The follow-up to the previous meeting of the “Alternative” NGO/political initiative took place at the square near the Matenadaran building. Representatives of the Armenian National Movement, “Republic” party and the National Democratic Alliance were among the 1.5-2 thousand participants gathered at the meeting. Leader of “New Times” Aram Karapetyan was not present despite his promise to be there.
Member of “Alternative”, leader of the “Democratic Homeland” political party and representative of the “Impeachment” alliance Petros Makeyan mentioned in his speech that the word “impeachment” should not be perceived as a process taking place in the National Assembly or the Constitutional Court.
“We have to make impeachment a reality in this square, with all of you,” said Makeyan to the participants and added: “We call on our fellow oppositionists once again: they can take part in this process with us in this square”.
Member of the “Republic” political party council Suren Surenyants also made a speech. According to him, different oligarchs are trying to leave the impression of heroic, “courageous men” on their television channels.
“In reality, the shaved-head and the one supporting this regime can not be a hero or a guy with courage. The person who steals from the people and has his shaved-head bodyguard attack the journalist can not be “courageous”. The real heroes and “courageous guys” were those who took on the responsibility of building the country back in the ’90s. They were the guys who went to the military front after the first calling in order to achieve victory,” announced S. Surenyants.
He underlined that today Armenia is ruled by the “people with the psychology of migrants and deniers of the real homeland”. Representative of the “Republic” political party also referred to the opposition working as staff members.
“The mandate is simply a means for our party and has always been like that. That mandate reads: “Leave, Robert”. In other words, when the public casts the vote to any oppositional force, it doesn’t give the vote for them to sit in parliament and conduct sessions. The public casts that vote with the purpose of making Robert Kocharyan and Serge Sarkisyan step down from power. If certain oppositionists turned the mandate into an ambition, then it’s over; they became pro-Robert Kocharyan and pro-Serge Sarkisyan,” announced S. Surenyants.
During the public meeting there were also a lot of references made to the dual citizenship issue. Vahagn Khachatryan announced that the approval of dual citizenship before the elections is aimed to provide free financial means. Aghasi Yenokyan also gave a detailed description of the dangers of dual citizenship. However, Norik Norikyan’s speech had the greatest influence on the participants of the meeting on Friday.
“Dear people, as a young Armenian, I am ashamed to see how they have destroyed my country and have turned feudal. I am ashamed to see how they are changing the history of my people in front of my eyes”. He also said that he was ashamed to see how the “unelected and fraudulent, but president of my country embraces Charles Aznavour in France, while he throws parties every other day in Armenia with the “rats, authorities and I don’t know what half-shaved head oligarchs”.
“I am ashamed, people. Look at the people surrounding him that are governing our Armenia,” he announced. Norikyan also mentioned that “Alternative” appealed to television stations starting from December of last year to provide them with 20-second clips to inform the public of their public meetings and have always got rejected “for numerous stupid reasons”. With regard to Public Television, Norikyan said:
“Mr. Alik, if you and your authorities are not scared of our words, then today, after this meeting, stay true to your word; we know what we will say to the public after watching the senseless assemblies of the Prosperous Armenia party and other pro-government parties”.
Afterwards, Norikyan referred to the people working for the opposition. According to him, the most dangerous thing is that the government has thrown a couple of groups of people considering themselves the opposition into the field. Norikyan is of the opinion that this is the last stage of public degeneration.
“There is one thing left to say to all the lawful, united and popular party members: don’t ignore the people who still have faith in you. Don’t make them lose their faith in you. Don’t ruin the future of Armenia just for a couple of mandates,” said member of “Alternative” Norik Norikyan dropping a hint to the “Country of Law”, “National Unity” and Armenian Popular parties. In the end, he stated that he believes that Armenians are going to build a country where there will not be feudal gangs of shaved-heads driving over people with their Hummers, the “ruling boys” handing over this or that property belonging to Armenia and there won’t be “rich people who have turned the Armenia of my children into a potato field and gas stations”.
“Alternative” representative and editor-in-chief of the “Armenian Times” daily Nikol Pashinyan made a speech at the end of the meeting. He recalled that the existing authorities came to power by calling Karabakh “independent” to the international community, “but today that same international community calls Karabakh “occupied”.
“We have to be able to find the strength within ourselves to bring these shaved-heads to justice for this policy,” announced Pashinyan and added that we must accept that we Armenians are to blame for the situation we are in today.
“Today many people say that there was a chance back in 2003 and we did not take advantage of it. We are to blame for that too because when there were 150,000 people standing here and some wanted to go and drink tea somewhere, we had to tell them that while they go to drink tea, the rest of us will stand here and do what we have to do. We did not do that and we are to blame,” mentioned Pashinyan hinting Stepan Demirchyan.
P.S. The next meeting will take place on March 16 at 5:00 p.m. at the square near the Matenadaran.