&&ot&ot ;html> Notes From Hairenik: A Blog About Life in Armenia

Notes From Hairenik
August 13, 2008
Armenia's Next Step
Recently I wrote an article for the Armenian Weekly which appeared in its August 9 issue about the current political climate in Armenia. Below are some excerpts:

Another rally, held on Aug. 1, also declared forbidden by the authorities, was rumored to be staging a “revolution”—if jailed oppositionists considered political prisoners were not set free. At the rally, the formation of the Armenian National Congress—a union of opposition parties that have joined forces with Ter-Petrossian in his anti-government campaign—was announced.

Despite the tremendous support for Ter-Petrossian displayed at such public gatherings, some believe that the movement for change has surpassed the opposition leader.

***

As a result of the post-election chaos, over 100 people were arrested on largely trumped-up charges; over 70 are considered to be political prisoners by the opposition. Some oppositionists have been sentenced, including two loyalists of Ter-Petrossian who revealed the identities of two undercover National Security Service operatives stationed in Liberty Square during the post-election protests.

Various theories have been circulating by word of mouth and even suggested in the press that weapons were planted at the site of the sit-in protest at Liberty Square in the early hours on March 1 to legitimize the necessity for a sweeping crackdown. Eyewitnesses at the site of the clash between protesters and police during the evening hours claim that petty criminals with no connection to the demonstration were onsite to instigate the violence.

Government officials, including President Sarkisian himself, have had no choice but to justify the attacks made on civilians to save face, no matter how unpopular the outcome of the clashes with citizens was. Nevertheless, the president has been taking steps to distance himself from those believed to have been linked to the events by firing them from their posts, namely the head of the national police, Hayk Harutiunian, and the national interior troops commander, Grigor Grigorian. Critics, however, believe that the president is simply “cleaning house” by assigning loyalists to such positions.

You can read the article in its entirety here.

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Posted by Christian Garbis at 2:11 PM.
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Is the Situation Normalizing?
Yesterday Russia declared that it would stop its military offensive into Georgia. According to Russian President Dimitri Medvedev, “the aggressor has been punished.” Meanwhile at a rally held in Tbilisi last night Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, with the presidents of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine and Poland by his side, declared that his nation was a member of the "real Europe" according to CNN, whatever that is supposed to mean. French President Nikolas Sarkozy effectively brokered the ceasefire agreement. In compliance with the document, both Russian and Georgian military forces agree to retreat from their positions. Hopefully this marks the beginning of the end.

But what is the impact of this war, if it can be called that, on Armenia? I was concerned that goods, including foodstuffs and fuel, would not be entering Armenia from trade centers in Georgia for a while. However, yesterday RFE/RL reported on a news conference held by the Armenian Transport and Communications Minister, Gurgen Sargsian. The report read that:

Fuel and the vast majority of other commodities reach the country via the Georgian Black Sea ports of Batumi and Poti. Russian warplanes have bombed Poti and other civilian and military targets across Georgia in recent days. According to some media reports, the air strikes disrupted Georgia’s rail-ferry services with Russia and Ukraine that process most of the goods shipped to and from Armenia.

Sargsian claimed, however, that both the ports and the ferry links have remained operational since last Friday’s outbreak of vicious fighting in South Ossetia that spilled over into Georgia proper. “We have no information about any problems,” he told a news conference. “Everything is normal. Georgian roads are not dangerous, and the railway [leading to Armenia] is absolutely safe.”

According to Sargsian, 60 rail cars laden with wheat and other basic goods rolled into Armenia overnight and 18 others are on the way. “Cargo shipments by rail are being carried out as planned,” the minister said. “The railway did not stop for a single minute. It has continued to operate, carrying both people and cargos.”

Nevertheless, the Armenian Ambassador to Georgia, Hrach Silvanian, had something different to say:
... “As a result of the bomb raids, there have arisen difficulties in the work of the port of Poti, which have reflected negatively on cargo shipments,” he said in written answers to questions from RFE/RL.

Silvanian also reported “certain disruptions” in Batumi partly related to concerns about the safety of freight transportation. The Armenian embassy in Tbilisi is taking “all possible steps to overcome the mentioned obstacles,” he said.

