THE LABOR PAINS OF THE ARMENIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
KIMA YEGHYAZARYAN

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
Published on May 03, 2008
Armenia

The Movement Becomes a Party

The 2nd congress of the `pan-national movement’, held in the conference
hall of the Government yesterday, was far from being considered
`revolutionary’. It was rather like a demonstration; a demonstration in
a closed area.

The activists of the movement occupied the entrance of the conference
hall much before the appointed hour. Even L. Ter-Petrosyan and his
retinue had difficulty in forcing their way through the crowd and going
inside. Finally, everybody went in and began shouting, `Levon, Levon!’,
`Struggle, Struggle Till the End!’, `Free, Independent Armenia!’ etc.

Definitely, the number of the invitations and permits distributed by
the center of the movement was three or four times more than the number
of the seats in the hall (1200). They organizers had also thought about
installing monitors in the foyers, so as the demonstrators would be
able to follow the activities of the so-called congress from there.

It should be noted that the speeches (more than 15 in number) delivered
till the break-time were inappropriate and senseless. Neither the
leaders of the People’s Party of Armenia and `Republic’, nor the heads
of Hnchakyan and Marxist parties and nor even the other revolutionary
orators said anything new in their speeches.

They made bombastic statements on keeping up the spirit of the struggle
and leading it to a triumphant end and warmed the hall with their
pathos and fighting spirit, as they did at the end of February on the
Theatrical Square and or in the Children’s Park.

After a long-lasting pause, everybody was definitely eager to listen to
the successive `historic’ speech to be made by L. Ter-Petrosyan. And in
order to enjoy this moment, the demonstrators participating in the
congress had good food during the break and then pricked up their ears
not to miss a single word delivered by the leader.

The leader’s speech consisted of three parts. Let’s note that even
though the first two parts of Ter-Petrosyan’s speech were absorbed with
great enthusiasm (although the statements could hardly be considered as
something new or fresh), the third part was not only difficult to
digest, but it also stuck in the throats of the attendants.

The allies who had made ardent speeches looked somewhat discouraged,
after listening to the speaker introducing the third part of his speech.

But let’s start from the beginning. Ter-Petorsyan `devoted’ the first
part of his speech to Robert Kocharyan. First, he introduced long
quotations from R. Kocharyan’s statements – parts from his speeches
which he had quoted during his press conferences held on March 1, 5 and
20. The speaker introduced the `factual distortions’ and discrepancies
which had been found and came to the conclusion that `the authorities
had callously elaborated the program of using violence against the
peaceful demonstrators and crushing the opposition a week before the
March 1 events.’

LTP’s unfounded allegation is, mildly speaking, unreasonable. If there
had been such a program, the authorities would have crushed the
opposition on February 20 right in front of Matenadaran, thus
disallowing the illegal series of demonstrations to continue on the
Theatrical Square for 10 days on end.

Then, as a witness, the ex-President recounted in detail what he had
seen on the Theatrical Square in the morning of March 1. He had
recounted exactly the same story at the press-conferences held in his
`palace’ on March 1 and 11. In short, we yawned.

The second section of the speech was devoted to the west or, more
precisely, to the European structures. The ex-President said things he
had already spoken about during the demonstration held on February 29.
The `unserious’ and `unprincipled’ approaches of the European
observation missions give no rest to the defeated candidate. Only the
fact that the OSCE/ODIHR observers have recorded that the presidential
elections of Armenia are mostly in line with the international
standards, `has served as grounds for the authorities to use violence
against the peaceful demonstrators on March 1,’ LTP said.

So, everybody except him was guilty of and responsible for what
happened.

The ex-President also addressed words to Azerbaijan and the United
States. He warned the former to give up the idea of resuming the war
and never try to take advantage of our country’s internal political
situation and unleash an aggression on the Armenian-Azerbaijani contact
line. Should Azerbaijan try to take such a step, LTP himself will call
on the people and the activists of the pan-national movement to
temporarily cease the struggle and settle down to the protection of
their motherland.

And he addressed a request to the American organizations not to suspend
their assistance and the `Millennium Challenges’ program, because
deprived of the assistance programs, our country will find itself in a
hard condition, and the social riot resulting thereof will pose a
danger to the state.

Both this statement of the activist and the section of his speech
introducing his further plans aroused something more than mere
reluctance among the activists following his speech through the
monitors. `What is he saying,’ they were asking in a surprised and
disappointed tone.