Workplace Violence: Myths and Mitigation

A question for STRATFOR: is reposting your report on a personal blog one of the warning signs?

Workplace Violence: Myths and Mitigation
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

As the global financial crisis grinds on, it is doing more than generating foreclosures, bankruptcies and losses in the financial markets: It also means people are losing their jobs as many companies cut back on staff in an attempt to stay solvent. Last week, banking giant Citibank announced plans to lay off some 53,000 employees, and Citibank is not alone, as many other companies are being forced to adopt similar measures. These layoffs are not confined to the banking sector; the automotive, computer and transportation sectors have also been hit hard.

As we talk to our friends in corporate security and law enforcement about these layoffs, we are hearing a lot of concern over the fact that the layoffs could spawn incidents of workplace violence. Of course, there is always a risk of such incidents. Indeed, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, out of the 5,488 workplace fatalities in the United States in 2007, there were 610 homicides, of which 491 were shootings. But such concerns are frequently amplified and brought to the forefront during times when there are mass layoffs. (When discussing workplace violence, it is also important to understand that it is not just a U.S. phenomenon. Cases have also occurred in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Switzerland, Japan, China, India and elsewhere.)

Additionally, workplace violence concerns have been elevated in recent days by the Nov. 14 triple homicide at SiPort, a Silicon Valley semiconductor company. In the SiPort incident, Jing Wu, an engineer who had been fired for performance issues, returned to the company later that day and killed the company’s CEO, vice president of operations and human resources manager. There are reports that Wu had asked for a meeting with the victims to discuss his termination, and had killed them in the meeting.

Workplace Violence Myths

In this environment, we believe it is prudent to explore some of the widespread myths surrounding workplace violence and to discuss some measures that can be taken to help mitigate potential workplace violence incidents.

‘He Just Snapped’

Perhaps the first workplace violence myth that needs to be addressed is the idea that a man “just snaps” and goes on a shooting rampage in his workplace. We intentionally say man rather than person here, because while incidents do occur in which a female shooter is involved, they are rare. Statistically, it is far more common for workplace homicides to be committed by men.

It is also important to note that workplace homicides seldom occur randomly. They are usually planned in advance, and in most cases the perpetrator intentionally targets a specific individual, usually a supervisor, human resources manager or co-worker, whom he believes is responsible for his plight. In the SiPort case, Wu intentionally targeted his supervisors and the human resources manager. The fact that he returned to the company’s office with a gun after being fired shows that the attack was premeditated.

In most cases of workplace violence, the violent outburst is driven by factors that build up over a long period of time, rather than by sudden, traumatic events. Failed romantic relationships or marriages, stress from financial problems, lack of job advancement and perceived (or actual) injustice at the hands of a co-worker or superior are all factors that have led to violent incidents in the workplace.

Current vs. Former Employees

Another significant myth that needs to be addressed is the idea that workplace violence is primarily a concern during times when employees are being laid off. This is simply not the case. In fact, studies by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and others show that only about 22 percent of workplace homicides involve former employees, compared to approximately 43 percent involving current employees. (The remaining incidents were committed by non-employees, with 21 percent involving domestic disputes and 14 percent involving customers or clients.) This means that while there are many examples of workplace violence involving fired employees, like the Wu case, companies are almost twice as likely to be targeted by a current employee as by an employee who was terminated. In other words, it is not only a concern for companies that are in the midst of layoffs. Workplace violence needs to be a constant concern for all companies.

Holidays and Suicides

It has been widely reported in the media that suicides spike during the holidays. This conventional wisdom, which has been adopted by many security managers and law enforcement officers, is also helping to increase concern about the possibility of workplace violence in the coming weeks. In spite of its wide acceptance, however, this concept is just another myth. According to respected sources such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suicides actually go down during the winter and peak during the spring. That said, workplace violence incidents can still occur during the holidays, but the holidays are not likely to bring such incidents in epidemic proportion.

