By Paul Chaderjian
(Fresno) – Friendly banter about public toilets in Armenia and argumentative exchanges about the semantics of the word 'Genocide' marked the extreme range of reaction US Ambassador to Armenia received during his four days of non-stop meetings with Central California Armenians.
Ambassador John Ordway and Keith Simmons, Mission Director for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), visited Fresno, Fowler and Yettem as part of their national outreach tour. The goal of the visit was to establish stronger ties between the US Embassy to Armenia and the American-Armenians, whose political activism resulted in Congress setting aside nearly 90 million dollars of support for Armenia last year.
"We discovered that the knowledge of what was going on in Armenia, how that 90 million dollars-a-year that Congress voted -- thanks to all of your efforts -- the knowledge of those programs stopped at the water's edge. It never passed beyond the appropriations process," said Ambassador Ordway during his first public forum on Thursday night at the Pilgrim Armenian Church in Fresno.
"We decided it would be important to try to reach to the community here and give people a sense of what we were doing," said Ordway. "It's also important because [the lack of information] leads to a certain amount of misinformation or bad assumptions about what we are doing."
The Ambassador told the nearly 100 attending the first of his five public forums that the second reason for his visit was to hear from American-Armenians, because the local communities are, in his words, "that part of the American body of politics that has got the greatest interest, the greatest knowledge and sometimes the greatest insight into Armenia."
"We want to hear what your thoughts are," said the fifth-generation Californian, who has spent nearly three decades in the Foreign Service. "We want to know what your concerns are, and we would like to have the opportunity to have a little bit of dialogue and to talk back and forth."
With those opening remarks, the Ambassador received more than an ear full from community members. The range of questions and statements spanned from the recently proposed cuts in US spending in Armenia to why the White House has opposed supporting Congressional recognition of the Armenian Genocide, from why the US is not demanding an end to the blockade of Armenia to the state of the economy of the fledgling Republic.
USAID
The USAID, explained Mission Director Keith Simmons, has been in Armenia for over eleven-years, and its main missions during the first five years were providing Armenians basic humanitarian needs like food, shelter, clothing and fuel. "Whatever it took to keep people alive, healthy and happy during the early years," said Simmons.
In 1998 the USAID began to focus on economic development and moving the country from a command economy, where the actual government itself determines supply and demand and ran everything, to a free market economy. The USAID is now also focused on helping the Armenian government switch from a single party state, the communist party, to a multi-party democracy.
"A lot of people suffered as a result of these transitions," said Simmons. "So, we have programs that are involved in social reforms, to mitigate the impact of these transitions on the most vulnerable populations including some earthquake zone programs."
More than sixty programs receive funding from the USAID including projects that are helping reform the educational process, provide vocational training, establish businesses, provide loans to entrepreneurs, create jobs, help reform the health care system and establish a decade-long vaccination program for children.
The Fresno-based Armenian Technology Group (ATG) is one of the programs that the US Government funds through the Department of Agriculture, USAID, the Justice Department, US Customs and the departments of Energy and Defense. Like the other programs supported by Congress and the USAID, ATG's first mission was to provide humanitarian assistance.
"We started out trying to put food on the table of people," said Executive Director Varoujan Der Simonian. "Then we continued to create employment opportunities, improve the quality of life of farmers. In fact, ATG helped write the law that allowed for the conversion of farmland to private ownership and helped establish farmer-owned business to serve farmers."
USAID received 60% of the $90 million Congress allocated for use in Armenia. Other US agencies split the rest of the amount. "I can tell you that the money has been well spent," said Simmons. These funds are allocated through the "Freedom Support Act' and face an across-the-board reduction in fiscal year 2004. Next year's budget proposes only $49 million dollars in assistance to Armenia, but is most likely to be increase when it reaches Congress and Armenia will be eligible for a new foreign aid program called the Millennium Challenge Account. The Ambassador is certain Armenia should have no difficulty winning Millennium funding.
Armenia's Economy
"The good news about Armenia's economy," said the Ambassador, "is that Armenia has a very talented and educated population. They have a very good macro-economic climate. They made the right kinds of decisions. They made the kinds of decisions that we would have wanted a lot of their neighbors to make in terms of allowing unlimited investments, exporting of profits, no currency controls."
