Today.Az » Politics » Aid to Azerbaijan
24 March 2008 [14:51] - Today.Az
When Armenia established its independence in the aftermath of the Soviet break-up, the U.S. undertook massive financial aid and assistance to that nation.
From day one, Armenia became the second largest per capita recipient of U.S. aid in the world.
Since 1992, Armenia has received over $1.77 billion in aid. Armenia has received $225m in cumulative U.S. foreign assistance for democratization (about 13 percent of all aid to that nation) from 1992 to 2006. These figures do not include millions in additional democratization aid budgeted for 2008. Did the U.S. taxpayers and American hopes and expectations bear fruit?
As all the elections in Armenia have shown, most vividly last month's presidential elections and its violent aftermath, U.S. efforts have failed and money was all but wasted: at least eight people killed, over a hundred wounded, tanks and army patrolling the streets of the capital, full-scale government censorship of all communications for at least 20 days, and main opposition contender under house arrest.
Armenia is also militarily occupying 16 percent of neighboring Azerbaijan, displacing 800,000 ethnic Azeris in the process, placing an even harder moral and financial burden on its population to sustain and support its military machine.
Compare this with Azerbaijan, a victim of occupation and ethnic cleansing by Armenia, yet has received only $746m in cumulative budgeted foreign assistance from the U.S. (from 1992 to 2008), of which only about $75m were for democratization. Thus, larger Azerbaijan, a strategic US ally, has received four times less aid than a smaller but more aggressive Armenia.
Furthermore, when comparing to a similar presidential election that was held 5 years ago in Azerbaijan, when two people unfortunately died, dozens were wounded, yet tanks and army were not deployed, and no censorship or emergency rule imposed, Armenia 's record looks even more deplorable. Thus, despite being born with a silver spoon in its mouth and more than generously funded by U.S. taxpayers, Armenia, the second largest aid recipient in the world, ended up having markedly worse elections than Azerbaijan.
This is the wrong message to send; we should not be rewarding a corrupt and militaristic regime, which is not only occupying its neighbors' lands, conducts ethnic cleansing and engages in crimes against humanity (e.g., The Khojaly Massacre), but also violently kills its own citizens during its elections and conducts markedly worse elections than its neighbors.
It's grand time we ask Kocharyan and his regime the age-old question - Where's the money?!
Arzu Aghayeva
Long Beach , CA
“Pasadena Star-News”
|
|