Corporate Security

One dangerous myth common in many companies is that workplace violence is the corporate security department’s problem. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most corporate security departments are bare-bones operations, quite often among the first departments to be cut when companies face tough economic times. Most corporate security departments are focused on physical security, loss prevention and theft of company laptops. With their limited staff and large responsibilities, they have very little ability to learn what is going on with the angry guy sitting in that middle cubicle on the third floor. Even in companies with dedicated executive-protection teams charged with covering senior company officials, those teams are largely focused on the outside threat. They pay far more attention to protecting the CEO when he is on a trip to Mexico or India than when he is walking through the company cafeteria. Senior company executives also often seem to believe there is n o internal threat — not in their company — but this is clearly not the case.

The Technology Crutch

Another myth that is widely accepted as gospel by many in the corporate world is that technology is the answer to every security problem. Unfortunately, that is simply not true. In fact, while items like closed-circuit TV cameras are very good aids for investigating things like theft after the fact, they are rarely useful in preventing such incidents from occurring. This same principle applies to incidents of workplace violence, where physical security systems can act as a psychological crutch that induces a false sense of security or even complacency — attitudes that add to, rather than reduce, one’s vulnerability.

This is not to say that physical security measures should not be employed, or that companies should not use technology to help them establish proper access-control measures. However, such measures should be viewed as supplemental to the company’s main line of defense: its employees.

Employees have regular access to far more people and places than corporate security can ever hope to have, no matter how many officers and cameras the security department employs. When employees take ownership of their company’s security and are educated and encouraged to practice situational awareness, they can form an alert and robust network of trip wires who can identify when a person doesn’t belong in their area or when one of their colleagues is showing warning signs of workplace violence. In light of this, communication is vital — not only communication coming from the work force to the management and the security team, but also going the other way. If an employee is terminated, access-control officers and co-workers need to be informed so they know that person is no longer permitted in the work space.

Remember that current employees account for 43 percent of workplace violence incidents. Even if a company has state-of-the-art physical security systems, current employees can normally walk right through them. Additionally, former employees who are familiar with the systems can find ways to bypass them. These insiders know the security systems and procedures in place and are often also aware of gaps in the system. They know which side door gets propped open with a trash can when employees take their midmorning smoke break, or how to “tailgate” and get in through gates or doors controlled by card readers. Brute force has also proven effective in overcoming technology. In past shootings, we have seen intruders force employees to open doors at gunpoint, shoot employees and take their building passes to gain access to the rest of the facility, or simply get in by shooting the security guard at the main access point.

The bottom line is that most access controls can be overcome by someone with a determined intent. Because of this, effective security programs must be proactive — looking for threats — rather than reactive, initiating a response only once an attack has begun to unfold.

A Proactive Stance: Protective Intelligence and Countersurveillance

One very effective way to achieve a proactive stance is to use a combination of countersurveillance and protective intelligence as a critical element of a facility’s (or executive protection) security plan.

Protective intelligence teams can coordinate with managers, human resources professionals, mental health professionals and law enforcement to identify, investigate and flag potential perpetrators of workplace violence before they get to the point of launching an attack. Additionally, countersurveillance teams, which are proactive by their very nature, can help by noticing out-of-place behavior occurring in parking lots and outside of entrances — places a uniformed guard sitting inside the facility has very limited ability to monitor. By focusing on behavior and demeanor, countersurveillance teams can frequently pick out angry or mentally disturbed individuals before they can get to the building. When combined with an educated and alert workforce, these proactive measures can help provide protection that no technological system can match.

Warning Signs

The key element of a proactive security regime is the ability and willingness to identify the warning signs and take them seriously. As with school shootings, one of the biggest contributing factors to workplace violence is the failure to pick up on and thoroughly investigate such warnings. In many past workplace violence cases, the perpetrators clearly presented warning signs, and in several cases, investigations of the incidents later found that those warning signs were downplayed or ignored.

Although we have not yet seen all the details of the SiPort shooting, it would not be surprising if it is determined that Wu gave indications of his intent to friends, family members and co-workers that went unheeded.

