Central Asia/Russia


	May 10, 2002	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia

Threat of civil wars looms in Azerbaijan and Georgia
By Hooman Peimani

As a land-link between Asia and Europe, the Caucasus has been unstable for more than a decade. The three Caucasian states of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia gained independence when the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991. They have since experienced instability in one form or another, including civil wars in Georgia and Azerbaijan.

Ceasefire agreements ended those conflicts in 1993 and 1994, respectively, but left their root causes intact. In the absence of peace agreements, the persistence of unsettled issues has frustrated both their governments and their populations. They have suffered not only from the civil wars themselves, but also from the existing no-war-no-peace state of affairs, an unpredictable situation discouraging economic activity and preventing normal life.

Against this background, certain factors have created an environment conducive to the resumption of civil war in both countries in the near future. They include the worsening economic situation, the expansion of social discontent with the status quo, the growing opposition to the governments and the growing inter-elite conflict. A new round of civil war will not only engulf Azerbaijan and Georgia in instability, but could potentially develop into bloody regional and international conflicts.

Instability in the form of civil war began in the Caucasus in the last years of the Soviet Union. In 1988, Azerbaijan's Armenian-dominated enclave of Nagorno Karabakh sought unification with neighboring Armenia. This development provoked a civil war between the Azeris and the Karabakhi Armenians and dragged Armenia into the hostility in support of its ethnic kin. The civil war outlived the Soviet Union and continued when Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia emerged as independent states.

In the post-Soviet era, the removal of communism as the dominant ideology encouraged the eruption of Armenian and Azeri nationalism, which added fuel to the conflict. After six years of devastating war, a ceasefire agreement ended the conflict in 1994 when the Karabakhi Armenians extended their control over the entire enclave, the Lachin Passage (a land linking the enclave to Armenia) and large parts of western Azerbaijan. The ceasefire stopped the civil war, but did not address the belligerents' demands.

The following no-war no-peace situation has been dissatisfactory for both sides. Azerbaijan has since lost about 20 percent of its territory to Karabakhi control. About a million Azeri inhabitants of the occupied territory have become refugees inside Azerbaijan. Unsurprisingly, they have become firm supporters of a military solution to regain the lost territory, a solution backed by most of the Azeris feeling humiliated by the Armenians. The defeated Azeri government has not accepted the status quo. Nor have the Karabakhis. They have run their territory as an independent state, but its independence has not been recognized by any state.

To avoid the internationalization of the conflict and the resumption of civil war, the Armenian government and its Karabakhi counterpart have not sought unification, even though they are connected to each other through various economic, political and military ties. The uncertain status of the enclave has prevented its economic growth despite impressive efforts in that regard. The unsatisfactory and fragile status quo has created grounds for the resumption of civil war.

In the case of Georgia, civil war began right after its independence. Its two large ethnic minorities, the Abkhaz and the Ossetians, also declared independence for their respective regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Those declarations triggered a civil war for which the Georgian government was totally unprepared. It lasted until 1993 when a ceasefire ended the conflict, but it did not lead to the conclusion of a peace treaty to settle the dispute once and for all.

The exhausted Georgian government had to accept the ceasefire when the separatist forces secured their total control over their breakaway regions. The latter have since run their regions as independent states, although no state has accepted their independence. The civil war forced 300,000 Georgians to flee from the rebellious regions to other parts of Georgia where they have since lived as refugees. As in the case of Azerbaijan, these refugees have become outspoken proponents of war to end separatism in their favor. The Georgian troops and the separatist forces have both violated ceasefires on numerous occasions to test each other's resolve and preparedness and/or to extract concessions from each other.

The unsettled ethnic conflicts in Georgia and Azerbaijan have frustrated both their governments and their separatist forces. The failure of all efforts by various mediators - namely the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Russia and the United States - to find peaceful settlements to those conflicts has exhausted all the interested parties. It has also discredited peaceful means toward those ends.

No wonder, then, that there have been voices of discontent demanding a military solution to change the status quo. As the humiliated parties to the conflicts, the Azeri and Georgian governments have threatened to use force to regain control over their breakaway regions, although there is no realistic ground for their success in any future military confrontation. However, popular pressure to change the status quo and, in particular, to enable the refugees to return home could force their unstable and unpopular governments to resort to war, if only to appease their dissatisfied people. Since last year, the growing number of bloody skirmishes between pro-government and separatist forces along the ceasefire line in Georgia has increased the possibility of this scenario.

In the absence of peaceful settlements to the prolonged conflicts in Georgia and Azerbaijan, the resumption of civil war will be a predictable end to the deadlocked situation. In such a case, the hostility will not be confined to the two countries only. Armenia, Iran, Russia, Turkey and the United States have ties with and commitments to the governments and/or separatist forces, apart from their economic and political stakes in the Caucasus. Those realities will make it difficult, if not impossible, for them to remain indifferent to the outbreak of civil war in the Caucasus.

As neighboring countries, Armenia, Iran, Russia and Turkey would also be concerned about the spillover of the civil wars into their countries, which are linked to the Caucasus through a variety of ethnic, linguistic, geographical, historical, and religious ties. Thus, economic interests, geographical realities, political considerations, security imperatives and natural ties could drag the five mentioned regional and non-regional countries into the Georgian and Azeri civil wars. Hopefully, the predictably dire consequences of such a scenario for the Caucasus, its neighboring regions and world peace as a whole should create an additional incentive for all the interested parties to find peaceful settlements to the prolonged ethnic conflicts in Georgia and Azerbaijan.

Dr Hooman Peimani works as an independent consultant with international organizations in Geneva and does research in international relations.

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