Epress.am News from Armenia
Conflict resolution expert Artak Ayunts, political expert Mikayel Zolyan, and historian Tigran Zakaryan present their policy paper on “Prospects for Nagorny Karabakh Conflict Transformation.” The paper was written with the support of Norwegian Institute of International Affairs in Oslo, Norway and resulted from desk research, expert interviews and focus group discussion conducted in the spring and summer of 2014.
Non-democratic political regimes in Armenia and Azerbaijan do not have strong incentives of changing the current no-war-no-peace situation. The status quo helps the political elites to maintain their grip on power, while the political risks associated with altering the status quo are too high.
At the same time the ruling elites do not have incentives to aim for a military resolution of the conflict (at least in the short run), since that would also be connected with serious risks and uncertain rewards. However, there still remains a possibility for escalation, due to the situation of mutual mistrust and attempts to use incidents on the border to advance the interests of one side or the other.
In a situation, when the political elites have few incentives to advance the agenda of peaceful resolution, it falls to the civil society to undertake initiatives aimed at reducing enmity and building prerequisites of peace between the sides of the conflict through conflict transformation mechanisms.
The way out of the Nagorny Karabakh conflict
In 2014 Nagorny Karabakh conflict entered its twentieth year of its fragile ceasefire. The lack of a permanent solution has only entrenched ethnic hatred, negative stereotypes and war rhetoric towards the other. In late July – early August 2014, the parties to the conflict exchanged the worst violent offensive since the ceasefire agreement in 1994 claiming dozens of deaths on all sides.
One of the key factors contributing to the maintaining of the current stance of the Nagorny Karabakh conflict is the propaganda of negative stereotypes towards the adversary through the channels of mass media and other avenues the ruling regimes keep under their control. Caucasus Barometer survey results indicate that the vast majority of the population in Armenia and Azerbaijan see the other side as the main enemy of their country.
The unresolved conflict is often used by the political elites in the countries of conflict in order to legitimize their power, consolidate support around them, marginalize opponents and neutralize democratizing pressures. Ruling regimes, therefore, do not have strong incentives to seek for conflict resolution, since the status quo serves the interests of authorities to maintain power. Under such conditions, when immediate conflict resolution is unlikely, conflict transformation approaches are considered as necessary means to deal with the conflict in the long term. Given that political elites have almost no incentive to implement this task, civil society actors come increasingly to fore: only through Track-Two initiatives supported by civil society actors can conflict transformation practices advance and subsequently bring peace in the region.
Is Authoritarian Peace Possible?
In the situaiton when the conflict is frequently used by the ruling elites of the conflicting parties and conflict resolution mechanisms fail, conflict transformation approaches may serve as means for future peace among embittered adversaries.
Conflict transfromation is a comparably innovative approach to dealing with conflicts. It can take place in at least four different ways: by the transformation of actors, issues, rules and structure. Since actor, rule and issue transformation require significant efforts on the side of the political leaderships of the countries engaged in conflict who are not ready to compromise their political capital, the only one which can be applied in Nagorny Karabakh is the structural transformation. Structural transformation, as the key subject matter of conflict transformation, stands out when dealing with conflict and building long-lasting peace in Nagorny Karabakh. Building peace through conflict trasformaiton is not merely a post-conflict agenda: it is rather a wider and encompassing notion, including actions and approaches which support conflict transformation. Peacebuilding supposes actions both before a peace treaty as well as after it. Peace is a dynamic process requiring tireless efforts in building a relationship and trust among conflict parties.
What Can Be Done?
It is hard to expect that the regimes in the countries of conflict will exert full-scale war. However, the threat of an unintended escalation cannot be disregarded. At the same time, making compromises, a necessary component for any significant steps towards conflict resolution, is fraught with serious risks, both internally and externally. Moreover, while the risks are obvious, the benefits from the point of view of the political elites are quite dubious. The good news, however, is that for similar reasons neither of the ruling elites is interested in resuming a full-scale confrontation, since that would also be connected with serious risks.
A long-term peace has to be built not by official signatures but by participation of citizens building trust and peace together. In order to rebuild relationships, more innovative ways of providing space within which the psychological aspects of the conflict can be addressed should be sought. If the political elites of the countries in conflict are not ready for compromises that would pave a way to peace, other actors should take on responsibility for transforming the conflict by bottom up activities. Without overcoming the antagonistic relations between Armenians and Azerbaijanis conflict will continue strengthening antagonistic attitudes and sustain no-war-no-peace situation.
It is here, that Track Two activities can support the transformation of attitudes and behaviors of both individual and group transformations, as the key to the peace process. It is an encouraging factor despite the growing obstacles, most peacebuilding actors in Armenia on a Track Two level are optimistic about their work. The focus of public diplomacy should be:
– education and training programs for youth with an aim to resist mainstream hate speech/propaganda within and across conflict divide,
– cross-border confidence-building measures sustaining ceasefire agreement,
– initiatives addressing issues of mutual concern such as environmental, economic and related to human security.
Finally, the most important prerequisite for the Nagorny Karabakh conflict's transformation is the intra-societal bottom up pressure to establish democratic rule in Armenia, Nagorny Karabakh and Azerbaijan, since all the processes, strategies and approaches indicated for conflict transformation can be put to best use only under democratic societies. The basis for the resolution in the Nagorny Karabakh conflict could be the concept that with establishing democracies the risk of violent conflicts will be significantly reduced since democracies do not go to war with each other.
As for now, bottom up peacebuilding initiatives require a significant amount of courage and responsibility by the civil society actors across the conflict divide. While the short-term effect from these initiatives may be small, they remain the only available channel of constructive dialogue between societies. In the long run, such initiatives can bear significant results.
Recommendations:
To the Governments: to tone down militant rhetoric and distance themselves from propaganda of hatred in the media against the countries of the conflict. While such rhetoric/propaganda may bring short-term benefits to the authorities, in the long run they lead to entrenched enmity and thus, contribute to the risks of destabilization, raising potential risks of conflict escalation, which may be detrimental not only for the societies, but also for the political elites.
To the local peacebuilding actors: to clearly formulate and set the agenda of Track Two peacebuilding activities to widen the scope of people potentially willing to promote peaceful transformation of conflict and deepen the frames of activities aimed at tackling sensitive issues like compromises and future coexistence among conflicting societies.
To the international organizations/mediators: to promote civil society contacts and Track-Two diplomacy efforts focusing on conflict transformation initiatives aimed at long-term impact through educational, research and training programs as well as dialogue meetings bridging grassroots and medium-level actors across the conflict divide, despite the potential resistance of the governments involved. In the case of crackdowns against civil society activists, available means should be used to influence the behavior of governments, in order to relieve the pressure on the participants of civil society dialogue efforts.
To the international donors: to continue to support Track Two initiatives, particularly engaging actors from Nagorny Karabakh. Such assistance should not be stopped even in those cases, when the governments create obstacles, such as persecuting civil society figures, tightening financial control, and etc. However, the dialogue programs should and can be modified in order to protect their participants, including reducing the public profile of such dialogue and creating new, regional platforms for Armenian-Azerbaijani dialogues as part of the regional South Caucasus initiatives.