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WE CULTIVATE ONLY PARASITES

Georgi Vanyan
Interview Day.Az
with chairman of CCPMI
Georgi Vanyan
After signing the armistice agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, NGOs of our countries began actively collaborating with one another within the peacemaking projects and have been arranging meetings in different parts of our planet, including Armenia, for over 10 years. What do you think, which are the real results of all these meetings, national diplomacy and dialog? There are not on the horizon yet, are there?

I regret to point out that no armistice agreement between our countries has been reached. On May 12, 1994 Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a cease-fire agreement which has been failing to turn into an armistice agreement for over 12 years.

At the same time the formulation about the active collaboration of NGOs within peacemaking projects remains disputable for me. Our NGOs most likely actively meet in different points of our planet, including Armenia, but it by no means implies that they are actively collaborating in the peacemaking sphere.

I am not sure of the results now, since in our case nothing is available behind such words like “national diplomacy” and “dialog”, it is just a shaking of air. Over the last 12 years a layer parasitizing on the conflicts, regarding itself a public-political elite has been formed in our countries and in the entire South Caucuses, on the whole, on behalf of state, political and public figures. Unless the peacemaking activity is aimed at the settling of the problem worrying each citizen, unless each step and each word in the peacemaking sphere finds its transformation in the public life, we will cultivate only parasites who are interested in the preservation of the frozen state of the conflict which, in essence, signifies its intensification.

Unfortunately, each attempt to reconsider and review “tourist-restaurant peacemaking” arouses the command dislike and enmity of NGO monstrous privatizing the sphere of a public dialog which considers that they have a good reputation in the west… and it is more than enough.

After the meeting of the presidents Ilham Aliyev and Robert Kocharyan in Minsk, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Elmar Mamedyarov declared that one matter remained unsettled between the two sides and the negotiations in that direction would continue. Which is the reality of the settlement of the conflict in the near future and in your opinion, what is that detail on account of which the sides fail to come to an agreement?

Like all other citizens of Armenia and Azerbaijan, I don’t have any idea of the detail you are talking about and, thus, I am not able to judge about it depending on the publications in the press or profound argumentations and discourses running in the analytical-politological circles as if disclosing the essence of this detail.

Hence, the content of the process of negotiation is not revealed for our societies, including numerous political scientists and analysts who skillfully earn their living through various argumentations without attempting to comment on this or that aspect of the process of negotiation.

I wish to indicate that any document, any agreement signed within this current process, in reality, will be the extension of the cease-fire agreement and will not put an end to conflicts and enmity. This assertion of mine is grounded on the fact that our societies at the background of the process of negotiation remain aloof and alien from each other and assume the entire negative propaganda of an enemy’s image which is conducted by either side. Thus, we are doomed to create the only script: “Love by order, hatred by order” (a formulation of my favorite writer Vahe Avetyan).

After each trip of Azerbaijan journalists and NGO representatives to Armenia, there are mass medias in your country which distort and misinterpret their words, and upon return to their homeland, they face a series of problems. Are there any mechanisms worked out to fight against this negative phenomenon and what measures do you undertake in case your participant suffers on account of any disinformation?

Once again allow me to dispute the arrangement of this question. Each trip of Azerbaijan journalists and NGO representatives to Armenia, including their meetings with Armenian colleagues in various parts of our planet is by no means highlighted in any mass media. As for rather frequent visits of the representatives of Azerbaijan to Armenia, then the overwhelming majority of them is made within the so-called “closed regime”, that is only a narrow circle of people and NGO representatives are aware of such visits and the goal of their meetings.

All the projects of our organization and CCPMI are to the maximum open for public and the press. We are doing out utmost to enlarge the auditorium of our projects as much as possible, provide highest possible information about the goal and objectives of the visits of Azerbaijan participants, the implemented jobs and operations and the results of our joint activity.

I am strongly convinced that the more open and publicly the visits of our Azerbaijan colleagues to Armenia are, the more they are defended and secured upon their return to Azerbaijan. I am talking about it with confidence, because I consider that the pressure upon our colleagues is not caused by the publications in the Armenian Press but the rumours and gossips about their trips. A journalist Alekper Aliyev, a culturologist Elmir Mirzoev and the political correspondent of “The New Anatolian” newspaper Nursun Erel were invited as leading specialists to participate in our current project – Master-class for young journalists of Armenia which was and will be highlighted in Mass Medias of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey.

In the course of this project we were faced with the distortion and disinformation of the facts of the performances, interviews of participants of the project made by Armenian Agency PanARMENIAN.NET and Russian REGNUM News Agency. We undertook certain steps and CCPMI will soon deliver its statement with this regard.

I only want to add that the cause of the pressure upon the Azerbaijanians arriving in Armenia, is the longstanding closure of “peacemaking” sphere and the absence of a real cooperation. Only through a real partnership will we succeed in obtaining public support and assistance of our activity and only in case of public support separate attempts of disinformation and pressure will not lead to any serious consequences.

I am certain that a real peacemaking activity can be supported both in Armenian and Azerbaijan societies. The first obstacle that we face is the accumulated problems of a non-governmental sphere and long years of simulation of the dialog.

Alekper Aliev
Baku - Yerevan - Baku
09-12-06