QUO VADIS?

"How long have they been distributing 'Lezghistan' symbols on your mobile phones?" I asked my friend Elhan a month ago. He is an ethnic Lezghin who lives in the northern Azerbaijani town of Qusar, not far from the Russian border, where most of the residents are ethnic North Caucasus peoples. The conversation took place in Qusar itself when a bunch of us went to stay at Elhan's place at the end of August in order to escape Baku's sweltering summer heat. "What do you mean?" "What the?..." (he added a foul remark which quite clearly conveyed Elhan's bewilderment).  "Well, the Russian newspapers write that people here are using mobile phones to distribute the coat of arms of 'Lezghistan'," I said. He paused briefly, then said with a sly smile: "You know that everyone in this small town knew about your visit to me after just 10 minutes. Don't you think that working in a shop and seeing dozens of customers every day I would know about this … (another vulgar word) that you just told me? Why the hell do you believe those journalists?" We talked about this for two more minutes as Elhan added to what I said several more "nationalistic myths" which he had heard before. But then he decided that the next toast and the fresh portion of kebab that had just arrived were much more important than some empty tales and returned the conversation to more everyday topics…

It is true that as a journalist I am accustomed to trusting my colleagues, at least some of them. And as a journalist who just several days before a trip to Qusar read in a Russian newspaper another report "about the Lezghin people's desire for independence from Azerbaijan" I simply decided to get information from the horse's mouth, from an ordinary resident of the region. But in this situation, rather than verifying the accuracy of the report, I was more interested in learning the response of young ethnic Lezghins and also wanted to comprehend why and at whose behest the topic the of "the oppression of ethnic minorities in Azerbaijan" is again being raised artificially. Although this is not a novelty for Azerbaijan, it is still important to find an answer to the question "why now?"

From where the wind blows

A search I made at a website - the one of the Russian news agency Regnum - generated interesting results. Over a brief period of time (two months) the agency's news feed mentioned the topic of ethnic minorities allegedly oppressed in Azerbaijan more than 20 times. First came the "problem" of Avars (six mentions), Lezghins (five), Tats (four) and Talish (three). But Ingiloys, Kurds and other ethnic minorities were mentioned as well.

But the most intriguing and interesting aspect is that each time it was Armenians who posed as the champions of the rights of ethnic minorities in Azerbaijan! The most active included Grant Melik-Shakhnazaryan, an expert of the MiTK analytical centre, expert Eduard Abramyan of the Kavkaz analytical centre and finally Maj-Gen Gayk Kotandzhyan, the head of the Institute of National Strategic Research of Armenia, an aide to the Armenian defence minister and a PhD in political science. And in all other references to "problems" in the situation of ethnic minorities in Azerbaijan Armenian political scientists were always there. It was also always the Russian mass media.

And these figures are only from the news feed of the Regnum federal news agency which was created in 2002 by Modest Kolerov, who is currently the head of the Russian president's directorate for interregional and cultural relations abroad and who is responsible for the promotion of Russian interests in the CIS countries. Until 2005 Modest Kolerov personally led the news agency as its editor-in-chief. Incidentally, a close relative of his is still working there. Since Vigen Akopyan is Regnum's deputy editor-in-chief for international information, there is not much left to say about the pro-Armenian bias of the news agency's reports on the South Caucasus. 

It seems to me that such attention to ethnic minorities in Azerbaijan may have several interrelated causes. As for the interests of the Armenians, it is all clear-cut: the talks on settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict are at a new stage which does not satisfy their interests at all. Armenia has lost the initiative and Azerbaijan's positions are getting stronger by the day in political, military and economic terms. The growing importance of Azerbaijan for the Western powers, in particular because of large-scale energy projects, is bound to worry Yerevan. Therefore Armenia is actively seeking to profit from the "democratic resource" by trying to portray Azerbaijan to Western countries as almost the most notorious ideologue of jingoism among post-Soviet states. They ask, after such a bloody war how can Armenians live in the same country as Azerbaijanis if the latter are oppressing even peoples with whom they have not had similar problems? It is this "argument" that has turned into the major one at this stage of Armenia's Karabakh talks with Western countries. 

Russia's interests in this are also obvious. The emergence of new obstacles on the road to resolution of the Karabakh conflict leaves it with certain leverage vis-a-vis the Azerbaijani authorities who have long displayed both their unwillingness to turn back into a client state and their desire to cooperate on an equal footing with Moscow, which is definitely irritating many politicians in Moscow. Today's position of the Azerbaijani government makes it clear that Baku will not agree to an unfair peace. Hence, the suspension of the negotiations suits equally Armenia and certain circles in Russia.

The second significant question has to do with the Kosovo situation. Russia has openly and quite reasonably argued that taking Kosovo away will lead to centrifugal forces across the world. There are enough such problems in any region, so why not make "new points" in Azerbaijan in the shape of Lezghin, Talish, Avar or some other separatism? It would be even more worrying for the West, given the strengthening of its interests in Azerbaijan. The calculation is a simple one: other mass media take up the issue of interethnic problems in Azerbaijan raised by Regnum, this will attract more attention, Western journalists will sooner or later also view the issue and so on.

