When silence can become gold
On Sunday the Crimea’s population held a referendum and under the attentive control and in the presence of the Russian army 97 per cent of the population of Ukraine’s Crimea voted for joining Russia. Russia recognized the vote immediately. However, the international community did not recognize the vote results as Western powers claim it is annexation from Ukraine with armed force.
Armenia is again faced with a dilemma whether to recognize the independence or not. It is a very subtle issue for Armenia because in both cases implications may be very challenging.
It is even unclear whether Armenia recognizes the new government of Ukraine legitimate. This is connected with the recognition of the Crimea’s independence. To recognize the independence of the Crimea means not to recognize the new government of Ukraine, which is already recognized by progressive powers of the world. The reason why many Armenians would endorse the decision of recognizing the Crimea’s independence is the current status of Karabakh. Even if these two factors are connected, it may be very dangerous for Armenia. Karabakh has declared independence more than twenty years ago through referendum.
As the Crimea has joined Russia through public vote, to recognize its independence would also mean that the potential right of Karabakh to join Russia is legitimized. This would legitimize messages like the one Zori Balayan’s letter contained, and such messages are popular in some groups of the society. It is very dangerous to compare Karabakh withy Crimea, which what many political powers are doing now.
To recognize the Crimea’s independence would mean to go against the whole world, which is by the way trying to resolve Karabakh conflict in the same group with Russia. On the one hand, not to recognize the Crimea’s independence would mean to question the right of self-determination of people, which is the principle Karabakh relied on when declaring independence. The people of Karabakh have exercised their right for independence and self-determination, and during the past twenty years they have shown to the world that they are a more democratic state than many other countries that claim to be democratic.
Yesterday the government of Karabakh came up with an announcement recognizing the independence of the Crimea. Even though we respect the right of people for self-determination, however, the form of exercising that right is very questionable as people voted in fact for independence but not joining another country. Since yesterday Armenia had not shown any official position in relation to this issue.
In this case the best thing to do for Armenia would be silence. However, it is hard to say how long this will last and how long “silence can be gold” for us. The only unrealistic but effective solution in this case could be the resignation of the government and election of new authorities in the country. This would keep Karabakh safe, and the country would get rid of this regime. However, this is realistic as much as it could be realistic if after Crimea merges with Russia the Russian government decides to recognize Karabakh’s independence.
