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN
and national consciousness were engen- period of destruction rather than construc-
dered by emphasis in educational and tion, of social and political breakdown and
cultural programs on the achievements of coups d’état (sans état), and the establish-
the nation. The great irony of Soviet ment of kleptocracies that transferred
nationality policy was that a program that massive amounts of public property into the
was intended to eradicate nationalism, hands of the former nomenklatura, who
eventually meld all the ethnicities into a sold themselves the wealth of the Soviet
single “Soviet people,” and reduce the state at fire-sale prices.
political salience of nationality, in fact Yet the whole story is more compli-
embedded ethnicity into politics, granting cated still. By any definition this was (and
advantages to some and disabilities to continues to be) a period of revolutionary
others. The durable legacy of the Soviet transformation. It was simultaneously a
experience for those emerging from the tale of the dismantling of a leviathan state
grip of Soviet power was that it became and the replacement of old forms of state
almost impossible to imagine politics that and economic power with the partial
was not infected by ethnicity. construction of fragile new state authori-
The third context that led to the ties. A chronic pathology of the rapid and
Karabakh conflict was the rapid collapse chaotic collapse of the USSR was the
of the Soviet state, the resultant weakening general weakness of state authority in the
of all state authority, and the general post-Soviet states. The creation of modern
fragility of the post-Soviet nations. All democratic institutions based on a rule of
over the territory of the former Soviet law, a market system with protected
Union the first three years after the property, enforcement of contracts, and a
breakup were marked by interrepublic minimum of social order requires a compe-
warfare (the Karabakh conflict), intereth- tent, effective state apparatus. One might
nic struggles (the Transdneistrian, Abkhaz- have a state without democracy or the rule
Georgian and Georgian-Osetian conflicts), of law, but the latter two are largely
civil war (Tajikistan and Georgia), massive contingent on the first. The dilemma for
refugee problems (Georgians expelled from post-Soviet republics has been that the old
Abkhazia, Azerbaijanis from in and around state was seen by nationalist or democratic
Karabakh, Armenians from Azerbaijan and counterelites as the major impediment to
other parts of the former Soviet Union, the reconstruction of the social order, and
Russians from Central Asia and else- in their revolutionary fervor they acceler-
where), not to mention the collapse of local ated the dissolution of state authority
economies and the progressive weakening initiated by Gorbachev. The formerly
of state apparatuses. For some of the ruling Communist parties, hardly conven-
cognoscenti far from the scene, all these tional political parties, had been the sinews
developments were euphemistically of the system, encompassing all the
described as “transitions to democracy” administrative and economic structures.
and the building of market economies. For Their dissolution or removal from power
many closer to the pain, rather than a time both deprived the state of its disciplinary
of the founding of democratic institutions, infrastructure (the loss of the “verticality of
the first three years appeared to be a power”) and at the same time left many of
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MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOL. VII, NO. 1, OCTOBER 1999
the old nomenklatura, with their specialized independent Armenia’s first president,
knowledge and personal affiliations, in Levon Ter Petrosian, were tempted by
places of influence but now without any whatever state resources were at their
superordinate authority. Extra-state forces disposal to enhance authority to its limits.
– entrenched old elites, parvenu criminal State-building – the creation of authorita-
mafias and more legitimate entrepreneurs tive (hopefully, not authoritarian) and
– have essentially filled the space left by legitimate states whose laws will be
the retreat of the state and the dissolution obeyed, taxes paid, internal security
of the party. protected – is an essential item on the
The effectiveness of the Soviet regime agenda of all the post-Soviet states.
in blocking the emergence of alternative Just because independent states exist
elites has left former Communists, stripped in the South Caucasus does not mean that
of their ideological baggage, among the they govern in the name of coherent,
most effective political players in most conscious nations. In the usual narrative of
republics. In Georgia and Azerbaijan, the fall of the Soviet Union, well-formed
former party bosses Edward Shevardnadze nations emerged from decades, if not
and Heidar Aliev rule their respective centuries, of oppression to take the oppor-
republics. In tunity offered by
Armenia, anti- Gorbachev to
Communist What resulted from the Soviet assert their
nationalists natural, long-
collapse was not the birth of
remain in power, denied aspira-
fifteen fully formed nation-states
but the present tions for indepen-
head of state, but fledgling states whose only dence and
Robert sovereignty. But
claim to legitimacy was that they
Kocharian, faces most analysts of
were “owned” by titular nations.
a challenge from the Soviet
the former collapse argue
Communist party that the disinte-
chief, Karen Demirjian, who not only came gration of the Soviet system was the result,
in second to him in the last election but in a at least initially, not of resurgent nationalism
recent poll was overwhelmingly selected as but of the weakness of, indeed abdication
the most popular politician in the republic. of power by, the central Soviet state.
