We, representatives of non-governmental organizations supporting the
“Partnership for Open Society” (Partnership) initiative, are expressing our
bewilderment and concern with the joining of Armenia to the Statement adopted on
July 3, 2004 in Moscow by the member-states of CIS on the state of affairs in
OSCE. We believe that some provisions of this document are contradicting the
official position of the Republic of Armenia on an entire range of issues.



Having stood by our principle of refraining from interference into purely
political issues, we did not respond to the Statement immediately, expecting
that a serious and profound debate would take place at official level, among
political parties over the grounds for Armenia’s joining to the document, the
validity of this step against broader international context and its possible
implications. However, the commentaries that were made were mostly monologues
and as a rule, were referring to time-server aspects of the adopted Statement,
while the document addressed quite specific issues related to the positioning of
the signatory countries in the contemporary international arena and their vision
for their own development. Such lack of broad discourse conditioned our decision
to draw public attention to certain provisions of the document and stimulate
discussions around them. All the more so that they have to do with the processes
of democratization, establishment of the rule of law and civil society,
stability and development of our region, that is with the values around which
the Partnership has been formed.



First of all, it is hard to find rationale for such an explicit appraisal of the
OSCE activities: the document says that the “the organization (OSCE)…has not
been able to adapt in the current conditions to the requirements of the changing
world and ensure an effective solution to the issues of security and cooperation
in the Euro-Atlantic area”. Such utterly negative conclusions have to be based
on specific facts and detailed reasoning. Meanwhile, we cannot recall any
incidence of an official complaint over the OSCE activities for whatever case
related to the issues of “security and cooperation” for the entire period of
Armenia’s membership to the OSCE. And then, all of a sudden, there is this harsh
statement calling into question the ability of this reputable international
organization to fulfill its mission!



Secondly, any state that has undertaken certain official obligations before a
community of states shall be prepared to undergo some compliance control by this
community regarding its compliance to undersigned commitments. Any reference
made by the authors of the Statement to such “fundamental Helsinki principles,
such as non-intervention in internal affairs and respect for the sovereignty of
nations” in respect to the OSCE is absolutely inappropriate. This organization
simply does not possess any mechanisms for making decisions concerning the
internal affairs of the member states, but it is fully entitled and even is
bound to be informed and inform the whole community of the implementation
progress by each country of the fundamental documents it signed, including the
Helsinki Final Act (1975), Paris Charter for a New Europe (1990), and the
European Security Charter (1999), which are referred to in the Statement.



Thirdly, today the OSCE is the only international organization directly involved
in the settlement of the Karabagh conflict and ceasefire monitoring. It is hard
to overestimate the significance of this mission of OSCE. Moreover, in the
course of the last years the concerned Armenian authorities have often spoken
highly of how this mission has been carried out. Thus, it remains unclear what
has made them change their opinion on July 3, 2004 and what grounds Armenia has
to speak of misbalanced “three dimensions of security” and “shift of priorities
towards humanitarian problems”.



Fourthly, it is unlikely that the signatories to the Statement truly fail to
understand why the OSCE in general and its Bureau for Democratic Institutes and
Human Rights (BDIHR) in particular, focus their attention on the elections of
selective “member nations” rather than “throughout the entire area of the
Organization”. Unfortunately, Armenia has found itself among those OSCE member
states that up until now have been incapable (or reluctant) to develop
mechanisms for ensuring exercising of free will of citizens during election
process and provide for functioning of a number of other democratic institutes.
Naturally, the interest and attention of the world community to the
“problematic”, in respect of democracy, member nations is higher than to those
that have already demonstrated their adherence to the values of modern
civilization. We cannot deny our partners in OSCE and other international
organizations the right to know with whom they deal in our name.



It is worthwhile to mention that OSCE member-nations themselves apply to receive
observers for their elections. It is only natural that in the present context of
little trust towards our internal democratic mechanisms, the BDIHR appraisal of
elections remains formative for the international community. The only way to
escape this unpleasant situation is to conduct real reforms to raise the image
of our election committees and courts of all instances and their rulings. The
statements like the one adopted in Moscow, as well as the standing allusions to
the “specifics of individual states” work to one end, i.e. fully convince the
world that falsification of elections and neglect of human rights make part of
our political culture or, as some like to repeat, of “national mentality” of
these states, that is that we should be given up on. But how does this reconcile
with the goal of Armenia to consolidate within the Council of Europe and even
become a member of the European Union?



It goes without saying that any international institute shall “adapt in the
current conditions”. However, this is normally achieved through negotiations and
discussions rather than collective confrontational demarches without any
specific cause. It is clear for us that Armenia does not have grounds to carry
on a dialogue with OSCE in a tone of the Moscow Statement, and we regard
Armenia’s co-signing the Statement as inadequate to the interests of the country
and harmful to its international standing. We hope that the incident will stay
isolated and interaction of our country with the OSCE, as well as with other
Euro-Atlantic organizations, will be carried out along the lines of democracy
strengthening and regional security and cooperation.