Our contributor Ruslan Asad has written a proposal for a Constitution of a United Caucasus. This idea comes from a large tradition of thinkers of every nationality of the region who dreamed of the unity between the peoples of the Caucasus. An early attempt at this unity was the short lived Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic in 1918.
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I believe in order for the nations in Caucasus to solve their problems and conflicts, we as a new generation should be interested in integrating into bigger structures, which value wisedom and morality and are greater than we are. Those possible structures are the Caucasus House or the EU. Integration amongst each other in order to create a Caucasus House (or Union) and the integration into the EU do not contradict each other. Therefore as a member of new generation, I am proposing the following ideological and moral guidelines. Making use of this opportunity I am also calling on other individuals from the Caucasus to come up with their views on integration models and present them publicly.
"Our constitution is moral, pragmatic, incorporates the vision of Freedom and Cultural Diversity and strives for universal values of freedom indicated in Universal Human Rights Declaration of United Nations.
Our constitution is moral because:
- We the people of Caucasus (Armenians, Georgians and Azerbaijanis; ethnic minorities and majorities; IDPs and refugees) believe in the idea of uniting our efforts for solving our common problems: economic monopolization, undemocratic governance, corruption, unfair distribution of wealth and economic benefits, ethnic/territorial conflicts.
- · We the people of Caucasus believe that for solving the above mentioned problems we need to be part of a bigger structure which gets its moral and ideological roots from the universal value of Freedom, which creates platforms and makes ideas bigger than these nations individually but uniting these nations around one Caucasian identity.
· - We the people of the Caucasus recognize the right for an individual to have simultaneously religious, ethnic, national, regional, family identities. We believe that any type of identity can be chosen based on moral and rational ideas.
Our constitution is pragmatic because:·
· We the people of Caucasus are committed to the implementation of our ideas, values of human rights at grassroots, regional and national level.
· - We are committed to listening to the problems of our nations through a parliamentary political system that welcomes all the ideas of its citizens and creates conditions for discussing different ideas coming from different constituencies.
· - We are committed to holding free and fair elections, to creating a political space with equal opportunities for all the competing political institutions (parties, NGOs, physical and legal entities).
· - We are committed to coming together as nations of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia and to sit at the table of peace, mutual understanding and freedom to discuss our existing conflicts, solve them and offer alternative policies, initiatives for our future generation.
· - We are committed to creating free trade environment which will encourage our middle class, tradesman to trade their products easily with each other and develop the welfare system of our nations.
· - We are committed to initiating agreements on equal distribution of natural resources (Armenia’s copper, Georgia’s water, Azerbaijan’s oil) and Human Resources of these nations which are capable of bringing innovation to our businesses, industries, education, political administration and democratic civil society.
· - We are committed to recognize the rights of ethnic minorities and different groups for administrative and legislative representation in Government.
The Constitution of the Caucasus Union is the founding document of our Union which our nations take pledge not to change unless the people of the Caucasus decide so by bringing their amendments to parliament, organizing nationwide debates and referenda.
We are committed to protecting and abiding to the Constitution as our major guideline, letter of honor and dignity. We will always change our actions, attitudes; shape our politics according to the constitutional provisions and wisdom. We promise that we will not change the constitution based on our needs and desire, but will change our needs and desires based on the values of our constitution. Struggle for Freedom is not a matter of rational choice; this is also about passion and emotions of freedom.
Step by step towards our goal, towards our home and Union!"
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3 comments:
this time the anonymous is me, Monika:))
I just remember one of our policy briefs that was elaborated based on the opinions passed by the participants of the discussion on “Regional Cooperation: Myth or Reality” held in May 19, 2004, in the International Center for Human Development. The participants of the round-table were freelance analysts, government officials, members of the media and representatives of international institutions.
