Category: Regions

LECTURE- Rebiya Kadeer, Human Rights in Xinjiang, MSU, East Lansing, Nov. 20

Talk Announcement:

Human Rights in Xinjiang and the Plight of Uyghurs

A talk by Rebiya Kadeer, president of the World Uyghur Congress and a
Nobel Peace Prize candidate

Time: 3:30 pm
Date: Thursday, November 20, 2008
Place: 201 International Center
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan

Sponsored by the Michigan State University (MSU)
Center for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies
and the Muslim Studies Program

For more information contact:
Timur Kocaoglu, office phone: 517-884-2169
E-mail: timur@msu.edu

November 20, 2008
The Sarah Palin affair: World should breathe a sigh of relief

By Ferruh Demirmen

Anyone who thought that the U.S. 2008 Republican National Convention held in Saint Paul, Minnesota last September would be a dull event, got a big jolt of surprise when the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin walked onto the stage and delivered a rousing speech to a frenzied crowd. With gusto, a shrilly voice and an ever-present smile, amid catch phrases such as pit bull, lipstick, and hockey mom, she charmed and galvanized the Republican base – who had hardly heard of her, let alone know her.

It was the start of a political soap opera that lasted until the elections on November 4. It was quite entertaining to watch.

But beneath it all, lay the frightening possibility that this newly discovered political cheer leader, coming from nowhere, as it were, could one day be the President the United States, in effect the leader of the free world. After all, the Presidential candidate Senator John McCain was 72 years old, and if he won the race and died or became incapacitated while in office, Palin was next in line to assume the presidency.

The fact that the elections, as they turned out, removed the possibility of Palin becoming the President, is something the world should feel very relieved about.

Who was Sarah Palin? A 45-year old governor of Alaska (population 670,000), ex-mayor of Wasilla (pop. 6,700), one-time runner-up for Miss Alaska, nicknamed “Sarah Barracuda,” with 5 children, married to a husband she calls “First Dude,” an ultra- conservative Republican, in fact an evangelist, and a shopaholic with a keen eye for expensive clothes and jewelry she could not afford. She was a moose hunter and a lifetime member of NRA (National Rifle Association).

She talked lavishly of love of country and family values (never mind that her unmarried teenage daughter was 5 months pregnant), who had put her life in “God’s hand,” called Iraq war “God’s plan,” the Alaska gas pipeline “God’s will,” and the eventuality of her moving to a higher office “God’s calling.”

All this foreshadowed the possibility that another anti-science, anti-progress, anti-environment president with a faith-based agenda could soon occupy the White House. It would be quite a trip from igloo to White House.

Amid slogans “Drill baby, drill,” she talked of “energy independence” ad nauseam as though she is the all-time visionary on energy. A compulsive talker, she had a habit of giving long-winded, often irrelevant answers to questions from the media. When things did not go her way, she blamed the media, and post-election, called McCain aides “jerks.”

What was most striking about her utterances were that they contained lots of sound bites but little substance.

Such idiosyncrasies are not too unusual for politicians, even for those running for high office. Politicians do not always come from the cream of the crowd. But there was something uniquely special about Governor Palin: She had no foreign policy experience, and this did not seem to bother her. Her scant knowledge of the world made President George W. Bush look like a guru in international relations.

Palin was utterly unprepared to be Vice President, let alone President. She had never met a head of state, and she barely left her native Alaska. First time she got a passport was in 2007 when she visited US troops (Alaskan National Guard) in Kuwait and Germany. Her spokesperson said that she also visited Ireland. It was later discovered that the Ireland “trip” was a short refueling stop at the Shannon airport on return from Germany.

To boost her foreign policy credentials, Palin cited Alaska’s proximity to Canada and Russia. During a televised interview on CBS, she told a bewildered Katie Couric: “We have trade missions back and forth. We — we do — it’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where — where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border.”

It was a shocking performannce.

To repair the damage, McCain’s staff gave her crash courses on foreign affairs and arranged a whirlwind tour of New York City and the UN to meet Henry Kissinger and a few world leaders. There were plenty of photo-ops. Incredulously, Kissinger endorsed her candidacy for the VP position. But her image did not recover.