The actions of Russia and Armenia directed against Azerbaijan's interests are often brilliantly concerted. However, surprise at such unity of views and positions is similar to surprise at an idyllic state between a husband and wife. These countries, which call themselves strategic partners, are often compared to spouses. The analogy in turn recalls common jokes about what is more important, the head or the neck, as the husband is often compared to the head and the wife to the neck. Consequently, the head turns in whichever direction the neck moves it.

Unfortunately, in everyday life the head does not bother the brain too much with serious analysis and is often manipulated by the neck. It is as true as the not-so-unarguable faithfulness of a cunning spouse…

As Russia's newest history shows, the Kremlin's actions are more often triggered by fleeting interests, often imposed from the outside, than by a strategy calculated for decades ahead. It is often astonishing that Moscow politicians lack the desire to take a levelheaded assessment of the situation and act in accordance with their own strategic interests, rather than looking at the South Caucasus situation through "spectacles" made to Yerevan's prescription.

The confrontation with the West has turned into the most important aspect of Russia's policy. It cannot be ruled out that this confrontation was provoked not by Russia itself, but by the West which is well-informed on the psychology of its "partner" and skillfully guided its actions into the necessary course. An example of this is the policy of new military-cum-political confrontation with the West, imposed and foolishly espoused by Moscow, while the West only wants to undermine the budding economic prosperity of Russia. In front of everyone the West has expertly taken advantage of the super-power syndrome and made Russia plant a big time bomb under itself. 

These attempts are provocative for security in the South of Russia itself. While playing into the hands of extremists and nationalists Russian experts who are behind Regnum forget that they are thus assisting the extremists in their own country, first of all in the North Caucasus.

The situation in the North Caucasus is more than difficult. The 2002 census showed that the eight republics of the North Caucasus have a population of 6.9m people, of whom 15 per cent are Russians and 75 per cent belong to titular peoples. This has long been a fertile ground for factors which in the long run increase the geopolitical instability of the region of southern Russia. These include the protracted ethno-political and separatist conflict in Chechnya, which is in effect an internal war; ethno-political conflicts in multi-ethnic Dagestan, Karachay-Cherkessia, between North Ossetia and Ingushetia. All these conflicts have a critical socioeconomic basis (Muslim regions of the North Caucasus are 80-100 per cent subsidized), have elements of an ethnic-clan struggle for power and are being exacerbated by the smouldering Chechen crisis. In this context it is obvious that provoking Lezghins and Avars who live peacefully in Azerbaijan may in future lead to symmetrical centrifugal processes in Russia itself. It is one thing to wage a war with separatism on one's own land and quite another to let out of the bottle a genie who will affect a much bigger region than the Chechen conflict zone.

Incidentally, simmering ethno-political conflicts can also be seen in the region where Meskhetian Turks and Shapsugs live and between the local population and new diasporas and this especially concerns the Armenian diaspora in Krasnodar Territory. After all, Armenians are the third largest ethnic group in the Southern Federal District after Russians and Chechens. The 2002 census put their number at 615,000, although the real figure is much bigger. It is Armenian separatism that deserves Moscow's special attention. Armenians are the only diaspora living in Russia which has deep-seated traditions of ideological (ready programmes of leading nationalistic parties containing recommendations on sabotage operations in Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia) and practical (acts of terrorism and so on) implementation of separatism.

It is important to remember that Russia is interested in a stable Azerbaijan as never before - considering the difficult geopolitical situation in the region, Baku has a growing significance for Russia's foreign policy.  

Neither should Moscow forget the religious factor. In fact, another reason North Caucasus peoples who live in Azerbaijan and are fully-fledged citizens feel quite comfortable is that like ethnic Azerbaijanis they are Muslims. And the current situation in Georgia, for example, cannot be compared with Azerbaijan because separatism in Ossetia was partly fuelled by religious differences. On the other hand, this very factor can have a major negative impact on Russia itself and lead to a serious political crisis, especially in regions where Islamic radicalism coincides with the fertile ground of a socioeconomic crisis, corruption, unemployment and acute confrontation between clans and peoples. Incidentally, the Islamic factor in the North Caucasus, according to many Russian experts, is of an interregional nature. In other words, the activities of international terrorist organizations only aggravate the situation, but are not the cause of it.

In a nutshell, today's Muslim North Caucasus is not linked to any South Caucasus state as closely and organically as to Azerbaijan for both ethnic and religious reasons. Therefore, North Caucasus peoples feel at home when in Azerbaijan. In contrast, they find it increasingly difficult to live in Russia where they are at the state level (!) called "peoples of Caucasus origin" (it is really something to come up with such a stupid thing to say about their own peoples) and unofficially are called "blacks". 

Russian skinheads are also quite unusual. Unlike European and American nationalists, they mainly beat up and kill not foreigners, but native citizens of their country. 

Just like them Russian media outlets, such as Rosbalt, Regnum, Nezavisimaya Gazeta and others by trying to stir up interethnic strife in Azerbaijan are in effect laying the ground for another Caucasus war against the people of Russia.

It happens at this very moment when new, unprecedented, vast prospects are there for relations between the two countries. Instead of supporting this tendency, ideologues of a number of the Russian mass media are testing its strength. 

Considering that influential Russian officials are behind Rosbalt and Regnum, for instance, one would like to know: has there been a change in their ways of thinking since "the times of Ochakov and the subjugation of Crimea"?