PRESIDENT URGES NATIONAL UNITY
Interfax
May 28 2009
Russia
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan called for national unity and
condemned intolerance as "an evil.""The brief history of the First
Republic of Armenia reminds us that we should abandon all internal
hostility, which wears down national unity, and see intolerance as
an evil," Sargsyan said in a statement in connection with the Day
of the First Republic of Armenia, a holiday commemorating the first
independent Armenian republic, which existed from 1918 to 1920.
"The government of the First Republic made many efforts to prevent
ideological or class splits in Armenian society. However, this did not
work. The seeds of enmity and discord bore their bitter fruit. Have
we learned the lesson? Unfortunately not," Sargsyan said.
Protests in the capital Yerevan on March 1, 2008, that erupted into
violence mean there is still a lot of work to do to learn the lesson,
he argued.
"Those events, which are our common pain, offer evidence that
a situation where everyone is the loser, where unity and kindness
suffer defeat, and where embitterment and intolerance are the winners
is possible in our times as well. At some moment, one must stop and
turn over a new leaf. The lessons of the past and the future of our
country call for this," he said.
The First Republic, also known as the Democratic Republic of Armenia,
existed from May 28, 1918, to November 29, 1920. Its emergence followed
Armenian victories over Turkish forces in the battles of Sardarapat,
Karakilisa and Bash Abaran. The republic existed until Soviet rule
was installed in Armenia in 1920.