I am writing this on board my flight to the IFLRY EC in Manila. Well, actually this plane is only taking me to Hong Kong - from there I will then proceed to Manila and hopefully arrive in time for the opening ceremony.Unfortunately I wasn’t able to write this earlier, as pilot strikes in Germany had a lasting effect on my travel plans and required me to make it to Frankfurt on my own (by car and train, not by plane) - eventually, I arrived and made it on this flight.
For the last two weeks I was in the Southern Caucasus again, organizing seminars and international workshops in cooperation with JuLis Germany and the Friedrich-Naumann- Foundation for Liberty. We brought together participants from young liberal organizations from almost all different countries and regions and especially our cooperation workshop in Bakuriani, Georgia had some remarkable results, that I will write about in detail in a separate post during the next days.
From Bakuriani, Lasse Becker, the president of JuLis in the German state of Hesse, and I continued to a short fact finding visit in Armenia together with Dr. John from FNF.Since the IFLRY/FNF/VVD seminar on election observing during the fraudulent presidential elections in mid-February (please have a look at our IFLRY statement and my previous blog posts on that matter in case you have not read them yet), this was the first time for foreign liberals to officially return to Armenia. After the violent actions by government forces that were taken against peaceful protesters on March 1st and that resulted in 10 deaths (according to official sources) and hundreds of arrests, Dr. John and I myself had discussed many times when to return to Armenia to continue or work there. I was glad that he decided to join us when I suggested to show support to our mutual Armenian partners from the National Movement Youth after conducting the workshops in Azerbaijan and Georgia.Already entering the border took longer than usual, and we were convinced that at least one of us would be not allowed to enter. However, after long phone conversations by our visibly stressed border patrol representative we where finally let in the country. Probably, the respective officials in the regime have realized that not letting us - especially Dr. John - into the country would cause far more unwanted attention and thus harm them more than our activities inside the country (I might be corrected on this assumption when I try to enter Armenia next time).
Fortunately, Germany’s ambassador to Yerevan, her Excellency Mrs. Andrea Wiktorin, had agreed to meet us in the embassy in order to discuss the recent developments and events in Armenia and confer about the impediments on our cooperation with opposition forces. We had a very interesting discussion with her. While ambassadress Wiktorin’s analysis of the situation is very keen, intelligent and insightful, I think that the conclusions she is deriving from it are somewhat problematic, especially for me as a representative of IFLRY. I do see the positive effects of Germany’s activities in Armenia, such as supporting youth exchanges, and I am happy that my country is using our tax money for so many beneficial projects for the Armenian youth. However, while it does help to open up the eyes of the Armenian youth to what is possible in democracies by sending them abroad and involving them in international exchanges, no one takes care of them once they return and start to wonder why their home country is so far from democracy and why they are not allowed to participate actively in the political life of their country if their point of view is not in line with the governing regime.
For me it is not a surprise, that the majority of the people that I worked with in Armenia are not only extremely intelligent, astute and very well educated, but also frustrated because the regime actively hinders them to transform their society into a place where not only one’s connections and political affiliations matter, but the personal skills and excellence.Also this time, I met with a lot of members of the opposition - despite the fact that I stayed in Yerevan for less than a day in order to make it to Manila in time.
Right now, the situation is even worse than I assumed. Currently there are still 79 political prisoners. The majority of the leadership of the opposition is either in prison, in hiding or even dead. In my opinion, our partners do a heroic job. Lasse, Dr. John and I had several meetings with young members of the opposition and finally even visited a vigil that they organize around the clock on one of Yerevan’s main pedestrian areas, the “Northern Alley”. There, they inform Armenian citizens about the state of the governmental suppression and let them know about the fate of those who were arrested, put into prison and sent to court due to dubious allegations by policemen. They stay on the “Northern Alley” day and night and try to get public attention. In some ways, they where successful already. Some of the video footage of government forces recklessly killing peaceful protesters (e.g. by running them over driving their SUVs full-speed into a group of protesters) has been shown on foreign TV stations, such as in Germany. However, most people in Europe, Asia and the other continents do not even know about what happened in Armenia and continues to happen right now.
In the meantime, our friends keep getting arrested, sent to the KGB, put into prison or harassed in other ways all the time. The regime continuously shows, how afraid it is of the opposition: even young activists are constantly under surveillance by government agents in uniform and plain-cloth. Even Lasse and I experienced some particularly poorly skilled observation professionals during our stay in Yerevan. While trying to stay in the background when following us, the government thugs were not very effective and even did not managed to hide as quick as necessary when we took pictures…
I was asked in Yerevan whether I would react the same way our Armenian friends do, if things like this would happen in Germany. The truth is: I seriously do not know that - but I hope that I would be able to bring up the courage that they have, and stand up every day to struggle for democracy. As soon as I board the plane that takes me from Yerevan to Munich I cannot help but think about how unfair this is. I can leave and live my life in a country that protects my rights as a citizen and not actively tries to suppress and limit them
They can’t.
I am currently reading an excellent new book by James Harding which is called “Alpha Dogs: The Americans who turned Political Spin into a Global Business”. In it, Harding, an editor of the London Times, describes, amongst other things, that the only foreign supporters that the Philippine opposition had to plan and execute the ousting of the Marcos regime in the 80s where a professional golf course designer and a former editor of The Economist. I cannot help but think: If they managed something that big just because they where morally right and had some great communication skills, can’t we, IFLRY, the liberal youth of the world, do something like this for Armenia?
No matter how small or big the results of our efforts might be, for me the consequences are clear: we need to act.
Armenia needs us.