Internal politics

In an interview with our reporter yesterday, Grisha Virabyan of Artashat, who has received political asylum in Belgium, made a sensational announcement: “While he was Deputy Prime Minister, Hovik Abrahamyan took 3 million dollars from one of the current ruling government members to give Robert Kocharyan, saying that he was following Kocharyan’s instructions, but gave only 1 million dollars to Kocharyan,” said Virabyan. Yesterday when we asked for confirmation or denial of this new information, Head of the NA Public Relations and Media Department Gohar Poghosyan stated, “It is just more of Grisha Virabyan’s nonsense and lies.”

In the interview with our reporter, Grisha Virabyan said, “If Hovik Abrahamyan or Robert Kocharyan deny that information in the press, I am ready to name definite people and reveal when it happened and most importantly, what outcome it had.” In response to our question of whether he understood that he was accusing people of having committed a crime, and that could be considered slander or false testimony, Grisha Virabyan answered, “I have stated many times that any activity of Hovik Abrahamyan is a crime and he, by having taken that position, endangers the national security of the country. I do not have the authority of a prosecutor or an investigator; I am saying that it is the authorities that should prove it. I can name the sphere, and the minister from whom they took the money. There are recorded facts.” Grisha Virabyan has not yet provided any further information.

This post belongs to the Prosperous Armenian Party (PAP) by coalition quota. Two weeks have already passed since the PAP put forth Sergey Bagratyan’s candidacy for this post. Since that time two government sessions have taken place, but no appointment has been made.

Armenia’s traditional, socio-political thinking sometimes shocks me in its brevity. In many cases, brevity should be understood in its literal sense. Either because well-known figures, while interpreting developments are often unable to look ahead or back from, a given point, or the radii of these types of interpretations is unbelievably short, almost to the point of non-existence. This fact became obvious again following the recent statement made by Medvedev-Obama-Sarkozy. Known and unknown circles again and again accused the Armenian National Congress of presenting the negotiation process of the Karabakh conflict in а pessimistic light and raising alarms about the possible (disproportionate) return of the liberated territories, especially since these territories remain under the control of Armenia’s armed forces, as they were before.

It is in these types of interpretations that the shortness of Armenian traditional, socio-political thinking lays. It is not able to understand processes, its comprehension of developments is often delayed, it is not capable of noticing changes in a given situation that, albeit insignificant at the moment, become significant in time, even transformative. For instance, being familiar with a person’s psychological makeup, you insist that he is going to commit suicide. You can’t prove it. And all those who consider your assertion to be inane think so based on the argument that the man whom you deem suicidal is alive. Then you hear that the man is going up to the roof of his multistory building. You analyze the situation you insist that he is about to jump off the building. But you still can’t prove it, because those who deny your suicide version have an argument—the man is still alive. There may even be someone who will insist that the man is going up to find a location for his new TV set and antenna. He might really meet some people who are placing antennas or doing something else on the roof, and go back down with them. At that point they will really laugh at your suicide theory. And they would be “right” because they would have an argument—the argument that the man is alive—while you can’t prove that psychologically and morally he has said farewell to his life long ago. And when the potential suicide realizes that a great deal of interest is focused on him, he will go up to the roof at night and throw himself down without anyone’s knowledge. Up until the moment when he throws himself down, all those who did not want to believe in your assumption would be right, but from the moment when he jumps to the moment of his death you would be right. As a result, you would be right but only for a few seconds, because those who did not believe your assumption would have been right for hours, days, months and maybe years.

Going back to the issue of Karabakh, I cannot but notice that some literate Armenians treat the situation in a similar way—some because of self-interest, others with no self-interest. Sometimes I think that this technical problem in reality has a genetic origin. We, Armenians, do not hurry to see a doctor when we feel pain in some part of our body but we rely on the fact that the pain just keeps recurring and doesn’t last that long. Meaning that we are alive, we don’t feel bad in general and we can eat, drink, rejoice and have fun. As for the pains, well, everybody has pains and there is nothing strange in that. The logical extension here is that the average Armenian sees the doctor only when the pain has deprived him of the ability to eat, drink, hear and perceive. Meaning that there’s nothing left to do but order a coffin. It seems that many people want to disseminate this type of perception of the Karabakh conflict in the consciousness of the Armenian public; or, at the very least they themselves grasp the situation along those lines, starting with the statement made by the presidential trio and ending up with numerous documents approved by PACE, UNO and the European Parliament. Those who perceive the situation in this way are right for the moment; they were right yesterday; and they may be right tomorrow, or for a long time to come. But they will be wrong for a split-second and it is in that split-second that everything will be decided.

