Thomas de Waal

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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. [1] He is currently a Caucasus editor at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in London.

Thomas de Waal is 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).[2]

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".[3] Thomas de Waal believes that his visa denial was retaliation for his critical reporting about Chechnya.[4][5]

[edit] Reviews

According to Foreign Affairs journal review of Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through peace and war, de Waal "offers a deeper and more compelling account of the conflict than anyone before. He ferrets out critical material from an amazingly diverse set of interviews and assembles the story in a calm, firm, utterly fair-minded fashion, one likely to exercise give-no-quarters partisans on both sides".[6]

Transitions online analyst Richard Allen Greene writes about the same book: "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."[7]

Time magazine reviewer Paul Quinn-Judge states that Black Garden is a "brilliant book". He further writes: "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".[8]

Parameters journal review states: "Numerous accounts have been written about the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. However, few of these accounts seem to be able to measure up to the standard of serving as a dispassionate, impartial examination of the origins of the conflict in the late 1980s and how events unfolded during the war in the early 1990s. Thomas de Waal, noted British journalist and specialist on the Caucasus, has corrected this record by producing a book that is both a poignant chronicle and a lucid, evenhanded analysis of the intricacies of this conflict".[9]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Russia bars UK reporter on security grounds by Oliver Bullough
  2. ^ Institute for War and Peace Reporting. Caucasus programme staff bios.
  3. ^ British journalist denied entry visa, CJES/IFEX, July 2006
  4. ^ The St. Petersburg Times. Activists, Reporters Also Called a Threat
  5. ^ Prospect Magazine, July 2006, issue 124. Opinions: "Barred by Moscow" by Thomas de Waal
  6. ^ Foreign Affairs. Review by Robert Legvold
  7. ^ Transitions Online. Garden of Discord.
  8. ^ Time. Two Peoples, One Nightmare
  9. ^ Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly - Spring 2005

[edit] External links

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