Warning signs that an employee is at risk for committing acts of workplace violence include sudden changes in behavior, decreased productivity, uncharacteristic problems with tardiness and attendance, withdrawal from one’s circle of friends, or the sudden display of negative traits such as irritation, snapping at or abusing co-workers or even a sudden disregard for personal hygiene. The theft or sabotage of employer or co-worker property is another sign.

Perhaps the most indicative signs that serious trouble is looming are talk about suicide and/or the expression of actual or veiled threats. If co-workers or supervisors feel afraid of a person, even when the reason for that fear cannot be clearly articulated, that is also a significant warning sign (and has been noted in several past incidents). Another indication is when an employee suddenly begins carrying a gun to work or flashing it to co-workers.

Because, as noted above, corporate security departments are not omnipresent, they require other people within the company to be their eyes and ears and alert them to individuals who have the potential to commit acts of workplace violence. Co-workers and first-line managers know when John in the cubicle next to them has suddenly become really creepy and talks about killing the boss, or when Jane down the hall is being stalked by her psychotic ex-boyfriend.

Companies that are serious about preventing workplace violence should establish clear workplace violence policies — and ensure they are widely communicated and strictly followed. Any and all threats of violence expressed by employees must be taken seriously, even those that appear innocuous at first. Employees, managers and human resources personnel must be educated about workplace violence and encouraged to report all threats or other overt signs immediately. Most important, supervisors and human resources managers must be cognizant of the other, more subtle warning signs — and be encouraged to take them seriously. Clearly, in this situation, a false alarm is better than no alarm at all.

Here is the original report post on the STRATFOR site.

Stalking Po-Russki

This video was stolen from Musing Among The Vegetables: this is the original post.

Where Do People Find This Stuff?

Metal Heart by Keith Louit:

Metal Heart from Keith Loutit on Vimeo

Voulez Vous Canada?

With special regards to Mark and Tim, who definitely get get off on this, from My Robot Friend:

Canada

N.B. This blog post is not meant to in any way endorse the country, Canada.

Armenia And Georgia Win World Chess Olympiad

Armenia won the men's gold medal and Georgia won the Women's gold medal.

This is Armenia's second consecutive win.

See Armenia, Georgia Win Gold In Chess Olympiad on the RFE/RL Website.

Armenia: Violence Against Women

From Global Voices Online, a nice survey of violence against women in Armenia:

Armenia: Violence Against Women

Armenia: Anger at Journalist Beating

From IWPR:

Armenia: Anger at Journalist Beating
Seventh attack on independent journalist in Armenia this year sparks freedom of speech fears.
By Lena Nazarian in Yerevan
(CRS No. 469 20-Nov-08)

Armenia’s leading investigative journalist Edik Baghdasarian is in hospital after an unprovoked assault in the street that has caused alarm over the safety of independent reporters in the country.

At around 8 pm on the evening of November 17 in the centre of Yerevan, three assailants attacked Baghdasarian, who is head of Armenia’s Association of Investigative Journalists and the editor-in-chief of Hetq.am, a weekly Internet bulletin. While two of them struggled with him, the third beat him on the head. They tore his clothes and snatched his camera.

An ambulance and one policeman arrived on the scene. Baghdasarian was taken to hospital where he was diagnosed with severe concussion.

Baghdasarian is well-known in Armenia and has been awarded international prizes for ceaselessly investigating official abuses of power and corruption. His most recent article on Hetq.am is about an iron-ore mine in the town of Hrazdan, although there has been no suggestion that this report, rather than any other, was the reason for the assault.

Observers of the Armenian media say his beating is part of a worrying trend this year in which seven reporters have been attacked but none of the assailants have so far been brought to justice.

Gagik Shamshian, a photo-correspondent with the opposition newspaper Fourth Estate, is one of them and blames the authorities for not investigating the attack on him properly. “If they wanted to they could have identified the culprits long ago,” he said.

Shamshian said he was attacked and had his mobile phone and dictaphone stolen when a Mercedes blocked his path and he was forced to the ground. He escaped by running out into the traffic.

Shamshian said that he identified amongst his attackers three men about whom he had written an article in his newspaper but, despite his testimony to the police, no one has so far been charged with the assault on him.