Armenia's economy has made progress according to Ordway and Simmons. "By comparison to its neighbors in ex-Soviet Union, outside of the Baltic states, in what we call the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries, Armenia has done better than the other countries when it comes to macro-economic performance," said Simmons.
Ambassador Ordway said Armenia has a stable currency, low inflation and a higher growth rate, well over six percent. Last year's growth rate, according to Ordway, was 12.9 percent, and the first four months of this year, the growth rate was 11 percent.
"Now, the problem is, the paradox as we call it," said Simmons, "is that the distribution of wealth is very narrow. At the same time as we've had the economic growth, we've had an increase in the population that's living in poverty. We're trying to work with the government now. They're trying to develop a poverty reduction strategy, and we're trying to work with them to find ways to create growth, to create jobs, but to spread the benefits to a broader sector of society."
Both diplomats agreed that one of the dynamics slowing down economic development in Armenia is corruption. "Investors today do not invest in Armenia," said Simmons, "because they don't feel they are going to be treated equitably by the court system or by the tax administration people or by the customs people. We're working with the government to improve their systems in all three of those areas, and it is going to be across the board -- whether you're talking about health benefits, the social protection sector, the banking sector, private enterprise, tax, you name it."
Part of the corruption problem, according to Simmons, is that the average monthly salary of an Armenian is $44 a month. "Even though the cost of living there is low, that's not much money. Teachers make $20-25 a month, so they have to seek other opportunities," said Simmons. "A teacher might have to charge a student to come into the classroom, or a teacher might charge a student for a textbook – things that should be free. But for them to survive, they have to charge these informal, under the table payments."
Simmons says the same type of corruption exists in virtually all segments of society, including in the health sector, where doctors and nurses make less than a hundred dollars a month. While health care and medications are supposed to be free, most doctors and nurses are often forced to charge their patients so that they themselves can take care of their families.
One of the problems in economic growth, said the Ambassador, is that credit is very difficult to obtain. While banks in Armenia offer credit to businesses, they usually have extreme high rates and are for extremely short period like three years. Also, banks tend to ask for three times the amount in collateral, which makes it difficult for anyone to take out a loan.
"The USAID does provide loans, micro-loans," said Ordway, "but the problem is that there is 17 times as much money in cash in people's houses than there is in the banking system. The real secret in getting the economy going is getting that cash out of the mattresses and into the economy. This can play a very useful role for us in backing more loans. That's the real answer."
"Foreign investment is also an important component," said Ambassador Ordway. "and it has helped in several key areas. In terms of what American foreign investment has been, the largest single US investment is in the Hotel Armenia, which is a fairly substantial. The Pernod-Ricard company, a French company, has purchased the Yerevan Brandy company, and that made ten million dollars in profits last year. It exports huge amounts of brandy and is very successful. There are also high tech companies, about fifty of them in Yerevan. About twenty or so are American. They've created a lot of high-paying jobs."
While USAID supports several loan guarantee programs, including a micro-credit program for women, Ordway and Simmons believe the light manufacturing by small and medium sized companies must be encouraged. To help with these projects, the USAID is trying to lure Diasporan charities to partner with the USAID and launch jointly funded projects. When a Diasporan chartity like the Armenia Fund or the Ani and Narod Memorial Foundation invest in a program, the USAID is able to match a charity's infusion of money to make the joint project even more potent and more affective.
Genocide & Turkey
Introducing the Ambassador at the Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church on Saturday night was Armenian National Committee Chairwoman Hygo Ohannessian, who welcomed those in attendance by saying that as Armenian-Americans, the community had the right to pursue official recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
"The Armenian community will do everything in its power," said Ohannessian, "to ensure passage of the Genocide Resolution. If the administration thinks it can support a Turkish- Armenian reconciliation commission, TARC, the Armenian community will not compromise on the Genocide."
Ohannessian, looking directly at Ambassador Ordway, said most of those in attendance were the children and grandchildren of Genocide survivors and that the community would not let the State Department to allow a handful of Armenians, who are outside the mainstream community, to sideline the Genocide issue and cause division in the community.
"The word 'Genocide' was not even in existence in 1915," said Ordway later that evening, in response to a question about why the US government would not use the word to describe the massacres of the Armenians. "I don't think an argument over a word is necessarily the end all and be all of this particular issue."