Lawrence Eagleburger, an ex-Secretary of State who strongly endorsed McCain’s candidacy, when asked during a radio interview whether Palin was prepared to assume presidency, his spontaneous response was: “Of course not.” It was a frank and bleak assessment. Realizing that he was talking about McCain’s running mate, Eagleburger subsequently qualified his assessment.

Rumors, which she denied, circulated toward the end of the campaign that Palin thought Africa was a country, not a continent. Someone suggested jokingly that she move to southern France so she can gaze southward and learn about Africa.

In every humor there is an element of truth.

Only McCain, a maverick himself, knows why, after meeting her only once, chose Palin as his Vice-Presidential mate. One would think that picking a VP running mate would require thorough vetting. Evidently what he though he needed was a cheer leader. McCain never admitted that he had made a big mistake.

Now that the presidential race is over, the world can breathe a sigh of relief that Sarah Palin will not be one heartbeat away from the presidency. The consequences of a wayward or dangerous U.S. foreign policy and its impact on world peace under her leadership, if it were to be, are discomforting to imagine. Considering her huge ego and high ambition, of course, Palin may return to the national stage in 2012 with a vengeance. Still, that is four years from now, and a lot can happen during that time.

But imagine for a moment, if the McCain-Palin ticket had won and by some accident Palin had moved to the White House in 2010, the following tete-a-tete conversation on world affairs taking place between Palin-the-President and Vladimir Putin, by that time the president of Russia again:

Putin: “Madam President, we in Russia took matters very seriously when two years ago the U.S. encouraged Georgia to send military troops to …”

Palin, interrupting: “No, Mr. President, Georgia would never do that. O.K., Georgia fought in our Civil War, hmm, in 18 …, well, whatever …, but that is all over now. Georgia now is a very peace-loving state in our great nation. I have never visited Georgia, but I know they grow delicious peaches there, and my First Dude and I sometimes have peach pie a-la-mode after moose chili. Also, …”

Putin, interrupting: “Madam President, when I said Georgia, I meant The Caucuses.”

Palin: “Well, of course, caucuses. We have no problem with caucuses. When the Republican Iowa caucuses were held in January 2008, you know I was not included in the selection process, but, like, God wanted me to serve my country and asked me to plow through the campaign, and … God knows, we never wanted to make trouble for Russia, you are our neighbor to our great state of Alaska.”

Putin: “Madam President, I was also going to raise our concern about the missile issue, but…”

Palin, interrupting, with a big smile: “Let’s talk about missiles, I mean, auw, mistletoes, at Christmas.”

ferruh@demirmen.com

November 19, 2008
Azerbaijan to join 1st Conference of Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic-speaking countries

Baku. Elnur Mammadli–APA. Delegation of Azerbaijani Parliament will leave for Turkey on Thursday to participate at the 1st Conference of the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic-speaking countries. The Azerbaijani delegation will be headed by Speaker Ogtay Asadov, Spokesman for the Parliament Akif Nasirov told journalists, APA reports. The conference will take place on November 20-22. Delegations of Azerbaijani, Turkish, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan parliaments will sign agreement to found Parliamentary Assembly of the Turkic-speaking countries.

November 19, 2008
Iraqi Turkmen History Reveals Plan to Create a Bogus – Kurdish Nation

Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

November 14, 2008

In six previous articles, entitled “William Guthrie´s Turcomania: the Correct Name for Inexistent Kurdistan” ), “Jews and Turkmen Can Prosper Again in Tuz Khurmatu – With Turkey Annexing North Iraq” ), “Iraq´s Turkmenia to Merge with Turkey: Primary Concern of All Turks and Muslims” ), “Tombstone on Fake Kurdistan: Turkmen Political and Religious Movements in Iraq” ), “Turkmen Culture and Literature in Northern Iraq – True Identity vs. Fake Kurdish Propaganda” ) and “Protect Iraq´s Turkmen Cultural Heritage from Barbaric “Kurdish” Terrorists” ), I published the first six chapters (and parts of the lengthy seventh chapter) of an insightful book published by Mofak Salman Kerkuklu, one of the Turkmen foremost intellectuals, on “The Turkmen City of Tuz Khormatu”.

