2006 Global Integrity Report proved rather intersting. The report which places Armenia among the very week rating countries comes just a day after Armenia occupied a surprizingly high 32nd Place in World Rating of Economic Freedoms. Not to go into details about why I find the letter result so surprizingly high I’ll just link to Onnik Krikoryan’s post, where the matter is discussed at length.

As Armenia heads into the elections of May 2007, and in the context where absence of any ethical standards in government, inefficiency of the laws and practices designed to combat corruption and prevent abuses of power in the country prevail, the report by the Global Integrity undoubtedly provides information of wide public interest to Armenia.

The country uniformly ranks among countries with week and very week indicators as can be seen in the following indexes. And this time it’s not the discredited Armenian opposition speaking, but rather the results of a major investigative report released by Global Integrity, an international nonprofit organization that tracks governance and corruption trends around the world. more…

State’s Burns Outlines U.S. Trans-Atlantic Agenda for 2006

A senior State Department official says the U.S. agenda for the trans-Atlantic relationship in 2006 is to broaden NATO’s mandate and extend its global reach; to advance democracy in Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia; and to cooperate with Europe in every region of the world through political, economic and security partnerships.

Thanks US… advancing democracy.

The Caucasus and Central Asia: We remain committed to pursuing the Freedom Agenda in Russia and Ukraine. We must encourage Ukraine, Georgia to seek NATO and EU ties, push for reform in the Caucasus and for an end to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In Central Asia, we must engage Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, and demand reform from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

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Ian Bremmer has an article in Slate today that covers “nonrevolutions” and why they matter.

But a nonrevolution sometimes matters, too, particularly when it uncovers previously hidden political and social instability and poses problems for the future of a volatile region.

How come?

Still, the absence of revolution does not mean that the two states are equally stable or that what happened doesn’t matter. While Nursultan Nazarbayev’s Kazakh government remains as well-entrenched after the election as it was before, Ilham Aliyev’s Azerbaijan may now face a newly radicalized and disruptive opposition.

So why didn’t Kazakhstan or Azerbaijan have a revolution? Bremmer says because of one thing: oil! (and therefore money!)

Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, the three countries have something very basic in common: They all lack the oil and gas revenues that have stabilized Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.

Remember back in November when I was floored with the stability and prosperity in AZ?

Bremmer makes a good point:

That income matters enormously. In states that enjoy substantial energy wealth, some of the revenues trickle down to key segments of the citizenry and enhance quality of life. True, the benefits are unevenly distributed. But the extra income these governments receive ensures that elites have the resources to buy off key individuals and groups—and to better finance the use of oppression where necessary. The ruling regimes in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have experienced all these benefits.

Those key segments matter A LOT!

Bremmer goes into the Azerbaijani opposition and their interested in the NK settlement or lack thereof.

He says that the main opposition group, Azadlyg, is going to change tactics “because the Azerbaijani government rigged the elections to limit those gains and the United States has refused to become directly involved.” He thinks that they are going to try to screw up the NK resolution.

Aliyev knows that the various opposition parties can win increased popular support by playing on nationalist resistance to compromise on the issue, thereby blocking his efforts to improve Azerbaijan’s standing in the region and his own international reputation.

So, Armenia, without any of this oil money? Will it have a revolution, according to Bremmer’s theory? It remains to be seen.

Via registan, this hilarious comparison should have you in stiches!

The freshly-reelected Nursultan Nazarbayev announced his willingness to help mediate the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

“In 1991 I already participated in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, when I saw the people’s tribulations … I would like to stress once more that interethnic conflicts between neighbours bring about only grief and unhappiness for people,” - he has said. “Therefore I am ready to participate in any quality in the settlement of the conflict between the two near peoples, between Azerbaijan and Armenia,” - N. Nazarbayev has said.

There’s something self-serving about this, of course. While BP can self-insure against the BTC attacks, Kazakhstan would prefer a more stable environment for its (President’s) oil to flow out. Since they expressed interest in transporting some oil via Azerbaijan, they acquire a stake in stability in the South Caucasus.

Here’s some history on Nazarbayev’s earlier (unsuccessful) attempt to mediate.

During his November 9 visit to Armenia, NATO South Caucasus Liaison Officer Romualds Razuks declared that NATO is ready to deploy peacekeeping forces to the South Caucasus, if necessary. Razuks stressed that any potential deployment would be within the context of the OSCE Minsk group negotiation process and would be possible only if both Armenia and Azerbaijan agree to it.