"Having Congress pass a resolution," said the Ambassador, "would not be effective in terms of accomplishing our goals and would risk damage to an important relationship with Turkey. The correlation of risk to benefit is not such that this administration or any other administration has supported such legislation. We didn't think that the chances of promoting the agenda that we have was sufficiently high to justify the risk."
When the Ambassador was asked whether in light of Turkey's recent opposition to allow the US to use its airbase in Turkey to launch the war against Iraq, would there be a better chance to pass the Genocide Resolution. "Draw your own conclusion," answered the Ambassador, reminding attendees that Armenia and Armenians must gauge the risks and benefits of their relationships with both Turkey and Azerbaijan.
"When it comes to what happened in 1915," said Ordway, "I don't think there is any doubt about facts. There is no dispute, certainly not in the United States or most of the world, over what happened. If you look at President Bush's statement, specifically the one from last year and the year before, both in which he specifically mentioned that a million-and-a-half were massacred or exiled in the dying days of Ottomon Empire."
"This is a pretty clear statement of what happened," said Ordway. "The other thing on which there is no doubt -- certainly there is no doubt in my mind and I don't think there is any doubt in the minds of the political leadership of this country -- of the strong feeling, the suffering that is reflected in those feelings of the Armenian-American community. They are clear. They are made in a very strong passion and have gained significant support in Congress."
Ordway said the real issue about Genocide recognition is to look back and see a common understanding of history, which is essential, he said, for Armenians and Turks and Armenia and Turkey. "There has to be some emphasis on the future," said Ordway. "There has to be a way to establish a secure and stable relationship between the Republic of Armenia and Turkey -- neither one of which is likely to pick up stakes and move any time soon. Nor is there any likelihood of changes in their countries and their population. Those are facts and will remain facts."
The government of the Republic of Armenia, said Ordway, has what he thinks a good policy on this relationship with Turkey. "They're in favor of establishing relations and improving relations without any pre-conditions," he said. "That doesn't mean however that they're going to forget the facts. But they need to move ahead while not forgetting the past."
"I would suggest," said Ordway, "that there are many ways to approach this issue. You, as a community, have a strong dispute with the administration as to whether securing a Congressional resolution is the appropriate way. This administration, the previous administration have opposed a resolution. That approach is sort of like a head-on assault, going straight at the problem, head on."
"There may be a role for that [approach]. It's your right to pursue it, and I know for sure, you're going to continue to pursue that," said Ordway. "But I think there's got to be more to a strategy than just that, and part of that strategy has to be to identify forces, elements, factions in Turkey that would slowly but surely brought back to the point that they're going to move forward, that they're going to have to face up to this; and to do it in a positive, engaging, constructive fashion."
Ordway was asked by another community member why there was a steadfast culture at the State Department opposing the recognition of Genocide. "I spent 27 years with the State Department," answered Ordway, "and I don't think there is any such culture in the State Department."
He said the State Department provides to the President the best advice it can and the best information it can about foreign policy and the consequences of those policies and actions. "And in this case, as in most cases," said Ordway, referring to the Genocide Resolution, "it's the president who makes the decision. And I know as one hundred percent solid fact that this is something that the President is personally aware of and is involved in. These are not decisions that are made by deputy assistant desk officers at the State Department."
Nagorno-Kharapagh
The USAID also manages a program in the Republic of Nagorno-Kharapagh. The program is funded by a $20 million package Congress authorized in 1998. Simmons says USAID has $19.3 million already and will be receiving two million more this year. The proposal for fiscal year 2004 also calls for another two million dollars in assistance.
"The program there is humanitarian assistance by legislation," said Simmons. "We're focusing on rehabilitation of housing that was damaged in the war. We've done about a thousand houses and we hope to do two thousand more. We are doing rehabilitation of health programs and schools, portable water and irrigation water systems,'
Finding, unearthing and defusing unexploded mines in Nagorno-Kharapagh is another USAID funded project. "If people want to walk through open country to get water or to get fuel, firewood for fuel, there is still the danger of stepping on mines or unexploded ordinance," said Simmons. "Children often pick up something that looks like a toy but is in fact an explosive, and we're still trying to get rid of those things to this day."
The US is also funding a new military assistance program in Armenia, according Ambassador Ordway. "The Armenian military has decided to use the military assistance money we're providing for modernizing their communications system, to purchase radios and other telecommunications equipment. The American government is also bringing Armenian military officers to US military schools and helping Armenia set up its own military academy.