As the book bears witness to the Turkmen identity of the Northern Iraqi city, it consists in an excellent refutation of disastrous plans that provide for the formation of a fake state ´Kurdistan´ which will plunge into strife and disaster the subjugated non-Kurdish nations and ethno-religious groups, either those identified as unrelated (Turkmen, Aramaean, Jewish) or those labeled “Kurds” (Zaza, Sorani, Yazidi, Ahl-e Haq, Feyli, etc.).
In the present article, I publish further parts of the vast seventh chapter, which cover the various – all colonial – phases of Modern History of Iraq with focus on Tuz Khormatu. Through an overview of Mesopotamia´s Modern History, one understands that all the problems of the various local peoples and ethno-religious groups derived from the evil colonial plans of the Apostate Freemasonic Lodge that totally controls the political establishments of England and France.

What the Pseudo-Kurdish Terrorists Talabani and Barzani Fail to Understand

The Anti-Ottoman, Anti-Turkish and Anti-Muslim, Anti-Christian and Anti-Aramaean, Anti-Persian and Anti-Oriental racism, hysteria and evilness of the tyrannical, murderous and inhuman regimes of Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau have triggered all the problems and all the disasters that have befallen on the historical peoples of the vast colonized periphery of the Ottoman Empire.

In their evil plans, the colonial gangsters involved the most backward and the most ignorant tribal rulers
on whom they projected their fallacious version of History, whom they villainously and disproportionately flattered in order to turn them from unimportant mountain chieftains of non-value to significant and ludicrous clowns – pawns of their agenda (that the colonial gangsters do not however dare reveal to their puppets – slaves), with whom they planned to work, promoting disloyalty and immorality, at the detriment of the normal and rightful political authorities (the Ottoman and the Persian Empires), and at the prejudice of the outright majority of the local nations and ethno-religious groups, to whom they made favors and promises in order to shamefully utilize them and criminally instrumentalize them for their hidden agenda´s materialization, and for whom they have already reserved an abominable end full of disgrace, treachery and blood, as all the English colonials´ puppets – rulers have been killed by the same way, namely rulers´ subordinates who were also employed by the colonials as agents against their local masters.

In fact, the paranoid US – EU decision to consider terrorist groups as possible interlocutors and to unwisely demonstrate predilection to unrepresentative political groups that have provenly terrorized other nations and ethno-religious groups risks triggering mass extermination of the Aramaeans, the Turkmen and others, and fomenting an incredible strife among the different peoples whom the English colonial propaganda and the criminal but idiotic chieftains Talabani and Barzani label as “Kurds”. On this issue, I will however dedicate further articles.

Here suffice it to state that the Turkmen historicity of many lands falsely claimed as ´Kurdish´ will be one of the obstacles to the evil plans of the Apostate Freemasonic Lodge to set up a bogus-state called Kurdistan that will be the Hell-on-Earth.

The Turkmen City of Tuz Khormatu

By Mofak Salman Kerkuklu

Turkmen Under the British Occupation

A key to understanding why the maintenance of Iraq’s territorial integrity is viewed by many as critical is knowledge of the country’s enormous ethnic and religious diversity, the aspirations of these groups and the problems they now face. One of these ethno‐linguistic groups is the Turkmen, who have made a major effort to define themselves, both internally and to the world community. Their real population has always been suppressed by the authorities in Iraq for political reasons and is officially estimated at 2%, whereas in reality their number should be put between 2.5 and 3 million, i.e., 12% of the Iraqi population. The Turkmen of Iraq settled in Turkmeneli. Over the centuries, Turkmen played a constructive role in Iraq, either by defending the foreign invaders or by bringing civilisation. Their monuments and architectural remains exist all over Iraq. They lived in harmony with all ethnic groups around them. They lived with justice and tolerance.

The Turkmen are a Turkic group with a unique heritage and culture, as well as linguistic, historical and cultural links with the surrounding Turkic groups, such as those in Turkey and Azerbaijan. Their spoken language is closer to Azeri but their official written language is like the Turkish spoken in present‐day Turkey. The Turkmen of Iraq settled in Turkmeneli (Turkmen land) in three successive and constant migrations from Central Asia, and increased their numbers; this enabled them to establish six states in Iraq:

1. The Seljuks,

2. The Atabegs,

3. The Ilkhanids,

4. The Jalairids,

5. The Kara Koyunlu (Black Sheep),

6. The Ak Koynlu (White Sheep).

The Ak Koynlu became the last Turkmen state, in the sixteenth century. After that, the Safawids and the Ottomans ruled them.