The public has the right to know, and wants to know, why coalition ministers or other officials resign unexpectedly giving up their positions to other party protégés. Of course, some explanations are offered. But if we recall, for instance, all the explanations given by the Prosperous Armenia or Orinats Yerkir Parties, it will turn out that their ministers are losing their positions exclusively for having done a great job. It also turns out that those former ministers have already solved the issue of Armenia to be a superpower of the region by 2020, and the new ministers coming in will embroil Armenia, after 2020, in war with Japan and China.

This is truly a brilliant strategy of governance: if a minister has worked well, let him go and let him live quietly on his own. But if he is dim-witted and an illiterate, or if he has made a mess of things, under no circumstances should he be let go: let him stay in his leadership position, let him suffer and bear the responsibility for his mistakes with his hard ministerial work. For instance, Foreign Minister Edik Nalbandyan seems to deliver each sentence he forms. That’s what he deserves, let him suffer in his tough work, let him be tormented in airplanes for days on end, unshaven and unwashed.

People like him should not be relieved of their positions; they are not worthy of freedom. Or take, for instance, Police Chief Alik Sargsyan. Does he spread false information among the public? He does. Let him continue doing it; let him suffer under the weight of his general’s shoulder straps; let him continue losing his facility of speech and communicate with the public and journalists through yelps and through incomprehensible and erratic gestures. Why did Mkhik of the Red Cross turn in his resignation? The public would not be against knowing the answer to this question. But Mkhik has flown the coop. Although he once showed initiative and decided to call, to give an interview and make a public appearance. So, Mkhik, why did you resign? Because Gagik Tsarukyan is not human, he is divine. Why else? Serzh Sargsyan is not human either, but nor is he a god. His is many gods. Make sure you write the word “Gods” in capitals, OK? And so, Mkhik had no problem giving the reasons for his resignation to a socially vulnerable public, but he just wanted to do everything to convince his bosses yet again, that is, for the billionth-trillionth time, that he is shaven and showered and ready 24 hours a day to execute their orders, be it in relation to a swimming pool, the sauna or anything else. People, dear people of Armenia, we have already forgotten that the minister’s post is a solemn position. Despite the reality established in Armenia, the minister, by definition, is not an executor, but a decision-making institution. But in Armenia, the government of ministers had long ago turned into a spineless structure because if in his soul, his heart, his life and dreams, a person is a back-scrubber in a bathhouse, neither money nor a service car or a seal can deprive him of his personality. And in Armenia, ministers are basically turning into back-scrubbers because the important issues of the country’s governance are being solved in bathhouses and saunas.

NIKOL PASHINYAN
www.nikol.am
From Kosh Penitentiary

The fact that the Armenian authorities with their current spineless condition cannot criticize the statements made by the Sarkozy-Obama-Medvedev trio was clear from the very beginning. When the legitimate authorities of the superpowers speak, the power seizer can only be under the table. But the national authorities have gotten so good at manipulating public conscious that every time a high-level statement disclosing the content of the negotiation process of the Karabakh conflict is made, they try to convince the Armenian public that the Armenian interests are fully accounted for in that document, that the negotiation process has evolved in conformity with Armenian interests.
The same thing happened after the statement made on Saturday by the Sarkozy-Medvedev-Obama trio. RA Foreign Minister Edvard Nalbandyan noticed some positive nuance in that statement, which promises a future for the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. But anyone familiar with at least the majority of the alphabet, anyone who gets acquainted with the content of the statement made by the OSCE/MG state members can reach just one conclusion: there is only one definitive thing in the document, which is the demand to return the “occupied” territories to Azerbaijan. The rest, even if it contains positive nuances, is just blah, blah, blah nothing but gibberish. And the only other thing, a more or less definitive point in this blah, blah, blah document is the return of the refugees, which makes the future of Karabakh even more ambiguous. Against this background the happy whining of RA FM Edik Nalbandyan and Spokesman of the ARP parliamentary fraction Edik Sharmazanov, makes it clear that even the sharpest criticisms lodged against the authorities who act within the context of the negotiation process of the Karabakh conflict, is fair.
If we revisit the statements made by the presidential trio in Aquila last year and follow the ones made in Huntsville this year, we will realize that during the negotiation of this past year only the demand to return the liberated territories to Azerbaijan has been significantly intensified and nothing more. That is, the Serzh-Nalbandyan diplomacy has not only failed to take the contents of the negotiation process away from the exclusive issue of the liberated territories, but has irreversibly been mired in the vicious logic of the exchange of promises of the superpowers to tolerate gang-rule. It is more important that Serzh’s authorities try to assure, on various occasions, that negotiations for the return of the liberated territories are not being carried out. In this sense they are right: they do not negotiate for the return of the liberated territories. The negotiations for that theme were over long ago. That’s why the only definitive and lucid point of the Huntsville’s statement is formulated in the first line and records a clear demand to return the liberated territories to Azerbaijan. This very demand of returning the liberated territories in exchange for nothing in particular has somehow made Edik really happy. Maybe because they know that the liberated territories will be returned not in exchange for anything but for the West’s promises to extend their gang-rule.