"We have just established a sister city relationship with the Kansas National Guard and the Armenian military," said Ordway. "It promises to be a very good relationship -- one that will help them out. There's also a NATO partnership for peace exercise later this month in Armenia. A National Guard unit from Maryland will be participating in that exercise. So there is a lot going on in this area that's relatively new and that will build real solid relationships between our militaries and provide Armenia, not necessarily an alternative, but some other options to the only ones they've had in the past ten years – which is just with Russia."
Hopeful about military investment in Armenia, one attendee asked if the US would consider moving its military base out of Turkey and into Armenia, especially in light of the recent decision by Turkey not to allow the US to launch an attack on Iraq from Turkey. Those are decisions that the military makes based on its global needs and distribution of troops, said Ordway.
A community member asked why the US had not exerted its influence to route the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline through Armenia. Ordway said that he was surprised that the pipeline construction project, which costs $10 million dollars a day, had gotten off the ground. When complete, the pipeline will pump oil from Azerbaijan, through Georgia and to a port in Turkey.
"BP (British Petroleum) has started building the pipeline," said Ordway, "it was absolutely true that a better cheaper route would have taken the pipeline through Armenia. But that's not going to happen. That's not going to happen and it didn’t happen for two reasons -- one of which was somewhat emotional and the other reason is pretty logical. The emotional one is that the Azeris would rather freeze and [flood] the sea rather than see that pipeline be of advantage to Armenia. But the more rational one is that Armenia and Azerbaijan are in a state of war; there is a ceasefire. It would not make sense for any Azeri to agree to send the pipeline through a country it is in war with and give Armenia a hand on the spigot with their major economic future.
The Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline is a good illustration why it is important for Armenia to settle the Nagorno-Kharapagh dispute, said the Ambassador. "Not just to provide a stable, secure future for Nagorno-Kharapagh and its inhabitants," he said, "but to bring economic infusion into the region, which had it in the past and needs it in the future."
The Ambassador believes Armenia needs energy security and a diversity of energy supplies. Right now, 97 percent of Armenians have power 24 hours-a-day and seven-days-a-week. The real problems with the energy sector, according to the Ambassador, is with its future. Armenia depends on Russia for nuclear and gas supplies, which provide all the electrical energy.
"Energy is one of our primary focus projects of the USAID," said Ordway. "The nuclear power plant is going to have to shut down. It will reach the end of its useful life at some point. And that's a very expensive proposition. The generating capacity of that power plant will have to be replaced, and it would take lots of money to build a new plant."
"The other problem that plagues the energy system is corruption," said the Ambassador. "The losses of the system are 50 million dollars a year in what is called 'non-technical line losses,' which is a fancy word for stealing. That power is generated but it is not paid for. It leaks out of the system in some fashion. And consumers pay their bills, but money doesn't get to the people who generate it."
"If the people who generate it can't pay their bills, then what happens is that Armenia built up a lot of debt for both gas and nuclear fuel," said Ordway. "They settled the gas debt, essentially by exchanging the gas distribution industry, and they are about to settle the nuclear debt for exchange of the management of the nuclear power plant."
Ordway believes that Armenia has to look at another direction for fuel. He said there are existing pipelines that the Soviets used to carry their gas supplies directly from Azerbaijan to Armenia. "They could open up tomorrow and provide gas to Armenia," he said, "but in order for that to happen, we gotta get Nagorno-Kharapagh settled and start building that new relationship with Azerbaijan. I think it can be done, but it's not likely to happen in the near future. We're working with the Russians and the French as the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group to try to mediate that conflict. We've been at it for several years, and we've had high level meetings."
"Unfortunately, this is not a good year to expect any progress on this," said Ordway. "Instead of having strong presidents who have the political ability to build consensus and move toward difficult compromises, you actually have weakened presidents in both countries. In the case of Armenia, I think that situation will correct itself by early next year."
"Our hope is that President Kocharian," said Ordway, "will return some political stability to the country and be in a position to provide that kind of leadership, which I think is going to be difficult in the current split in society. The situation is worse in Azerbaijan. President Alieve is in ill health. It's not clear whether he will run for re-election in October, if they'll let his son be his successor or not. In any case, our primary emphasis in Nagorno-Kharapagh is preventing the re-occurrence of war. Any violation of the ceasefire would be disastrous to both countries."