In October, the editor-in-chief of the opposition newspaper Haikakan Zhamanak, Lusine Barseghian, was beaten on the head by two men.

Passers-by rushed to get her to hospital.

Barseghian said that she had recognised one of her attackers and had given the police such detailed information that it should be easy to locate the men responsible but no one had been arrested so far.

In the summer, the acting head of the local office of Radio Liberty’s Armenian service, Hratch Melkumian, was also punched, kicked and abused in the middle of Yerevan by unknown assailants. Again no arrests have been made.

“These incidents just don’t get solved in Armenia,” said Astghik Bedevian, a Radio Liberty correspondent in Yerevan. “If just one of them had been punished, the initiators of these beatings wouldn’t be so brazen and arrogant.”

The Yerevan police and prosecutor’s office defend their record on the journalists’ beatings, saying they are still actively investigating the crimes.

The deputy police chief of Yerevan, Ashot Mirijanian, told reporters his police force attached great importance to finding Baghdasarian’s assailants. Asked by one journalist why violent attacks against policemen nearly always resulted in successful prosecutions, while attacks on journalists did not, Mirijanian replied, “Because a policeman fights to the end and journalists usually run away.”

Sona Truzian, press secretary for the prosecutor’s office conceded, “Possibly the public concerns in this regard are partially justified. We want to believe that soon there will be more discernible results.”

Top Armenian officials have strongly condemned the attack on Baghdasarian.

On November 18, Armenian president Serzh Sarkisian gave instructions for the crime to be solved as quickly as possible. Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian visited the journalist in hospital. He told reporters, “We are worried by this turn of events.”

However, human rights ombudsman Armen Harutiunian said he was worried about the lack of progress in these cases.

“For years we have been witnesses to violence against journalists as a result of which I have frequently called on the law enforcement agencies to be more consistent in identifying the culprits, but these crimes have not yet been solved,” said Harutiunian. “These incidents are part of a very dangerous trend and are a serious threat to freedom of speech in our country.

“I am sure that if there is the political will, all other problems can be solved.”

A group of journalistic organisations signed a joint letter condemning the attack on Baghdasarian, warning that those responsible for attacking journalists appear to immune from prosecution. “This impunity unties the hands of those who want to suppress freedom of speech,” said the letter.

A number of journalists, students and non-governmental activists also staged an act of protest, marching with placards from the general prosecutor’s office to the presidential residence.

Miklos Haraszti, representative for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, wrote a public letter to Armenian foreign minister Eduard Nalbandian about the attack on Baghdasarian, reminding him of other assaults on journalists in Armenia.

“Violence against a journalist is not a ‘normal’ crime because it is a blow against a basic institution of democracy, freedom of speech,” said Haraszti’s letter.

Lena Nazaryan is a correspondent with hetq.am and a participant in IWPR’s Armenian-Azerbajiani Neighbours project. IWPR Armenia editor Seda Muradian also contributed to this article.

See the original article on the IWPR website.

Karabakh Truce Breaks Down

From IWPR:

Karabakh Truce Breaks Down
Clash on ceasefire line coincides with mediators’ visit to region.
By Samira Ahmedbeyli in Baku and Ashot Beglarian in Stepanakert
(CRS No. 469 20-Nov-08)

Armenian and Azerbaijani officials are giving sharply different accounts of a skirmish in the Fizuli region near the ceasefire line dividing their two forces.

Both sides acknowledge that one Azerbaijani soldier, 20-year-old Orkhan Shamilov, died in the incident on the night of November 16 – but each accuses the other of being responsible for the exchange of fire just outside Nagorny Karabakh.

Azerbaijani ministry of defence spokesman Eldar Sabiroglu said that Shamilov, who had been on watch that night, had responded to gunfire coming from an Armenian unit on the other side of the so-called “line of contact” established in 1994 that divides the two armed forces.

Sabiroglu said that after several minutes of firing, Shamilov had attacked and killed two Armenians but had himself been killed. The Armenians recovered their bodies but were unable to recover that of Shamilov.