Rather than “transition to democracy,” the What resulted from the Soviet collapse
political shift in the South Caucasus fits Jon was not the birth of fifteen fully formed
Elster’s characterization of the entire post- nation-states but fledgling states whose
Communist transformation as “rebuilding only claim to legitimacy was that they were
the ship at sea.”6 This phrase, in diagnos- “owned” by titular nations.7 Laws on
ing that the core problem to be solved is citizenship favoring the dominant nations
order under chaotic conditions, suggests became instruments to police the bound-
why democratic procedures appear to be aries of who might be included within the
so ineffective. Even initially well-inten- national body. Georgia imploded in civil
tioned and dedicated democrats, like and ethnic war; Azerbaijan was fractured
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LAITIN & SUNY: ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN
by the struggle with the Karabakh Arme- mous Karabakh was separated from
nians, faced some resistance from Lezgins Armenia proper by a six-mile swath of land
in the north, and used its army to suppress – the Lachin corridor – that was primarily
a hastily formed “Talysh-Mughan Repub- settled by Muslim Kurds. With Lachin as
lic” in the south. In Ukraine and Russia part of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Arme-
compact populations of non-Ukrainian and nia had no contiguous border with
non-Russian peoples put enormous pres- Karabakh.8 Though Armenians had
sure upon state authority. The Russian nominal political control over the regional
Federation faced complex threats from Karabakh soviet, in the pseudo-federal
regions seeking ever higher levels of structure of the Soviet Union autonomy
autonomy (e.g., Tatarstan) and fought two meant little, and Karabakh remained
murderous wars against the breakaway subservient to Baku and its Azerbaijani
region of Chechnya. Ukraine avoided war Communist party. Armenians in Karabakh
with non-titulars but has hardly resolved and Armenia proper protested periodically
the issue of how to incorporate non- against this infringement of the national
Ukrainians into a Ukrainian state. The principle, as well as what they perceived to
legacy of Soviet rule was a complexly be restrictions on the cultural and economic
mixed multinational subcontinent with development of the Karabakh Armenians
millions of people living outside what now by their Azerbaijani overlords.
had become their “homelands” and new Azerbaijanis, on the other hand, saw
minorities in republics face to face with Karabakh as part of their historic home-
new dominant majorities and without any land, the cradle of poets and composers,
appeal to an imperial center. It was within and the victim of aggressive Armenian
this context of weak states and fledgling nationalism.9 When in the late-1980s
nations, ethnically mixed populations, and nationalist stirrings were felt throughout
Soviet traditions of ethnically based politics much of the Soviet Union, titular groups
that Armenians and Azerbaijanis turned a within union republics envisioned a possible
political dispute into the prolonged and sovereignty and a concomitant “owner-
bloody confrontation over Karabakh. ship” of their republics. In this utopian
vision, national minorities like Azerbaijanis
THE CONTOURS OF THE in Armenia or Armenians in Azerbaijan
KARABAKH CONFLICT were a thorn pricking the balloon of
The anomalies that led to the outbreak national fulfillment. Migration back to
of violence in and around Karabakh began “home” republics accelerated. But with
with the application of Leninist nationality the opening of greater political expression
policy in this region. Though the population under Gorbachev, the Karabakh Arme-
of Mountainous Karabakh (Nagorno- nians called for the merger of their autono-
Karabakh) was overwhelmingly Arme- mous district with the Armenian republic.
nian in the twentieth century (75-80 On February 13, 1988, street demonstra-
percent), for strategic and economic tions began in Stepanakert, the capital of
reasons Soviet authorities placed it within Karabakh, and six days later they were
the wealthier Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan joined by mass marches in Erevan. In an
rather than in Soviet Armenia. Autono- unprecedented action, the Soviet of
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MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOL. VII, NO. 1, OCTOBER 1999
People’s Deputies in Karabakh, up to this told that only Karabakh and its army stand
time a typical rubber-stamp Soviet-style between the Armenians and another
legislature, voted 110-17 to request from genocide.