(Fresno) – Friendly banter about public toilets in Armenia and argumentative exchanges about the semantics of the word 'Genocide' marked the extreme range of reaction US Ambassador to Armenia received during his four days of non-stop meetings with Central California Armenians.
Ambassador John Ordway and Keith Simmons, Mission Director for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), visited Fresno, Fowler and Yettem as part of their national outreach tour. The goal of the visit was to establish stronger ties between the US Embassy to Armenia and the American-Armenians, whose political activism resulted in Congress setting aside nearly 90 million dollars of support for Armenia last year.
"We discovered that the knowledge of what was going on in Armenia, how that 90 million dollars-a-year that Congress voted -- thanks to all of your efforts -- the knowledge of those programs stopped at the water's edge. It never passed beyond the appropriations process," said Ambassador Ordway during his first public forum on Thursday night at the Pilgrim Armenian Church in Fresno.
"We decided it would be important to try to reach to the community here and give people a sense of what we were doing," said Ordway. "It's also important because [the lack of information] leads to a certain amount of misinformation or bad assumptions about what we are doing."
The Ambassador told the nearly 100 attending the first of his five public forums that the second reason for his visit was to hear from American-Armenians, because the local communities are, in his words, "that part of the American body of politics that has got the greatest interest, the greatest knowledge and sometimes the greatest insight into Armenia."
"We want to hear what your thoughts are," said the fifth-generation Californian, who has spent nearly three decades in the Foreign Service. "We want to know what your concerns are, and we would like to have the opportunity to have a little bit of dialogue and to talk back and forth."
With those opening remarks, the Ambassador received more than an ear full from community members. The range of questions and statements spanned from the recently proposed cuts in US spending in Armenia to why the White House has opposed supporting Congressional recognition of the Armenian Genocide, from why the US is not demanding an end to the blockade of Armenia to the state of the economy of the fledgling Republic.
USAID
The USAID, explained Mission Director Keith Simmons, has been in Armenia for over eleven-years, and its main missions during the first five years were providing Armenians basic humanitarian needs like food, shelter, clothing and fuel. "Whatever it took to keep people alive, healthy and happy during the early years," said Simmons.
In 1998 the USAID began to focus on economic development and moving the country from a command economy, where the actual government itself determines supply and demand and ran everything, to a free market economy. The USAID is now also focused on helping the Armenian government switch from a single party state, the communist party, to a multi-party democracy.
"A lot of people suffered as a result of these transitions," said Simmons. "So, we have programs that are involved in social reforms, to mitigate the impact of these transitions on the most vulnerable populations including some earthquake zone programs."
More than sixty programs receive funding from the USAID including projects that are helping reform the educational process, provide vocational training, establish businesses, provide loans to entrepreneurs, create jobs, help reform the health care system and establish a decade-long vaccination program for children.
The Fresno-based Armenian Technology Group (ATG) is one of the programs that the US Government funds through the Department of Agriculture, USAID, the Justice Department, US Customs and the departments of Energy and Defense. Like the other programs supported by Congress and the USAID, ATG's first mission was to provide humanitarian assistance.
"We started out trying to put food on the table of people," said Executive Director Varoujan Der Simonian. "Then we continued to create employment opportunities, improve the quality of life of farmers. In fact, ATG helped write the law that allowed for the conversion of farmland to private ownership and helped establish farmer-owned business to serve farmers."
USAID received 60% of the $90 million Congress allocated for use in Armenia. Other US agencies split the rest of the amount. "I can tell you that the money has been well spent," said Simmons. These funds are allocated through the "Freedom Support Act' and face an across-the-board reduction in fiscal year 2004. Next year's budget proposes only $49 million dollars in assistance to Armenia, but is most likely to be increase when it reaches Congress and Armenia will be eligible for a new foreign aid program called the Millennium Challenge Account. The Ambassador is certain Armenia should have no difficulty winning Millennium funding.
Armenia's Economy
"The good news about Armenia's economy," said the Ambassador, "is that Armenia has a very talented and educated population. They have a very good macro-economic climate. They made the right kinds of decisions. They made the kinds of decisions that we would have wanted a lot of their neighbors to make in terms of allowing unlimited investments, exporting of profits, no currency controls."