Okay, so who's right? Is the Armenian government simply making up stories to prevent a panic (not that people seem to be panicking really)? Or is there really a problem with imports arriving at Armenian destinations? How were people going to eat bread if flour supplies were to run out? What about being able to get any available food to market with a significant shortage of fuel? Yesterday I decided to fill some more gasoline in my tank, about 12 liters worth, just in case I would not be able to find any more by the weekend. I just happened to have stumbled upon a Flash station not far from my home, which didn't seem to have been rationing fuel. Sure enough, the same article reported:

That Russia’s military operations in Georgia have seriously complicated Armenia’s transport communication with the rest of the world was also asserted by the country’s largest fuel importer, Flash. “There were disruptions in our supplies for the past four or five days as no cargos were transported from Georgia,” Mushegh Elchian, the company’s deputy director, told RFE/RL.

But Elchian said the situation seems to be improving now. “We received ten rail cars of petrol overnight, while other companies imported large quantities of diesel fuel. But still we have a fairly large volume of fuel stocked in the Batumi terminal.”

Well I for one was getting a bit worried although my work associates believed that the conflict was going to calm down and all was going to be well. They seem to have been right, thank God. At least for now, anyway.

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Posted by Christian Garbis at 1:36 PM.
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August 12, 2008
Armenia Faces Trade Blockade
Well it seems the fears I had expressed in my previous post are coming true. The trade operations in two Georgian ports, Poti and Batumi, have ceased indefinitely due to the escalated fighting across Georgia, mostly in South Ossetia and now Abkhazia. There has also been a 30 percent reduction in the flow of natural gas from Russia to Armenia imposed by Georgia, and as of two days ago gasoline was being rationed as supplies are now limited. I could only fill 4000 dram worth, or about 10 liters, of gasoline at a time. But I was able to persuade gasoline station managers to fill fuel at two different pumps as I explained to them that I was off to Lake Sevan. Strangely enough the price was the same, 410 dram for 1 liter of gasoline, as it has been for about six weeks now. Nevertheless the cost per liter may have since gone up or else could potentially increase considerably by the end of the week.

RFE/RL reports that:

At least one of the Georgian ports, Poti, has been targeted by Russian warplanes bombing military and civilian targets across Georgia following the outbreak of all-out fighting in South Ossetia. Armenia has long been heavily reliant on its rail-ferry services with the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Ilyichevsk and Russia’s Port-Kavkaz.

According to Vladimir Badalian, a government-linked parliamentarian co-chairing an Armenian-Georgian business association, both Poti and the other Georgian port, Batumi, are standing idle now because of the worsening security situation in the country. “Because the work of the ports ground to a halt, a fairly large numbers of goods are piling up there,” he told RFE/RL on Monday.

This is not cheerful news. Hopefully most of those goods are non-food items, so it won't be devastating for deliveries of beauty products and plastic containers to be delayed for some time I suppose. However, the shortages of fuel are definitely worrisome. There are still thousands of cars on the road which are dependent on gasoline for instance rather than the more common natural gas. This will mean that most businessmen owning gasoline or diesel-powered vehicles will have difficulty delivering produce to market. The same issue applies to cargo or construction vehicles, for instance dump and cement trucks.

In the meantime Armenians vacationing or living in Georgia as well as people from other countries visiting there are moving across the border in droves.

You can read more about the crisis here and here.

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Posted by Christian Garbis at 10:05 AM.
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August 10, 2008
Georgia vs. The Bear
Georgia has finally managed to irritate its former boss up north to such a degree of intolerability that Russia has made a move. The issue is about South Ossetia, which declared independence from Georgia in the early 1990s shortly after the Soviet Union broke apart and has managed to maintain autonomy since then. Nevertheless, President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has misguided, egotistic perspectives about his country’s fate in the Caucasus region, namely to rapidly Westernize Georgia while aspiring to join NATO and antagonize Russia as much as possible in the process, decided to stir up tension in South Ossetia earlier in the week and finally launched a military operation there Friday morning, with 15 reported dead. Many South Ossetians are Russian citizens, so Russia felt that it had no other choice but to send in its own troops to protect them. As of this writing, there are an estimated 2000 people reported dead, mainly civilians, according to the Interfax news service.

Russian jet fighters have started hitting targets within Georgia, including an airport outside of the capital of Tbilisi. Three other airports have also been hit across Georgia. Purportedly one of the oil pipelines running through the country has been damaged. Nevertheless Russia insists it is there on a peacekeeping mission. Now it is threatening a naval blockade of the Georgian port city on the Black Sea, Poti. Meanwhile, the Georgian parliament hastily declared a state of war, but wisely stopped short of declaring war with Russia.