Turkmen during the time of the Monarchy

For decades, since the creation of the Iraqi State in 1921, the Turkmen of Iraq and their plight have been completely ignored by the international community: they have been the least listened to outside Iraq and the least defended by their own government. Indeed, for decades, the Turkmen have been denied their basic human rights in Iraq, and have faced total indifference from the international community.

The disregard of the Turkmen´s historical role and achievements in Iraq, the denial of their true representation as the third largest ethnic group and, consequently, their marginalisation in Iraq have been initiated by the British colonial authorities at the end of World War One in 1918, for geopolitical and economical reasons only. This was meant to facilitate the separation of the Mosul Vilayat ´Mosul Province´ (now representing five Iraqi provinces: Mosul, Kirkuk, Erbil, Duhok and Suleymaniyah) from the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), in order to control the huge oil reserves of Kirkuk, which was then inhabited mainly by the Turkmen, as it had been for centuries.

During the 1920 uprising against the British occupation of Iraq, several Turkmen leaders appeared in the political arena in Tuz Khormatu. They have successfully participated in the uprising against the British occupation. These include Ali Efendi Mullah Wali, Najem Mohammed Chayir, Sayid Mohamed Sayid Ali, Khurshid Bakir Agha, Qanber Hussein Agha, Wahab Rustum Agha, Ali Mullah Safer, Jalal Rashid Efendi, Kasim Mohammed Suleyman, Moussa Qanber Agha, Hassan Maruf, Mullah Mehdi Khalil, Fadhil Mullah Mustafa, Rashid Khalifa Aldaqooqi and Abbass Kahya. Also, during the uprising in Tuz Khormatu, Mohammed Al‐Ferhan Albayeti and the chief of the Bayat Tribe Faris Beg provided the demonstrators with logistical support and arms.[1]

However, after the British invasion of Iraq in 1918, the Turkmen began to experience a different situation. The Turkmen were branded unjustly as loyal to Turkey: they were removed from the administration, pushed into isolation and ignored. Then, their fundamental human rights in culture and education were violated by the closure of their schools between 1933 and 1937.

Under the constitution, drawn up in 1932, the Kurds and the Turkmen had the right to use their own languages in schools and government offices and to have their own language press. With the Arabs, the Kurds were recognised in the first constitution of monarchical Iraq as one of the three main component groups of the Iraqi nation. However, constitutional rights were acknowledged to minorities in Iraq and the Royal Constitution of 21st March 1925 and the Article 16: “As determined by a general programme prescribed by law, each of the minorities originating from various nations has the right to set up schools where education is provided in the language used by that minority and is entitled to be in charge of these schools”. It was stated in the Royal Constitution, which was valid until 1958, that the Iraqi State consisted of Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen and other minorities.
Moreover, according to Article 14 of the same constitution, Turkmen, like other minorities, were also entitled to receive an education in their own language and to be in charge of their own educational institutions. In fact, until the proclamation of the republic, various constitutional amendments did not cause ethnic or political discrimination. However, in 1933, the final version of Article 17 of the constitution declared Arabic as the official language, with legally defined exceptions. Legislation number 74, published in 1931, and entitled Native Languages had clearly stipulated these exceptions. This law permitted all judicial processes to be conducted in the Turkmen language and primary school education to be in the Turkish language in all areas where Turkmen lived, foremost among these being Kirkuk and Erbil, and these rights were under constitutional guarantee. However, in 1936, after the resignation of Hikmat Suleiman, the brother of Sadrazam (Chief Minister) Mahmud Shavket Pasha, from the post of Prime Minister, to which he was appointed two years before, the new military regime began a campaign of taking back the rights given by the constitution. Thus, the Turkmen of Iraq lost the right to be educated in their native tongue. Under the Iraqi constitution of 1925, both Turkmen and Kurds had the right to use their own languages in schools, government offices and press.

By 1972, the Iraqi government prohibited both the study of the Turkmen language and Turkmen media and in 1973, any reference to the Turkmen was omitted from the provisional constitution. During the 1980s, the regime, the Ba´ath Party, prohibited even public use of the Turkmen language and the constitution of 1990 only states that the ´people of Iraq´ consist of ´Arabs and Kurds´.