Armenia's economy has made progress according to Ordway and Simmons. "By comparison to its neighbors in ex-Soviet Union, outside of the Baltic states, in what we call the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries, Armenia has done better than the other countries when it comes to macro-economic performance," said Simmons.
Ambassador Ordway said Armenia has a stable currency, low inflation and a higher growth rate, well over six percent. Last year's growth rate, according to Ordway, was 12.9 percent, and the first four months of this year, the growth rate was 11 percent.
"Now, the problem is, the paradox as we call it," said Simmons, "is that the distribution of wealth is very narrow. At the same time as we've had the economic growth, we've had an increase in the population that's living in poverty. We're trying to work with the government now. They're trying to develop a poverty reduction strategy, and we're trying to work with them to find ways to create growth, to create jobs, but to spread the benefits to a broader sector of society."
Both diplomats agreed that one of the dynamics slowing down economic development in Armenia is corruption. "Investors today do not invest in Armenia," said Simmons, "because they don't feel they are going to be treated equitably by the court system or by the tax administration people or by the customs people. We're working with the government to improve their systems in all three of those areas, and it is going to be across the board -- whether you're talking about health benefits, the social protection sector, the banking sector, private enterprise, tax, you name it."
Part of the corruption problem, according to Simmons, is that the average monthly salary of an Armenian is $44 a month. "Even though the cost of living there is low, that's not much money. Teachers make $20-25 a month, so they have to seek other opportunities," said Simmons. "A teacher might have to charge a student to come into the classroom, or a teacher might charge a student for a textbook – things that should be free. But for them to survive, they have to charge these informal, under the table payments."
Simmons says the same type of corruption exists in virtually all segments of society, including in the health sector, where doctors and nurses make less than a hundred dollars a month. While health care and medications are supposed to be free, most doctors and nurses are often forced to charge their patients so that they themselves can take care of their families.
One of the problems in economic growth, said the Ambassador, is that credit is very difficult to obtain. While banks in Armenia offer credit to businesses, they usually have extreme high rates and are for extremely short period like three years. Also, banks tend to ask for three times the amount in collateral, which makes it difficult for anyone to take out a loan.
"The USAID does provide loans, micro-loans," said Ordway, "but the problem is that there is 17 times as much money in cash in people's houses than there is in the banking system. The real secret in getting the economy going is getting that cash out of the mattresses and into the economy. This can play a very useful role for us in backing more loans. That's the real answer."
"Foreign investment is also an important component," said Ambassador Ordway. "and it has helped in several key areas. In terms of what American foreign investment has been, the largest single US investment is in the Hotel Armenia, which is a fairly substantial. The Pernod-Ricard company, a French company, has purchased the Yerevan Brandy company, and that made ten million dollars in profits last year. It exports huge amounts of brandy and is very successful. There are also high tech companies, about fifty of them in Yerevan. About twenty or so are American. They've created a lot of high-paying jobs."
While USAID supports several loan guarantee programs, including a micro-credit program for women, Ordway and Simmons believe the light manufacturing by small and medium sized companies must be encouraged. To help with these projects, the USAID is trying to lure Diasporan charities to partner with the USAID and launch jointly funded projects. When a Diasporan chartity like the Armenia Fund or the Ani and Narod Memorial Foundation invest in a program, the USAID is able to match a charity's infusion of money to make the joint project even more potent and more affective.
Genocide & Turkey
Introducing the Ambassador at the Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church on Saturday night was Armenian National Committee Chairwoman Hygo Ohannessian, who welcomed those in attendance by saying that as Armenian-Americans, the community had the right to pursue official recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
"The Armenian community will do everything in its power," said Ohannessian, "to ensure passage of the Genocide Resolution. If the administration thinks it can support a Turkish- Armenian reconciliation commission, TARC, the Armenian community will not compromise on the Genocide."
Ohannessian, looking directly at Ambassador Ordway, said most of those in attendance were the children and grandchildren of Genocide survivors and that the community would not let the State Department to allow a handful of Armenians, who are outside the mainstream community, to sideline the Genocide issue and cause division in the community.
"The word 'Genocide' was not even in existence in 1915," said Ordway later that evening, in response to a question about why the US government would not use the word to describe the massacres of the Armenians. "I don't think an argument over a word is necessarily the end all and be all of this particular issue."
