![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.arcah.ru\/uploads\/posts\/2010-07\/1279986302_mailyan.jpg\" "\\"Masis")
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By Masis MAYILIAN<\/strong><\/p>\n Stepanakert <\/p>\n This research was dedicated to the following questions: how pressing is the issue of forced displacement in Karabakhi society and in other societies party to the conflict? Can this issue be resolved without being linked into other crucial political issues at stake in the Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) conflict, such as the international legitimation of the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), and issues of territory and security? Are the peoples and societies of both parties ready to reach a compromise, or indeed to arrive at any decisions at all?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Forced displacement is one of the most important issues in resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Other key issues are usually said to be the determination and recognition of the NKR\u2019s status, questions of territory and borders, of unblocking transport and energy communications and security guarantees for the NKR.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n If the desire for freedom and equality, declared by the Armenian majority of NK was the <\/span><\/span>cause<\/em><\/span><\/span> of renewed conflict with Azerbaijan, then forced displacement (together with a number of other problems) arose as a <\/span><\/span>consequence<\/em><\/span><\/span> of this conflict. <\/span><\/span>Therefore it would be more methodologically correct to resolve the issues connected with the cause of the conflict first, and then to embark on the elimination of its consequences.<\/em><\/span><\/span> <\/strong><\/span><\/span>International recognition of the NKR and the delimitation of its borders with Azerbaijan would clarify the situation for those wishing to return to their former abode. People cannot return to uncertainty, they have the right to know which country\u2019s laws they will be living under. For example, citizens of the NKR can return to Shaumyan district if the NKR\u2019s territorial integrity is restored and if the republic has real jurisdiction over this district.<\/span><\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The latest peace proposal generated by international mediators in the Minsk Group of the OSCE, known as the Madrid Principles, suggests the deferral of final status determination for NK until the latter stages of the peace process. The mediators apparently see other problems, relating to the consequences of the conflict, as being resolved first. It is evident that this is an attempt by the co-Chairs of the Minsk Group to put the cart before the horse.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Political parties and NGOs in the NKR have assessed the Madrid Principles negatively.<\/span><\/span>2<\/sup><\/a> Azerbaijan has declared that it accepts the Principles with some reservations. According to the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, these \u2018reservations\u2019 extend to the majority of the mediators\u2019 proposals.<\/span><\/span>3<\/sup><\/a> In Armenia attitudes towards the Madrid Principles, which suggest unilateral concessions by Yerevan and Stepanakert, are altogether negative. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Forced displacement was the subject of negotiations between delegations from the NKR, Azerbaijan and Armenia under the aegis of the OSCE until April 1997. The <\/span><\/span>Draft Ceasefire Agreement<\/em><\/span><\/span> mentioned, <\/span><\/span>inter alia<\/em><\/span><\/span>, the need to create conditions for the \u201cguaranteed safe, voluntary and balanced return of the displaced persons and refugees, irrespective of nationality, <\/span><\/span>to their former fixed abode\u2019.<\/span><\/span><\/span>4<\/sup><\/a> The subsequent \u2018package\u2019 (July 1997), \u2018step-by-step\u2019 (December 1997) and \u2018common state\u2019 (November 1998) proposals also contained provisions and separate proposals regarding displacement during the conflict.<\/span><\/span>5<\/sup><\/a> A universal right of return for all internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees is also noted in the Madrid Principles.<\/span><\/span> The right of Armenians and the Azeris to return, with some exceptions, is not disputed: the problem lies in the current lack of legal-political conditions for the realisation of this right.<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n International law and other bodies of law acknowledge a right to restitution for displaced persons or at least mechanisms for compensation for their violated rights; international law and practice therefore make provision for alternative solutions. Of great importance is the determination of responsibility, that is, identification of the party whose actions led to the violation of the rights of the category of people in question.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The problem of forced displacement can be analysed, but the practical implementation of any recommendations arising will be linked to the solution of other key political problems. For example, without mutual recognition of the legal personality of the conflict parties it is impossible even to unequivocally identify the status of a displaced person. Whilst the personal status of each displaced person is presumed to invest them with various rights, those rights are regulated by separate international legal documents.