Pursuing Concrete Steps to Peace: Azeris and Armenians Join in Public Peace Process by Craig Barnes

As Soviet power unraveled in 1988, Armenians in the mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh began raising hopes for unification with nearby Armenia. By 1988, a majority of Karabakh's citizens were ethnic Armenians, but through the manipulations of Soviet regional politics and nationality policy, the rough mountain territory had been wholly included within Azerbaijan. Azeris believe that at the time of the allocation of land between the republics, they were in the majority, legitimizing Karabakh's inclusion in Azerbaijan. As the conflict escalated in the '80s, each side laid out maps and ethnic histories to justify claims to Karabakh and a horrible series of events began, leading to full-scale war and massive ethnic displacement.

An estimated 30,000 people were killed in the fighting, and the number of people who fled the area as refugees is estimated at 750,000 to 1.5 million. Armenia and Azerbaijan are now effectively "ethnically cleansed" of their former neighbors and long-time partners in Caucasian affairs. A cease-fire was declared in May 1994, but Armenian Karabakhi troops still occupy 20 percent of the land area of Azerbaijan, having claimed a buffer zone beyond the borders of Karabakh itself. Talks led by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have stalled.

In the winter of 1993, when the war and suffering on both sides were at their height, the Armenian and Azerbaijani ambassadors in Moscow requested NGO aid in finding creative solutions to the conflict. Believing that a public peace process might help break the stalemate in diplomatic negotiations, delegates from the Foundation for Global Community (FGC) went to Moscow and spoke with both ambassadors, who expressed interest in FGC's prior experience working with a public peace process in the Middle East.

The idea underlying such a process is that peace is politically risky, and governments cannot make important changes in position without public engagement. It assumes that ethnic conflict arises during periods of political instability when radical elements can seize upon ethnicity or culture as a justification for taking power. Ethnic identification and religious differences become useful organizing techniques for demonizing the opposition, despite the fact that most ethnic groups live side by side without conflict most of the time, as had Armenians and Azeris throughout their history. Thus in the 1988 to 1993 period, when Soviet central control loosened, those who stood to gain by stirring the flames of hatred were able to use ethnicity very effectively in the Caucasus. Such ethnic hatred supports a leader using any method to destroy the enemy, including pillage, massacre, rape and war.

The Public Peace Dialogue process aims to transform the climate of public opinion and restore the normal human instinct to cooperate and find commonalities. It tries to stigmatize the use of force and bring about a reconciliation that can lessen the chances of future atrocities. The progress of such dialogues can be measured by the extent to which participants begin actively to cooperate. Over time, the goal is to replace the image of the evil enemy with the image of mutual survival. As former Assistant Secretary of State Harold Saunders, who works with the Foundation, has stated, "Only people-human beings, not government-can cause people to move into a relationship of reconciliation."

To begin the project, FGC, together with the Stanford [University] Center on Conflict and Negotiation (SCCN), sought a diverse group of opinion leaders to take part in their dialogue process. For a successful dialogue the participants should be outspoken but open-minded individuals, with a belief in nonviolent solutions to conflict. In 1993, after extensive introductory meetings in Yerevan, Baku and Stepanakert, a small number of intellectuals, journalists, politicians and peace activists from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Karabakh were brought together at a retreat center in California for a week of dialogues hosted by FGC and SCCN and facilitated by Saunders.

The week together established a base level of trust in each other, the dialogue process and the sponsors, although the parties made clear their firmly held positions, which at times were reinforced rather than changed. Participants at this first meeting showed limited willingness to discuss a larger frame of reference, the underlying needs and interests of the other side, or the way in which an individual's own experience and conditioning can affect perception. Both sides were burdened with the pain of significant loss. The talks therefore produced working relationships, but moved slowly on substantive issues. While commitment, in principle, to longterm communication and rebuilding of normal relations between peoples in the region emerged from this dialogue, there was intense resistance to military or territorial compromise or discussion about mutually advantageous ("win-win") solutions.

Upon their return to the Caucasus, participants engaged in public outreach about the experience in California, taking part in television and radio programs, writing articles and holding interviews.

An FGC team returned to Yerevan and Baku in the spring of 1994 to seek support for the dialogue from the affected governments and to evaluate the on-going commitment of the participants. The evaluations were encouraging, and the project by then had support from the vice presidents of both Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as from representatives of their parliaments. In their travels, the FGC teams made clear that such a conflict can only be resolved by the citizens of the opposing nations. FGC can structure a dialogue process and offer encouragement, but the resolution of the conflict depends on the participants themselves. With this understanding, a second joint dialogue was held in California in October 1994.

In the spring of 1995, FGC sent another team to the region to evaluate support for the process and the willingness of the participants to try new approaches. Again, participants and governments confirmed their belief that the process should continue. At this point, FGC added a new dimension. They asked the sides to participate in conflict resolution training as practiced in the West in preparation for the next round of talks. All agreed, and from April to August 1996, FGC team members held trainings in Baku, Yerevan and Stepanakert, which included conversations about "conflict," "interests" and "positions," as well as role playing. The process allowed participants to examine the cultural norms for conflict resolution: their own, those of the other side, and Western ones.

In September 1996, the dialogue was moved to Tbilisi, Georgia, and the participants were encouraged to develop cooperative projects in the belief that new, joint working experiences can co-exist in the mind with old fears, and then gradually replace them. The participants consciously tried to generate ideas for cooperative efforts, which would be beneficial in themselves, but even more importantly, could begin to create a new history to replace the painful story of the past.

One of the programs they developed focuses on joint ecological reporting and research, aiming to gather information about air pollution and find practical ways to work together. Another looks directly at models of reconciliation. The project addresses the cultural roots of democracy, looking for its elements in Muslim as well as Christian countries, while acknowledging that the Muslim identity of Azerbaijan is very different from that of Turkey or Iran due to its Soviet experience.

Another project plans to open centers where women can come to be trained in public affairs, and where joint surveys and methodologies can be designed to draw new participants into the civil processes of Azerbaijan and Armenia, developing a healthy grassroots influence upon government.

Still other projects will look at the conflict from a psychological perspective, and work to address the great psychological needs of those who have suffered through the brutality. Psychology professors from the region used to meet annually in Tbilisi, a tradition that was stopped by the war. Today psychologists are arguably in the best position to elaborate a strategy for overcoming the enemy mentality. "We will not talk about how to 'decide Karabakh,' but how to give any peace dialogue a professional character," participants explained.

The fear and shame that lie at the root of the animosities in Karabakh cannot be overcome by talking or time alone. But as one proponent of these joint projects said, "The knowledge that we have a common future must lead us to reconciliation. The planet is too small for us to exist independently. There is a common global financial structure, there are common ecological problems that cross borders, there are common health problems, there is a common insurance network, and there are international criminal networks. Countries that do not understand this will drop out of history. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan are now seeking their place in the world If we understand the principles of cooperation, we will go faster. If we find the way of cooperation, we will also find our place in history."

Craig Barnes is a former courtroom lawyer and a member of the Common Cause National Governing Board. He is trained in mediation, and was co-facilitator of the meetings in Tbilisi.