However, one of the historical tragedies carried out against the Turkmen in Tuz Khormatu during the Monarchy was the uprising ´Intifada´ of June 6, 1954. The uprising commenced when the people of the district and the adjacent villages were frustrated by the election games practiced by the Iraqi government, which was assigning its supporters in the parliaments as representatives for the different constituencies. The Turkmen residents of Tuz Khormatu decided to show their unity and try to prevent possible the rigging of the election results. Therefore, they demanded free and integral elections, away from the governments´ influences and government candidates.[2]

In the elections held in June 1954, there were two candidates, Mr Jihad Al Wandawi and Mr Zaynal Abdeen Al Hajj Qanber Agha, who were accepted by the Tuz Khormatu people to represent them in the Parliament. The Election centres in the constituency were held in the Employees´ Club and the Tuz Khormatu elementary school.

The voting began at six o´clock in the morning and after a few hours, it was evident to the people that the government was supporting and proffering Mr Jihad Al Wandawi, thus ignoring the principle of neutrality and implementing the orders of the central powers in Baghdad. The supporters of Mr Zaynal Abdin Al Hajj Qanber Agha objected and protested to the authorities that there were people being brought in to vote for Mr Jihad Al Wandawi more than once. The people of Tuz Khormatu objected in writing to the District Commissioner, demanding that he investigate the issue. The Commissioner issued an order to arrest the campaign manager of the Turkmen candidate, Haji Mubarak Hassan.[3] The people realised that things were going from bad to worse and in their fury they attacked the election centres and destroyed the ballot boxes.[4]

People noticed that in the first polling centre, in the Employees´ Club, there were armed forces trying to intimidate the crowds and prevent them from advancing but that was of no use, for the crowds continued marching. The unarmed protesters started to stone the armed troops in the Club, thus forcing the troops to seek shelter in nearby gardens and the clashes continued between the people and the outsiders, who were totally committed to making the government´s candidate win the elections. The troops started shooting at the protesters and killed Suleiman Ali, one of the original inhabitants of Tuz Khormatu. This was clear evidence for the Turkmen of the denial that was being forged.

The period of monarchy, from 1932 to 1958, saw the removal of Turkmen from government posts and their deportation to Arab areas. The suppression of the Turkmen peaked in 1946, when they were subjected to what is historically known as the Gawer Baghi massacre when the police opened fire on unarmed protesters among the Iraqi oil workers in Kirkuk. Since then, and despite the formal independence of Iraq from Great Britain and the end of the British mandate in 1932, successive Iraqi governments have applied the same policies of marginalisation and discrimination towards the Turkmen as those that were initiated and applied by the British in 1918 and for the same geopolitical and economical reasons!

The Abdul Karim Qasim Period (1958–1963)

The military coup of 1958 that toppled the monarchy first brought rays of hope for the Turkmen when they heard radio announcements by coup leader General Abdul Kerim Qasim and his deputy General Abdul Salam Arif that Iraq was made up of three main ethnic groups and Turkmen were one of them. Turkmen interpreted these statements as the end of the suppression.

However, happy days did not last long. After the coup of 1958, General Abdul Kerim Qasim declared an amnesty and, because of this, a Kurdish rebel leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani returned from the Soviet Union and started negotiating for a Kurdish autonomous region. The situation of the Turkmen has deteriorated dramatically and drastically because of the hegemonic ambitions of Kurdish rebel leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani and his plans for an independent Kurdish state in the north of Iraq, for which the oil wealth of Kirkuk was not only a necessity but also the main motivation. The existence of Turkmen in the north of Iraq, side‐by‐side with the Kurds, and the Turkmen presence in great numbers in Kirkuk, where for centuries, they represented the majority, were seen and felt by Mullah Mustafa Barzani as obstacles to the realisation of his dreams for an independent Kurdish state and the control of Kirkuk’s oil wealth.

During the time of General Abdul Karim Qasim, the Turkmen suffered marginalisation and discrimination from both the Kurds and the Iraqi communists who dominated the regime in Iraq. They faced internal deportation, exile, arbitrary arrest and detention, confiscation of properties and agricultural land and worst of all, the massacre of 120 of their intellectuals and community leaders on the eve of the first anniversary of the revolution on 14th July 1959 by Kurdish rebel leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani and his Kurdish followers allied to the Iraqi communists. Kirkuk was put under curfew and its population slaughtered by Communists and Kurds. The streets of Kirkuk were filled with blood and witnessed one of its more brutal moments in history. The Turkmen in Kirkuk were attacked under the false pretext that they helped the Mosul resistance against the central government. The Kirkuk massacre was totally disregarded by the world and the whole of humanity ignored it.

