Masaryk university

4.3Phase C: “Frozen” Conflict

Despite the fact that a ceasefire was declared in 1994, the new dynamics of the conflict have increased the unpredictability of the situation in an already tense region. Skirmishes, low intensity violence, and shooting across front lines have increased, leading to a growing arms race, accompanied by political propaganda, threats, and plans of war.¹⁹⁵

The enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh now finds itself under “no war, no peace” conditions. The official standpoint of the Nagorno-Karabakh is threefold: first, Nagorno-Karabakh is against subordination to Azerbaijan; second, its major goal is to overcome the status of enclave and get land access to the outside world; third, it is necessary to provide security guarantees, the level of which has to be defined by the de-facto government and the population of this region.¹⁹⁶ The question of territory, which Armenian sources interpret as the “security belt,” is the issue for negotiations. In fact, this postulate represents the official standpoint of Erevan since 1988, when Robert Kocharijan came to power.

The post-war period both in Armenia and Azerbaijan has not been democratic. Both countries are very far from democracies: Armenia is marked as “partly free,”¹⁹⁷ and Azerbaijan as “non-free” in regards to political rights and civil liberties. As identified by many experts, this “no war, no peace syndrome” contributes to further militarization and “the internationalization of identities of victor and victim.”¹⁹⁸

The official Azerbaijani discourse over the unresolved conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh underlines the significance of a military build-up, which is the second only after Russia in military expenditures in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).¹⁹⁹ “For comparison, I can say that in 2003 our military budget was $163 million. Last year the figure reached $3.6 billion and this year $3.7 billion. This in itself shows that the construction of the army is a priority issue. The biggest expense item of our budget is the army. And this is natural,” proclaimed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev during the official military parade on June 26, 2013.²⁰⁰ According to the president, Azerbaijan is at war, and the “Azerbaijani army should be ready at any moment to liberate occupied lands.”²⁰¹

There has been a regular exchange of shooting among Armenians and Azerbaijanis. For example, in 2010, 25 soldiers were killed and the number of casualties in 2009 was 19.²⁰² Since Heyder Aliyev came to power in 2003, his goal has been the restoration of territorial integrity and Azerbaijan’s transformation into a country with regional power. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict dominates the national discourse in Armenia and Azerbaijan because of the Armenian military victory. While Armenia celebrated its victory, Azerbaijan threatens to wage a new war. As claimed by Azerbaijan’s president Aliyev in 2010, the country is ready “at any moment to resolve the Karabakh problem by military means.”²⁰³ During the largest military parade since the collapse of the Soviet Union in Baku in June 2010, Aliyev declared that “Azerbaijan is in a state of war” and that the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh territory cannot last too long.²⁰⁴ Under these circumstances, the question is how long the unresolved armed conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh will remain “frozen.”

Chapter 5:Armed Conflicts in Georgia: Case Studies of South Ossetia and Abkhazia

The similarity in aspirations of Abkhazians, South Ossetians, and Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians to secede from their titular states is remarkable. The characteristic features of this conflict are mutually exclusive goals and interests of Georgia, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia. Incompatible goals, hostile attitudes, and the strategies of conflict parties determine the conflict dynamics nowadays. Without any attempt to provide a historical overview, this section points out the nature of the most significant events that led to tensions in two armed conflicts on Georgian territory.

There is an ongoing politicized scientific debate between Abkhazian, Ossetian, and Georgian intellectuals about the roots of these conflicts, about the motivations of separatist ideology, and about the reasons for struggle among these people who lived peacefully side by side for many centuries. While both sides have their own interpretation of ethnic origins and the evaluation of armed conflicts, an analysis of documentary sources offers some valuable insight into “demagogic theories” of mutual relations.²⁰⁵

According to Georgian historiography, Georgian national identity has been inclusive. Different nationalities have peacefully coexisted for many centuries.²⁰⁶ Up until today, Georgians have been proud to accommodate Georgian, Armenian, Muslim, and Jewish citizens, proving that ethnic tolerance exists in their country. However, as one of the most prominent Georgian political scientists Ghia Nodia rightly suggests, “in this era of democracy, in the contrast to the medieval period, it is not enough just to tolerate “the other”; a state must find a way to integrate “the other” – to make those who are different willing participants in the national project.²⁰⁷

In the beginning of the 1980s, national liberation movements erupted all over the former Soviet territories. Georgia’s national movement was one of the most radical ones. Neither the creation of a national government, nor the declaration of Georgian sovereignty led to political stability and he settling down of national emotions. The process the country was undergoing inside the national liberation movement, the demonstrations in Tbilisi, and the demise of the first Georgian government (December 1990 – January 1991) contributed to the division of the nation, causing anti-Georgian politics to erupt in Abkhazia and South Ossetia with consequent social destabilization all over the country.