From Ethnic Conflict to Stillborn Reform: The Former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia

CHAPTER 4. Armenia

Armenia 73 CHAPTER 4 Armenia B eginning in 1988 fighting broke out between Armenians and Azeris in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, a heavily Armenian autonomous region of the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic. Fightingintensifiedin1991,asSovietforcesjoinedAzerbaijaniunitsinaneffort to stop the snowballingArmenian separatist movement.With theAugust,1991, collapse of Soviet power, full-scale war erupted.With support from Armenia, KarabakhArmenian forces won a dramatic military victory.By the time a cease- fire was signed in May, 1994, Karabakh Armenian forces held not only all of Nagorno-Karabakh (henceforth“Karabakh”),but also large additional swathes of Azerbaijani territory.These included not only land links between Karabakh and Armenia, but also large buffer areas to the east and south of Karabakh. Through 1991 reforms looked promising, but the war stalled further progress on democratization and market reform.Market reform began afresh in 1994 and has since been sustained despite great economic difficulties. Democracy was hindered by restrictions on party and press opposition from late 1993 and was significantly weakened but not destroyed by a military coup against the incumbent government in February, 1998. The coup was legitimized after the fact by elections, but it set a dangerous precedent. Reform Outcomes Democratization. The Gorbachev-era Supreme Soviet elections,conducted in May, 1990, were mostly free and fair. The opposition Armenian PanNational Movement (APNM) gained a large number of seats, which allowed it to govern with like-minded deputies of other parties.The free and fair presidential election of October,1991,broughtAPNM leader Levon Ter-Petrossian to the helm. The once-liberal APNM began to show less tolerance from late 74 the former soviet union 1993.In December,1994,the important Dashnaksutiun opposition party was banned—on the basis of alleged ties with a terrorist group. The July, 1995, parliamentary elections, convincingly won by the APNM, were free but not fair. There were widespread restrictions on candidate participation and votecounting irregularities.Fraud appears to have been even more extensive in the September, 1996, presidential election, in which Ter-Petrossian narrowly avoided a runoff with 51.8 percent of the vote. The interior minister later admitted that only vote tampering prevented a runoff in which Ter-Petrossian would have faced a serious challenge. Ter-Petrossian was forced to resign by Armenia’s security force heads in February, 1998, and a new presidential election was held a month later. Vote fraud was much reduced in this election, and it appears that the new president, Robert Kocharian, would have won by a large margin without such “help.” He proceeded to legalize the Dashnaksutiun, and to free Dashnak leaders imprisoned between 1996 and 1997. The May, 1999, parliamentary elections were once more free and fair. However, in the February–March, 2003, presidential election, won by Kocharian, there were again allegations of widespread vote tampering. There was substantial press freedom in the late Soviet period under the Armenian Communist Party (CP). Independent print and broadcast media mushroomed during the early years of APNM rule. Opposition views had numerous outlets. However, there was some government censorship, and this increased beginning in late 1993. Dashnak outlets were shut down in December , 1994. Opposition outlets and journalists often faced legal harassment; journalists were frequently beaten. Newsprint was often unavailable to publications that crossed the government.The highly influential state-owned broadcast media showed an increasing pro-government bias. This was particularly marked during the election campaigns in 1995 and 1996. However, the large and dynamic independent media remained active and outspoken throughout the period. Under Kocharian, formal and informal pressures on the independent media were at first largely eliminated, and private broadcast media increasingly competed with those controlled by the state. From 2002, legal and physical assaults on opposition media and journalists were renewed.1 Market Reform. As early as February,1991,the governingAPNM approved an ambitious Land Reform Act, breaking up the collective farms and redistributing the land to individuals.In early 1992,soon after independence,a bold market-reform program was passed. The war in Karabakh and the related blockade of energy supplies and other vital imports and exports slowed the reform process, as resources were rationed and funneled to vital war-making Armenia 75 purposes and basic services. Upon conclusion of the cease-fire and despite an ongoing blockade, the early reform program was relaunched. In 1994 macroeconomic stabilization was complemented by trade liberalization and current account convertibility. Privatization proceeded from 1994. Under the more...