The election for the new ombudsman in Armenia not only showed what the ombudsman’s role is in Armenia, but also how the authorities treat the ombudsman. Of course, this is not a personal issue. It was all about how each person considers an ombudsman to be and whether or not each person thinks that it is important to defend human rights.
Basically, there were no discussions. The MPs offended each other, made fun of each other, disputed; in other words, they did everything but discuss the situation at hand. There was a comment made: “The issue concerning human rights in Armenia is more of a national security issue.” The MPs had to discuss this in particular, but they preferred not to go “further in detail.”
But why is the human rights issue more of a national security issue? The answer to this question is very clear: if international organizations see that human rights in Armenia are violated, then Armenia’s reputation in the world will go down, our country will no longer get financial aid and may even be punished. There are two roads to take in order to prevent this from happening: Either the authorities do everything they can so that human rights are not violated and people are free, or the authorities do the best they can so that the world doesn’t know about the violation of human rights.
This last one is much easier, but it is not justified. This is the so-called “parliamentary” or “totalitarian” variant. North Korea is known to the rest of the world with the smile on Kim Chen Iri’s smile and the smiles of hundreds and thousands of pioneers, but everyone knows that anyone who complains about the authorities in that country is sentenced to imprisonment and that children over the age of nine are forced to work for 150 grams of rice as “salary” a day.
But why are we jumping to conclusions and saying that Armenian authorities chose the “parliamentary” or “totalitarian” variant? This prediction is not only based on the authorities’ candidate for the new ombudsman, but rather how the authorities treated former ombudsman Larisa Alaverdyan. The authorities put her down and suddenly, people got the impression that she was a great ombudsman, that she was defending human rights based on all the principles, etc. But that’s not the way it was.
Does anyone remember her protecting human rights on the eve of April 12, 2004 on Baghramian street when there were huge fights and disputes? Can anyone say how she helped the people when the Buzand street was being destructed? Nobody can. The authorities did not get “mad” at her for becoming active (nothing was going to change even if she did), but rather because international organizations were finding out about human rights violations in Armenia.
The opposition also changed its attitude towards Larisa Alaverdyan based on that same reason. The opposition liked to see Larisa Alaverdyan throw down Kocharyan’s reputation. The issue did not concern human rights; either way, Larisa Alaverdyan was not able to defend those rights.
What’s interesting is that, during the discussions, not one person spoke about whether or not the two candidates could defend human rights. It seemed as though that was out of the agenda. Another issue was put up for discussion-the authorities were presenting someone who would keep human rights violation in Armenia a secret and the opposition was presenting someone who would make a lot of noise about that. It’s just that there are many pro-authorities and “keeping it a secret” will win in the end.
Basically, both sides were discussing on “whether or not to throw the trash away”; meanwhile, it would be better to discuss cleaning the house.