Saakashvili’s dangerous games shrouded in reiterations of the hot-button terms “democracy” and “freedom” as pretexts for his actions are going to devastate the socioeconomic situation of Georgia in a matter of days, and Armenia will start feeling the impact well before the end of next week unless he gets on the phone with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and begs for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire. He chose to rant and rave for 10 minutes on CNN World News Saturday evening, complaining that Russia was “irresponsible,” “sadistic,” and was committing “war crimes.” His cantankerous tune better change fast since he was the one who started this fiasco, and news outlets have been saying as much.

Armenia relies on Poti as a trade outlet. If all import/export operations at that port stop indefinitely it will mean that business in Armenia will be hard-hit. There were problems there last year as I remember but the issue was resolved thankfully before this country began to suffer a prolonged negative impact. A Russian naval blockade would be daunting. Furthermore, Georgia offers a bustling transit route between Armenia and Turkey. The cheap Turkish crap as well as I am sure many other goods originating in Europe which is readily available in Armenian stores and markets is trucked in across the Georgian border. If Georgia continues to destabilize the region with its eye-poking nonsense Armenia’s trade with the outside world could very feasibly be severely crippled (unless of course Turkey opens a portion of its border to continue its multi-million dollar commerce with Armenia, which is unlikely even though Turkish businessmen are doing very well thanks to Armenian consumers). The conflict in the region of Abkhazia, which has also declared independence from Georgia and whose allegiances are with Russia, may also explode—that region’s troops have beefed up their presence along the border with Georgia proper. I don’t want to contemplate what else could happen in this region, although some thoughts have already come to mind.

Bottom line—President Saakashvili has to stop this insanity. He has been saying since shortly after taking office that he would win back Georgian control of those territories which both have Russian support. But he cannot beat The Bear, he cannot taunt him by throwing stones and certainly cannot afford to make him the slightest bit upset. The tension during the last 36 hours is certainly proof of that. The South Caucasus does not need any more unrest, whether active or dormant.

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Posted by Christian Garbis at 1:39 AM.
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August 2, 2008
Still Waiting for the 'Revolution'
Last night I went to the third of the “illegal” opposition rallies which took place since June 20 at the Matenadaran manuscript archives, located at the top of Mashdots Street in central Yerevan. The last one was held on July 4 which I also attended for about an hour. I arrived a bit late last night, just after 8:00 pm, with the main intent to hear Levon Ter-Petrossian speak, since I never had the chance to do so before. Usually about 10 other people speak before him, such as fellow opposition leaders representing their own parties Aram Sargsyan, who was once the prime minister in 1999 under former Robert Kocharian’s watch, and Stepan Demirjian, who was very close to defeating Kocharian in the 2003 presidential elections—some argue that he actually did beat him but the vote was falsified. Sargsyan is actually not a bad speaker, he has quite a bit of enthusiasm in his voice and knows how to cheer up a crowd fairly quickly. There were other speakers who didn’t have much to say, they were simply raving it seemed. I weaved in and out of the crowd to guesstimate how many people were there—I figured several thousand. I can’t say exactly or give a close estimate. The people along the stairs which lead up to the museum and the remainder of the crowd where I was were mostly middle aged. Two narrow streets flank the cobblestone steps leading to the archives perched on a hill, so I finally chose to walk along one of them since there was less congestion and thus more free room to move about. Many people were sitting around, either on patches of grass or along curbstones. Sunflower seeds were readily available, the cracked shells of which were coating the walkways. After the last speaker was through—I think it was Demirjian—someone enthusiastically introduced Levon, the first president of Armenia and all-around great guy. The podium is set along a very short wall which is situated directly across from the museum’s entrance. From that point you have an excellent view of the city and it is an ideal place to address a crowd of people, which is why the location is always chosen since meeting at Liberty Square is not possible. That and because Levon is one of those in change of the Matenadaran’s undertakings, so it is actually his turf. There were several trees blocking my view of him so I did not actually see him speak, but it wasn’t a problem for me as well as for the thousands who were in the same situation. Without a doubt Levon is one of the most charismatic, eloquent Armenian speakers I have heard, and in that sense I can see how he can still be able to muster a following. But what ensued after the chorus from Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”--the last movement of his ninth symphony and apparently Levon’s theme song--died down was nothing I was expecting to hear. It was basically a lecture, a typical banter spoken by a graying, eccentric university professor with weakened eyesight. He began by briefly explaining some points in the Armenian constitution, then moved on to discuss the failings of the National Assembly to legitimize the same laws it had passed, the failure of the previous administration to tackle corruption (which came to full blossom when he himself was in power), and after speaking for only five minutes concluded that there is no difference between the current administration and the previous one. He also spoke briefly about the prime minister Tigran Sarkisian, not necessarily harshly criticizing but also certainly not heartily praising him either, since he is actually a disciple of sorts having been a key player in the Pan-National Movement of the late 1980s. But the lecture was slow moving and there was nothing being said to actually activate people, instead they were expected to listen to this man go on and on about how the laws are misinterpreted, how lawlessness was uncontrollably flourishing and so forth. After about 15 minutes or so I had enough and I made my way to the street. Apparently it continued this way for well over one hour—around 10:30 pm Levon’s theme started again and about five minutes later people began marching down the street chanting “Levon, Levon.”

