Nagorno-Karabakh: The Long Shadow of Joseph Stalin

21 March 2006
Written by Rene Wadlow

The president of Azerbaijan, Ilhan Aliyev, son of the long-time president Heydar Aliyev and Robert Kocharian, president of Armenia, met outside Paris, in Rambouillet February 10-11, 2006 to discuss the stalemated conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Rambouillet had also been the scene for the last-chance negotiations on Kosovo just before the NATO bombing of Serbia began in 1999.
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The Nagorno-Karabakh issue arises from the Post-Revolution-Post-Civil War period of Soviet history when Joseph Stalin was Commissioner for Nationalities. Stalin came from neighboring Georgia and knew the Caucasus well. His policy was a classic 'divide and rule' carried out with method so that national/ethnic groups would need to depend on the central government in Moscow for protection. Thus in 1922, the frontiers of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia were hammered out in what was then the Transcaucasian Federative Republic. Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian majority area, was given a certain autonomy within Azerbaijan but was geographically cut off from Armenia. Likewise, an Azeri majority area, Nakkickevan, was created as an autonomous republic within Armenia but cut off geographically from Azerbaijan.

Nakhichevan is not an automous republic within Armenia. Nakhichevan was made part of Azerbaijan, it was populated in majority by Armenians. In fact the name Nakhichevan is an Armenian name. It was emptied from its Armenian population by Azerbaijan. Nagorno-Karabakh was also on its way to be emptied by the Azeri government.

Thus both enclaves had to look to Moscow for protection. This was especially true for the Armenians. Many Armenians living in what had been historic Armenia but which became Turkey had been killed during the First World War; Armenians living in "Soviet Armenia" had relatives and friends among those killed by the Turks, creating a permanent sense of vulnerability and insecurity. Russia was considered a historic ally of Armenia.

These mixed administrative units worked well enough or, one should say, there were few criticisms allowed until 1988 when the whole Soviet model of nationalities and republics started to come apart. In both Armenia and Azerbeijan, natioanlistic voices were raised, and a strong "Karabakh Committee" began demanding that Nagorno-Karabakh be attached to Armenia. In Azerbaijan, anti-Armenian sentiment was set aflame. Many Armenians who were working in the oil-related economy of Baku were under tension and started leaving. This was followed somewhat later by real anti-Armenian pogroms. Some 160,000 Armenians left Azerbaijan for Armenia and other went to live in Russia.

With the break up of the Soviet Union and the independence of Armenia and Azerbaijan, tensions focused on Nagorno-Karabakh. By 1992, full scale conflict broke out in and around Nagorno-Karabkh and went on for two years causing large-scale damage. The Armenian forces of Nagorno-Karabakh helped by volunteers from Armenia kept control of the area, while Azerbaijan faced repeated political crises.

The condition of "no peace, no war" followed the ceasefire largely negotiated by Russia in 1994. This status quo poses few problems to the major regional states who are preoccupied by other geo-political issues. Informal and illicit trade within the area has grown. However, interest in a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has grown as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline opened in May 2005. The pipeline is sheduled to carry one million barrels of oil a day from the Caspian to the Mediterranean by 2009. The pipeline passes within 10 miles of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The crucial question for a settlement is the acceptance by all parties and by the wider OSCE of an independent 'mini-state'. An independent Nagorno-Karabakh might become the 'Liechtenstein of the Caucases'. After 15 years of independence, Karabakh Armenians do not want to be at the mercy of decisions made in distant centers of power but to decide their own course of action. However, the recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent states raises the issue of the status of other de facto mini-states of the area such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, Transnistria in Moldova and Kosovo in Serbia. Close attention must continue to be paid to the potential restructuring of the area. Can mini-states be more than a policy of divide and rule? The long shadow of Joseph Stalin still hovers over the land.
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Rene Wadlow is editor of the online journal of world politics www.transnational-perspectives.org and an NGO representative to the UN, Geneva. Formerly, he was professor and Director of Research of the Graduate Institute of Development Studies, University of Geneva.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.