Armenia The Former Soviet Union and Armenia at the Point of Independence

16 Pages·2006·0.18 MB·English

by  David Laitin

Armenia
(ArmeniaRN1.4.doc)

James Fearon
David Laitin
(with research assistance from Seepan V. Parseghian)
Stanford University

This is one of a set of “random narratives” to complement our statistical findings in

regard to civil war onsets. This is a draft of July 5, 2006; comments welcome.

Of the fifteen successor states of the Soviet Union, Armenia is one of
the ten that has avoided a civil war. Its most vulnerable moment, according
to our model, was in 1991-92. Even then, however, with only a 2.6%
probability of civil war (about 1 percent higher than the world average), an
onset was extremely unlikely. From 1993-95, with political stability, our
model correctly assesses a much lower than world average probability of
civil war. But, from 1996-99, Armenia faced political instability and two
years of anocracy (1996 and 1999) in which the predicted probability of civil
war, by our model, again went over 2%, and thus above the world average.
Armenia’s mean GDP per capita for the nine-year period that our dataset
covers is $2,626, lower than the regional mean, and about $1000 less than
the world mean. Armenia’s GDP is high enough to keep its predicted
probability of civil war relatively low, but not high enough to rule out the
possibility. However, lacking oil, having only 15.5% of its land area
mountainous, and a small population of less than four million, the fact that
Armenia has not had a civil war can hardly be called anomalous. In fact, if
Armenia’s probability for an onset remained stable, our model predicts that
there would be a civil war onset every fifty-eight years. Thus the probability
for an onset within the nine-year period under consideration is low.

Here, we focus on two periods for special consideration. First, we
look at the point of independence to see how Armenia, unlike four of its
fellow post-Soviet states, resolved the commitment problem associated with
state weakness. Second, we examine the period from 1996-99, when
Armenia suffered from anocracy and instability, but not civil war.

The Former Soviet Union and Armenia at the Point of
Independence
Armenia, p. 2

Our model predicted only a 2.6% chance of civil war in Armenia in
1991-92, suggesting that our model was insensitive to the challenging
circumstances faced by all post-Soviet states. In the post-Soviet states in
1991-92, 27% experienced a civil war. Indeed, two of Armenia’s
neighboring states, Georgia and Azerbaijan, experienced civil wars in the
wake of the break-up of the USSR. Georgia’s civil war probability in 1991,
by our model, was 5.4% (with a lower GDP, an anocratic government, and
61% of the country in mountains) and Azerbaijan’s was 18.3% (with
anocracy, 26% of the country in mountains, but with no oil yet to induce
instability and a higher GDP than Armenia’s). We therefore correctly
assessed the lower probability of civil war in Armenia of the three
Transcaucasian states, but since no post-Soviet state received even close to a
27% probability of early postindependence onset, and the mean post-Soviet
probability for civil war in 1991 was only 2.7%, we underestimated the
danger for these states in 1991-1992.

Why, then, was the post Soviet period so dangerous for the successor
states, not only of the former Soviet Union, but for the communist satellite
countries as well?

Different from the newly independent African states (see the
discussion in Burkina Faso), but similar to the post-World War II flood of
newly independent states, political context mattered. First and most
consequential, with independence there was in these cases no metropole in
the traditional sense, as the metropole (Russia as the rump USSR; Serbia as
the rump Yugoslavia) was facing in these cases the precise dynamics that
were being addressed by the co-called former colonies. Second, with
Germany’s unexpected recognition of Croatia in 1991, and with the end of
the Cold War (in which the boundaries of two countries in east Europe were
transformed), the norm of the sanctity of state boundaries had broken down,
giving incentives for ethnic entrepreneurs to seek control over their regions
and to demand statehood for those regions. Third, the political chaos that
surrounded the break-up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia meant that the
new states had to devise ad hoc measures to build military and police
competence. Potential rebels therefore saw this period as one of great state
weakness, which would likely be overcome in a short period. Finally, many
of the region’s minorities had an external homeland, whose domestic politics
were such as to make the leaders of these homelands attentive to the
situation of their compatriots living in other post-communist states. These
Armenia, p. 3
conditions were all propitious for insurgents representing minorities to
challenge state power sooner, rather than later. Our model assessed the
general impact of independence on the probability of civil war, and we
therefore missed the differential and more dangerous context of new
stateness for the new states of the post-Soviet era.

What saved Armenia? A first blush response to Armenia’s peace
might be to note its ethnic homogeneity. Armenia’s ethnic fractionalization
index in 1991 at .12 is the lowest in the former Soviet Union, by a lot.
Massive outmigration of Azeris in the 1980s (they were 5.3% of the
population in the 1979 census but only 1.4% in the 1989 census) eliminated
a mobilized minority well before the eve of independence, making it seem
that an ethnically cleansed new state would have no commitment problem at
all.

