CONVULSIONS OF AUTHORITIES
By Hakob Avetikian

AZG Armenian Daily
14/12/2006

The methods of arresting Vahagn Chakhalian and Zhirayr Sefilian,
as well as the official statements and the explanations following
the arrests testify that the authorities experience inner panic,
i.e. a kind of a state of convulsions. It’s still too early to reveal
the reasons for the panic at present. We can only state that sooner,
all these reasons are of internal character than external ones. Our
authorities also seem to fear from a stranger or the future. In the
atmosphere of inner suspect they constantly see a kind of an act of
treason or activists of rebelling movements.

This lack of self-confidence can’t be observed on the faces or in the
statements of our activities. On the contrary, they always give calm
and balanced responses to even the sharpest questions. But their
actions, in particular, the above-mentioned arrests are far from
being results of self-confidence. In both cases the relevant state
bodies might have displayed quite a different behavior, and act in
more civilized way, without applying force. Moreover, in the case of
Chakhalian they would rather keep from the Soviet methods of beating,
and in the case of Sefilian from staging a scene from an action movie.

The statement made by RA National Security Service wasn’t convincing
and was rather absurd. The phenomenon of the so called presumption of
innocence is so distorted that the romantic image of Sefilian, who
is in fact quite a chatterbox and a person who played a key part in
returning the liberated territories, could be confused with the image
of Che Guevara or with that of Daniel Ortega. In fact, they could
organize the arrest of the traitors and their allies long before,
being so confident about the accusations they charge them of and do
not spare the opposition that was to become their victims.

Moreover, the biggest discovery of the statement was that according to
the officials of the National Security Service, Sefilian who had been
living in Armenia for over 15 years, who fought in Nagorno Karabakh,
who kept demanding Armenian citizenship for already 3 years, turned
out to be a foreign citizen.

Don’t they realize that they accuse the whole Diaspora by such
statements, who are often charged of having shown poor participation
in the Artsakh war.

All these factors really testify to a internal panic and lack of
self-confidence that are sure to grow on the eve of the elections.