Speech by Levon Ter-Petrossian at the November 9, 2010 public rally

Dear Compatriots,

Since today's rally has been convened on the occasion of the seminar on human rights, which is taking place in Yerevan as part of the "EU-Armenia dialogue," the problem of political prisoners is naturally going again to be the main subject of my speech today. It is perhaps the most appropriate occasion to lay out the position of the Armenian National Congress on this issue comprehensively and conclusively. 

Some people think that the ANC has concentrated all its efforts toward the aim of squeezing the term "political prisoner" out of the mouths of Eurocrats as a description of the status of the imprisoned members of the opposition. I must say right away that this is total nonsense. The Congress has never had such a goal, because the international community has actually recognized our friends as political prisoners a long time ago, even if only "politely" using the definition of the term instead of the term itself. Thus in the three statements of the Presidency of the EU (4.03.2008, 12.03.2008, 10.03.2010) they are referred to as individuals "detained in connection with their political activities," in Resolutions 1609 and 1620 of the PACE as individuals "detained on artificial and politically motivated charges." Moreover, Resolution 1609 describes the harassment unleashed by the Armenian authorities in no other way than "a de facto crackdown on the opposition by the authorities," while the Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of European Thomas Hammarberg describes it as a "political vendetta (Zhamanak, 26.11.2008). All of this has provided the ground for the recent congress of the Liberal and Reform Party of Europe to rightfully claim in its resolution that "the existence of political prisoners in Armenia is a confirmed fact, which is reflected in numerous international documents, reports, and statements" (15.10.2010).
It is noteworthy in this regard that in all of the aforementioned documents of the European Union and the Parliamentary Assembly there are demands or calls addressed to the Armenian authorities to release the imprisoned members of the Armenian opposition. According the press release disseminated by the US embassy in Armenia, the same demand was made by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her visit to Armenia, who "expressed the position of her government that the problem of the 13 individuals that are still deprived of their freedom, requires a speedy resolution" (Haykakan Zhamanak, 13.07.2010). A question arises: if these individuals were not political prisoners, why would the international community demand their immediate release? At least I am not aware of a single case, where the world demanded from some country to release criminals. So the existence of political prisoners in Armenia is a fact confirmed by numerous international documents, reports and statements, requiring no further proof or substantiation. Consequently, whether they use the term "political prisoner" is absolutely of no interest to us.
The acknowledgement of the existence of political prisoners, however, is only one part of the problem. The other, and more important, part is the role of the international community in the efforts necessary for obtaining their release, where those organizations are still inexcusably delinquent. As it has been mentioned many times before, geopolitical considerations, namely the desire to extract concessions in the Karabakh negotiations and the process of Armenian-Turkish reconciliation, are the main reason behind this. Although one has to admit the existence of corporate interests as well. I am referring to the fact that structures like the Council of Europe or the OCSE are not so much clubs of states, but clubs of governments or authorities, because their member-state delegations, which typically consist of governing majorities, willingly or unwillingly abide by the code of not creating problems for each other. One should not disregard the factor of bureaucratic interests in international organizations as well, i.e. the philosophy of avoiding unnecessary headaches and maintaining their comfortable posts, which is best facilitated by maintaining good relations with the authorities of member-states. The typical carriers of this philosophy are the heads of the Armenian offices of the EU, the CoE, and the OSCE. European officials, of course, are certainly not inclined to confess neither the aforementioned geopolitical interests, nor the corporate or bureaucratic interests of organizations they represent. Instead, they try to justify the obvious shortcomings of their efforts to support democracy and defend human rights by other, often made-up and contrived rationalizations, making the following set of fuzzy claims in response to our demands and questions:
1. "The consolidation of democracy is a lengthy process, and one cannot expect an ideal situation in that area immediately. Western democracy, which has a 200-year history of development, is not free of flaws and shortcomings either." I have to confess that it is not easy to argue against this truism, which, however, is nothing more than a cheap trick to avoid the real question. Nonetheless, we should be grateful to the authors of this penetrating thought, because if it was not for them, we would still be lost in darkness.
2. "If we compare the state of democracy in Armenia with that of, say, Afghanistan, Somalia, or Zimbabwe, it is clear that the situation in Armenia is better." I agree, there are no free newspapers in those countries, but there are one or two in Armenia. Hundreds of people die during elections in those countries, and only ten died in Armenia. As I have already mentioned on a different occasion, in the case of people who invoke such an argument, we are dealing with a manifestation of subconscious racism, the essence of which is the following: "You do not deserve to be compared with us, i.e. with advanced democracies, compare yourselves with countries and peoples that are more backward than you are, and console yourselves with the thought that their situation is worse than yours."
3. "It is ineffective, or even counterproductive, to alienate or put pressure on authoritarian regimes. To the contrary, they should be appeased and gradually drawn into the field of reforms. If sanctions are applied or the membership of the transgressor countries is revoked, the situation with democracy and human rights is going to get even worse." These claims also seem reasonable like the previous ones, except it is difficult to understand why the procedures of the Council of Europe include sanctions at all.