But (consistent with our model) this explanation is inadequate. First,
there is no relationship of fractionalization and civil war onset in the post-
Soviet region. The average ethnic fractionalization score for former Soviet
states that had a civil war onset in the wake of independence was .48; and
the score for those that did not have an onset was .46. There is no difference
on average. Looking more closely at the data, the second lowest ethnic
fractionalization score is for Azerbaijan, with .30, and Azerbaijan had a
devastating civil war. Furthermore, countries with the greatest
fractionalization -- Kazakhstan at .69 and Kyrgyzstan at .66 -- did not have
civil wars. Finally, the civil war in Tajikistan (although a country with
significant fractionalization at .55) was fought almost entirely among Tajiks.

Second, as we will underscore in our discussion of the period of
political instability, high levels of ethnic homogeneity did not deter
Armenian gangs from a battery of assassinations and contract murders one
against the other. Intra-Armenian violence has been pervasive in the period
of instability. This violence makes any argument that emphasizes ethnic
solidarity in the face of a common enemy suspect. Furthermore, that
Armenia had 72 registered political parties in the mid-1990s suggests that
there is in Armenia sufficient fragmentation (if not ethnic) to sustain an
insurgency (Astourian 2000, 5). The answer then isn’t that Armenia was
saved from civil war in 1991-92 because of its high homogeneity; the
question is why was Armenia saved from intra-ethnic civil war given the
dangerous context that it -- as well as its neighbors -- faced.
Armenia, p. 4
Another explanation for Armenia’s postindependence peace can be
the quality of the Armenian national myth, one that assumed that all
Armenians come from the same stock, share a common history, and merit
their own state. In the Transcaucasus, Armenians differentiated themselves
from the intermixed populations that variously became Turks through the
adoption of Christianity in the 4th century, and through the auspices of the
Church a common written language. The Armenian national myth
emphasizes the successful fight against the Persian imposition of
Zoroastrianism in the 7th century, the emigration from their homeland in
response to the Mongol invasions of the 13th and 14th centuries (which
turned Armenians into a minority in this homeland), the centuries of warfare
fought on their homeland between the Turks and the Persians, the semi-
autonomy Armenians received as a millet in the Ottoman Empire, the
urbanized elite of Armenians who were able to construct a national myth as
far back as the early 19th century, the holocaust in western Anatolia in 1915
(in which some 1.5 million Armenians were murdered), the short period of
independence declared in 1918 that was associated with mass starvation, and
ultimately a secure republic formed and protected by Soviet power.

Quality of the national myth has been emphasized by Smith (1999) to
account for successful state building. But Georgians have a national myth
nearly as stunning (without the holocaust) as the Armenians. The Georgians
have experienced early Christianity, a common written language, and a
history of mediation between the Russians and the Turks, which helped
consolidate a national myth. But shortly after a glorious national moment
and the election of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a cultural hero, to its presidency,
the Georgian elites split into factions, and eventually Gamsakhurdia escaped
from a shoot-out led by Georgian dissidents who stormed the presidential
palace. To be sure, our dataset doesn’t record the intra-Georgian fighting as
a civil war onset (not enough deaths), but the intra-Georgian war fed directly
into the Abkhazi demand for separation, and the concomitant fighting led to
nearly 7,000 deaths. A strong national myth, as the Georgian case shows,
hardly assures inoculation from the threat of post-independence civil war.

Many commentators have argued that first President Levon Ter-
Petrossian of Armenia was (at least in the dangerous early years of
independence) far more sober, less paranoid, and more skillful as a
politician, than was Gamsakhurdia. But these factors are hard to measure ex
ante, and they therefore fall somewhat flat as an explanation for Armenian
peace and Georgian war in the wake of independence. More telling is that
Armenia, p. 5
this explanation would not easily be able to account for Ter-Petrossian’s
violent confrontations with internal enemies after 1994.