"Having Congress pass a resolution," said the Ambassador, "would not be effective in terms of accomplishing our goals and would risk damage to an important relationship with Turkey. The correlation of risk to benefit is not such that this administration or any other administration has supported such legislation. We didn't think that the chances of promoting the agenda that we have was sufficiently high to justify the risk."
When the Ambassador was asked whether in light of Turkey's recent opposition to allow the US to use its airbase in Turkey to launch the war against Iraq, would there be a better chance to pass the Genocide Resolution. "Draw your own conclusion," answered the Ambassador, reminding attendees that Armenia and Armenians must gauge the risks and benefits of their relationships with both Turkey and Azerbaijan.
"When it comes to what happened in 1915," said Ordway, "I don't think there is any doubt about facts. There is no dispute, certainly not in the United States or most of the world, over what happened. If you look at President Bush's statement, specifically the one from last year and the year before, both in which he specifically mentioned that a million-and-a-half were massacred or exiled in the dying days of Ottomon Empire."
"This is a pretty clear statement of what happened," said Ordway. "The other thing on which there is no doubt -- certainly there is no doubt in my mind and I don't think there is any doubt in the minds of the political leadership of this country -- of the strong feeling, the suffering that is reflected in those feelings of the Armenian-American community. They are clear. They are made in a very strong passion and have gained significant support in Congress."
Ordway said the real issue about Genocide recognition is to look back and see a common understanding of history, which is essential, he said, for Armenians and Turks and Armenia and Turkey. "There has to be some emphasis on the future," said Ordway. "There has to be a way to establish a secure and stable relationship between the Republic of Armenia and Turkey -- neither one of which is likely to pick up stakes and move any time soon. Nor is there any likelihood of changes in their countries and their population. Those are facts and will remain facts."
The government of the Republic of Armenia, said Ordway, has what he thinks a good policy on this relationship with Turkey. "They're in favor of establishing relations and improving relations without any pre-conditions," he said. "That doesn't mean however that they're going to forget the facts. But they need to move ahead while not forgetting the past."
"I would suggest," said Ordway, "that there are many ways to approach this issue. You, as a community, have a strong dispute with the administration as to whether securing a Congressional resolution is the appropriate way. This administration, the previous administration have opposed a resolution. That approach is sort of like a head-on assault, going straight at the problem, head on."
"There may be a role for that [approach]. It's your right to pursue it, and I know for sure, you're going to continue to pursue that," said Ordway. "But I think there's got to be more to a strategy than just that, and part of that strategy has to be to identify forces, elements, factions in Turkey that would slowly but surely brought back to the point that they're going to move forward, that they're going to have to face up to this; and to do it in a positive, engaging, constructive fashion."
Ordway was asked by another community member why there was a steadfast culture at the State Department opposing the recognition of Genocide. "I spent 27 years with the State Department," answered Ordway, "and I don't think there is any such culture in the State Department."
He said the State Department provides to the President the best advice it can and the best information it can about foreign policy and the consequences of those policies and actions. "And in this case, as in most cases," said Ordway, referring to the Genocide Resolution, "it's the president who makes the decision. And I know as one hundred percent solid fact that this is something that the President is personally aware of and is involved in. These are not decisions that are made by deputy assistant desk officers at the State Department."
Nagorno-Kharapagh
The USAID also manages a program in the Republic of Nagorno-Kharapagh. The program is funded by a $20 million package Congress authorized in 1998. Simmons says USAID has $19.3 million already and will be receiving two million more this year. The proposal for fiscal year 2004 also calls for another two million dollars in assistance.
"The program there is humanitarian assistance by legislation," said Simmons. "We're focusing on rehabilitation of housing that was damaged in the war. We've done about a thousand houses and we hope to do two thousand more. We are doing rehabilitation of health programs and schools, portable water and irrigation water systems,'
Finding, unearthing and defusing unexploded mines in Nagorno-Kharapagh is another USAID funded project. "If people want to walk through open country to get water or to get fuel, firewood for fuel, there is still the danger of stepping on mines or unexploded ordinance," said Simmons. "Children often pick up something that looks like a toy but is in fact an explosive, and we're still trying to get rid of those things to this day."
The US is also funding a new military assistance program in Armenia, according Ambassador Ordway. "The Armenian military has decided to use the military assistance money we're providing for modernizing their communications system, to purchase radios and other telecommunications equipment. The American government is also bringing Armenian military officers to US military schools and helping Armenia set up its own military academy.
