WHICH IS THE WAY OF CONSOLIDATING THE NATION?
Armen Movsisyan

Hayots Ashkharh Daily
20 Dec 2008
Armenia

ARTASHES GEGHAMYAN, leader of "National Unity", proposes his option

"Mr. Geghamyan, as we know, the PACE Monitoring Committee discussed, in
its recent session, Thomas Hammarberg’s report on Armenia’s compliance
with Resolutions # 1609 and 1620. A decision was made to deprive the
Armenian delegation of the right to vote. How do you estimate the
decision adopted by the Monitoring Committee?"

"First, I want to draw the readers’ attention to the following striking
phenomenon. First, there is such an impression that LTP, together with
his team members, would not have lived such a great triumph and felt
such a great satisfaction had the detainees been granted amnesty,
since the Monitoring Committee of the CoE Parliamentary Assembly
has passed a draft resolution which is going to be submitted to the
discussion of the Assembly during the January 26-30, 2009 session.

What happened in Paris is an anticipated event, but if we now try
to just make assessments on what happened, we will chose the wrong
path. Let me say why.

Actually, the Council of Europe, as a political body, is currently more
inclined to carry out activities in the legal domain. Knowing that,
we were obliged to previously set a task to the Council of Europe 0Ato
make a political assessment on the March 1 events in Armenia. In that
case, its activity, i.e. the task of making a political assessment,
would be conceivable and acceptable.

Otherwise, it turns out that attempts are being made to punish the
authorities and why not, the people of the country, for being able
to avert a civil war after the March 1 developments, with all the
gravest consequences deriving thereof. Let’s note that if no abrupt
measures had been taken on March 1, and the events had taken their
course, armed confrontations would have started in Armenia, with a
lot of human losses to follow. This is the harsh reality.

And what we have now is actually a document submitted to the discussion
of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which proposes
‘to suspend the Armenian parliamentary delegation’s right to vote
unless the Armenian authorities have clearly expressed their political
will to solve the problem of the political detainees arrested after the
March 1-2 developments’. In short, they are punishing the authorities
for having averted the civil war.

It’s in and off itself that once a company or a battalion had taken
sides with the pro-opposition figures, the clash would have definitely
taken place. Once the civil war was unleashed, Azerbaijan would
have started military operations along the whole border of Nagorno
Karabakh and why not, on the north-eastern border of the Republic
of Armenia. And what was averted in Ossetia and Abkhazia due to the
Russian intervention would have definitely happened in Armenia."

"There were, anyway, certain positive steps towards the implementation
of the requirements of Resolutions # 1609 and 1620. However,
despite noticing the positive, they made a made decision. Why did
the Monitoring Committee of the Council of Europe make that step?"

"The answers to those questions are copybook truths. The Council of
Europe made that step for the simple reason that it wanted to have
a lever in the South Caucasus for influencing the authorities of the
Republic of Armenia, the only military-political ally of the Russian
Federation in the region. That lever is necessary, because both the
European Union and the United States have a major task to maximum
weaken Russia’s influence on the countries in the South Caucasus,
in particular, they are planning to launch new oil and gas pipelines
extending through this territory. This will enable them to diversify
the energy supply of Europe and what’s even more, direct the oil
and gas resources of Central Asia and Azerbaijan to Europe, passing
round Russia.

>From this point of view, we are required to analyze the developments
around the country. Judge yourselves: the matter has gone so far
that the Europeans, unfortunately, express their disagreement over
i ssues concerning us. Because by the resolution adopted in Paris,
they have put themselves in a very vulnerable position.

What’s that? Let me note that there is a European Court on Human
Rights, which has its residence in Strasburg. When you closely analyze
the statements made by the OSCE and other international structures,
there is such an impression that these bodies have actually assumed
the functions of the Strasburg court. Moreover, without having the
court decisions, they already make assessments and announce that
there are political prisoners in Armenia.

Mr. Hammarberg says that the decisions passed by the judicial
investigative bodies lack professionalism, that is, the CoE
Commissioner for Human Rights evaluates the work of the investigative
body. And that is being done during the inquest when the decision of
the court (let alone, the European Court) is not yet available.

What attracts attention is that they say the acts of the people
detained for the March 1 disorders did not absolutely have a tendency
for staging a coup d’йtat in Armenia by the use of force. Let’s
assume that Mr. Hammarberg is saying right things. What does this
mean? This means that the agenda did not contain any issue on staging
a coup d’йtat on March 1.

And if there was no such issue included in the agenda, then the
Commissioner contradicts himself. If there was no attempt to stage
a coup d’йtat, i.e. there were no political tasks, how can the
people standing behind all this be considered political convicts or
political prisoners."

–Boundary_(ID_lN5cwSFSZ+9iLnEQD HgsxA)–