Perhaps the most unifying aspect of the early Armenian independence
period is that its militias were implicated in fighting a foreign war in
Azerbaijan. In a mountainous enclave in Azerbaijan, an autonomous oblast
called Nagorno Karabakh had historical and nationalist meaning to both
Armenians and Azeris. In the 1979 census, 77% of the population was
Armenian, and 23% Azeri. Under Soviet rule, it was given to Azerbaijan,
and a security strip between it and Armenia reduced contact between
Nagorno Karabakh and Armenia. After Stalin’s death, Armenians began to
petition Soviet authorities to protest the conditions for Armenians in
Azerbaijan. In the 1980s, the Armenian population mobilized to demand
from Soviet authorities that this oblast be united with Armenia. This
movement generated enormous sympathy from ordinary citizens in Armenia,
and a massive demonstration in support of a border change took place in
Yerevan in 1988. These demonstrations had the clear effect of uniting
Armenians for a common goal. A Karabakh Committtee, led by intellectuals
and standing outside the Communist Party, gave structure to an Armenian
civic front. This same committee played a significant role in providing relief
efforts to the devastating earthquake of December 7, 1988. The Soviet arrest
of Karabakh Committee leaders along with their mobilizational success gave
enormous legitimacy to the Armenian National Movement formed in 1989.
By 1990, Ter-Petrossian, a leader of the Karabkah Committee, was elected
as Parliamentary president, marking the end of CPSU rule in Armenia.

In 1989, violence erupted in Nagorno-Karabakh, and originally Soviet
authorities supported the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic in counter-
insurgency efforts to root out Armenian militants. Armenian authorities were
heavily constrained. In the late Soviet period, they were instructed by
Communst authorities to dampen public support for the incorporation of
Nagorno-Karabakh into the Armenian Republic. When in early February
1988 massive demonstrations took place in support of the incorporation of
this Armenian-majority enclave into Armenia, and that March, after a
pogrom in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait against Armenians, Yerevan’s
official reactions were diplomatic and calm. The Armenian government was
further constrained by Soviet troops that supported Azerbaijan in 1991, in
punishment for the Armenian popular movement that was organized to
disregard the Soviet decision to support Azerbaijan’s authority in Nagorno-
Karabakh. Therefore, it was not the Armenian republican authorities but
Armenia, p. 6
rather the Armenian paramilitaries (in alliance with several Russian
generals, as noted by Fairbanks 1995, 20) that organized militarily to fulfill
the dream of the incorporation of Nagorno-Karabakh into Armenia.
Although unwilling to take the lead, the pressures of democratic
responsiveness gave Ter-Petrossian little choice but to follow the already
highly mobilized mass base that supported his rule (Kaufman 1998, 31). He
remained cautious, as Russian military support for an Azeri offensive in
1993 was sobering. However, the popular support for the Armenians in
Nagorno Karabakh, and the organization of paramilitaries to fight in
Azerbaijan rather than against he new government in Armenia, took pressure
off from Yerevin from potential insurgents within. By no means would we
say that Nagorno Karabakh was a diversionary war in the sense of a strategy
by the Armenian government; but rather the popular and paramilitary
involvement of Armenians in this liberation effort gave the new Armenian
state a free ride from immediate insurgent activities.1

By no means has our model mispredicted Armenia’s post-
independence peace. But it did underpredict in general the post-
independence violence in the Soviet successor states, and this because we
did not control for the political context in which independence was granted.
While it did show that the probability of civil war in Armenia was lower
than in its neighboring Transcaucasian republics, it doesn’t give us the key
parameter than differentiates Armenia from Georgia and Azerbaijan, both
with higher predicted probabilities of early independence warfare. Our
conjecture is that Armenia’s ethnic homogeneity is not a compelling
differentiating fact. Rather, we hold that it was the unifying experience of a
foreign war as well as the mobilization of rebels to serve in that war (as
opposed to an insurgency) that diverted any (policy) minorities in Armenia
from demanding a commitment from the state for future goodies, and
thereby held back early rebellion.

The Years of Anocracy and Instability (1996-99)2

1. This paragraph is a slight modification of the analysis in David Laitin (2001) “Secessionist Rebellion in
the Former Soviet Union” Comparative Political Studies 34 (8).
2 . The sources for this section include: Astourian (2000); The Economist, Economic Intelligence Unit,
Country Report, Georgia Armenia 1st quarter 1997 (London),, pp. 13-19; Balian (1995); Human Rights
Watch, World Report 2003, Armenia http://www.hrw.org/wr2k3/europe2.html; Michael Ochs,
“Commission, OSCE observe Armenia’s parliamentary elections” The Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe 22:8 (August 1999), http://www.house.gov/csce/august99.pdf; The EU's relations
Armenia, p. 7