On November 19, the Armenians handed over the body of Shamilov.

In Karabakh, the Armenian side describes the incident as the second serious violation of the ceasefire this year – following a battle on March 3-4 which left around a dozen people dead – and puts the blame on the Azerbaijanis.

Senor Hasatrian, spokesman for the Karabakh armed forces (a term the Azerbaijani side does not accept), said that there had been an Azerbaijani attack on Armenian positions, “On November 16, at approximately 4 am, a special unit of the Azerbaijani army crossed a section of the line of contact dividing the armed forces of Nagorny Karabakh and Azerbaijan in the south-east and tried to attack positions not far from the village of Ashagi Seidakhmedli.”

Hasatrian said that the Armenian side had repulsed the attack and the Azerbaijanis had retreated, leaving the body of one of their mean behind. He said that his side had not suffered any dead or wounded.

Karabakh president Bako Saakian awarded medals to the Armenian soldiers for repulsing an Azerbaijani attack.

Hasatrian emphasised that the attack had come at the moment when the American, French and Russian negotiators on the Karabakh conflict – the so-called Minsk Group – were visiting the region to try and build on momentum made after the November 2 Moscow declaration signed by the presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia. In the declaration, the leaders committed themselves to a peaceful resolution of the conflict and to confidence-building measures.

In Karabakh, the incident has prompted widespread debate and condemnation of Azerbaijan.

Analyst David Karabekian told IWPR, “The incident demonstrates the essential need for strengthening the steps set out in the Moscow declaration, namely the formation of a system of international security for Nagorny Karabakh; the recognition that it is impossible to make any further steps to settle the conflict without signing a legally binding document between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorny Karabakh; the acceptance by all sides of the conflict of a treaty strengthening the ceasefire regime; and implementing confidence building measures.”

Albert Voskanian, a leading human rights activist in Karabakh, said the incident showed how vulnerable the 1994 ceasefire was. “A fragile peace ought not to be broken and a new war will bring still more human casualties,” he said.

“As a person who knows about war at first hand and who has been dealing with the problems of prisoners of war, hostages and missing people from the years of the war to this day, I condemn any attempt to destabilise the situation. The recent incident must be on the conscience of its organisers, all the more so as today we can observe certain steps forward in attempts to resolve the Karabakh issue.”

“It’s almost 15 years since the ceasefire but the explosive situation continues in a frozen form,” said war veteran Sergei Khachikian. “People continue to die from accidental explosions, shots, attacks. I don’t know how long this situation of ‘no war, no peace’ will continue. I only beg God one thing: may our children have different lives from ours! We’ve seen too much blood!”

Azerbaijani military expert Uzeir Jafarov urged caution about the significance of the incident.

“In my view the ceasefire regime is broken regularly along the whole line, more in some places, less in others,” said Jafarov. “The only exception is Nakhichevan, where you could say that there is no shooting between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It’s just that the public is better informed now about these incidents.”

Jafarov said that the armed forces on each side tended to use incidents like this for their own benefit and that they were more inclined to release information on them when the Minsk Group mediators were visiting the region.

“In general, the ceasefire regime gets broken for political reasons,” he said. “The military, headed by the ministers of defence are just people who act according to political orders.”

Samira Ahmedbeyli is a freelance journalist in Baku. Ashot Beglarian is a freelance journalist in Nagorny Karabakh. The terminology used in this article to describe the conflict was chosen by IWPR and not by the authors.

See the original article on the IWPR website.

World Philosophy Day

November 20th is World Philosophy Day and the BBC has a neat little article about it (OK, the title is dorky, but still, its a good article):

Four Philosophical Questions To Make Your Brain Hurt

Ames On Russia

In my view what he says about Georgia is crap, but otherwise this audio interview is an incredibly concise summery of what's going on in Russia:

Ames On Russia

Check out the original article on the Exiled Online.

From The Stranger Than Fiction Department

From the BBC:

An entire church is stolen in Russia.

It really is fun following news about Russia.