Moscow the transfer of Karabakh to As horrific as the killings in Azerbaijan
Armenia. A new era of nationalist politics were, it should be noted that the initial
had opened in the USSR that within three tragic events in Sumgait and Baku were
years would challenge the authority of a affairs of a few days rather than a me-
moribund superpower. thodical, prolonged genocide of local
The years 1988-90 were crucial and Armenians. Ethnic violence did not spread
complex. First in Sumgait, an Azerbaijani from city to city, village to village. There
city near the capital, and later in Baku was no overall Azerbaijani plan to rid
itself, ugly riots broke out with Armenians Azerbaijan of Armenians, certainly not to
singled out for beatings, even murder. In murder them systematically. Even today
the drab industrial town of Sumgait, some Armenians manage to live in Baku
Armenians were set upon by neighbors, without overt threat or ethnic slurs. What-
hacked to death before the eyes of family ever the role of Azerbaijani officials – and
members, that remains
several set murky – it is
Azerbaijanis see Armenians as
afire. For clear that the
Armenians the particularly privileged in their close key actors in
pogroms of the pogroms,
ties to the Russian and European
Sumgait and particularly
worlds, while they as Muslims suf-
Baku were those in Baku
bloody proof fer discrimination and condescen- in 1990, were
that Armenians sion from the West and North. Azerbaijani
could never refugees
live under forced out of
Azerbaijani rule and feel safe. Armenian Armenia. Yet the riots and killings fatally
accounts refer to these events as evidence colored the mutual understandings of these
of Azerbaijani ethnic hatred, of the geno- two nationalities, making each see itself as
cidal tendency among “Turks” that Arme- victim and the other as oppressor. The
nians experienced in the Ottoman Empire Armenian view of their desperate situation
in 1915 and which now Azerbaijani is well known in the West, while the
“Turks” were reviving.10 For Armenians Azerbaijani vision of victimhood is far less
genocide is a palpable threat, and their appreciated. Azerbaijani claims to inno-
historical experience suggests that no cence are coupled with Armenian guilt in
outside power will come to their aid against popular narratives. In direct contrast to the
Turkish extermination. They have devel- Armenian view, Azerbaijanis see Arme-
oped a mentality, not unlike many Israelis, nians as the aggressors, the first to start
of a besieged and vulnerable nation whose conflict, and a fantastic story has emerged
only salvation lies in its own efforts to that an Armenian led the rampaging mob in
defend itself from overwhelming Muslim Sumgait. One lawyer claimed that one of
neighbors. In Armenia one frequently is the murderers in Baku had been recently
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LAITIN & SUNY: ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN
let out of a Soviet prison and was known to fighting; 233,700 refugees were created
be half-Azerbaijani and half-Armenian. along with 551,000 IDPs.12 The bulk of
Some credulous Baku residents believe these refugees and IDPs were from
that the Soviet army, which was on the Azerbaijani territory outside the formal
brink of occupying Baku in 1990, needed borders of Karabakh itself. While many
an event to justify their reestablishment of IDPs claim that they left because their
central Soviet rule over the republic. Many government urged them to do so while the
Azerbaijanis, particularly those who Azerbaijani army attempted to resist the
suffered directly from the Armenian Armenian incursion, a significant percent-
military advances, are convinced that the age told how they attempted to hold on to
Armenians had a plan to exterminate their properties until mortar shells hit their
Azerbaijanis throughout Karabakh and in houses. Others who had left earlier heard
the corridor that lies between Armenia and later that their homes had been burnt to
the autonomous district. In extensive their foundations.13 Jobless, without hope,
interviews carried out in August 1998 with unintegrated in Azerbaijani society, the
refugees and “internally dispersed persons” refugees construct and reconstruct their
(IDPs) now living in Tartar, Barda, Sumgait horrible past.
and Baku, a very clear story emerged.11 In both republics there exist deep
Armenian militias along with civilian hatreds that are usually imagined as
compatriots systematically cleansed the ancient and primordial, permanent and
corridor separating Armenia from ineradicable. Yet at the same time there
Karabakh in a cold-blooded campaign. are counter-memories of past times of
Armed bands relied on local Armenians to peace and stability when Armenians and
identify Azerbaijani villages and homes and Azerbaijanis lived together without conflict.
