Artak Kirakosyan, Chairman of the Board of Civil Society Institute, General Secretary of the International Federation for Human Rights, Head of the Group of Permanent Observation of Special Schools under RA Ministry of Education and Science, was invited by Kyrgyz organization "Aris"  to participate in September as a trainer in the training "Conflict-Sensitive Approaches to Value Chain Development" organized by the British organization "International Alert".

Mr. Kirakosyan, what was the objective of the training?

 Even in non emergency situations sometimes projects are implemented that are likely to cause conflicts.  For example, in Armenia the World Bank implemented a water supply project and that generated a conflict between the upland and lowland villages since the upland village would not allow water to reach the lowland village despite already established water supply system. When designing and implementing a conflict-sensitive project a special attention has to be paid on that aspect; the project has to be originally designed in a way not to cause new conflicts especially if the country is in the state like the one in Kyrgyzstan - very tense, on the brink of civil war, one should not "pour oil on the flames".

There exist methods and instruments to do estimations to at least do no harm that can be useful also in overcoming ethnic conflicts.

For this training an international team was assembled - 2 representatives from Armenia, 1 from Georgia and 3 from Kyrgyzstan, headed by the person responsible for the International Alert trainings. We had 3 trainings (each lasting 3 days) for the managers and the project implementators.   

What is the mission of human rights organizations in conflicting situations?

 Human rights organizations work in dangerous situations. These organizations seem to originally be in conflict with the authorities because they set problems for the authorities that the latter try to avoid to solve. In tense situations they are in a more dangerous state because they are immediately labeled.

Tolekan Ismailova, head of the Kyrgyz human rights organization "Citizens against Corruption", was forced to leave the country due to threats; she was accused of protecting Uzbeks. On the whole it is logical because Uzbeks were the suffering party in the Kyrgyz-Uzbek conflict.

The topic of conflicts and human rights is very important especially for the Eastern European, Caucasus, Russian and Central Asian regions. Uzbek human right activist Azimzhan Askarov was sentenced to life imprisonment charged with possession of arms, mass riots, clashes with police and as a result death of a policeman. The trial passed in terrible conditions, threats were continuously sounded in the court room, Askarov was definitely under psychological and physical pressure. The main proof of the prosecution was that "such a person could not but participate in the events."

When the situation is tense, the weakest point becomes the basis for charges.

How protected are our human rights activists?

If we compare with Kyrgyzstan, we are very protected; compared with Uzbekistan, we live in a paradise. In the purely physical aspect they are protected. What worries me is how protected they are with respect to principles and ideas. This problem always exists in this region. Unlike the Western countries, in our countries human rights activists have a bigger role, in some sense they are the forefront of civil society. In Armenia human rights organizations still manage to keep their face and image as non partisan organizations dealing with human rights issues.   

What topics are conflict-sensitive in our country?

The basic conflict-sensitive topic is the opposition-power conflict which is very polarized today. There is absolutely no border for dialogue yet. It is not only the consequence of the March 1 victims and political prisoners; the polarization had started long ago and it directly affects the whole society. During elections there even used to be polarized arguments within families. Now the opposition-power relations model becomes the model of relations for the whole society; public organizations too are crystallized the same way, seemingly clearing up their positions, becoming two extreme poles with their identification of being different from the enemy. I am inclined to believe that eventually poles unite and become like each other, the way of thinking and acting becomes the same, the idea and the content become insignificant.

Is the topic of army conflict-sensitive too?

 The topic of army itself is a conflict. It comes from the essence of any closed type institution. Any closed institution, closed system has illnesses of the same type: one of the illnesses is "let's try to solve the problem ourselves, without taking it out". The reason of the illness is that relations become interdependent; any criticism is accepted as a direct blow to the system. Hiding problems becomes a super-objective. The objective is not opening the system, showing the problems, trying to somehow treat them. Reaction to any revealed story is very defensive. It was the case with the Police head in the Khalafyan case when he immediately announced - it is not possible, it is not murder. The same was with some material in Internet concerning army when the Ministry of Defense considered it impossible. Such reaction is typical of closed systems.

What is the solution in your opinion?

 The only solution is opening the system. By "opening" I mean public supervision, its mechanisms are today available in Armenia. Today Armenia has quite good experience in implementing public supervision over criminal-executive system; it has been done for 5 years already. This mechanism does not work perfectly, but nevertheless we know what is going on there. And the Ministry is not afraid of speaking out about the problems since it is convinced that the more open the system is, the more representatives of the society participate in the process, the easier it is for the Ministry, the more protected it is. Unfortunately the situation is different in the army and the police. One of the main theses of the previous authorities was stability. It is just one step from stability to stagnation. The Soviet Union collapsed namely due to stagnation. Only dynamic societies survive and are healthy today, only when people are not afraid of speaking about their problems, of revealing them no matter how scaring it may seem at first glance. In closed systems problems accumulate, the organism gets sick. Today stability without dynamics, inner criticism, without opening before the world is impossible. If you want to have a powerful, stable system, you have to open it.

Interview by Anna Barseghyan

Source: www.hra.am