Terminology

From xkcd:

A Much Better Article On The Christian Fight In Jerusalem

From the BBC:

Christian Infighting In Jerusalem

Balls Of Titanium

From The Register:

Halliburton Seeks Patent On Patent Trolling

From The (Almost) To Good To Be True Department

From CNN:

[Armenian and Greek] Monks Brawl Before Religious Ceremony

Gori After Russian Occupation

From IWPR:

Georgia: Gori Gets Back on its Feet

Massive reconstruction effort has transformed war-hit town.
By Tamar Dvali in Gori
CRS No. 467 06-Nov-08)

From the main highway, the dozens of red-roofed houses in the plain outside the Georgian town of Gori resemble a field full of red-capped mushrooms.

From up close, the houses, built by the Georgian government for refugees from South Ossetia, look absolutely identical. Lined up in meticulous rows, they all have red roofs and the same number of rooms. The stories that their future inhabitants have to tell also differ little from one another.

Life in the town that was hit hardest during the short Georgia-Russia war in August is now getting back to normal, the only visible reminder of those events being the refugees who, still unable to return to their homes, are sheltering in Gori kindergartens.

Nino Kanashvili left Gori together with her two small children after her block of flats was set on fire by bombs from Russian planes on August 9. “God must have wanted us to stay alive,” she said. “Unfortunately, one of my neighbours, was killed. That was the day we left Gori and came to Tbilisi.”

Like other refugees, Nino returned to her home town in September, but she says her flat is still not fit for habitation, “It’s true they have repaired it, but it is totally empty. We have no beds or kitchenware there. Everything we had got burnt.”

Nightmares about what she endured in August still haunt the young woman, but, like other Gori residents, she’s been trying to get back to her previous life.

According to official Georgian figures, 228 civilians died in the August conflict, with Gori bearing the brunt of Russian attacks. The Russian bombings also left 12 blocks of flats needing a complete overhaul and 70 more partial reconstruction.

Now a rapid reconstruction effort means that the physical traces of the armed conflict have been almost fully erased. All state and private institutions, including banks and schools, have been working as normal for a long time.

“The impression is that the town has become cleaner and more beautiful… they’ve been trying so hard to sweep away every trace of Russian aggression,” said Gori resident Nunuka. “Even the street cleaners, who sweep streets in the morning, seem to have been doing this with greater enthusiasm.”

Leila Dalakishvili works as a teacher at one of Gori’s schools. She says all her pupils have come back to Gori and are attending school. “It was impossible to have lessons at first, as the children were agitated, talking about the war all the time, sharing stories of how they escaped from the town, how scared they were at what they saw,” she said. “Now we all, both teachers and pupils, try not to think about that time.”

Lado Vardzelashvili, the governor of Georgia’s Shida Kartli region, of which Gori is the capital, said three million lari (2 million US dollars) had been allocated from the state budget to rehabilitate the city, in addition to the funds provided by private and international donors.

The Georgian building company Arsi undertook to reconstruct the apartment block that suffered most from the bombing.

“It’s a five-storey house situated next to Gori’s tank base,” said Tornike Abuladze, Arsi’s executive director. “The reconstruction work is nearly completed and soon all the flats will be fully repaired and returned to their owners.”

The deputy mayor of Tbilisi Niko Khachirishvili, who has also been helping reconstruct Gori, said almost all the multi-storey buildings in Gori were damaged in the conflict and there was not a single building whose window panes were left intact by the conflict.

“The damage is great,” said Khachirishvili. “Dozens of buildings are just carcasses. The one with the worst damage is the block of flats in Sukhishvili Street, No 12, and the area around it. That was the building, hit by the first bomb.”

The Georgian building company Centre Point has finished rebuilding one district of Gori and has informed the Georgian government that it is ready to help it rehabilitate war-damaged villages as well.

The ministry for refugees and resettlement says it registered 120,000 refugees during the August conflict. Most of them have by now returned home, but some – residents of Patara Liakhvi, Froni Gorge, Akhalgori and Kodori Gorge – remain displaced. It is for them that the government is building new houses, promising that each of them will have their own roof to live under by the end of the year.