NIKOL PASHINYAN
www.nikol.am
From Kosh Penitentiary

This post had been vacant since June 21, when former Minister Mkhitar Mnatsakanyan resigned. The name of the individual aspiring to this position was submitted to the PAP with the coalition quota, was known the day after Mnatsakanyan’s resignation, but Serzh Sargsyan was in no big hurry to appoint him.

Davit Kiramijyan, one of the youngsters who were attacked by the police on May 31 by Saryan’s statue and who are currently in detention, is charged under article 258,3,1 (Hooliganism) and Sargis Gevorgyan is charged under article 316,1 (Violence against a public figure) of RA Criminal Code. Both cases are punishable from a fine to up to 5 years of imprisonment. Kiramijyan has serious health problems, but until today the RA authorities have refused to change his precautionary measure.

Secretary of the National Security Council Arthur Baghdasaryan mentioned at the press conference yesterday that a special interdepartmental commission has been created that deals with the issues of improving the RA border security. It is expected that by year-end they will have a complex package of measures to improve border security. Recording that the border security is not on a proper level, Baghdasaryan tried to convince those present that “Today we are ready for any scenario that might develop.” “We have an unsolved conflict and this means that as long as this state of relative peace prevails, our armed forces should be ready to withstand any aggression,” said NSC Secretary.

Yesterday, a group of young activists of the Armenian National Congress marched from “Barekamutyun” metro station to the OSCE Yerevan office that is located on Sundukyan Street. The young people stood in rows in front of the office and started chanting “Freedom to David!” after which they handed a letter to the representatives of the office, in which they demanded the OSCE to intervene in the release of David Kiramijyan, arrested on May 31. The letter was addressed to OSCE acting president, Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan Kanat Saudabayev. The letter stated the unlawful acts of the police and that David Kiramijyan had committed no crime but just exercised his right to move freely. After giving the letter to the representatives of the office, the young people with flags, speakers, pictures of David Kiramijyan and posters marched from Sundukyan street to Baghramyan Avenue, from where they went on to the ANC headquarters located on Koryun street. In the course of the march, the young people were chanting, “David, we stand with you!” “Now!”, “Free and Independent Armenia”, “Armenia without Serzh and Rob”. The participants of the march were escorted by 10 policemen, one Gazel minibus and one Ford sedan full of policemen. In the course of the march the policemen were unusually kind and circumspect; they were talking to the young people with a smile and opening the way for the march to go on without any obstacle. But their endurance completely disappeared when walking along Baghramyan Avenue the young people started chanting “Serzhik, go away!” The policemen immediately attacked the young people and started pushing them around. In spite of policemen’s expectations, the young people did not respond to the pushing and the policemen retreated in surprise. The march went on without any further incidents.

Yesterday Serzh Sargsyan unexpectedly left for NKR. Attempts were made for a while to keep his visit a secret. As early as yesterday morning an official statement was released that RA Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan had left for Stepanakert, where together with NKR President Bako Sahakyan and NKR Defense Minister Movses Hakobyan he would discuss issues relating to army-building and the processes taking place in the region. But there was no word in the official statement that S. Sargsyan had also left for NKR. And this, despite the fact that according to our sources in Stepanakert, Serzh Sargsyan was present at that meeting. It is not clear why the visit was kept secret. According to the information circulating, Serzh Sargsyan left for Stepanakert to present to the authorities in NKR the results of the trilateral meeting with the presidents of Azerbaijan and Russia in St. Petersburg on June 17, or rather, to discuss the new proposals presented to the sides by the Russian President that relate to the resolution of the Karabakh conflict and are based on the Madrid principles.

In an interview with our reporter, Kiramijyan’s attorney Melanya Arustamyan said that Khachatryan’s decision is unjustified, and that she will appeal the decision in the RA Court of Cassation. After exhausting all of the options for appeal in local courts, according to the attorney, they will present the case to the European Court. Yesterday, representatives from the Office of Human Rights Defender met with Kiramijyan in the “Nubarashen” penitentiary. The political prisoner told them that he has health problems; in particular, he noted that his nose has been bleeding periodically for the past two days. Before this, the political prisoner’s relatives had announced that Davit is having headaches, which are a result of the violence which was used against him.