Ter-Petrossian’s rule was steady only compared to the certifiable
megalomaniac ruling postindependence Georgia. Two years after
independence, Ter-Petrossian accused the leaders of the opposition ARF
(Armenian Revolutionary Federation, the descendent of the party that led the
post World War I republic) of collusion with the remnants of the Soviet
secret police. Political assassinations were rife from the dawn of
independence. In 1993, the once mayor of Yerevan, Ambartsum Galstian,
testified before the Parliamentary Commission on Governmental Abuse and
Corruption on a variety of charges, accusing the Interior Minister Vano
Siradeghian of organizing more than 30 murders. For his efforts, Galstian
was murdered in December 1994 (Balian 1995, 5-7). Government heavily
monitored reporting from inside Armenia. Kuranty (Moscow), for example,
reported in December 1993 that the Foreign Ministry of Armenia stripped
opposition journalists of their accreditation (Balian 1995, 48). In June 1994,
Vladimir Grigorian, chairman of the procurator’s department, heading the
investigation group on state officials suspected of abuse of power and
corruption, barely escaped assassination from thugs working for the Interior
Ministry (Balian 1995, 53, reported in Lragir Daily, Yerevan, June 3, 1994,
and Noyan Tapan, June 8, 1994).

In the wake of Galstian’s murder, the Armenian Democratic Party
leader Aram Sarkissian (who got just over .2 percent of the vote in the 1998
elections) said “In more than 30 cases of murder…no one has yet been
brought to justice. The murder of Ambartsum Galstian is just a single link in
a chain of violent acts.” In December, Albert Baghdassarian, one time
member of Ter-Petrossian’s ANM, accused the government leaders of
carrying out a program of assassinations “designed to incite a reign of
terror.” Ter-Petrossian then banned the ARF and accused them of the
assassination of Galstian, and of supporting an underground terrorist faction
called DRO. The ARF parliamentary faction denied this tie. Ter-Petrossian
then closed the offices of Yerkir, the country’s largest daily newspaper, and
arrested in a broad sweep many enemies of the government in the face of
parliamentary elections scheduled for spring 1995. Armenian security chief
David Shakhnazaryan defended the arrests of ARF members in order “to put
an end to terror and new political assassinations which had only one

with Armenia 26/10/01 http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/armenia/intro/; Freedom House
Report http://freedomhouse.org/nit98/armenia.pdf; Armenia This Week Archive
http://www.aaainc.org/armenia-nkr/arm-chronology.htm and
http://www.aaainc.org/armenia_week/archive00intro.htm
Armenia, p. 8
purpose—to destabilize the country” (All reported from press accounts in
Balian 1995, 68-80)

Popular sentiment on the street turned against Ter-Petrossian, and
urban jokes began circulating (L&M cigarettes were called “Levone Merni”
(May Levon Die!) (Astourian 2000, 11). Anti-government street
demonstrations in Yerevan were massive. On July 1, 1994 reports of up to
20,000 people participated in an anti-government demonstration in Yerevan,
convened by the National Democratic Union (NDU) (Balian 1995, 56, from
7/05/94 in RFE/RL). Later in July, UPI reported that 50,000 people rallied in
Yerevan against the string of political slayings (Balian 1995, 57; UPI report
from 7/19/94). In August, Noyan Tapan, Yerevan, reported 70,000 people
attended a protest rally in Yerevan, again organized by the NDU (Balian
1995, 60, reported on 8/13/94). On September 16, a protest rally of 25,000
was again organized by NDU, this time demanding a hard line on Nagorno
Karabakh (Balian 1995, 61 from 9/19/94 in Noyan Tapan, Yerevan). In
October, the NDU congregated 50,000 participants demanding the ouster of
Ter-Petrossian. It announced the creation of the National Alliance Coalition
that included the Armenian Christian Self-Determination Union (ACSDU),
the Constitutional Rights Union, the Armenian Democratic Party and the
ARF. Its leader, David Vartanian, set the agenda part of which was to stop
the country’s leadership from using police force to win the forthcoming
election (Balian 1995, 63, from 10/10/94 in Hailour, Yerevan). Two weeks
later, more than 40,000 people rallied in support of the National Alliance
Coalition. The day after the rally, the editorial offices of Azg newspaper
were firebombed (Balian 1995, 65 10/24/94 and 10/25/94 in Hailour,
Yerevan). Armenian parliament members were reportedly victims of armed
attacks (Balian 1995, 64 in Hailour, Yerevan 10/21/94). These last rallies,
and the government’s reaction, had the smell, the accusations, and the
intensity of a pre-insurgency.