Under the plans, a total of 4,490 new houses will be built for the refugees from the August war, and 1,576 more repaired.

The 177 cottages, now being built on a territory of 15 hectares near the village of Shavshvebi in Gori District, will be home to around 700 people.

Lasha Gotsiridze, head of the municipal development fund, said about 20 building companies were taking part in the construction and repair work.

“The building companies were selected in an emergency situation, as the government had not had time to announce a tender,” said Georgia’s regional government minister David Tkeshelshvili. “The preference was given to Georgian building companies. Everybody knows that the construction business has since before the war been experiencing certain problems, and by [recruiting them] we tried to help them.”

According to Giorgi Kharabadze of the municipal development fund, construction of a house with an upper storey costs 27,000 lari (19,000 dollars). He said a plot of land, a barn for animals and new furniture would go with each of the houses.

“Our major task is to create basic living conditions for the refugees for the first several months, and after that we’ll start thinking about more long-term projects,” said Tkeshelashvili.

Tamar Dvali is a correspondent with the 24 Hours newspaper in Tbilisi.

See the original article on IWPR's website.

Armenian And Azerbaijani Presidents Sign Declaration On Karabakh

From IWPR:

Hopes and Fears after Karabakh Declaration

Russian-inspired initiative provokes furious debate on future of Karabakh conflict.
By Sabuhi Mamedli in Baku, Naira Melkumian in Yerevan and Karine Ohanian in Stepanakert
(CRS No. 467 06-Nov-08)

An agreement between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia on the Nagorny Karabakh conflict this week has renewed hopes of peace – but also sparked fears amongst Armenians and Azerbaijanis about what this would mean for them.

The November 2 declaration by the presidents of the three countries marked the first occasion that the leaders of the opposing sides had put their signature to the same document since the 1994 ceasefire agreement that halted three years of war.

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who hosted the talks at his residence, the Meidendorf castle outside Moscow, read out the declaration, which reaffirmed a commitment by all sides to the current negotiations under the so-called co-chairmen of the Minsk Group of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, France, Russia and the United States.

In the declaration, the three presidents pledge to “facilitate improvement of the situation in the South Caucasus and establish stability and security in the region through political settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict based on the principles of international law and the decisions and documents approved within this framework, thus creating favourable conditions for economic growth and all-round cooperation in the region”.

The agreement emphasises that all steps in the process “should be accompanied by legally binding guarantees for every aspect and stage of the settlement process”.

Its final point calls for “confidence-building measures” to assist a peace agreement.

The document pledges its support for continued discussion on the basis of negotiations

last November in Madrid. This implicitly means the basis of talks will be the “Madrid document”, a three-page “document of basic principles” whose latest draft was written down at that meeting.

This sets out the first stage of an agreement, with withdrawal of Armenian forces from the seven Azerbaijani regions outside Nagorny Karabakh wholly or partially under Armenian control; the granting of an intermediate international status for the disputed territory itself; and the prospect of an eventual vote by the residents of Karabakh on its status.

In Azerbaijan, neither the president nor the foreign minister have commented publicly on the declaration. Foreign ministry spokesman Khazar Ibragim said that it reaffirmed the Azerbaijani position that the Nagorny Karabakh was a conflict between two states, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and that respect for Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity was reaffirmed by the document’s reference to international law.

Most analysts said the document was too vague to have real significance.

Azerbaijani political analyst Rasim Musabekov said, “In the declaration there are no concrete opinions on serious issues. It does not talk about territorial integrity nor about the status of Nagorny Karabakh, nor about the liberation of the occupied territories by the Armenians.”

Vafa Guluzade, formerly foreign policy aide to former president Heidar Aliev, called the document a “manoeuvre by Russia designed to demonstrate its importance to the West. But the gesture turned out to be an empty one as the result was a document that had no weight and means nothing”.

Guluzade said the document could have a calming effect on the Armenian side, “In Armenia people could be worried that Armenia could go on the [military] offensive. And now there is no threat of this kind, neither in fact nor in words.”

