Black Garden : Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War / Thomas De Waal
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BLACK GARDEN THOMAS DE WAAL BLACK GARDEN Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War a New York University Press • New York and London NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London © 2003 by New York University All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data De Waal, Thomas. Black garden : Armenia and Azerbaijan through peace and war / Thomas de Waal. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8147-1944-9 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, 1988–1994. 2. Armenia (Republic)— Relations—Azerbaijan. 3. Azerbaijan—Relations—Armenia (Republic) I. Title. DK699.N34 D4 2003 947.54085'4—dc21 2002153482 New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. Manufactured in the United States of America 10987654321 War is kindled by the death of one man, or at most, a few; but it leads to the death of tremendous numbers. —Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power Mercy on the old master building a bridge, The passer-by may lay a stone to his foundation. I have sacrificed my soul, worn out my life, for the nation. A brother may arrange a rock upon my grave. —Sayat-Nova Contents Author’s Note ix Two Maps, of the South Caucasus and of Nagorny Karabakh xii–xiii. Introduction: Crossing the Line 1 1 February 1988: An Armenian Revolt 10 2 February 1988: Azerbaijan: Puzzlement and Pogroms 29 3 Shusha: The Neighbors’ Tale 45 4 1988–1989: An Armenian Crisis 55 5 Yerevan: Mysteries of the East 73 6 1988–1990: An Azerbaijani Tragedy 82 7 Baku: An Eventful History 96 8 1990–1991: A Soviet Civil War 108 9 Divisions: A Twentieth-Century Story 125 10 Hurekavank: The Unpredictable Past 145 11 August 1991–May 1992: War Breaks Out 159 12 Shusha: The Last Citadel 184 13 June 1992–September 1993: Escalation 194 14 Sabirabad: The Children’s Republic 217 15 September 1993–May 1994: Exhaustion 225 16 Stepanakert: A State Apart 241 17 1994–2001: No War, No Peace 251 Conclusion: Sadakhlo: The Future 269 vii viii CONTENTS Appendix 1: Statistics 284 Appendix 2: Chronology 287 Notes 299 Bibliography 321 Index 327 About the Author 337 All illustrations appear as a group following p. 114. Author’s Note The research done for this book is based on around 120 original inter- views done in 2000–2001, supplemented by eyewitness reporting and secondary sources. Personal testimony is of course subjective, so I have tried to balance my reconstruction of events from as many sources as possible. The problem is that the written record on the subject is also frequently unreliable, partisan, and incomplete. It will take many years for a full picture of what happened in Armenia and Azerbaijan after 1988 to be assembled. This is intended as a beginning in a field that has very few accounts interested in both sides. Many Armenians and Azer/ baijanis will take an interest in what is written here, and I would make a plea for them not to quote some of the information here selectively, to suit their own political agendas. The book stands or falls as an entire whole. The use of names is problematic. Written Azeri has two alphabets, Armenian has a Western and Eastern version, and most of the written material I have drawn on is in Russian anyway. I have tried to be as con/ sistent as possible. One of the more disputed things about the disputed province in the middle is what to call it. I have chosen not to use the Russianized form, which has become prevalent in most of the outside world, but to use the more grammatically correct Nagorny (rather than Nagorno) Karabakh. Where a town has two names, one Armenian and one Azerbaijani, I use the one that was in currency when the dispute started in 1988. So I say Shusha, rather than Shushi, and Stepanakert, rather than Khankendi. In an ideal world there would be an agreed lin/ guistic distinction between the ethnic group of Azerbaijanis and the cit/ izens of the state of Azerbaijan; because there is not an ideal world, I have forgone using the word “Azeri” (apart from when referring to the language) and stuck to the word “Azerbaijani” throughout. Dozens of people helped me in the research and writing of this book. Some of them knew they would not like all the things I say, which makes me appreciate their generosity all the more. ix x AUTHOR’S NOTE The book was made possible because of a generous one-year re- search grant from the United States Institute of Peace in Washington. In London, I received valuable administrative and moral support from Juliet Williams and above all Jonathan Cohen of Conciliation Resources (CR). CR also helped me make my trip across the front line in May 2001. I am deeply grateful to both organizations. I did not set out on this proj/ ect with an