then recruited these people to burn down In interviews carried out by David Laitin
the homes of their neighbors. One IDP and others in Azerbaijan in the summer of
recounted that his one-time Armenian 1998, long-time town residents of Baku and
neighbor told him, “We don’t kill you Sumgait insisted again and again that they
because we want your land. We kill you very much wanted the Armenians to
because you are Muslim.” Such narratives remain, that they felt they were a well-
of betrayal are mixed with reports of educated community, much more like them
inhuman atrocities, and several informants than the rural refugees and IDPs who took
described Armenians as “animals.” Finally, the homes of Armenians. These towns-
Azerbaijanis see Armenians as particularly people stated that they were unable to
privileged in their close ties to the Russian discover who had instigated the riots but
and European worlds, while they as were sure that they were outsiders. Not
Muslims suffer discrimination and conde- only do some cosmopolitan Azerbaijan
scension from the West and North. urbanites remember the contributions of
Within Azerbaijan the refugee and IDP Armenians to their republic’s culture and
camps are the seedbeds for narratives of well being, but Armenians in Armenia
“return” and “revenge.” From 1988 to remember how the rural Azerbaijanis were
1993, an estimated 20,000 Azerbaijanis the purveyors of the best fruits and veg-
were killed, all but a few hundred in the etables in the collective-farm markets.
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War and murder have steeped some the former Communist party boss, Heidar
images in bloody hues, and the recovery of Aliev. Though the move toward democ-
older patterns of coexistence is difficult to racy in both countries was extremely
imagine. Nourished by resentments and uneven, the overall trend in the South
material deprivation, the seeds of large- Caucasus by the mid-1990s (including
scale war that could easily last for genera- Georgia, where civil and ethnic war tore
tions and draw in powerful states like Iran, the country apart in 1991-92) was toward
Turkey and Russia continue to be planted, stabilization of existing state structures, a
almost hourly, in the South Caucasus. But relative degree of public order, and a
the collective suffering of Armenians and slower pace of reform and democratiza-
Azerbaijanis has not only hardened the tion. In Armenia the war, the Azerbaijani
divisions between these peoples but made blockade, the failure to repair the damage
it clear – after seven years of war and tens suffered in the December 1988 earth-
of thousands killed – that a political rather quake, and the growing apathy and despair
than a military solution is desperately that encouraged migration to the West
needed. Despite these narratives and eroded the earlier popularity of the Ter
bitter memories, opportunities for solving Petrosian government (1990-98). The
the Karabakh problem are available. unity of the original band of nationalists
While no solution will adequately compen- who had led the Karabakh movement in
sate the families of victims, those who Erevan splintered within the first year
remain embittered must move toward a when key members broke with the govern-
compromise solution that will safeguard the ment and formed opposition parties.
future of their children and their children’s Banditry and armed militias in the streets
children from wars fueled by oil revenues of the cities, along with the growth of
and fought by refugees in the name of independent centers of economic power,
national dignity. threatened the almost non-existent state
apparatus. A series of victories in the
POLITICS IN THE CAUCASIAN Karabakh war, beginning in May 1992 with
MODE the capture of Shushi and Lachin, and the
Armenia and Azerbaijan came to expansion and stabilization of the front with
independence in quite different ways: a cease-fire in the spring of 1994, gave the
Armenia through an anti-Communist Armenian government a short breathing
nationalist movement that successfully space needed to bring civil order to its
replaced the Communist party in power towns, lay the basis for a restoration of the
through democratic elections, Azerbaijan economy, and win over foreign friends and
with its Communist leadership intact and aid.
prepared to support the anti-democratic Ter Petrosian navigated a narrow
coup of conservative Communists in course between open support of the
August 1991. Armenia enjoyed a reputa- Karabakh republic’s policies, supported by
tion internationally as a brave, resistant leading parties in the parliamentary opposi-
anti-Communist supporter of Western-style tion, and the requirements of Russia and
reforms, while Azerbaijan stumbled from the United States to restrict its direct
coup to coup until state power reverted to involvement in Azerbaijan. At first his
154