Opposition leader Isa Gambar was more hostile, saying that several of its points “contradict the interests of Azerbaijan”, because they potentially meant a referendum on the status of Nagorny Karabakh and the deployment of Russian peacekeepers, which he said was a “direct threat to the territorial integrity of our country”.

But some Azerbaijanis refugees from Nagorny Karabakh derived hope from the meeting.

“I saw on television that our president had signed something with the Armenian president. Does that mean it’s all over? My husband didn’t live to see this, he’s dead now and we buried him in Baku. Does this mean I can die in my native land? May Allah grant this!” said Nasiba, an elderly woman from the Karabakhi town of Shusha, now living as a refugee.

On the Armenian side, officials have hailed the declaration as an important step forward in the peace settlement.

“This initiative is extremely important in opening a new phase from the point of view of activating the negotiations,” said Armenian foreign minister Eduard Nalbandian. “The presidents have entrusted the foreign ministers of the two countries to re-activate the negotiations.”

Analyst Levon Melik-Shakhnazarian welcomed the document on the grounds that it did not specifically emphasise the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and underlined the importance of a peaceful settlement of the conflict.

Others were more sceptical. Alexander Iskandarian, director of the Caucasus Institute, said, “There’s nothing bad written there, but it seems to me that nothing of enough importance is written there to make me think that serious progress is on the way.

“The motivation for signing this document lies more in Moscow, than in Yerevan, Baku and Stepanakert and has more to do with the Russian-Georgian conflict than with Karabakh itself.”

Aram Sarkisian, leader of the small opposition Democratic Party of Armenia, said the document contained points that worked against each other.

“On the one hand it records the vital importance of a settlement of the conflict by political means, on the other hand [of settlement] on the basis of principle of international law,” he said. “In diplomacy the concepts ‘political’ and ‘legal’ cannot work together at the same time.”

Former Armenian president and opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian criticised the declaration on the grounds that it formally excluded the Nagorny Karabakh Armenians from the peace process.

“In this way, the declaration conclusively buries the decision by the Budapest summit of the OSCE in 1994 under which Nagorny Karabakh was recognised as a full third party to the conflict,” Ter-Petrosian told the A1+ television company. “And that means that Karabakh will not play any role in the process of further negotiations that will determine its own fate.”

In Nagorny Karabakh itself, officials welcomed the declaration, while stressing their determination to play a role in the peace process.

Movses Hakopian, defence minister of the unrecognised Nagorny Karabakh Republic, said, “Politicians have come to the conclusion that there is no solution of the problem by military means.”

David Babayan, head of the presidential information department, said the document was a recognition of the new realities that had formed after the August conflict in Georgia.

“The declaration is a positive event,” said Babayan. “Its key aspect is the readiness of the parties for a peaceful settlement of the issues that exist through direct dialogue.”

He said that although the Karabakh Armenian side was not mentioned directly in the document, its first point referred to previous documents, which did ensure that Nagorny Karabakh would be represented in future negotiations.

Another analyst, David Karabekian, was less happy, saying that that failure to mention Nagorny Karabakh as a party to the conflict and the reference to the Madrid principles would not please the inhabitants of Nagorny Karabakh.

Many in Karabakh are opposed to the current draft peace plan, as they say it will require Armenians to give up the occupied territories without sufficient security guarantees.

“The ‘big daddies’ who sign these documents don’t think about people, who know from their own personal experience know what a danger bombs and real war can present to the inhabitants of Karabakh,” said Lilit Tovmasian, a teacher and mother of two children.

“The most important thing for us is our security and this is not guaranteed in the points of our declaration. There is no mention even here of what people here feel – the people who really live here and for whom a settlement is not just a signature on a document but a matter of life and death.”

Sabuhi Mamedli is a correspondent with Yeni Musavat newspaper in Baku. Naira Melkumian is a freelance journalist in Yerevan. Karine Ohanian is a journalist with Demo newspaper in Nagorny Karabakh.

See the original article on IWPR's website.

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