agenda focused on “peace,” but I finished it with a deep con/ viction that compromise from both sides is the only fair and feasible way out of this impasse. In Azerbaijan, my special thanks go to Zaur Aliev, who fixed up the majority of the interviews in Baku; to Azad Isazade for his practical help, detailed knowledge, and humanity; and to Arif Yunusov, whose in-depth knowledge, objectivity, and fair judgment on the Karabakh issue are unrivaled in the Caucasus. I would also like to thank Arzu Ab/ dullayeva; Vugar Abdusalimov and Ulvi Ismail of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; Fuad Akhundov; Sabina Alieva; Halid Askerov and Oleg Litvin for their photographs; the staff of the BBC office in Baku; Craig Dicker; Rauf Husseinov; Tahir Jafarov; Ke/ rim Kerimli; Vahid Mustafiev and the staff of ANS Television; Shahin Rzayev; Hikmet Sabioglu; Rauf Talyshinsky; Roger Thomas; Anne Thompson; Peter Van Praagh; and Leila Yunusova. In Armenia, Tigran Kzmalian and family were the warmest of hosts and friends; Alyosha Manvelian and Karen Topchyan of the BBC were always exceptionally helpful, and Suzanna Pogosian was a brilliant or/ ganizer and researcher. My thanks go also to Larisa Alaverdian; Mi/ chael Bagratuni; Alla Bakunts for much help and advice; Mark Grigo/ rian for sharing thoughts and old newspapers; Tim Jones; Onnik and Gohar Krikorian for friendship, contacts, and photographs; Eduard Kzmalian; Leonid Mirzoyan for good company on many long trips to Karabakh; Asya Mirzoyan; Grigory Mosesov; and David Petrosian. In Karabakh, I would like to thank Iosif Adamian and family; Ar/ mine Alexanian; Ani Azizian and family; Ashot Gulian; and Simon Porter. Elsewhere, my thanks go to Behrouz Afagh, Famil Ismailov, Ste/ phen Mulvey, and Jenny Norton of the BBC; everyone in the BBC office in Moscow; Jonathan Rowell of CARIS at the BBC World Service; Terry Adams; Kenan Aliev; Jonathan Aves; Robin Bhatty for supplying large amounts of useful material and comments; Tony Borden and the Insti/ tute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR); Bruce Clark; Alan Cooper- AUTHOR’S NOTE xi man and Martina Vandenburg; Felix Corley; Sasha Deryabin; Madalena Fricova and Lawrence Sheets; Thomas Goltz; Edmund Herzig; Robert Hewsen; Lee Hockstader; Scott Horton; Alik Iskandarian; Nev Jefferies; Jon Jones; Jan Koehler; Brady Kiesling; Edward Kline; Marina Kurk/ chian; Laura Le Cornu; Steve Levine; Gerard Libaridian; Anatol Lieven; Dov Lynch; Andrew Martin and Dennis Sammut of LINKS; Wayne Merry; David Michelmore; Boris Nefyodov; Michael Ochs; Craig Oli/ phant; Arkady Ostrovsky; Paul Quinn-Judge; Razmik Panosian; Philip Remler; Peter Rosenblatt; Laurent Ruseckas; Leonora Soroka of the Hoover Archives; Nina Sovich; Ronald Suny; Len Taylor; Hratch Tchil/ ingirian; Valery Tishkov; Effie Voutira; Christopher Walker; and Ed- ward W. Walker. My agent, David Miller, was helpful from first to last; at NYU Press Niko Pfund commissioned the book and Stephen Magro saw it through to publication; Brenda Shaffer gave exceptionally useful comments and insights on several chapters; my mother, Esther de Waal, was hugely supportive for several crucial weeks of writing; it would not have been half so much fun without the company and hospitality of my Caucasian kindred spirits Wendell Steavenson and David Stern. Finally, the love, humor, patience, fine editing skills, and constant support of my wife, Georgina Wilson, have been beyond measure and it is to her this book is dedicated. xii xiii Introduction Crossing the Line THE FRONT LINE: 19 MAY 2001 No border is more closed than this one. A few miles after the Azerbai jani city of Terter, the road stopped in a dusty field. Soldiers at a guard post blocked the way. Sheets of camouflage and dried grass covered the barbed wire. From here Colonel Elkhan Aliev of the Azerbaijani army would escort us into no-man’s-land. We were a party of Western and Russian diplomats and journalists. The mediators were hoping to build on prog ress made the month before at peace talks in Florida between the pres idents of the two small post-Soviet Caucasian republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan. By crossing the front line between the positions of the Azerbaijanis and of the Armenians of Nagorny Karabakh, who occupied the land on the opposite sides, the party of diplomats and journalists wanted to give the peace process a public boost. But by the time we reached the front line, a peace deal was slipping off the agenda again. No one had crossed here since May 1994, when the cease-fire was signed that confirmed the Armenians’ military victory in two and a half years’ of full-blown warfare. From that point, the line where the fight ing stopped began to turn into a two-hundred-mile barrier of sandbags and barbed wire dividing the southern Caucasus in two.