Jamestown has an odd collection of quotes on this topic…

Where the heck would they go?

The new CoR is up.

Caucuz.com has an interview with Ariel Cohen regarding the U.S. military base in Azerbaijan.

Here are some highlights:

Today, the priority for Washington is to determine if the US needs to carry out an active policy in Eurasia or if, on the other hand, they should limit their presence to the absolute minimum in order to focus on the Middle East, in particular Iraq, before worrying about Central Asia and Caucasus.

This debate is ongoing in Washington. Many experts have been discussing the subject and have recommended different approaches. However, for as long as this debate remains open and unresolved, I think that the probability of establishing an American military base in Azerbaijan is slim.

Armenia is not located in the Caspian-Black Sea corridor. Besides that, Yerevan is a member of the CSTO (the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, created on 30 April 2003 during the Dushanbe summit and which is largely dominated by Moscow) and they maintain historical and privileged relations with Russia as well as with Iran. All these factors put Armenia aside and out of the enclosed circle of America’s favourite allies in the region.

In addition, Armenia is not only under the influence of South Caucasian geo-political realities, but also under that of a very powerful pro-Armenia lobby group in the US. Therefore, the relations between Washington and Yerevan are more bilateral than integrated and interdependent of American strategies in the region.

neweurasia, a new headquarter for a number of blogs related to the Caucasus and Central Asia, is up!

Know of any university aged students in Armenia that may be interested in writing for it as well? Please let me know.

Blogrel is going to be partnering with neweurasia, so here’s a bit about it:

Within six months of its existence, Thinking-East was able to garner the attention of an average of around 250 readers a day (peak days saw more than 2,000), and had over 40 different students writing articles for us.

This is good, but of course there is a lot to expand on. We always felt that the acclaim and responses were most heart-felt and active from Central Asia and the Caucasus; most of the material published on our site came from this region, too.

Now we want to capitalise on this. We have founded ‘neweurasia’, a new and dedicated Central Asia / Caucasus web magazine. And now, there are many more people onboard to make this a better and far-more successful version of what we have tested with Thinking-East.

So, please read the following and have a thought or two if you could think of yourself joining our nascent, but definitely very ambitious endeavour.

What we are looking for right now are two things: Do you want to get an article published? Send it to us, we are looking for any material from the region to feature the site when it goes online (which will be around mid-October).

Again, to reiterate, we explicitly seek not only proficient English speakers. All content will be checked by native English speakers, so contributing to neweurasia provides you with free English tutorials as well!

The benefits of both writing articles and editing country weblogs are considerable in many ways: It is a great opportunity to get used to writing articles and seeing them published. It is also very useful for networking and getting involved in other projects.

Most usefully, though, it is a very easy way to stay up-to-date on current affairs in your country (and indeed the wider region), particularly events that may not be directly related to your studies but which are nonetheless still of interest.

Equally, it has the advantage that it is not excessively time-consuming, so fits in alongside your studies and other activities very easily.

Via registan.net,a discussion of the Iranian product “BARF” (which means snow in Persian, of course), and its benefits. I love BARF.

Commoner Sense has the new Carnival of Revolutions.

When links merge!

Nathan, from registan.net, is going to be the new regional editor for our neck of the woods at Global Voices Online. Congrats!

Two sad news stories to report regarding the state of NGOs in the Former Soviet Union, specifcally in Central Asia.

#1, via registan, IREX in Uzbekistan has had to shut down. “A court in Tashkent on 12 September ruled that the International Research and Exchange Board, or IREX, has broken Uzbek laws on foreign assistance groups. The Uzbek Independent Committee for Freedom of Speech and Expression today quotes the Uzbek Justice Ministry as saying IREX had failed to provide authorities with information on Uzbek citizens studying in IREX-funded programs in the United States. ”

#2, via Volodymyr Campaign, the President of Kazakhstan has cautioned NGOs that they will be watched. “The Kazakh president warned foreign NGOs not to interfere in the country’s politics and threatened to prosecute them if they meddled in the election campaign. But analysts say Nazarbaev is concerned about a repeat of the colored revolutions that have hit other former Soviet states.”

Pretty bogus, if you ask me.

Turkmenbashi’s done it again…

He has outlawed opera and ballet and railed against long hair and gold teeth, but now Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov is determined to wipe out another perceived scourge: lip synching.

