Armenia Urged To Follow Azeri Democratic Reform
In one of the most bizarre stories this week, Armenia has been urged by a senior U.S. official to follow Azerbaijan in terms of democracy building. According the report, last year’s parliamentary elections in Armenia’s arch-rival in the South Caucasus were considered to have improved over previous ones, although Azerbaijan still lags behind Armenia in terms of actual political freedom as a recent report by Freedom House identified.
However, Matthew Bryza, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, said that the pace of reform in Azerbaijan was stronger than in Armenia. Personally speaking, and although we have yet to see how much of a farce next year’s parliamentary elections will be, this all sounds a little too weird to me, and I suspect that the U.S. has other reasons things in mind viz-viz its relations with Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Bryza claimed that there were “some significant improvements” in the Azerbaijani authorities’ conduct of the November parliamentary election even if they “didn’t go as far as we would like.”
A monitoring mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, headed by a U.S. congressman, described the polls as deeply flawed, citing numerous serious violations witnessed by its observers. Western human rights groups also condemned a brutal break-up by security forces of a big opposition demonstration in Baku against the official vote results.
[…]
Bryza insisted that democratic reform is high on the Bush administration’s agenda but admitted that other factors such as Azerbaijan’s oil reserves and geographic location are also at play. “Just because Azerbaijan hasn’t gone as far as we would like on democracy doesn’t mean we’re going to ignore our energy interests or our military interests,” he said.
The full report is here, while in other news, Kocharian’s Press Secretary has lashed out at Bryza for revealing the details of the framework peace proposal on the table to resolve the Karabakh conflict, and a man has been arrested in connection with last week’s assassination of a senior figure in the Yerkrapah Union of Karabakh War Veterans.
Despite the good intentions of the diaspora, leave it up to the criminal element in Armenia to pull all the good work down by their actions or should I say by the government inactions. Hye noon in Yerevsn is in reality a modern version of the movie High Noon except we don’t have any idea who the good guys are.
No wonder the American Embassy is becoming vocal about Armenia’s dealings with Azerbaijan. There really is no law and order in Armenia which feeds into the hands of those who don’t want us to succeed. It’s really a sad commentary for a nation that refuses to take the hye road.
Comment by Darwin Jamgochian — June 27, 2006 @ 8:57 am
We can all wonder what the US State Department officials have been smoking, we cannot deny that the Armenian authorities do not respect the rights of their citizens guaranteed by the constitution. The human rights may not be respected in the US itself either (especially if you are poor or dark skinned), the fact is that the US could care less about it and still have enough influence to criticize the others.
Comment by nazarian — June 27, 2006 @ 6:36 pm
I guess the question for us is whether the United States is Armenia’s friend or foe? I frankly don’t know. I do know that every time Armenia gets the opportunity to show how well the country is democratizing, it shoots itself in the foot. The Millenium Challenge and human rights groups are becoming more vocal in their criticism. And they have every right to.
Back in America President Bush is having a fight with Congress because he feels that laws are not binding when they limit his powers. Sound familiar?
Wouldn’t it be nice if Armenia were the country that set the standard for democracy? It really wouldn’t be that hard. Just enforce the Constitution.
Comment by Darwin Jamgochian — June 28, 2006 @ 3:03 am