4. "International organizations cannot directly interfere in the internal affairs of member-states, and certainly cannot take up the thankless job of regime change." First, when they have needed it, they have done a fine job of interfering and changing regimes, like in Yugoslavia, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and elsewhere. And second, none of us has ever demanded such a thing nor are we going to. All we have demanded is that these organizations monitor the process of implementing the obligations their member-states - in this case Armenia - have assumed, and exercise their authority that stems from it.
5. "Both the authorities and the opposition are complaining about the actions of international organizations, particularly of the Council of Europe, which, according to the official representatives of these organizations, attests to their principled stance and their impartiality." But surely this fact can be evidence for the exact opposite, since the fact that both sides are complaining is not evidence for how just and impartial a trial was.
In any event, it is paradoxical that on top of struggling against the authoritarian regime of Armenia, we have to overcome the inertness of international organizations, whose mission is to support democracy and defend human rights, which although makes our job quite difficult, it should under no circumstances become a reason to weaken the national struggle for freedom, justice, and prosperity - a struggle that is eventually going to be crowned with success despite all the obstacles and difficulties.
* * *
After clarifying the position of the international organizations, or more specifically, the positions of the officials of the Council of Europe and the OCSE regarding the question of political prisoners and the protection of human rights in general, which is ambiguous to put it mildly, it is probably worth reflecting on how the Armenian bureaucrats responsible for these areas - namely the chairman of the Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs of the National Assembly Davit Harutyunyan and the Human Rights Ombudsman Armen Harutyunyan - treat these issues. The situation with the first one is clear. Being one of the prominent members of the ruling party, as well as the head of the Armenian delegation at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, he has done a great job of preventing sanctions against the authoritarian regime he represents. By having done so, he has played a pivotal role in tightening the limitations on democracy and in worsening of the situation with human rights in our country, as well as thwarted the solution of the problem of political prisoners. There is no problem here: the man has faithfully discharged his duties toward his party and toward the governing coalition for which he deserves the gratitude of his party comrades and their glorious party leader. Nobody has provided a more valuable service to Serge Sargsyan, which I am sure the latter will value appropriately. If after all of the scandals and failures this regime is able to hang on to its miserable existence, it is largely thanks to Davit Harutyunyan.
The situation with the Human Rights Ombudsman Armen Harutyunyan, however, is completely different. Not being tied to the regime or to the ruling parties by any law or any obligation, he has assumed the role of their most zealous defender, justifying almost all their crimes and violations of the law, instead of being the executive authority's most uncompromising critic in the area of human rights. There is no question: he is quite well-educated and he has correctly understood the grammatical meaning of his title as a defender of a certain human's rights, that of Serge Sargsyan, and not the rights of all other humans. The most important service rendered by Harutyunyan to Serge Sargsyan and the regime is undoubtedly his strange, if not deplorable, posture with regard to the issue of political prisoners. If you remember, when he was asked a year or two ago whether the members of the opposition that have wound up in prison are political prisoners, his answer was: "I cannot answer that question yet, since the trials are still in progress, which I am systematically monitoring. As soon as these trials are over, I will express my clear opinion." The trials are over, and so is the monitoring, but to this day he has not deigned to express his clear opinion to the public.
Indeed, he has given the same evasive answer to the same question during a recent press conference. Commenting on the statements of the General Secretary of the Council of Europe Thorborn Yagland made in Yerevan, Armen Harutyunyan has said literally the following without any inner discomfort: "Yagland has not stated concretely who the political prisoners are, what the criteria we need to apply to decide whether a given individual is a political prisoner or not are. Of course, who will object? We all agree that people should not be put in prison for their political views. What needs to be proven is whether the person is in prison for his political views or not." (Zhamanak 23.10.2010) A question arises: and who is supposed to prove that? Esteemed Human Rights Defender, have you still not figured out that doing it is your direct responsibility, that that is the reason taxpayers are paying you, and that you should be the one to prove it? What have you been doing up to now? Why have you not been fulfilling your solemn obligation? What is preventing you from confirming or categorically denying the existence of political prisoners? If for whatever reason you cannot make up your mind, perhaps you should see a psychiatrist? Or perhaps you should learn from the incomparable Galust Sahakyan, who is much more honest and courageous when it comes to this question, and who is not afraid to declare: "Sasun and Nikol are criminals, and that's that."