It was only after this massacre that the Communist Kurds became aggressive enough to negotiate for inclusion of Kirkuk in their autonomous region. During this period (1958–1963), a mass migration of the Kurds, from their villages and towns in the north‐east of Iraq to the Turkmen region and especially to the cities of Kirkuk and Tuz Khormatu, were organised and implemented in order to increase Kurdish presence in Kirkuk and alter the demography of this large Turkmen city.

Notes

1 Brief Turkmen History Mowjez Tarih Al-Turkmen, by Shakir Sabri Alzabit, published by Matbaat al-almaarif, part one, pages 137–138, Baghdad, 1960

2 Ersad Hurmuzli, Hakikat al-Wojood al-Turkmenifi al_Iraq, (The existence of the Turkmen in Iraq), page 215, first edition, boyut.Tan.Mat, Ankara, 2005.

3 Ersad Hurmuzli, Hakikat al-Wojood al-Turkmenifi al_Iraq, (The existence of the Turkmen in Iraq), page 217, first edition, boyut. Tan.Mat, Ankara, 2005

4 Ersad Hurmuzli, Hakikat al-Wojood al-Turkmenifi al_Iraq, (The existence of the Turkmen in Iraq), page 216, first edition, boyut. Tan.Mat, Ankara, 2005

Note

Picture: Tuz Khurmatu Castle in 1918, at the beginning of the calamitous colonial period that has not yet ended.

November 18, 2008
Bryza Says Karabakh Deal ‘Definitely Possible’

By Tigran Avetisian

The chief United States negotiator in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict sounded optimistic that the continuing Armenian-Azerbaijani talks can ultimately produce “a balanced agreement acceptable to both parties”, but said he expected no breakthrough by the end of this year.

In an interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza said there was no need to force the process to accelerate.

“The process is moving at its own momentum thanks to the fact that Presidents Ilham Aliev [of Azerbaijan] and Serzh Sarkisian [of Armenia] seem to have developed some sort of personal chemistry and mutual respect, and maybe even the beginning of trust for each other,” he added.

The American cochairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Minsk Group, however, thinks that building trust requires time.

“We can’t force it,” said Bryza, at the same time describing as ‘quite significant’ the recent declaration signed by the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Moscow.

“It was a declaration that was not issued in any way outside of the framework of the Minsk Group,” said Bryza, who along with his French and Russian counterparts attended the Moscow summit of Sarkisian and Aliev.

“The fact that [Russian] President Dmitry Medvedev decided he wanted to play some sort of a role or maybe strengthen Russia’s reputation a bit in the South Caucasus is fine. Because what he produced or helped produce is a very useful document.”

The Moscow declaration signed by the presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, in particular, refers to the principles that were drafted and presented to the parties at the OSCE summit in Madrid a year ago as a possible basis for continued negotiations and an ultimate peaceful, political solution to the long-running dispute. The proposed package aims to reconcile two seemingly conflicting principles of international law, namely territorial integrity and self-determination.

According to Bryza, “any agreement that will ever be reached between the sides has to have elements of both fundamental principles included, and in a way acceptable to both sides.”

“So we are not at the final agreement yet, and therefore we haven’t come up with a way to include those principles explicitly. Now we have an ambiguous formulation in the Moscow declaration, but still it is a vague formulation that tries to achieve a balance between those two principles,” the mediator said. “It is our job now to help the two presidents come up with the way to be more explicit in their formulation of how to incorporate both the principles of self-determination and territorial integrity as well as, by the way, nonuse of force into the final document.”

Bryza described the proposal put by the Minsk Group troika on the table in Madrid last November as ‘very good’ and said: “Now the challenge is to make sure we can perfect those ideas in a way that both sides’ citizens can accept.”

A referendum of self-determination at some future date in Nagorno-Karabakh appears to be a key element of the proposal.

According to Bryza, however, all important issues related to such a referendum, including the way it is organized, its timing and participants, are “still under negotiation.”

