Presidents usually make a speech to the citizens of the country minutes before the clock strikes twelve on New Years’ Eve. This is called a New Year’s congratulatory speech and the leader of the country summarizes the year’s achievements and makes promises for the year to come.
While listening to the speech made by president Robert Kocharyan on December 31, 2005, I amazed to see that Robert Kocharyan did not say anything regarding the process of the Karabagh peace settlement. He talked about everything besides the one thing that is probably the most important for our people from both the political and economic perspective. The president said that there is a strive to “make the economic rise have a positive and direct influence on the prosperity of the people.” Then he talked about society parallel to the economic rise. He promised that there would be a rise in salaries and pensions starting from the beginning of January and said that the situation of the economy will allow us to implement mid-term projects while solving other problems at the same time. “That, of course, is an achievement for us,” said the president.
If the viewer didn’t look at everything so conditionally, then he or she would consider the president’s speech as a speech made by someone who is living the good life and that the only thing wrong with the country is the incompatibility of the development rates of the city of Yerevan and the surrounding regions.
The president did not say anything regarding the Karabagh peace settlement and that forced me to take a look at all the New Year’s Eve speeches made by the president from 1998-2005. By comparing one another, I tried to understand why the president had not talked about the one issue that has been in the center of attention of everyone for the past fifteen years.
On December 31, 1998, Robert Kocharyan, who had come to power with the help of the authorities via the Karabagh peace settlement progress, wished the people a Happy New Year and talked a little about the Karabagh peace settlement.
Reference: “…we have a problem-to turn Armenia into a prosperous nation, the most stable and organized country in the entire region. That requires new approaches in each field-internal and foreign politics, economy, society, the restoration of the earthquake zone, Armenia-Diaspora relations, evaluating our history and national potential and the peaceful settlement of the Karabagh conflict.” This was the speech and that’s it.
The president of Armenia said only two sentences about the Karabagh peace settlement during his speech made on New Year’s Eve 1999: “Armenia is more active in foreign politics and it has learned from its mistakes. There is progress in the Karabagh peace settlement process.” Meanwhile, he spoke more about Armenia-Diaspora relations: “The first annual Pan-Armenian games were a success and this is a great way to unite youth from Armenia and the Diaspora”, etc.
I had no doubt that the president would make a long speech about the necessity of the Karabagh peace settlement, talking about what had been done and making new promises during his 2000 speech. I was certain because after all, we were moving towards a new millennium and this conflict still remained unsolved. There was nothing said about the Karabagh peace settlement in the 2000 speech and there was one sentence that confused everyone: “Let’s hope that the New Year, and the new millennium for that matter, does away with the bad that has happened in the past and brings the good.”
What is a speech if it doesn’t include the Karabagh movement and the victories? Are they also part of the “bad” of the past millennium?
We could conclude the part about the Karabagh peace settlement with the following: “The 20th century is coming to an end. It was a tragic and heroic century for our people. It was a century full of disappointments and high aspirations; a century of defeats but great victories.” People probably had a chance to differentiate between what was tragic and what was heroic.
There were two insignificant sentences about the Karabagh peace settlement in the speech made on December 31, 2000. “This year, the Karabagh conflict was known for its Parisian principles. We consider that a great step towards the path leading to the final peace settlement.” This was insignificant because all viewers had not idea as to what Parisian principles he was talking about and what he meant by saying “we” consider those principles to be a great step towards the final peace settlement.
During his speech made on December 31, 2002, Robert Kocharyan had to talk about the Karabagh conflict because his voters would not understand that about fifty days before the presidential elections. Once again, he said only two sentences.
“During the past year, we made a lot of effort to lead the Karabagh conflict to an end. The world had never heard or paid attention to our point of views regarding the peace settlement like now.” It seemed as though he said these dull sentences in order to make the political oppositionists close their mouths. He didn’t actually care about the peace settlement.
The re-elected president of Armenia said nothing about the Karabagh conflict as we all said good-bye to 2003. Instead, he says that the second annual Pan-Armenian games were a success.
In 2004, as he talked about strengthening Armenia-Diaspora ties, the president focused on the first annual Pan-Armenian “One Nation, One Culture” festival which was a great success. He also talked about the efforts made by the “Hayastan” All-Armenian Fund in collecting money from the Armenians living abroad, which was aimed towards finishing construction of the North-South Highway of Karabagh. In the end, Kocharyan says another two sentences about the Karabagh conflict: “This is a major step towards strengthening the official independence of Karabagh. Karabagh will never give up its independence.”
Starting from 1998, the comments that Kocharyan has made here and there about the Karabagh peace settlement have led him to be haggle free and we can presume that during the past seven years, the president has either showed himself to be the king of the jungle or failed all plans for Karabagh’s future. Let’s wait and see what speech he will make at the end of 2006.