Although he clearly is an eloquent, intelligent man, nevertheless very crafty and shrewd, I as well as perhaps millions of other Armenians who follow politics am not convinced that he can do any good for Armenia. He had eight years to instill democracy in this country, to set up law and order in society and lay a foundation of justice for coming generations. But he didn’t—instead corruption got out of control and the clan system of regional and commercial governance took hold. Levon is personally responsible for bringing the former as well as current leaders of the country into power, the same who the opposition resents. He knew their limitations as tacticians or politicians, but he recruited them anyway. And they did a fine job of continuing the unjust, undemocratic way of life that started during his reign for Armenians living here, which also provoked an exodus. So I have a hard time sympathizing with this movement of his, and I cringe when I hear people chanting his name in support of him. The opposition movement is first and foremost about change—a change in civil society, in governance, in the rule of law. It is not about Levon, and I personally know many people who feel the same way as I do. But they argue that there is no one else to lead the opposition, and that no one can gather the support the way Levon can. So it has come to a point where if you are a supporter of the opposition now, you are known as a “Levonakan,” or a follower of Levon. You can be a neutral oppositionist and not necessarily support one guy or another, just the opposition movement in principle. But nevertheless, I think there should have been a challenging opposition force, a political party which could have given Levon a run for his dissident money if it worked hard enough, but the one I have in mind does not seem to want to fully oppose the government since it has been controlling ministries for years now and is savoring the bounties it has been accumulating during the last eight years. His true supporters gather to hear him rant for two hours, clap and shout, march through central Yerevan afterwards then go home—this has been going on for months, without any real progress in meeting their goals. Yet they persevere. You cannot deny that their will is astounding, despite rallying around a dubious person who has deceived them in the past.

In any case, there is one thing that has impressed me—a group of people have been participating in a 24-hour sit-in protest at the top of the Northern Boulevard which began on July 4, after the last rally concluded. The protesters there demand that all political prisoners—77 of them by their count a week ago—be unconditionally released. A few prisoners have actually been set free and are actually awaiting court dates, probably a feeble effort by the government to impress the PACE and the western powers in general, although it is not really working. They also want to see those accountable for the unrest and violence that left 10 people dead on March 1 be brought to justice and prosecuted for their alleged involvement.

For the life of me I don’t know what the answers are to the problems that people are posing who are against the government and the general system of operation in Armenian society. The opposition leadership in my opinion is weak, and clearly Levon cannot mobilize the public in numbers large enough to change something. A few thousand people are not going to make a difference, but a few hundred thousand can shake the foundations of this society. How to mobilize them? If Levon knew the answer to that dilemma he would be solving it, but he obviously does not know otherwise he would be doing whatever it takes. Sooner or later these people who keep showing up to support him are going to get bored. Levon himself may become disgruntled, although he is trying to form some sort of an alliance called the “Armenian National Congress” by uniting the opposition political parties. But unfortunately, I do not see the status quo changing any time soon, although people should still keep trying to make change happen if they want to realize the goals they expect to reach, namely enforcing law and order and making the judicial system work fairly, two goals that the pro-government parties should work just as hard if not harder to attain.

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Posted by Christian Garbis at 9:42 PM.
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