The two Armenian soldiers injured as a result of the June 18 attack by an Azerbaijani diversionary group on one of the Armenian positions in the northeastern section of the armed Karabakh-Azerbaijani contact line near the village of Chaylu in the region of Martakert, are still at the military hospital of the RA Ministry of Defense. Yesterday, the head of the hospital Mikael Mikaelyan informed us that Garik H. Matevosyan and Andranik V. Arzumanyan are at his hospital. According to Mikaelyan, Arzumanyan’s condition is still extremely serious. So far the soldier has undergone two surgeries, and is presently unconscious and in a deep coma. According to Mikaelyan, Arzumanyan has a deep penetrating gunshot wound to his brain. As to Garik Matevosyan’s medical condition, according to Mikaelyan, it is consider fair. Matevosyan is currently being prepared for surgery, specifically for surgical treatment of his injuries and removal of a foreign body. He had another gunshot wound in his right hip. Mikael Mikaelyan also told us yesterday that according to information available to him, the other two soldiers who were wounded on June 18 are now located in the military hospital of Stepanakert; their wounds are only flesh wounds, and are not life-threatening. By the way, the Azeri side violated the ceasefire yet again yesterday. This time they violated it 183 times. According to NKR Army of Defense Press Secretary Senor Hasratyan, shots were fired yesterday in the direction of Karabakh defense positions located in Mehdili, Ashagh Abdurahmanli, Karvend, Ashagh Seyidahmedli, Marzili, Nuzger, Shkhlar, Yusufjanlu, Bash Karvend, Seysulan and Talish, stretching from the Martakert to Martuni regions. Incidentally, in yesterday’s interview Senor Hasratyan denied the rumors that on June 18 the Azeri diversionary group advanced 2 km into territory under Armenian control. He said that according to some information, the diversionary group had advanced by 150 meters, and according to others, by about 500m. In reference to the statement made by the Azerbaijani side that the body of the killed Azeri soldier was on the Armenian side and that the Armenian side refused to return it, Hasratyan said, “I do not know, they are the ones saying that the soldier is on our side. I haven’t seen the killed soldier and cannot give definitive information.”

P.S. Yesterday a number of international organizations made announcements regarding the incident which occurred on the Karabakh-Azerbaijani contact line on the night of June 18-19. The OSCE Minsk Group, the OSCE President, and the Special Representative of the EU for the Caucasus made general statements about the incident. That’s it. Moreover, there were no words of condemnation of Azerbaijan in those statements. And this is in a situation where the available facts unequivocally testify to the fact that the attack, which took the lives of four soldiers, was carried out by Azerbaijan. The silence of many countries and international structures, together with the content of the statements, give grounds to conclude that the international community has given Azerbaijan a “cart blanche” to force Armenia, through the use of local military attacks, to make concessions, i.e. to accept the revised Madrid principles.

The political prisoner’s attorney Lusine Sahakyan stated this in an interview with our reporter. According to the decision of the Nubarashen Penitentiary chief, Nikol Pashinyan should be kept in prison 3 years, 10 months and 29 days, starting from July 1 of 2009. Vardan Avetisyan, the head of the Department of Supervising the Enforcement of Sentences and Other Compulsory Measures of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office, had confirmed that the decision is illegal by his petition addressed to the “Nubarashen” penitentiary chief, which was rejected. “This is one of those unique cases when the Prosecutor’s office tries to remove an illegal decision and let’s hope that it will be consistent with it,” said Sahakyan.

As it is known, the RA Administrative Court had refused to deliberate the “Gas Appeal” in a verbal proceeding, stating that it is impossible to have a verbal proceeding with 7230 claimants. Hovsepyan, in an interview with our reporter said that by rejecting his appeal, the Administrative Court would prove that in reality they are avoiding a public hearing and intend to conceal the appeal. Yesterday, Vahe Hovsepyan also submitted his objections against the response from the Public Services Regulatory Commission with regard to the “Gas Appeal” to the Administrative Court and once again demanded to void PSRC’s decision to increase gas prices.

Mushegh, Sasun, Nikol, Harutyun, Sargis, Shmavon, David, Murad, Felix, Aram, Ara, Gabriel, Ashot, Zhora, Roman: these are the names whose freedom their former political prisoner friends demanded yesterday in a sit-in strike. Rather than Liberty Square, the sit-in took place by Aram Khachatryan’s statue. By the decision of the authorities children “shielded” Liberty Square from protesters. These were the children participating in a concert dedicated to the opening of the car park at the Square. The decision was made no to disturb them. The important thing was that according to various opinions the spirit of freedom could be felt among those participating in the sit-in and among the protesters. Chanting “Freedom to Political Prisoners!” former political prisoners and hundreds of citizens who had joined the occasion on their own initiative, marched from Saryan Park to Aram Khachatryan’s statue. Former political prisoners and photographs of current political prisoners and posters that read, “They are still in prison”, led the march to the Opera House. Having reached Aram Khachatryan’s statue, the participants of the march sat on the steps and began to chant: “Freedom!” Within a few minutes not only Freedom Square, but the entire city roared with the calls for freedom.