Black Garden — In Armenian
15.2 km South of Lachin, Kashatagh Region, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006
The last two days saw an opportunity to meet up with Caucasus editor of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR), Tom de Waal, while he was in town to launch the Armenian translation of his book on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War
Anyway, as I hadn’t seen Tom since the launch of the Russian translation of the book in Yerevan last November it was great to meet up with him over dinner with the lovely Amberin Zaman and her husband, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy Joseph Pennington, on Monday, and again last night at an IWPR bash before he returned to London. As with the first edition of the English version of the book, the cover photo was again mine with more inside.
Anyway, now that there are English, Russian and Armenian versions of the book, there should be one in Azeri in the near future. Armenian Public Radio covered the launch of the book.
The US Embassy and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting Armenia Branch held a discussion at the US Embassy on October 1 to mark the release of the Armenian translation of British journalist Thomas de Waal’s book “Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War.”
The book presents a careful reconstruction of the history of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and its aftermath, based on six months traveling through the South Caucasus, more than 120 original interviews, and unique archives.
The widely-read book was first published in English in 2004. A Russian translation of the book came out in November 2006 and discussions were held in Yerevan, Tbilisi and Baku.
Thomas de Waal is editor of the Caucasus Reporting Service of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. He is also known as co-author of A Small Victorious War, a book on the conflict in Chechnya. De Waal completed a degree in Russian and Modern Greek at Oxford, has worked for the BBC, The Moscow Times and The Times in London and Moscow.
As you can see from the sidebar to this blog, I thoroughly recommend Black Garden to anyone interested in a chronological account to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. A review of the book can be found here, and the English version can be purchased through Amazon.com here
I bought this book a while back, but I haven’t read it yet. I am looking forward to reading it as I have heard a lot of very good things about Black Garden.
Comment by Myrthe — October 3, 2007 @ 12:56 pm
Comment by Onnik — October 3, 2007 @ 6:09 pm
Brits …
One British journalist (Fisk) tells us to continue pressuring Turkey on the Genocide issue.
Another British journalist (De Waal) tells us to make peace with Azerbaijan by making concessions.
I have one thing to tell to my fellow Armenians, if Brits tell you to do something, you should do the dyametrically opposite…
Comment by Armen — October 3, 2007 @ 7:48 pm
I don’t think Tom de Waal is telling anyone to do anything. In fact, he’s simply reporting what is actually happening although yes, like most logical people here and abroad, he realizes that both Armenia and Azerbaijan need to make peace and move on.
Comment by Onnik — October 3, 2007 @ 8:51 pm
“I don’t think Tom de Waal is telling anyone to do anything. ”
He just did in an interview to Yerkir Media an hour ago.
Comment by Armen — October 3, 2007 @ 9:46 pm
Well, then. Let’s hope people listen to someone who has a more comprehensive and clearer picture of what’s going on in the region than most.
Comment by Onnik — October 3, 2007 @ 10:00 pm
People should ” listen” to their national security and economic interests and not foreign journalists, most of whom act on their own selfish interest.
Comment by Armen — October 3, 2007 @ 10:23 pm
Armen, peace is always in the interest of national security. Besides, nearly every political force inside Armenia believe in the need for peace so perhaps you should address your concerns to them and not pick on scapegoats such as Fisk and De Waal who I would argue understand the situation better than you and I included.
Still, you’re welcome to your opinion, but I don’t think that it will influence matters. What Armenia needs is recognition of independence for Nagorno Karabakh and the end to the conflict. I don’t think many people would disagree and certainly, Tom has not suggested anything other than that. Believing that Armenia can survive in the long term without resolving outstanding problems with Turkey and Azerbaijan, however, seems more like the greatest threat to its national security.
