Today is the first anniversary of presidential elections 2008. It was an election, which was not accepted by the society even in a year and its bloody outcome is not wiped out even today and thus keep the society in a tense political state. The government formed on February 19 of the last year has hence continued giving promises to international structures and most importantly the Armenian society as though it does everything to cure the inner political crisis. Meanwhile, up until now the case of political detainees is still under investigation and as a result people till now don’t have the chance to express their protests freely. And eventually till now the repression against the people continues. Have there been any positive changes in the political or economic lives of the country since the last year? In the perspective of the past year we decided to interview the chair of the Union of Political Scientists Hmayak Hovhannisyan. He first named the current political system of Armenia a “barn system.”
– I consider all this a “barn” mentality. This is a peculiar attitude to the issues of the government. Some people consider politics as social polarization and means to maintain the current economic system. This is very well described in George Orwel’s Animal Farm novel, where the author says that there all the animals are equal. Barn mentality is a social category, where an attempt is made to eradicate public politics, political processes and substitute those with apolitical processes. Armenia’s whole political field is and the government system which grows in parallel with the latter reminds of a barn, where everything is regulated and is supervised. There the barn owners are several. In one hand they are holding the food pot and in the other they are holding the whip. By that they are arranging the stable activity of the system. The whole point is that who’d be allowed to come close to the food pot.
– And what happened in the pre-election and post-election periods of 2008? And why the opposition, which was so popular, wasn’t able to come to power?
– In 2008 a riot broke in order to change and disagree with the results of 2007 parliamentary elections. I should say that these elections were of bandits and participation of young careerists. In our country political subjects are the criminal rich people and the young careerists, who praise them. It is understandable that these people are far from public politics. On the other hand I have always said that Levon Ter-Petrosyan didn’t have chances for victory because of two main reasons. The main reason, which caused his resignation in 1998, still exists. The reason was that Karabakh clearly stated that it doesn’t agree with the approaches of Ter-Petrosyan. The main reason was that Ter-Petrosyan wasn’t controlling the situation in the NKR. But the international community aspired that the president of Armenia controlled the situation and steps of the NKR so that they’d be able to dictate their specifics for the resolution of the conflict. Ter-Petrosyan didn’t conform to these requirements and that’s why he was told to leave. There were no other hidden forces. Moscow, Washington and Europe prefer to deal with a single person. The NKR is an unrecognized state; that’s why they cannot pressure on it. Thus they were interested to have a president in Armenia, who’d be in charge of Karabakh as well. I have worked within the Armenian delegation in Strasbourg as a representative of the parliamentary majority at the time when Armenia was accessing the Council of Europe. One of the main obligations of entering the CoE was to influence on the NKR via Armenia. So that they’d be able to prevent the possibility of war resumption. This was a very important issue for Europe. But Ter-Petrosyan’s plans failed because of two reasons. The first reason was that in no post-Soviet state has ever been someone who could return to presidential office after resignation (let us at least remember the failed attempt of charismatic president of Poland Lech Valensa). The second reason as I mentioned is Karabakh. Do you remember that back in the campaign period the president of the NKR Bako Sahakyan announced that even if Ter-Petrosyan reaches the president’s chair for the second time the NKR will not ever recognize him as a president (You should agree that this statement resembles the famous statement of Vazgen Sargsyan in 1996, who said that even if Vazgen Manukyan gains 100% of the votes he will not become president)? By that the question was closed. In our region the role of Karabakh is really huge and that affects the political life of Armenia as well.
– Can we assume that the tragic events of March 1 occurred due to the indifference of Moscow, Washington and Europe?
– The events of March 1 and post-election developments in general didn’t look like silky revolution at all; neither was it an attempt of color revolution. Color revolutions have one peculiarity, which was demonstrated in all previous color revolutions. If that peculiarity doesn’t exist then it is not a color revolution. That is the call of the relative. All I mean is that usually prior to elections and contest of the opposition of the government some friend calls from Paris, Washington or London and warns to stay apart from the use of force during elections as otherwise the west will apply strict sanctions. That’s what happened in Ukraine. Recently the ORT channel released an interview with the former president of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma, who said that during the peak of mass protests he received a call from the former secretary of state of the US Colin Powel. He said that he had information that Kuchma was planning to repress the protest actions. Kuchma said that he’d have to do that because he had information that the opposition was planning to usurp power. On the next day Powel called Kuchma and said that the opposition will not attack the president’s office but the government should promise that it won’t apply force to repress their movement. Kuchma guaranteed that. Both Kuchma and Shevardnadze received this “friend” call.
– As a matter of fact the previous governments of Georgia and Ukraine haven’t applied force against the protesters because of the call from the west. Was this call applied during the past presidential elections of Armenia?
– As of Kuchma Powel played a role of a mediator but this call wasn’t made for Armenia. Moreover, Armen Gevorgyan gathered the Ambassadors and said that the only way out of the created complex situation is the use of force. The Ambassadors nodded their heads and left home. The west originally didn’t have any plans to organize any color revolutions here.
– Would the west be able to prevent the March 1 tragedy?
– Of course, the west would be able to prevent it because Kocharyan wasn’t a stronger president than Kuchma. He considers himself a warrior but definitely wouldn’t do anything wrong if Rice called and warned him not to shed blood. One shouldn’t be so naïve. Even if Rice’s assistant Daniel Fried called the bloodshed would be prevented. If Kocharyan didn’t obey they would apply sanctions, such as depriving Armenia of the voting right, etc.
– In your opinion what is the purpose of prolonging the court litigation of the detainees of March 1 events?
– It is a pity that the court litigations also resemble barns. Those occurred in the 90s as well in the framework of the Dro case. If there were no litigations there would be public debate. My friends are currently in prison. How can I participate in the public-political debate? Or is it possible to engage in a true dialog in these conditions? It is impossible because there can be no actual debate in the background of court trials.