HISTORY OF WAR IS WRITTEN BY DISHWASHERS
Lragir.am
27 July 06
Several commanders of squads in Karabakh war wrote a letter to the
president of Armenia Robert Kocharyan, demanding to improve the hard
social state of the liberation soldiers. The liberation soldiers
offer a list of social demands, starting with the status.
"The most important of these demands is the adoption of a status of
participants of Artsakh liberation war. You see, there are participants
of the Patriotic War, veterans of foreign legion, in Ethiopia, where
a civil war took place, there are two groups of veterans. How about
us? Are we Tahiti? They do not recognize the independence of Karabakh,
let alone they recognize that there was a war. They are afraid of
losing their money," stated the commander of the squad Artsakh Mikael
Apresyan July 27 at the Pastark Club.
"Hence, we have something interesting. Everybody says we won the war,
but there are no people, in other words, there is not a category of
people who participated in the war. It is very strange, the nation
fought, but there are no warriors," adds Arkady Karapetyan, one of
the pioneers of the Karabakh movement and commander during the war,
who is presently the head of Yerkrapah Union in Artsakh.
The veterans of war say most of the real fighters are now jobless,
homeless, can hardly make both ends meet, whereas heroes, who emerged
out of nowhere, live in villas, ride in expensive cars, get different
awards for military service.
"Now that they distribute awards, they mainly distribute them to
people who did not participate [in the war]. It makes us furious.
Hence people who were in Russia, in Moscow, anywhere else in those
years, are now making decisions and it is not clear who they are
and what they do," says Arkady Karapetyan, one of the pioneers of
the Karabakh movement, who assures that he knows who did what during
the war. Karapetyan points the books, which allegedly tell about the
movement and war in Karabakh but in fact tell nothing about those
years of the movement, in which the present government had no role.
Mikhael Apresyan, the commander of the squad Artsakh gives an example
of such a book.
"You should read it, it is entitled "Liberation", by a certain Martin
Baghdasaryan, who deserves a punishment. Imagine these people were
awarded posthumously, whereas these people are driving about here in
jeeps," says Mikhael Apresyan.
"This Martin, for instance, who wrote the book, used to wash dishes
in a squad in the village of Hatsik," says Arkady Karapetyan. He says
it is also a service, which cannot be ignored. Karapetyan says they do
not want to be alone to get the laurels. "However, Martin who used to
be a dishwasher, he does not know how it was in the trenches, and who
was in the trenches. This is the problem," says Arkady Karapetyan. The
veterans of war, who extended their demands to the president, set a
timing of ten days. These ten days have passed but there is no answer
yet. However, the veterans do not answer either what they will be doing
next. More exactly, they answer but they say they won’t do anything.
"We are still working out this process, it is early to tell you
something," says Mikael Apresyan. "We are gathering signatures among
our guys, among the population, who will join us. Then we’ll see.
Maybe after the holidays they will start thinking anew. It will be
clear in late August," says Arkady Karapetyan with a smile.
The veterans do not think there is someone in the ruling elite, who
will solve the social problems of thousands of liberation soldiers.
"This disorder, I do not know how to call it, will not solve. One
hundred million, will they give one hundred million to pay benefits
to these guys?" says Mikael Apresyan.
"You see, we do not believe Tsar Batushka, we do not believe that
someone will solve the problems. Why? He’s a weak guy, we haven’t
lived normally after independence to get rid of this weakness, and
now they are imposing this slavery on our youth. This man comes to
power, they take him to Paris, America, this poor guy sees, is afraid,
and he cannot understand what he can do to recover the country he
heads from this state. In other words, if we, the people, do not get
a firm footing on this land, not an official will solve this problem
normally," states Arkady Karapetyan.