Meanwhile, I suppose you should add Armenians, Americans, Russians, and god knows who else to your list of people not to listen to because there are proponents of peace everywhere — including in the Republic of Armenia and also among both governmental and opposition parties as well as civil society. Thankfully, nationalist are a minority although unfortunately that’s not the case in Azerbaijan so I hope they too will listen to Tom when he launches the Azeri version of his book there.
Comment by Onnik — October 3, 2007 @ 10:53 pm
Onnik, peace is not always in the interest national security. This is rethoric and demagoguery. Peace is in the interest of national security only in case if it maintains or increases national security.
Armenia is not going to increase its security by making concessions to Azerbaijan. History has proved and it is our national experiece that Azerbaijan understands only power and killing. Any concession will be a sign of weekness for them. And they will not interpret it otherwise.
Maybe Fisk and Waal understand the sitation better than you but I would refrain for generalizing. The fact that they write lot of articles does not mean anything to me. They are getting paid for that.
Onnik, I realy don’t understand the logic of saying this: “What Armenia needs is recognition of independence for Nagorno Karabakh and the end to the conflict. ”
You mean if Armenia recognizes NK independence eveything is going to be smooth? That’s a cause of war right there! And De Vaal is far from suggesting that. He said today the he favours a guaratee for security for the NK Armenian population within the territory of Azerbaijan. And there is no force in the world except for the NK Army that can guarantee that security.
Saying, “Hey guys I am for peace! And this guy is against peace. I am good guy and he is bad guy” is not a good argument. Artificial peace is a cause of another, bigger war. It has been proved many times in history.
Comment by Armen — October 3, 2007 @ 11:25 pm
No, I meant if the international community including Azerbaijan recognized the independence of Nagorno Karabakh as part of a negotiated peace deal.
BTW: Regarding Tom’s interview, could you hear his English or was it overdubbed in Armenian? I know Tom spoke through a translator during the interview when it was recorded on Tuesday, but it’s interesting to know whether his answers and the translation can be compared in the final broadcast interview.
Comment by Onni — October 4, 2007 @ 12:14 am
If Azerbaijan accepted the independence of NK there would be peace tomorrow. Armenia would give up territory it controls to achieve this. However so far Azerbaijan, at least publicly, refuses to consider the possibility of independence for NK and keeps threatening a new war.
Comment by R — October 4, 2007 @ 7:15 am
Incidentally, the photo at the top of this page was taken during a visit to Lachin/Kashatagh last year. I wrote two articles from the visit — one for EurasiaNet and one for IWPR. The latter detailed HALO Trust attempts to clear mines from the region, but I’m told that David Shahnazaryan has attempted to persuade people that there are no landmines in the territory at all.
Bizarre, and I have to question why people such as Shahnazaryan speak as “experts” on matters they obviously know nothing about. I mean, I wonder what all those hundreds of landmines I saw in the region were? Maybe Shahnazaryan will accuse HALO Trust of burying them themselves or something years before, chigidem. Stupid, but amazing to hear people still quote him despite photographs of minefields posted on this blog.
http://oneworld.blogsome.com/2006/08/25/meghvadzor-kashatagh-region/
http://oneworld.blogsome.com/2006/08/26/meghvadzor-kashatagh-region-2/
http://oneworld.blogsome.com/2006/08/26/suarassy-kashatagh-region/
Comment by Onnik — October 4, 2007 @ 3:38 pm
Why don’t we take a look at what the Europeans are saying:
And when do you foresee the recognition of the election - after the Karabakh conflict resolution?
