Zhirayr Sefilian © Haykakan Zhamanak
As political tensions in Armenia rise ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections, the arrest of a former Nagorno-Karabakh military commander critical of the Armenian government’s talks with Azerbaijan is raising fresh concerns about how the vote will be conducted.
In a December 10 raid carried out by masked agents of Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) at a Yerevan restaurant, Zhirayr Sefilian, an ethnic Armenian from Lebanon, was taken into custody on charges of plotting a government coup. Sefilian, a former commander in Armenia’s war with Azerbaijan over the predominantly ethnic Armenian breakaway territory of Karabakh, is a decorated hard-liner and considered a war hero, outspoken against any deal with Azerbaijan that includes the return of territory currently under Armenian control.
The press service of the NSS, the successor to Armenia’s Soviet-era State Security Committee (KGB), has alleged that Sefilian “planned to interfere in the upcoming political processes [2007 parliamentary elections] with the use of force.” Sefilian has been accused of “conspiring to overthrow the constitutional order” under Article 301 of the Criminal Code. On December 12, a Yerevan court, in a closed session, ruled that Sefilian could be jailed for two months while the NSS further investigates the case.
Pro-opposition media outlets have reported that dozens of members of Sefilian’s Union of Armenian Volunteers, a small nationalist group opposed to concessions with Azerbaijan, were also temporarily detained in separate raids.
Armenia’s main opposition parties see the arrest as a warm-up for crackdowns against government critics prior to the country’s May 2007 parliamentary elections, or against those who would question the vote’s conduct. In a December 11 statement, they accused the government of resorting to Soviet-style repression to stamp out political dissent. The government has not yet responded to the accusation.
The arrest has also set off alarm bells in nationalist circles, which see Sefilian’s detention as linked to his position on the Nagorno-Karabakh negotiations. Recent statements from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the talks’ mediator, indicated that the basic principles for the resolution of the conflict are close to being finalized.
A December 5 statement from the OSCE after a meeting in Brussels between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers urged both countries to “double their efforts in the coming year to finalize these basic principles as soon as possible.”
Although possible breakthroughs in the negotiations are regularly reported, this time a flurry of other reports about a possible deal suggest that certain agreements are being reached, albeit behind closed doors. Last month, for example, the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta added fuel to such speculation when it published details of what it said was the peace deal currently being discussed by the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides. According to that information, as well as periodical leaks from both Armenian and Azerbaijani officials, most of the seven Azerbaijani regions currently under Armenian control surrounding Karabakh would be returned to Baku. A 40-kilometer wide “corridor” through the strategic town of Lachin, now known as Berdzor, would remain under Armenian control, connecting Karabakh to Armenia proper.
Lending credibility to such speculation are a series of articles published this summer by the local and international media, [OK – including my own for IWPR and Eurasianet], reporting that the area around Lachin is experiencing a massive exodus of ethnic Armenians. A few weeks after these reports surfaced, Sefilian accused the authorities in Yerevan and Stepanakert of pursuing a deliberate policy to clear the region in preparation for a concessionary peace deal with Azerbaijan.
Speaking for the Protection of Liberated Territories organization, Sefilian, who holds the rank of a retired lieutenant colonel, alleged that the population of what is now called the Kashatagh region by Armenians had declined to 7,500. In 2001, the number of settlers in what are the Armenian-controlled Lachin, Zangelan and Qubatli regions of Azerbaijan was around 15,000. A 2005 census, however, put the population at just under 10,000.
Official sources speaking to EurasiaNet on condition of anonymity put the number as low as 6,000.
In November, other groups of Karabakh war veterans also made similar accusations and threatened a campaign of civil disobedience if any of these territories were returned to Azerbaijan. A written statement by one such group, the Brotherhood of the Liberation Struggle, urged all war veterans to unite “to save Armenia and Armenians and restore justice in all spheres. The lands that we liberated are in danger today. We urge all our compatriots … [to] stop our homeland from falling into an abyss.”
The Armenian newspaper Zhamanak Yerevan already sees a connection between Sefilian’s arrest and official fears that Karabakh war veterans might involve themselves in political life ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections. “It was no coincidence that they arrested Zhirayr Sefilian, a representative of the defiant section of the freedom fighters, on the same day that they advised members of the Yerkrapah Union [of Karabakh War Veterans] to stay away from politics,” the paper wrote on December 12.
In March 2006, the Iravunk newspaper reported that Sefilian had been warned by the NSS to refrain from criticism of the government’s position, and of Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian, at the risk of possible expulsion from the country. Another newspaper, Azg, similarly quoted opposition politician Albert Bazeyan as saying that “threats […] to deport Zhirayr Sefilian, former commander of [the] Shushi battalion, is conditioned by […] recent tendencies in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement.”
Undaunted by such threats, Sefilian upped the ante in July by calling a press conference in which he declared that a “group of former civil guardsmen” had “already agreed upon certain steps which will allow us take real and drastic measures to avert vote rigging at the coming parliamentary and presidential elections.” He also spoke of realizing a “power shift to avert the launching of a new military conflict with Azerbaijan.”
Following Sefilian’s arrest, the NSS issued a written statement stating that it had irrefutable proof that the ex-commander was planning an armed uprising to “prod the country’s opposition into staging violent anti-government protests.” No evidence to support this claim has yet been made available, however.
Few analysts believe that the Armenian or Azerbaijani presidents would risk a nationalist backlash over a deal ahead of sensitive parliamentary and presidential polls in both countries during 2007 and 2008. However, with the lack of public evidence against Sefilian and a recent assertion by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that negotiations are entering their final phase, suspicions about the authorities’ actions continue to grow.
“I don’t exclude the possibility that he was arrested in connection with the liberated lands, but I don’t think that any document connected with Karabakh will be signed in the near future,” one of Sefilian’s associates, Armen Aghaian, stated on December 13. Commented opposition parliamentarian Grigor Harutiunian, secretary of the People’s Party: The government’s handling of the case against Sefilian provides “the basis for some serious conclusions.”
First published by Eurasianet, 14 December, 2006.
