Identifier | Created | Classification | Origin |
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09YEREVAN137 | 2009-02-25 17:36:00 | CONFIDENTIAL | Embassy Yerevan |
1. (C) SUMMARY: For nearly a year, this embassy has urged a tough, measured line on Armenia's Millennium Challenge Compact, seeking to maximize the incentive value of MCC to galvanize Armenian action to correct it's Ruling Justly performance. We sense that some in Washington have lost patience with Armenia's tepid actions in this area. We have too. However, Ambassador strongly believes that it would be highly counter-productive for all of our policy goals, including progres on Ruling Justly indicators, to announce a punitive reduction in Armenia's Compact program at the March MCC Board meeting. A March decision to cancel the roads project would be a major shock to the Armenian President -- given mixed messages Armenia has understood regarding funding -- and one that would be taken deeply personally by the president, provoking a backlash against the complete specturm of U.S. priorities. 2. (C) Rather, the March Board meeting should approve a strong, clear, unified, and specific USG message to Armenia that the Board will make its final decision at the June Board meeting on how to evaluate Armenia's 2008 Ruling Justly reversals, and this upcoming quarter will be Armenia's last chance to show tangible improvement. A serious Board warning would give President Sargsian unambiguous fair warning. It might succeed in winning positive steps from Armenia. Even if it did not, with the clear message of warning, combined with three more months to work, Sargsian would not feel sandbagged. END SUMMARY A VERY DISAPPOINTING REPORT CARD -------------------------- 3. (C) Reftels and post's body of political reporting over the past year show that Armenia's Ruling Justly performance has continued to lag badly since the flawed February 2008 election, March 2008 political violence and state of emergency, and ongoing political tension. There have been small steps forward, and small steps back. The parliamentary commission of inquiry into the political violence of March 1-2, as well as the multi-partisan expert fact-finding group which was established to support the parliamentary commission, have each been bright spots. 4. (C) The number of politically-motivated detentions has fallen to roughly 60 (numbers and definitions differ, of who counts as a politcal detainee), from more than 125 nearly a year ago. Twenty-eight defendants have been pardoned by the president, though this positive step is dimmed by opposition allegations that their activists were coerced to make false admissions of guilt in exchange for their freedom. The "Trial of the Seven" high-profile detainees continues and there is some hope that a mechanism orchestrated by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) could lead to a political solution and release of these prisoners. Freedom of assembly and media freedom remain badly circumscribed. In short, Armenia still earns a failing grade on its Ruling Justly performance in 2008. PRESSURE BRINGS PROGRESS -------------------------- 5. (C) The pattern of Armenia's performance indicates that political pressure can play a constructive role. In September (ref B), there was a positive feeling that real improvements were being made, even if in early stages, and there was a tone of optimisim in Yerevan that the new Armenian Administration might prove better and more visionary than most people had expected. This came in the wake of unified international community advocacy and pressure on Armenian authorities. At the end of September, Armenian YEREVAN 00000137 002.2 OF 003 Prime Minister Tigran Sargsian visited Washington, and returned with the clear (mis)impression that Washington was ready to "move on" from the problems of Armenia's lacking democratic legitimacy. Armenian leaders began to feel that the post-election international push on Armenia's democratic deficiencies had ended; short attention spans in the West had moved on. The promised October/November wave of new reforms, which had been so broadly foreshadowed to us in August/September by Armenian leaders never materialized. The GOAM became complacent. Only in December -- well after the Russia-Georgia crisis subsided -- when PACE showed a renewed strong interest in Armenia's democracy and human rights problems was there another burst of GOAM effort to improve (Ref E). 6. (C) The lesson we take from this is that Armenian leaders are susceptible to some degree to international pressure on their democracy and human rights performance, but that when that attention has waned, or the messages grew muddied, Armenians have convinced themselves that the problems have passed, and they need no longer address the tough issues. September through November 2008 were essentially lost months for democratic progress for this reason. ARMENIANS BELIEVE FULL MCC RESTORATION IMMINENT -------------------------- -- 7. (C) We know that Armenian leaders are convinced that MCC funding is on the verge of being restored. European Union Special Representative Peter Semneby told the Ambassador February 25 that President Sargsian had assured him February 24 that funding for the roads program would resume in March and that this was crucial at part of the GOAM's response to the economic crisis. Sargsian said the same thing to MCA-Armenia CEO Ara Hovsepian, as we later learned from Hovsepian. ...AND WILL LIKELY RETALIATE IF BLINDSIDED -------------------------- 8. (C) Sargsian can perhaps be forgiven for thinking this way, given former MCC CEO Danilovich's public remarks reported December 20, 2008, that the roads funding "should resume in March." Armenian leaders also read much more positively than they should have public and private remarks by Secretary Rice that she was encouraged by "healing reforms" in Armenia. The GOAM has begun to tune out the stern letters from MCC and the tough messages from post, preferring to misinterpret the more nuanced messages as signalling that the USG will not hold Armenia to rigorous account. This has lulled Armenia into a false complacency -- which sets the stage for feelings of deep betrayal, and anger by the president, if we suddenly announce an MCC penalty in March. This would no doubt have an adverse impact on the GOAM's performance on the Ruling Justly indicators, as well as other high priority issues. OUR RECOMMENDATION -------------------------- 9. (C) To be most constructive, the Board should explicitly agree that Armenia's performance has not met the mark, and that in June the Board will take a final decision evaluating the 2008/2009 performance and evaluate whether and how much to penalize Armenia. We should communicate that very clearly -- albeit privately -- to President Sargsian, being careful not to nuance the message to the point where he does not take the seriousness of this last warning on board. This message should articulate our short term expectations to restore funding, and also signal that, once these have been met, we will expect the GOAM to continue positive momentum throughout the remaining life of the Compact. We need to be specific about what we expect, and post recommends the following list as meaningful and achievable: -- release of the seven high-profile "Trial of Seven" detainees (or convincing us that some of these are guilty of YEREVAN 00000137 003.2 OF 003 real crimes); -- full freedom of assembly, especially throughout the campaign period for the May 31 Yerevan municipal election (which will be an important bellwether); -- and taking steps to improve the media climate, and specifically repealing the two-year moratorium on new television licenses. 10. (C) If no or inadequate changes are forthcoming, the June Board meeting -- at that point a full year after President Sargsian's April 9 inuaguration and the 2008 MCC decision to halt roads funding -- will be the most appropriate time to issue a public penalty, such as cancelling the roads portion of Armenia's Compact for its poor performance. In proposing the above list, we should be careful not to handcuff ourselves too tightly. Authorities could make other major steps forward that we have not here considered, but which would nonetheless be impressive. Conversely, authorties could achieve some or all of the above steps in letter, but not in spirit, leaving us worse off than before. Nonetheless, we consider a specific list an important and useful step in communicating clearly to the GOAM what our level of expectations is for defining success. Equally important, we need to be prepared to keep our part of the bargain: if the Armenians do come through and meet our demands in letter and spirit, we should then restore and implement the full Compact program. YOVANOVITCH |