TRACES- FROM ARMENIA TO AFRICA
HAKOB BADALYAN

Lragir.am
30/04/10

Recently, a picture appeared in internet showing Robert Kocharyan
and his son Sedrak Kocharyan hunting in Africa and taking pictures
with the animals, which probably, they killed. Photos were posted on
the website of an African organization, which is supposed to offer
such services. The photos were not news, because Robert Kocharyan
had already stated on an occasion about his African hunting. But as
Russians say, it is better to see once than to hear hundred times.

Looking at Kocharyan photographed with killed animals, his preference
is seen under a completely different light rather than a usual human
preference particular to millions of people who hunt small and big
animals.

I know people who like hunting though they can keep Charents poems
in their pocket and have the Bible in their office. They, of course,
do not kill lions or huge antelopes, but only birds, but the size of
the "criminal" is not a circumstance for a severe or a kind punishment.

Hunting is hunting regardless the hunted animal. Consequently,
to say that it is sacrilege that Robert Kocharyan hunts African
animals would be wrong. To greater extent, this is not hunting but
just killing because the hunter kills a helpless animal from a car
with an optic weapon.

But in this case the problem is not the way of hunting, though much
depends on it. On photos we see not only Robert Kocharyan. There are
other people too. But we can perhaps say surely that there is not
former president of a country on them. This is the whole problem. When
in Africa, Kocharyan leaves killed animals after him, the question
occurs: what he left in Armenia, as a result of his tenure. "Killed
people", would probably say thousands of Armenian citizens remembering
March 1 events. And most likely, they will be quite right. Moreover,
the question how big is Robert Kocharyan’s direct participation in
killing of those people is not important.

It is a fact that in the end of his tenure, 10 citizens of Armenia
have been killed. Even presuming that those people were robbing shops,
burning cars, presuming that the official version is right (may the
relatives of March 1 victims forgive me for this "presumption"),
nevertheless, it is out of any logic that law enforcers kill those
who rob or who burn cars. If it was so, in France, Greece and Great
Britain, the government had to have their streets filled with corpses
because in these countries, during such events, the protesters caused
double and even more damage to the country. While, in none of these
countries any protester has ever been killed.

After the murders of 10 Armenian citizens, it is anti-Christian
to dwell on killing of animals, on hunting and to fit it into
religious-moral or ethic categories. But the question what Robert
Kocharyan left in Armenia as a result of his tenure is still pending.

Many would say that he left a developing economy with double-figured
economic increase etc. Indeed, to say that such a thing did not happen
is the same as to say that March 1 did not happen.

What else Robert Kocharyan left. Totally criminalized governmental
system, institutionalization of electoral breaches, monopolized
economic system, concentration of country’s material and financial
resources in the hands of a few families, connection of business and
power, total violation of citizens’ interests, crystallization of
judicial system under the executive power, establishment of a class
of privileged based on relationships, governmental position and money.

Let us compare all this with a few killed animals. Of course, it is
pity to kill animals in any case, but first of all, those who organize
these hunting pleasures are to be called to responsibility. As to the
participants, they need to be required to explain at what expense
they use such, mildly speaking, non-cheap pleasures, in this case
Kocharyans’ family is to be asked.

As to their heart, soul and conscience condition, given the heavy
"trace", which is much heavier in comparison with the African one,
that Robert Kocharyan left in Armenia, it is a personal question,
and there is no sense neither right to go into details of it.