Armen Harutyunyan's legalistic trickery is not limited to the issue of political prisoners. He manifests those talents also when assessing the practice of rejecting the opposition's petitions for rallies, which has become common in Armenia. As its most recent proof, let's see how he explains the rejection of petitions to hold rallies at the Freedom Square during the same press conference: "The rights of the opposition," he says, "are in no way violated. If they were rejected and told to go to Bangladesh or to the Third District to hold your rally, I would consider that to be a definite violation, because the proposed alternative is not equivalent. The European Convention and the precedent of the European Court of Human Rights say that the authorities can reject a petition to hold a rally if there are reasons for it, but the alternative venue for the rally has to be not far, it should be approximately in the same area, and Matenadaran is quite close to the Freedom Square." (Hraparak 09.10.2010) By the way, Davit Harutyunyan has repeated the same argument almost verbatim: "It is not deplorable if the Mayor's Office offers an alternative venue for rallies after rejecting the opposition's notification petitions to hold rallies at the Freedom Square... When venues are proposed that are not specified for such events, it is a violation of the law. Such practice exists in other countries as well. That is not just an Armenian phenomenon, it is a common practice. The authorities can propose alternatives to certain venues." (Zhamanak, 15.10.2010). These lawyerly tricks on the one hand aim to distort the issue, and on the other, to justify the arbitrariness of the authorities, which becomes obvious especially when we take into account the following elementary facts. First, the European convention and the international practice regarding those grounds for rejections have to do with exceptional circumstances, while in Armenia this is done systematically, i.e. dozens of times. Secondly, according to the paragraph 4 of article 13 of the Law on Conducting Meetings, Rallies, Marches, and Demonstrations of the Republic of Armenia, competent authorities are "obligated" to propose to the organizer other days for holding the event "at the same place," which they stubbornly do not want to do. Consequently, the aforementioned individuals, who consider themselves legal luminaries, are either unaware of these elementary truths, which is difficult to believe, or, and this is almost certainly the case, they are lying and misleading the people, at the same time irredeemably covering their names, their profession, as well as the state and juridical institutions they lead with shame. We needed an occasion to tell the full truth about these gentlemen for once. Forgive me for not being able to resist the temptation and using this occasion, even if they did not deserve so much attention. People have chosen the route of being sellouts, and we unfortunately can do nothing to help them.
* * *
I cannot resist another temptation and not digress from the subject, the reason for which is the set of recent noteworthy speeches of Serge Sargsyan - one during the meeting with journalists from the Diaspora, and the other during the meeting with beet farmers of the Shirak region (16.10.2010 and 23.10.2010). In his first speech he delivers a massive counterblow to Azerbaijan's state propaganda and proves "brilliantly" that anti-Armenian fascism dominates the atmosphere in that country, that Azerbaijanis are not even a nation, that they themselves don't know whether they are Medians, Caucasian Albanians, or Turks, that they don't know whether they are Muslim, Christian, or pagan, whereas Armenians have an 8000-year long history, since, as it has been discovered recently by an expert group of foreign geneticists and linguists, that is how old the Armenian language is, so consequently, when we were an already established nation, when we had an emperor like Tigran the Great, and when we were staging the Bacchae, the Azerbaijanis were still living in trees. No doubt, this is a great contribution to the cause of Armenian-Azerbaijani reconciliation and the settlement of the Karabakh conflict. So let us hope that this rhetorical masterpiece will be appreciated appropriately by the international community, as Robert Kocharian's epoch-making statement about the ethnic incompatibility of Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples was appreciated at the time. Nonetheless, we have to give Serge Sargsyan his due, no matter what we think of his speech, because being the father of contemporary Njdehism, for the first time he has presented his party's tseghapashtakan or tseghakron ideology. It should just be mentioned for those who don't realize that tseghakron or tseghapashtutyun are nothing more than the Armenian translations of the word "racism." I will let you make your own inferences.
In his second speech, or rather press-conference, reflecting on certain deplorable practices in the army - specifically the cases of murder, suicide, and torture - he has considered it his duty to express his disgust against people, who have exposed and criticized these practices, instead of speaking about the need to root out these practices and to punish those responsible for them. I find his frenzied reaction humanly understandable. When an entire nation is disgusted with you, naturally, you may be justified in feeling disgusted with a few of its members. But we are also dealing with a very dangerous phenomenon from the political perspective, because Serge Sargsyan is thus covering up the monstrous crimes taking place in the army and encouraging their repetition, since he is letting the officer corps know that no matter what they do, he will stand by them.
I don't want to dwell on another disgrace, which is the scandalous revelation made by the US Vice President Joe Biden, according to whom Serge Sargsyan has called him some time ago and asked that the US government block the process of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide in order not to harm the negotiations for the Armenian-Turkish rapprochement. There is really no need to unpack this too much, because on the one hand it is difficult to believe that Sargsyan could have gone that far, and on the other, if this is true, then no comment is necessary. As for the recent, already seventh meeting between Medvedev, Sargsyan, and Aliyev, which took place in Astrakhan, it just confirms my claim that despite the existence of the Minsk Group, the Karabakh negotiations are taking place in a completely different format.
Thank you for your attention and a safe march.

09 November 2010