ARMENIA THWARTED LEBANESE THREAT
by Ara Tatevosjan

Source: Kommersant, December 12, 2006, p. 10
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
December 15, 2006 Friday

Posed by a visiting veteran of the conflict in Karabakh

CONSPIRACY BLOWN IN ARMENIA; Armenian secret services claim prevention
of external meddling in "political processes".

The Armenian National Security Service (NSS) reports arrest of one
Gerard Sefiljan of Lebanon who planned "illegal interference by force
in the forthcoming political processes in Armenia."

Sefiljan, leader of the non-governmental organization Armenian
Volunteer Union, was taken in on Sunday night. Some weapons were
confiscated as illegally possessed. Sefiljan’s accomplice Vardan
Malhasjan was arrested as well. Armenian secret services maintain that
the Armenian Volunteer Union convened a secret meeting on December 2,
where its leaders suggested removal of the existing regime by force
and even came up with a specific plan of accomplishing it. A source
in the NSS Press Service claims that "we have irrefutable evidence
that the Armenian Volunteer Union, an organization lacking official
registration, intended illegal interference by force in the forthcoming
political processes in Armenia and planned some radical action on the
eve of the parliamentary election in 2007." The said "radical action"
would have come down to encouraging the Armenian opposition to convene
unsanctioned protest actions, clashes with law enforcement agencies,
and other suchlike activities.

Once a member of Dashnaktsutyun who chose to remain in Lebanon
after the Karabakh war since his appeals to Yerevan for Armenian
citizenship were turned down, Sefiljan is a dedicated critic of the
Armenian powers-that-be. He branded Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanjan as
"promoter of an ideology of slaves" in early 2004, and later said that
"existence of a country like Azerbaijan in the region is certainly
harmful." "My associates and I will prevent self-reproduction of the
Armenian regime in the forthcoming election," Sefiljan was quoted as
saying this summer. His associates are therefore convinced that the
authorities decided to take Sefiljan out of the picture now to spare
themselves trouble at a later date.

Armenian Volunteer Front activists are convinced as well that there
may be some connection between Sefiljan’s arrest and the process of
Karabakh conflict resolution. They refer to the scenario in accordance
with which Azerbaijan will put up with a referendum on the status in
Nagorno-Karabakh in return for liberation of the occupied territories.

Awarded the Combat Cross for participation in the Karabakh war,
Sefiljan is coordinator of the Organization for the Liberated
Territories, a structure established by war veterans. Its activists
are dead set against the return to Azerbaijan of the territories that
surround Karabakh and serve as a security belt.

Official Baku in the meantime was perplexed to hear of a
connection between Sefiljan’s arrest and his views on the problem of
Nagorno-Karabakh. This correspondent was told in the Armenian Foreign
Ministry that "the negotiations are not in their final phase yet,
and all these speculations on the return of the territories are but
theoretizations."

Sefiljan and Malhasjan are facing charges under the article of the
Criminal Code pertaining "public calls to topple the constitutional
regime in the Republic of Armenia". They may draw either a fine or
three years imprisonment. Sefiljan is a foreigner, however, and will
probably be deported from the country after the trial.