"We have just established a sister city relationship with the Kansas National Guard and the Armenian military," said Ordway. "It promises to be a very good relationship -- one that will help them out. There's also a NATO partnership for peace exercise later this month in Armenia. A National Guard unit from Maryland will be participating in that exercise. So there is a lot going on in this area that's relatively new and that will build real solid relationships between our militaries and provide Armenia, not necessarily an alternative, but some other options to the only ones they've had in the past ten years – which is just with Russia."
Hopeful about military investment in Armenia, one attendee asked if the US would consider moving its military base out of Turkey and into Armenia, especially in light of the recent decision by Turkey not to allow the US to launch an attack on Iraq from Turkey. Those are decisions that the military makes based on its global needs and distribution of troops, said Ordway.
A community member asked why the US had not exerted its influence to route the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline through Armenia. Ordway said that he was surprised that the pipeline construction project, which costs $10 million dollars a day, had gotten off the ground. When complete, the pipeline will pump oil from Azerbaijan, through Georgia and to a port in Turkey.
"BP (British Petroleum) has started building the pipeline," said Ordway, "it was absolutely true that a better cheaper route would have taken the pipeline through Armenia. But that's not going to happen. That's not going to happen and it didn’t happen for two reasons -- one of which was somewhat emotional and the other reason is pretty logical. The emotional one is that the Azeris would rather freeze and [flood] the sea rather than see that pipeline be of advantage to Armenia. But the more rational one is that Armenia and Azerbaijan are in a state of war; there is a ceasefire. It would not make sense for any Azeri to agree to send the pipeline through a country it is in war with and give Armenia a hand on the spigot with their major economic future.
The Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline is a good illustration why it is important for Armenia to settle the Nagorno-Kharapagh dispute, said the Ambassador. "Not just to provide a stable, secure future for Nagorno-Kharapagh and its inhabitants," he said, "but to bring economic infusion into the region, which had it in the past and needs it in the future."
The Ambassador believes Armenia needs energy security and a diversity of energy supplies. Right now, 97 percent of Armenians have power 24 hours-a-day and seven-days-a-week. The real problems with the energy sector, according to the Ambassador, is with its future. Armenia depends on Russia for nuclear and gas supplies, which provide all the electrical energy.
"Energy is one of our primary focus projects of the USAID," said Ordway. "The nuclear power plant is going to have to shut down. It will reach the end of its useful life at some point. And that's a very expensive proposition. The generating capacity of that power plant will have to be replaced, and it would take lots of money to build a new plant."
"The other problem that plagues the energy system is corruption," said the Ambassador. "The losses of the system are 50 million dollars a year in what is called 'non-technical line losses,' which is a fancy word for stealing. That power is generated but it is not paid for. It leaks out of the system in some fashion. And consumers pay their bills, but money doesn't get to the people who generate it."
"If the people who generate it can't pay their bills, then what happens is that Armenia built up a lot of debt for both gas and nuclear fuel," said Ordway. "They settled the gas debt, essentially by exchanging the gas distribution industry, and they are about to settle the nuclear debt for exchange of the management of the nuclear power plant."
Ordway believes that Armenia has to look at another direction for fuel. He said there are existing pipelines that the Soviets used to carry their gas supplies directly from Azerbaijan to Armenia. "They could open up tomorrow and provide gas to Armenia," he said, "but in order for that to happen, we gotta get Nagorno-Kharapagh settled and start building that new relationship with Azerbaijan. I think it can be done, but it's not likely to happen in the near future. We're working with the Russians and the French as the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group to try to mediate that conflict. We've been at it for several years, and we've had high level meetings."
"Unfortunately, this is not a good year to expect any progress on this," said Ordway. "Instead of having strong presidents who have the political ability to build consensus and move toward difficult compromises, you actually have weakened presidents in both countries. In the case of Armenia, I think that situation will correct itself by early next year."
"Our hope is that President Kocharian," said Ordway, "will return some political stability to the country and be in a position to provide that kind of leadership, which I think is going to be difficult in the current split in society. The situation is worse in Azerbaijan. President Alieve is in ill health. It's not clear whether he will run for re-election in October, if they'll let his son be his successor or not. In any case, our primary emphasis in Nagorno-Kharapagh is preventing the re-occurrence of war. Any violation of the ceasefire would be disastrous to both countries."