For those who would like to read it and analyse what became a reality and what not during those last 5 years, please read the brief below: (it will be in two part, as there is not enough space for one;))
REGIONAL COOPERATION: MYTH OR REALITY
The assessment of the South Caucasus regional cooperation’s current stage is unambiguous – no serious developments have been made in the framework of trilateral relationships - yet, parallel developments are being recorded in the context of various international projects. The BSEC, developments in the framework of TRASECA and INOGATE, European Integration and the three countries separate integration into the international structures comes to prove the aforementioned statement. The integration processes in the frameworks of the CIS countries are considered memorandum-oriented rather than bilateral and trilateral projects (Armenia-Russia, Iran-Greece-Armenia, Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan, etc.) designed to, in general, promote regional development while simultaneously containing certain political implications.
Current geopolitical environment conditioning future actions of the South Caucasus countries can be described by following:
• The US military presence in Iraq would reside for a long while and the western (particularly the US) pressure will constantly increase for the various ways of communication to stay opened;
• The role of the US is growing in Georgia. Therefore, the function of the regional development machine seems to belong to Georgia;
• Russia predominantly loses its role in the South Caucasus;
• The expansion of the European Union and NATO changed the role of the region. Hence, the present attitude towards the region could be drastically changed as well.
Subsequently, the geopolitical role of the South Caucasus remains uncertain. Given the territorial dimensions and economical status of the region, for the developed countries it seems unattainable to consider the South Caucasus countries separately. Hence, in the near future our position should be finally determined in respect to being part of Caspian, Black Sea, Middle East, or another unity.
(Monika: last part of the paper)
Developments in the economic environment are obvious enough in the three South Caucasus republics. Although the present economic developments are achieved on account of the opportunities granted by globalization, nevertheless, the isolated development is fraught with serious consequences.
A variety of obstacle-related factors raised regarding the South Caucasus integration process can be actually considered favorable in those processes and for the role Armenia assumes to take within it.
• Conditioned with the Russian factor, the Abkhaz and South Ossetian issues motivate the west to exert pressure on the South Caucasus collaboration encouragement.
• The negative attitude towards Iran makes the South Caucasus attractive as a corridor.
The fact that the Nagorno Karabakh conflict resolution would lead to regional cooperation, or the regional cooperation would bring to the conflict a resolution, are myths in reality. Actually they are interconnected, yet, the establishment of peace and cooperation in the region depends upon a variety of other factors.
Actually the Karabakh issue, in the context of the current geopolitical developments, can lose its weight to the other regional urgent issues and the integration processes can escape the Karabakh issue, the solution of which can be indefinitely postponed under US pressure.
In the Karabakh issue, discussions of public opinion, both in Armenia and Azerbaijan, is frequently touched upon, yet is considered an inappropriate subject. Meanwhile, the way various officials quote public opinion, even though no wide-scale and fair survey has been conducted either in Armenia or in Azerbaijan in respect to the Karabakh issue, has become confusing. Yet, it can play a vital role in this phase.
Today the key to further regional cooperation is the South Caucasus countries internal policy, as the foreign powers would constantly remain more pragmatic affording an opportunity to do merely what we are ready for. In this situation new factors occur forcing revision to the existing stereotypical approaches.
• Georgia is given less attention while it can play a useful connecting role in the South Caucasus;
• The country elites express no readiness to propose solutions to existing regional issues (compromise over the real processes), therefore, freer and more capable circles should be comprised in the regulation processes;
• Parallel to the future regional development and cooperation, including conflict resolution and foreign negotiations, the local negotiations are also considered to be quite essential (inter state public-political discussions within various formats). The unification of the elite and political power as well as public interests becomes possible merely through this way.
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I believe that establishing all Caucasus as one would be right, but others wouldn't agree, Chechens and Dagestanies have struggled to fight Russians to win freedom, they didn't want Christians to rule over them. So if United Nations of The Caucasus will be established who will lead them. Muslims wouldn't want Christians to rule and Christians wouldn't want Muslims to rule and even if creating a democratic state there will be constant rebellions and civil wars until there will be United Islamic Caucasian States and United Christian Caucasian States. I am Caucasian ( Dagestany and I am related to Armenia, but I count all Caucasus as my homeland and all caucasians (Muslim and Christian) as my brothers and I wouldn't want to see my brothers fight. So is United Nations of the Caucasus possible?
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