ATTORNEY GENERAL AND PRESIDENT CHALLENGED
Hakob Badalyan

Lragir, Armenia
Nov 14 2006

The government in Armenia are characterized by an unprecedented
cruelty towards their fellows in 2006. It is difficult, for instance,
to remember a case when the meeting of the College of the Procuracy
criticized the call-up organized by the ministry of defense declaring
it corrupt. However, the course of events allows suggesting that the
procuracy has lost the sense of reality or carried out a "non-sober
analysis of the conscription". The minister of defense stated
several days later that if there are irregularities, the guilty
should be punished, and he would join in with pleasure. This is not
but a challenge to Attorney General Aghvan Hovsepyan. If there are
officials in charge of the draft who break the law, Aghvan Hovsepyan
must find them and punish them, at least take them to the bench.

Perhaps, the Attorney General had thought that the minister of defense
would try to avoid, give excuses or call him and offer a deal on
something, including presidency in 2008. However, Aghvan Hovsepyan
forgot for a moment that Serge Sargsyan is ready to make arrangements
on presidency in 2008 only with those who are not citizens of Armenia
and cannot be his opponents, namely the officials of the Kremlin and
the White House. Although, unfortunately for Serge Sargsyan, these
efforts fail. And perhaps this encouraged Aghvan Hovsepyan to get
down to work expecting the minister of defense to give in and meet
him halfway.

Instead the minister of defense went to Yerevan State University, where
he advised the Attorney General to support his words with actions,
if he can, of course. Then he went to the Republic Recruiting Center
to give his support to the officials in charge of conscription not to
make a fuss and start thinking that the minister is not a minister
any more, and he will never be president. And now the question is
put definitely – will the Attorney General be Attorney General? If
Aghvan Hovsepyan fails to find evidence to the evaluations made at
the meeting of the college, the evaluations will turn into political
allegations meant to strike the minister of defense. In this case,
it will turn out that nobody is trying to "drag the Attorney General
into politics" but the Attorney General avoids confessing that he is
in politics. In order to prevent this impression, Aghvan Hovsepyan
should once do a more serious thing than Hakob Hakobyan’s "pilfery".

Meanwhile, the conscription is a serious thing, especially when the
defense minister calls the Attorney General for seriousness, actually
questioning his consistency or courage to reveal illegality. On the
other hand, Serge Sargsyan has every reason to doubt this because he
knows better how the procuracy artfully immured the applications on
privatization, the elections in 2003 and the irregularities in 2005.

Certainly, Aghvan Hovsepyan can dispel these doubts but the problem
is that this also requires courage, consistency and independence.

Maybe everything starts with independence. But in this case it appears
that the minister of defense does not doubt the Attorney General but
the person who appointed him, the president of the Republic.

Consequently, Aghvan Hovsepyan allows for doubting if Robert Kocharyan
is consistent if he announces about corruption in conscription but
makes no efforts for prosecution. On the other hand, even without
Hovsepyan, Robert Kocharyan’s consistency has been doubted for a
long time now because he, for instance, could have dismissed Aghvan
Hovsepyan long ago, at least for ignoring the same cases of electoral
fraud and privatization, let alone that the Attorney General is not
supposed to go in for choreography and botany. If Robert Kocharyan
failed to dismiss him, it means he is accountable for everything,
and if he fails to place the Attorney General within the circle of
the functions of the attorney general, it means he forced him into
politics. Consequently, the defense minister’s hint that if there
are guilty, it is necessary to prosecute them after announcing about
them challenges not only Aghvan Hovsepyan but first of all Robert
Kocharyan. Thereby, the minister of defense hints that the president
does not have the courage to contend with him and, therefore, he uses
the procuracy. To show that he is brave, the minister of defense flew
to Iraq, whereas Robert Kocharyan only went to Germany.