Armenian
News Network / Groong
Commission to Analyze the Defeat in 2020
Guests
Hosts
Introduction
Hello and
welcome to the Armenian News Network, Groong.
In this Conversations on Groong
episode we’re going to discuss with our guests a call to the Armenian
government to form a fact-finding commission to fully analyze the profound
defeat in the fall of 2020.
This episode was recorded on
Friday, July 30, 2021.
Commission
to Analyze the Defeat in 2020
Overview
The
disastrous outcome of the 2020 War in Artsakh has left Armenians in Armenia and
around the world with many unanswered questions. Many long-time held beliefs
about the capability of Armenia to defend Artsakh, and Armenia itself, were
shattered on November 9, with the signing of the trilateral ceasefire
statement.
A group of
more than 10 academics and researchers recently published a lengthy set of
questions that are proposed as a basis for a fact-finding commission to
investigate the causes and results of the war. The document can be found on the
web at armeniacommission.org
Guests
Today,
we’ll talk with three of the authors of this document. We have with us:
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Dr. Simon Saradzhyan who is the founding director of the Russia Matters Project at Harvard Kennedy
School’s Belfer Center for Science and
International Affairs, and also helps advance the
center’s U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism. His research
interests include national power, military interventions, arms control,
counterterrorism, and the foreign, defense, and security policies of Russia
and other post-Soviet states and their relations with great powers. Prior to
joining Harvard, Dr. Saradzhyan worked as a
researcher, consultant, and journalist in Russia for 15 years, including as
an editor of The Moscow Times. |
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Arthur
Martirosyan, who is a Senior Consultant with CMPartners.
In 1994 Martirosyan
joined the Conflict Management Group (CMG) and worked with
Professor Roger Fisher on several projects in the former Soviet Union. From
2001 through 2008 he was the Director of the Momentum Program: Leadership and
Negotiation Culture Change in the Former Soviet Union (FSU). |
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Tevan Poghosyan, is president of the International Center for
Human Development in Yerevan. Mr. Poghosyan was an MP in the National
Assembly between 2012 and 2017 from the Heritage party. From 1997 to 1999 he
served as the Nagorno-Karabakh Public Affairs Office Director in Washington,
D.C. |
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Discussion
Overview
Simon:
As the lead author for the document, could you give us a brief overview of this
document. When was the idea conceived, and what were your motivations for this
initiative? What was the process for coming up with the team, and the document?
Arthur:
You are a conflict management expert, how did you want the fact-finding and
analysis to proceed, for optimal results? What was your role in organizing this
document?
Tevan:
Regardless of whatever optimal desires we may have,
this commission and its results are going to be a political process. Should
this be a government commission? A non-government, so-called “independent”
commission? What powers should it be vetted with? What would be the ideal
constitution and timing for such a commission?
Is such a commission possible today?
The idea of a commission is
indeed a compelling one. And while the document has many questions on specific
facts and incidents, the document is not very prescriptive on the exact
structure of the commission or its specific mandate.
First, let’s evaluate what we
have today in Armenia. The Civil Contract Party won a very comfortable majority
in the recent parliamentary elections, in fact they’re just short of a
super-majority. The two opposition parties in the parliament will be the
Armenia Alliance (led by Robert Kocharyan) which includes the ARF and Reviving
Armenia party, and the I Have Honor Alliance (led by Arthur Vanetsyan)
composed of the Republican and Hayreniq parties.
Just this week, Alen Simonyan, a senior member of the Civil Contract party who
is slated to become the incoming parliament speaker, announced that the party has
decided to set up a commission to investigate the 44 day
war, once the new session of the parliament starts. Specifically, Simonyan stated that Civil Contract intends to be the
initiator of this commission and will include all extra-parliamentary political
forces.
The two parliamentary
opposition parties, which campaigned on the idea of setting up such a
commission, have already expressed
misgivings about the commission, arguing that such a
commission should not be led by the party that was in political leadership
during the war, and lost the war.
Tevan: Given
the upcoming configuration of the newly elected national assembly, what are the
chances of such a commission arriving at objective answers to the questions
posed in this document? Do you have any concerns about the proposal from Civil
Contract as it stands today?
Arthur:
In your experience, what may be reasonable international examples of similar
fact-finding commissions that you think Armenia could or should emulate?
Simon:
As we monitor the news and progress made by this parliamentary commission, what
would be some signals that you’d be looking for that things are heading in the
right direction or the wrong direction?
Are there any alternatives to
a government-run commission? Could such a commission be established by civil
society, despite the limited access it would perceivably have access to?
Whatever happened to the 2016 war commission?
A deeper dive
The document is divided into
two main sections, with the first section covering May 1994 - Sep 2020 and the
second section covering the period of the war.
May 1994 - Sep 2020
Our timeline begins with the signing of the May
1994 ceasefire in Bishkek
under the leadership of Armenia’s first president, Levon
Ter-Petrosyan. Power in Armenia switched hands three
times, beginning with Robert Kocharyan coming to power in 1998 and serving for
10 years, then Serzh Sargsyan for another decade, and culminating with Nikol Pashinyan who took power in May 2018.
What are the general political environment and
developments that took place during each of those leaders’ tenure? What were
some major political developments that took place during this 26 year period that in your opinion have been pivotal to
arriving at the military-political configuration that we had as of September
2020?
What do you think were some
missed opportunities by Armenian leadership during the lead-up to September
2020, that you would focus on if you were in charge of
this commission?
How did external drivers
influence the outcome of the war? Did Armenia’s relationship with Moscow
experience significant changes since Nikol Pashinyan’s accession to power that could have influenced
the outcome of the war?
September 2020 - November 2020
Can we pinpoint some major
areas of concerns that you specifically have on how the war was executed?
As
Armenia’s strategic partner, many consider Moscow’s position
in the lead-up and during the war to be pivotal to its outcome. What are some
questions to focus on in Armenia’s relationship with its northern neighbor?
Since publishing this
document, have you been contacted by Armenia’s political leadership to discuss
your proposal further?
--
Closing with a quote from
Henry Ford:
The
only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.
Wrap-up
That concludes this Conversation On
Groong on the proposal of forming a commission to study Armenia’s failure
in the 2020 Artsakh War.
We hope this Conversation has helped your
understanding of some of the issues involved. We look forward to your feedback,
including your suggestions for Conversation
topics in the future. Contact us
on our website, at groong.org,
or on our Facebook Page “ANN - Groong”,
or in our Facebook Group “Groong - Armenian News Network”.
Special thanks to Laura
Osborn for providing the music for our podcast. I’m Hovik Manucharyan, and on
behalf of everyone in this episode, I wish you a good week. Thank you for
listening and we’ll talk to you next week.
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Keywords
Simon Saradzhyan, Arthur Martirosyan, Tevan Poghosyan, ArmeniaCommission, Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh, Karabakh, Artsakh War, Commission, Armenia, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Yerevan, Moscow, Kremlin, Ankara, Tehran, Baku