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1598425.html

November 18, 2008
Financial Crisis May Force Moscow to Make Concessions to Non-Russians

Paul Goble

Kuressaare, November 18 – Despite the human suffering it is bringing, the current financial crisis may force Moscow to make concessions to non-Russian groups because in the past, the Russian government – tsarist, Soviet and post-Soviet — has done so “only when the state has serious problems,” according to a senior Tatar politician.
In an interview with Rosbaltvolga.ru, Razil’ Valeyev, who chairs the nationality policy committee in the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan, pointed out that Moscow created the non-Russian republics after the 1917 revolution and opened “hundreds” of non-Russian language newspapers during World War II (www.rosbaltvolga.ru/2008/11/17/542241.html).
Consequently, Valeyev argued, one should not exclude the possibility that as the economic crisis deepens, it will lead the central government to address some of the problems of the non-Russians in the country, perhaps in the first instance reversing what he calls the “unconstitutional” elimination of non-Russian courses from required educational programs.
If the law goes into force, Regions and republics would still be allowed to offer non-Russian language and local history courses, but they would no longer be able to require them. And consequently, some students and their parents would thus be inclined to choose to study other courses instead, something that would strike a blow at many non-Russian groups.
“The exclusion of the national-regional component from the federal education standards [scheduled to take place in 2009] directly contradicts the Russian Constitution,” he said. “And if we do not follow the provisions of our own constitution as any state based on law does, then what kind of a country are we?”
Valeyev pointed out that Tatarstan has been fighting this step for several years and not long ago sent an appeal not only to Moscow but to all the federal subjects asking that it be reversed as unconstitutional. So far, he says, 21 other subjects – including some Russian ones — support Tatarstan’s position, but until recently, it seemed unlikely Moscow would change course.
One of the reasons the Russian government has adopted this policy, the Tatar State Council committee chairman continues, is that “empire-forming peoples cannot understand the problems of other peoples.” While there are exceptions, of course, “the majority of government officials are not among them.”
Asked whether he was fighting against globalization, Valeyev said that “globalization is affecting everyone and not just the Tatars,” and many Tatars now send their children to Russian language schools so that they can pursue the careers that such educations offer in the country as a whole.
Even more will do so if non-Russian subjects become optional because they will see that Moscow has a negative attitude toward national education and “understand that if they do not change, their children will not become part of contemporary realities and participate in the state’s mentality.”
There are other reasons parents are making these decisions. Many Tatar schools were opened only a few years ago and often lack the facilities Russian-language schools there have. That has made the Turkic-Tatar lycees that Ankara opened in the republic far more important than they otherwise would be, lycees that Moscow unfortunately is trying to close.
Asked to respond to suggestions that Tatar national identity is too focused on the past rather than the future, Valeyev said that peoples like the Tatars who have been deprived of statehood and who fear they may not recover it naturally look back to the time when they had it, especially if they have been denied the chance to do so as the Tatars were in Soviet times.
Valeyev said that the Tatars do not want the Russian Federation to fall apart but rather to be strengthened, however much Russian nationalists think otherwise, but at the same time, he noted, the Tatars want Moscow to respect their constitutional rights, something the center is not always doing.
But “if Russia wants to preserve its future and to be strengthened, then it must turn particular attention “to the issues the Tatars raise. “We are not going to go anywhere, we do not have a second state.” And consequently, Tatars and Russians must cooperate if they are to have a good future together.
At present, Valeyev stressed, Tatarstan is “resolving many questions more or less normally. We are concerned most of all about the status of Tatars living beyond the borders of the republic [where most ethnic Tatars live and] who have enormous problems in the sphere of preserving language and culture.”
“If Russia were to adopt a new, democratic conception of nationality policy … and the laws and decrees needed for its realization, then there would not be any special problems” in the relationship between Moscow and Kazan, Valeyev said, adding that “I have not lost hope that we despite everything will come to that.”
“Russia too ought to have an instinct for self-preservation,” he continued. If, however, it is completely lost, then additional complications will appear. But the process of the rebirth of national consciousness is not something that happens over night.” Thus, there is time, but it is not unlimited, perhaps no more than “20 or 30 years.”
Russia needs to become what it is, the common home of Slavic and Turkic peoples, he argued in conclusion. And he said that was not as impossible as it might seem: “Who could have thought that the Soviet Union would fall apart and in its place would arise independent states – Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and so on, not to mention Abkhazia and South Ossetia.”

http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2008/11/window-on-eurasia-financial-crisis-may.html

November 18, 2008