Paul
Goble
Staunton, June 16 – Moscow’s calls
for the federalization of Ukraine and Moldova have attracted widespread
attention as an all-too-obvious tactic intended to dismember those countries,
but its suggestion that other former Soviet republics should federalize as well
have not, perhaps because such appeals appear designed to weaken rather than
deconstruct these countries.
Indeed, Russia’s promotion of
federalization elsewhere – Moscow has no interest in promoting federalism at
home – represents an updated version of Stalin’s classical ethnic engineering
in which he included ethnic minorities within the borders of union republics to
be a check on the titular nationality by ensuring Moscow reliable allies among
minority groups.
Stalin’s strategy in this regard had
the additional virtue from Moscow’s point of view of exacerbating tensions
between these nationalities and thus deflecting attention from any underlying
conflicts between the titular nationalities and the ethnic Russians, a strategy
that worked so well that it explains most of the conflicts on the post-Soviet
space.
The Soviet dictator’s inclusions of
large ethnic Russian territories in northern Kazakhstan and eastern Ukraine and
of a significant Armenian minority within Azerbaijan are perhaps the most
obvious examples, but every single union republic as a result of the way Moscow
drew the borders or shifted populations by force or incentive had some arrangements
of this kind.
But what is especially interesting
is the way in which the leaders of some countries, particularly those who have
tried to maintain “a balanced foreign policy,” are currently trying to ride
what might be called the “federalization wave” for their own purposes, an
indication of how much pressure they are under and of how they are trying to
counter it.
All these factors are reflected in a
new article about developments in Azerbaijan on a Russian nationalist news site
by Fakhraddin Aboszoda, a Talysh
activist who was chairman of the Milli Mejlis of the self-proclaimed an short-lived
Talysh-Mugan Autonomous Republic in 1993 (iarex.ru/articles/46810.html).
Aboszoda has his own nationalist axe
to grind, and both his specific reporting and more general analysis should be
treated with caution. But while that is certainly the case, the appearance of
such an article now as well as Moscow’s long-standing involvement with the
Talysh minority make it worthy of note.
According to the Lezgin activist,
the federalization of Ukraine that Moscow and some ethnic Russians inside that
country have sought will at best maintain Ukraine’s territorial integrity only
for a certain period because “with each day, the collapse of Ukraine [as a
whole] is becoming ever more real.”
But however that may be, he
continues, “the events in Ukraine have opened a Pandora’s for the entire
Trans-Caucasus,” not only by raising the spectre in the minds of some of the leaders of the countries there of
a “Trans-Caucasus Spring” but also by suggesting to them that federalization
could be a useful form of defense.
This has been somewhat concealed, he
says, by the anti-Russian rhetoric in Azerbaijan where the Baku government has
sought to deflect criticism of itself by playing up the idea that Moscow is
prepared to change borders as it has in Ukraine and thus represents a threat to
Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.
Aboszoda argues that “scholars long
ago recognized that after the fall of Rome in the fifth century, scholarship,
thought, and educational standards of the Roman Empire were essentially lost in
Europe. These words,” he continues. “could be completely applied to Azerbaijan
which following the acquisition of independence, totally lost these qualities.”
But instead of seeking to overcome
this loss as Europeans ultimately did, the Azerbaijani authorities have
promoted them, viewing such decay as the very best means of maintaining
themselves in power, the Lezgin activist says. But because their position is in
his view increasingly precarious, Baku leaders are seeking other means as well.
Aboszoda says that he has
information which suggests that President Ilham Aliyev “is preparing for a
cosmetic change in the administrative-territorial configuration of Azerbaijan
in the direction of its partial federalization.” Given the existence of
Nakhichevan, this in fact points to a move toward confederalism.
Underlying this shift, Aboszoda says,
are talks between Aliyev and the leadership of Karabakh, under the terms of
which the Azerbaijani president “would secure the return of this republic into
Azerbaijan on a confederative basis.” These talks, the Lezgin leader suggests,
involve the Iranians as intermediaries.
To make this step credible, he
continues, Baku is also prepared to make some concessions to the Talysh and
Lezgins. The Azerbaijani authorities have also sent a signal that that is their
intent by restoring after an eight-year lapse, the position of presidential
advisor on nationality questions.
Aboszoda says that some pro-Baku Talysh are prepared to go along seeing all this as “the
appearance of ‘a unique chance’” for their community in Azerbaijan. But he adds
that he is convinced that however much they or the equivalent Lezgin leaders
may hope for that, past Azerbaijani moves and Baku’s pseudo-federalism should
disabuse them.
And
then in words that almost certainly contradict Moscow’s messages, Aboszoda
argues that “such half-measures cannot save the Azerbaijan Republic from inevitable
collapse or it exit from ‘the arc of instability.’” “’Cosmetic’” federalism
simply won’t “correct the situation,” and oppressed minorities will view it as
a half-way house to independence.
For
a certain brief period, federalization may “save” Azerbaijan, he continues, but
only if this federation has “genuine autonomies with all rights and powers,”
something the central government isn’t prepared to offer. And that fact, Aboszoda says, “is the biggest
lesson of the Ukrainian events” for Azerbaijan.
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