RFE/RL ARMENIA BROADCASTS AGAIN IN LIMBO
By Ruzanna Khachatrian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
July 25 2007
The future of RFE/RL’s unfettered activities in Armenia again hung
in the balance on Wednesday just three weeks after the Armenian
parliament rejected a government bill that would have effectively
banned the crucial retransmission of its programs by state radio.
In a statement issued late Tuesday, RFE/RL’s management and
its Washington-based oversight board said the state-controlled
Armenian Public Television and Radio (HHHR) has refused to sign a
new retransmission agreement and could stop airing RFE/RL Armenian
service programs on August 9.
HHHR declined to immediately confirm or deny this. The chairman of its
governing board, Aleksan Harutiunian, said only that "Radio Liberty
broadcasts in Armenia will not be stopped." Harutiunian said the
board will issue a statement later on Wednesday specifying whether
or not RFE/RL will be pulled off the Armenian Public Radio air.
The Public Radio has retransmitted RFE/RL’s Armenian-language programs
in accordance with a 1998 commercial agreement that lapsed last
February. HHHR was offered to sign a new retransmission deal early
this year.
The National Assembly unexpectedly failed to pass the government bill,
widely criticized in and outside Armenia, on July 3 after several days
of heated debates. The RFE/RL statement said that one week later HHHR
"indicated that it planned to stop RFE/RL broadcasts on August 9,
citing contractual and payment issues." According to it, all these
issues were resolved during ensued negotiations in Yerevan between
HHHR officials and RFE/RL representatives.
"Our delegation was told there are no deadlines, and no threat was made
to take RFE/RL programs off Public Radio," James Glassman, chairman
of the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) overseeing RFE/RL
operations, was quoted as saying in the statement.
"Yet the contract remains unsigned, and our offers to make payment
were refused," Glassman said. "It seems clear that whatever is
holding up an agreement has nothing to do with legal, contractual,
or technical issues."
"I think the issue is not closed and there are possibilities [of
reaching agreement,]" parliament speaker Tigran Torosian, who is also
a leading member of Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party
(HHK), told RFE/RL, commenting on the statement. Torosian said he
thinks there is still "some hope" for a mutually acceptable settlement
between the parties.
But the HHK’s junior partners in the governing coalition, the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), reiterated its opposition
to RFE/RL’s continued use of Public Radio frequencies. "I believe
that any radio or TV station must be able to operate in Armenia, but
that must be done on a commercial basis," said Vahan Hovannisian,
a Dashnaktsutyun leader. "And giving the state’s [broadcasting]
capacities to somebody else is beyond logic."
"For Dashnaktsutyun, the top priority is Armenia’s interests,"
added Hovannisian. "Radio Liberty is not acting against Armenia’s
interests. But it is not acting for Armenia’s interests either."
Opposition leaders, for their part, stood by their view that RFE/RL
is the only Armenian-language broadcaster not controlled by the
authorities in Yerevan and that the latter have made a political
decision to severely restrict Armenians’ access to its news programs
ahead of next year’s presidential election.
"They failed to do that through the National Assembly and are now
trying to do that by other means," said Victor Dallakian, a veteran
opposition lawmaker who helped to block the controversial government
bill. "This is a condemnable policy directed against freedom of
speech."
"The purpose of not renewing the [retransmission] contract is to
keep our people misinformed and to propagate what they want," charged
Vazgen Manukian, another prominent opposition politician. "The values
our people now need most now is freedom, integrity and the ability
to receive and analyze information. In this sense, the authorities
could not have made a more anti-national decision."