Thomas de Waal

Thomas de Waal is a British journalist, writer and an expert on the Caucasus. He has reported for, amongst others, the BBC World Service, the Moscow Times, and The Times. [Russia bars UK reporter on security grounds by Oliver Bullough ] He is currently a Caucasus editor at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in London. He is the co-author of "Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus" (New York, 1998) and author of "Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War" (New York, 2003). [ [http://iwpr.net/index.php?apc_state=heno-top_contact_us.html&s=o&o=top_staff_bios_cau.html Institute for War and Peace Reporting. Caucasus programme staff bios.] ] He graduated from Oxford University with degrees in Russian and modern Greek and has since wrote for the BBC, Moscow Times, and The Times

In 2006 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia denied an entry visa to de Waal, who was due to attend in Moscow the presentation of a Russian version of his book on the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, citing a law that says a visa can be refused "in the aims of ensuring state security." [ [http://canada.ifex.org/alerts/content/view/full/75465/ British journalist denied entry visa, CJES/IFEX, July 2006] ] De Waal believes that his visa denial was retaliation for his critical reporting about the Russian war in Chechnya. [ [http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=18480 The St. Petersburg Times. Activists, Reporters Also Called a Threat] ] [De Waal, Thomas. [http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7533 Opinions: Barred by Moscow] " "Prospect Magazine", July 2006, issue 124.]

Reviews

De Waal's book on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict was generally well received. According to Foreign Affairs journal review of "Black Garden", de Waal "offers a deeper and more compelling account of the conflict than anyone before.... one likely to exercise give-no-quarters partisans on both sides." [ [http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20031101fabook82645/thomas-de-waal/black-garden-armenia-and-azerbaijan-through-peace-and-war.html Foreign Affairs. Review by Robert Legvold] ] Transitions online analyst Richard Allen Greene added: "This book will undoubtedly infuriate partisans on both sides of the conflict. But for anyone who wants a thorough, sympathetic, readable, and fair account, it provides an essential introduction to a war that has left two countries in what De Waal aptly calls 'a kind of slow suicide pact.'" [ [http://www.tol.cz/look/TOL/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=14&NrIssue=48&NrSection=1&NrArticle=9637&ST1=body&ST_T1=cer&ST_PS1=1&ST_AS1=0&ST_LS1=0&ST_max=1 Transitions Online. Garden of Discord.] ]

Time magazine reviewer Paul Quinn-Judge called "Black Garden" a "brilliant book," and added further that "De Waal's book will infuriate blind partisans on both sides, but for anyone who truly wants to understand what happened in this part of the Caucasus, it will not be surpassed for many years. He is cautious, meticulous and even-handed, and the breadth of his research is remarkable". [ [http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,586303,00.html Two Peoples, One Nightmare] ". Time Magazine.]

Parameters journal review states: "Thomas de Waal, noted British journalist and specialist on the Caucasus, has ... [produced] a book that is both a poignant chronicle and a lucid, evenhanded analysis of the intricacies of this conflict". [ [http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/parameters/05spring/spr-rev.htm Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly - Spring 2005] ] Neal Ascherson in his review of "Black Garden" in The New York Review of Books refers to de Waal as "a wise and patient reporter", and the book as "admirable and rigorous". [ [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=16800 The New York Review of Books. In the Black Garden by Neal Ascherson. November 20, 2003] , [http://www.armeniaforeignministry.com/news/inthenews/031110blackgarden.html full text] at the website of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Republic of Armenia]

Critics

The President of Armenian Academy of Political Research, Professor Alexander Manasyan, in reviewing "Black Garden", wrote that de Waal "supports the point of view which is steered by the propaganda" of Baku. [ [http://www.ichd.org/?page=policy&pid=50 Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: on the Frontlines of the Information War, or the Last “Accord” of the Year, by Alexander Manasyan, 2007] ]

The book was also criticized by Karen Vrtanesyan, an Armenian expert for the Ararat Center for Strategic Research, as "a banal propaganda but not an objective research on Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict." ["Studies on Strategy and Security", compiled and edited, with an introduction and commentary by Dr Armen Ayvazyan, Yerevan, Lusakn, 2007, 684 pp. , p. 657] Vrtanesyan concludes that "Black Garden" is not an unbiased work, neither can its author be considered a neutral observer." [Vrtanesyan, Karen. [http://ararat-center.org/index.php?p=11&l=eng Thomas de Waal, “The Black Garden”: In Search of Imagined Balance/Abstract] .]

References

External links

* [http://www.armenianreporteronline.com/old/27072002/br-dewaal.htm Interview with Thomas de Waal]
* [http://www.ichd.org/?page=policy&pid=50 Thomas de Waal's "Black Garden": a critical review by Alexander Manasyan]