Armenia began its full slide into instability in 1995 (and captured in
the instability score beginning in 1996), in large part due to the collapse of
its economy. Massive rallies continued in Yerevan through the spring,
organized by the ARF and the NDU (Balian 1995, 101). In July 1995 there
was a contested constitutional referendum that created what Astourian
(2000, 3) calls a “hyperpresidential” system, one that gave the president vast
powers and the right to suspend constitutional rights under underspecified
conditions, and with the powers to control the judiciary. Parliamentary
elections for the National Assembly contested at the time of the
Armenia, p. 9
constitutional referendum were characterized by international observers as
“free, but unfair.” Nine opposition parties were refused certification by the
Central Election Commission, and the single largest opposition party, the
ARF, was banned (Freedom House Report 1998), and subsequently its
leaders were charged with plotting a coup d’état, possessing illegal
armaments, and engaging in terrorist activities (Armenia This Week
Archive, March 6, 1996).

Ter-Petrossian won the subsequent presidential election that took
place on September 22, 1996, with 51.75 percent of the vote –– just enough
to avoid a run-off election with Vazgen Manukian, who received 41.3
percent. Manukian, a former prime minister and Armenian defense minister,
was the head of the National Democratic Union and the National Accord
Bloc (the coalition of opposition parties that contested the election). But the
honesty of the electoral returns remains in question. International observers
(OSCE/ODIHR and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems)
cited, amongst a list of irregularities, discrepancies between the number of
votes cast and the number of registered voters. Following the official
announcement of Ter-Petrossian’s victory, protestors stormed the parliament
building, physically attacking and taking hostage Parliament Speaker
Babken Ararktsian and deputy speaker Ara Sahakian. Ultimately, two were
killed and over 100 were injured. Martial law was invoked (Freedom House
Report 1998; Armenia This Week Archive, September 25, 1996).

In 1997 Ter-Petrossian’s party, now the Armenian Pan National
Movement (APNM), began to fragment on relatively minor issues
concerning draft deferment for students, and internal bickering about party
leadership. Ter-Petrossian’s opponent in the party Eduard Yegorian, a
former Prime Minister, created a new parliamentary group, called Hayrenik
(Homeland), seeking to end the alleged anti-democratic practices of APNM.
But then, on October 4, Ter-Petrossian gave a new conference that
essentially sought to compromise on Armenia’s insistence on Nagorno
Karabakh’s independence from Azerbaijan. He was quickly abandoned by
many parliamentarians from his own party. Meanwhile, the security scene
was in a shambles. Plots to murder the Chief of the President's personal
security, the Commander of Internal Forces, and the leader of the Avan
district of Yerevan were uncovered, though the latter two were wounded in
the attacks. These acts of violence added fuel to an already tense political
crisis in Armenia where deep divisions within the highest echelons of the
government became public (Armenia This Week Archive, January 23,
Armenia, p. 10
1998). Ter-Petrossian’s Prime Minister, Robert Kocharian, first president of
the Nagorno Karabakh self-declared state, was aghast upon hearing his
president’s proposals in regard to Nagorno Karabakh. Shortly thereafter,
Ter-Petrossian lost his parliamentary majority, and resigned.

Defectors from the APNM in large numbers joined Yerkrepah, a party
representing Karabakh war veterans. The Ministry of Defense created
Yerkrepah in 1994 as a veterans union. In 1995, some of its 3,500 members
allegedly attacked offices of some foreign religious organizations. In the fall
of 1996, these same units attacked the protestors demonstrating against fraud
in the presidential elections. The group registered as a political party in
October 1997, and entered parliament with seventeen seats. Following Ter-
Petrossian’s resignation, acting President Kocharian re-legalized the ARF,
and courted its fanatical (in support of a hardline policy in regard to Nagorno
Karabakh) diasporic supporters (Freedom House 1998).

The presidential election on March 16, 1998, following the forced
resignation of Ter-Petrossian, included 12 candidates. Robert Kocharian
won handily, and his authority was enhanced in light of the great support he
received in the subsequent parliamentary victory of May 30, 1999. The
OSCE declared that the presidential election was “not free or fair” but the
parliamentary election got somewhat higher marks from international
observers, but by no means a clean slate. Despite the strong support for
Kocharian, however, political violence continued. Armenia's Deputy
Defense Minister Vahan Khorkhoruni was assassinated that December
(Azbarez, December 12, 1998). And to crown a decade of continuing
violence, on October 27, 1999, five terrorists stormed parliament while it
was in session and murdered Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkissian,
Parliamentary Speaker Karen Demirchian, and at least three other
government officials. They turned in their weapons and were apprehended
by police following negotiations with President Robert Kocharian
throughout the day and night. More than 40 hostages, held overnight by the
gunmen, were released, apparently unharmed (Armenia This Week Archive,
October 28, 1999).

Why No Civil War in the Period of Instability?

While our model did not incorrectly predict civil war onset in 1996, it
did point to the condition that Armenia had more chance of an onset in 1996
than the world average. Three factors seem to have diverted potential