Yes, after the conflict settlement. I mean the fact is that legally Nagorno-Karabakh is seen as an occupied territory. Legally it is part of Azerbaijan. I support the territorial integrity of all the member countries Caspian Cooperation, Armenia, as well as Azerbaijan. Nagorno-Karabakh is not part of Armenia. Georgia may be of Armenian origin but that does not mean to recognize it as part of Armenia. Serbia has majority of Albanians and it does not mean they are part of Serbia. Cyprus has Turkish population and that does not mean that they are part of Cyprus. I support territorial integrity of all member countries, that includes Cyprus, that includes Georgia, that includes Russia, that includes Moldova, that includes Azerbaijan. I exclude the people of Armenia. But I am telling the truth. That is what people outside Armenia think of it.
http://www.a1plus.am/en/?page=issue&iid=50602
The so-called “West” is not going to be recognizing Artsakh. And this puts us, Armenians, in a difficult situation:
1. I agree with Onnik that the borders have to be opened. But,
2. The opening of the borders is contingent upon concessions to Azerbaijan, the giving up of territory that belongs to Armenians, that is not acceptable, generally speaking about Armenians.
This kind of situation is, of course, called a “problem.” We have a “problem” here. A very big, rather severely copulations-intensive, seemingly unsolvable problem.
Who is going to solve this problem? You? Me? Well, if we are going to solve this problem then we have to take into consideration what it means in the wider context, what it means in the global, meaning in the US/Europe, Russia, Iran, China/India context.
The “West,” meaning the US and its effeminate hangers-on, meaning the Brits, Inc., doesn’t want the Gharabagh war to end, just like it doesn’t want the Albanian-Serbian conflict to end: Why end the opportunity to put one Other against another? Why not let them continue to kill each other? Kissinger said that explicitly about the Iran-Iraq War. To boot, the “west” has a very good reason to keep the Gharabagh conflict going: In that case, it can offer to Azerbaijan the categorization of Armenians in Artsakh as “terrorists” in exchange for its cooperation in Iran, meaning destabilization of the government, in coordination with the Kurds to the west and the Arabs in the south and the Afghans in the east.
The big boys are in town, and you have to ask yourself, what can Armenia do for them. And the answer is pretty much nothing.
Armenia’s situation is contingent upon what I’ve said here and previously on this blog, in addition to the fact that Armenia gets its natural gas from Russia. Armenian cars run on natural gas, as I’m sure you know.
So, as I see it, that is copulation-intensive problem that is before us. It seems pretty impossible to solve, but, on the other hand, nothing is impossible.
Comment by Armen Filadelfiatsi — October 4, 2007 @ 4:00 pm
Well, what can I say? If that’s the situation, it’s obviously not a good one. However, rightly or wrongly, I hope that the international community might value stability over anything else and push Azerbaijan to recognize Karabakh’s independence, but then again, it’s pretty stable as it stands. Just a few skrmishes, dozens of some poor sods of conscripts killed every year. Who cares?
Few people, it would seem, although I would say that Tom does genuinely believe in peace even if the hawks elsewhere might not. What concerns me more, however, is that the way things are going, if this conflict is left to drag on without any pressure for a real compromise solutions, then really, when a deal is signed, some high degree of autonomy inside Azerbaijan will be the most that Armenians there can get.
Still, as one who does not believe in nationalist land grabs, I am not against that in principle. However, I do believe that after a war the right to self-determination should take precedence. Then again, I also realize the validity of your argument that this would be a dangerous precedent for the international community to allow to happen. Well, anyway, I think we can forget about a new push for peace before next year’s presidential elections in both Armenia and Azerbaijan, but I would prefer this situation resolved sooner rather than later.
Comment by Onnik — October 4, 2007 @ 4:09 pm
Onnik,
These is no “international community”. This is just internationalist jargon. There are bloks of countries with common interests that fight other bloks. “International community” is once again a chaos like in 19th century. And international situation is moving towards big calamities: a coming world financial crisis, worsening regional conflicts (Russia-Georgia-US, US-Myanmar-China, Iraq-Kurds-Turkey, Iran, etc., etc), increasing oil prices, dollar inflation and a possible boycot of 2008 Olympic Games.
Should I draw some parallels or you will guess it?
What countries like Armenia have to do in all this mess is gather some foodstuffs and become enthusiastic observers.
Comment by Armen — October 5, 2007 @ 1:37 am