<\/span><\/span>6<\/sup><\/a> For example, according to the laws of the NKR the former Armenian residents of Baku and other cities of the Republic of Azerbaijan, some of whom are now resident in the NKR, are qualified as \u2018refugees\u2019; conversely, according to the laws of Azerbaijan they are IDPs. From Baku\u2019s point of view, this category of people did not cross an international state border. The same situation applies to Azeris from the NKR, who today live in the Republic of Azerbaijan. In Karabakh they are considered refugees, in Azerbaijan – IDPs.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 2. \u2018<\/strong><\/span><\/span>Demography as a<\/strong><\/span><\/span> <\/strong><\/span><\/span>weapon<\/strong><\/span><\/span>\u2019 <\/strong><\/span><\/span>in<\/strong><\/span><\/span> <\/strong><\/span><\/span>the<\/strong><\/span><\/span> <\/strong><\/span><\/span>Karabakh<\/strong><\/span><\/span> <\/strong><\/span><\/span>conflict<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The attitude of Karabakhi society to the problem of forced displacement is profoundly ambivalent.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n On the one hand<\/span><\/span>, <\/strong><\/span><\/span>this is an acute social issue for NK and it requires a final resolution. According to official data of the NKR, in the post-war period over 30% of the population in Karabakh are made up of Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan and IDPs who left their homes in the NKR as a result of Azerbaijani armed aggression.<\/span><\/span>7<\/sup><\/a> It should be noted that in summer 1992 approximately half of the NKR\u2019s territory was under Azerbaijani control, and civilians in these occupied districts were annihilated or ethnically cleansed.<\/span><\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In this respect a message from the chair of the CSCE (now OSCE) Minsk Group on NK, Mario Rafaeli, to acting chairman of the CSCE Josef Moravcik dated 23 September 1992 is noteworthy: \u2018How can the Minsk Group indifferently continue the negotiations, whilst the subject of the negotiations (NK – M.M.) is gradually disappearing? \u2026If Nagorny Karabakh were again to fall under the control of [Azerbaijan] as a result of the offensive, what will remain of the subject of the negotiations?\u2019<\/span><\/span><\/span>9<\/sup><\/a> <\/span><\/span><\/span>Azerbaijan still controls 15% of the NKR territories (Shaumyan district, including the sub-district of Getashen in its entirety, and Martakert and Martuni districts in part). These territories are now settled by non-Armenians, and the names of residential areas and administrative boundaries in these occupied districts have been changed.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Government and society in the NKR treated the problem of refugees as a humanitarian issue and for the whole duration of the conflict they tried to ease the situation of refugees and internally displaced persons. Unlike oil-rich Azerbaijan, Karabakh did not create tent cities for show or politicise this problem. The people of Karabakh provided refugees with emergency housing. To this day, without international support, the state continues to build housing for the refugees and those IDPs who came back to former places of residence liberated from occupation.<\/span><\/span>10<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n On the other hand<\/span><\/span>, <\/strong><\/span><\/span>there is an understanding in the NKR that the return of refugees to their former homes will create new problems, of both a humanitarian and security nature, for these returnees. According to a social survey carried out in October <\/span><\/span>2010 in the NKR by the British organisation Populus and the Armenian IPSC<\/span><\/span><\/span>11<\/sup><\/a>, the population of Karabakh is categorically against the return of IDPs and refugees to the territories surrounding the NKR.<\/span><\/span><\/span>12<\/sup><\/a> <\/span><\/span><\/span>The return of refugees in conditions of unresolved conflict, international non-recognition of the NKR and a lack of minimum trust between the conflict parties threatens the future security of the NKR and can become a new source of regional destabilisation. <\/em><\/span><\/span>The political leadership of Armenia is of a similar opinion.<\/span><\/span>13<\/sup><\/a> <\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n These are not random concerns originating in Karabakhi society. Demography has been used as a weapon by Baku since the 1920s, when the Bolsheviks decided to transfer Karabakh to Azerbaijan as an autonomous territory. Attempts on the part of the leadership of Azerbaijan to change the ethnic picture in NK to the advantage of the Azeri minority there continued throughout the years when the Armenian autonomy was part of that Soviet republic.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The Soviet Azerbaijani authorities carried out a deliberate policy to stimulate the artificial growth of the Azeri population in Karabakh. It should be noted that <\/span><\/span><\/span>the natural population growth rate of the Azeri population was higher than that of the Armenian population<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span>. But in addition to the natural factor, artificial factors were engaged as well: the migration of Azeri labour and students to NK was planned by the leadership of Azerbaijan and was realised under the control of party structures.<\/span><\/span><\/span>14<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This policy became more intense from the beginning of the 1970s, when Heydar Aliyev became the First Secretary of the Azerbaijani Communist Party Central Committee. The Baku newspaper <\/span><\/span><\/span>Zerkalo<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span>
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