Niyazov has ordered a ban on lip synching performances across the tightly controlled Central Asian nation, citing “a negative effect on the development of singing and musical art,” the president’s office said Tuesday.

from the AP

Am I A Pundit Now? has a Carnival of Revolutions up!

Via Siberian Light, David at A Step Out of Time has excerpted a recent Stratfor piece looking at shifts in US policy towards Russia and linking them to Condoleezza Rice’s appointment of Secretary of State.

The State Department is now “staffed by a team that helped knock the Soviet Union off its superpower perch. Russia can look forward to four years of a State Department with the resources and the will to ratchet back Moscow’s influence throughout the Baltics, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia and even its western Slavic flank. The confrontation over Ukraine was just the beginning.”

Anyone have any inside scoop with the folks focusing on the Caucasus?

WELCOME TO THE CARNIVAL OF REVOLUTIONS, the blogosphere’s weekly roundup of news related to the global struggle for democracy and freedom.

First, some advice to our revolutionaries out there: Revolution is not a onetime event. - Audre Lorde

And second, some advice to those who oppose: Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. - John F. Kennedy, 1962

And finally, seeing as this is a carnival, Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage. - H. L. Mencken

On with the show!

The three most important sources for the world of revolutions must be, IMHO: Gateway Pundit, Publius Pundit, and Global Voices Online. Thanks to all three for constant inspiration.

A few general links:

As a start, the Foreign Policy Institute released its Failed States Index this week.

What are the clearest early warning signs of a failing state? Among the 12 indicators we use, two consistently rank near the top. Uneven development is high in almost all the states in the index, suggesting that inequality within states—and not merely poverty—increases instability. Criminalization or delegitimization of the state, which occurs when state institutions are regarded as corrupt, illegal, or ineffective, also figured prominently. Facing this condition, people often shift their allegiances to other leaders—opposition parties, warlords, ethnic nationalists, clergy, or rebel forces. Demographic factors, especially population pressures stemming from refugees, internally displaced populations, and environmental degradation, are also found in most at-risk countries, as are consistent human rights violations. Identifying the signs of state failure is easier than crafting solutions, but pinpointing where state collapse is likely is a necessary first step.

And IEFS has a useful Election Watch reference page.

Some elections to keep your eyes on in the next month:
Burundi Presidential Aug 19, 2005
Singapore Presidential Aug 2005
Egypt Presidential (First Round) Sept 7, 2005
Egypt Presidential (Second Round) Sept 17, 2005
Afghanistan Parliamentary Sept 18, 2005
more…

As most of you know, Uzbekistan has requested that the U.S. get out of an airbase in the country. The U.S. is going to need to look elsewhere to house its troops in the region. A number of different sources have named Azerbaijan as a possibility, due in part to the number of recent visits by high ranking U.S. officials and the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister’s recent visit to Washington.

The base currently houses 1,500 military personnel, 30 military helicopters and F-15 and F-16 fighters. In support of operations in Afghanistan U.S. aircraft made 50-60 daily sorties from the base during the military action in Afghanistan. The base also plays an important logistical support role for heavy aircraft ferrying cargo and fuel to U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Is the base moving to Azerbaijan? With the upcoming elections, I doubt it.

But if the base moves to Azerbaijan, what will that mean for Armenia? More on this later.

Registan is also covering this story and has more details on the base itself and Uzbekistan. [1] [2]

more…

This week’s Carnival of Revolutions is up! Next week, we’ll be hosting, so please share your democracy-related news with us here.

In addition to an earlier post by Katy, on July 29 the Government of Uzbekistan formally asked the U.S. to evacuate the base.

According to BBC,

The notice to leave Karshi-Khanabad air base, known as K2, was given to the US embassy in the Uzbek capital on Friday.

A Pentagon spokesman said the US was “evaluating the note to see exactly what it means”.

A hint for the Pentagon: it means “get out.” This was predictable though. Close cooperation and cozying up to the Karimov regime (known among other things for boiling its opponents, shooting 800+ people in Andijan, and selecting the 15th century ogre Tamerlane as the national hero of Uzbekistan) was not compatible with Bush’s pledge not to work with tyrannies, most recently given in his second inaugural. The Bush people may not take their own words seriously, but Karimov did - he thought U.S. is out there to get him.

Why is relevant for Armenia? The South Caucasus, including Armenia, is an overflight zone for U.S. aircraft en route to Afghanistan. They will now have to go elsewhere (maybe in our region?), or abandon this route completely.