Leader of the National Assembly ARF faction Hrair Karapetyan referred to and condemned the assassination attempt on mayor of Gyumri Vardan Ghukasyan while discussing other issues during the press conference held on Wednesday at the “Pastark” club. However, the Dashnak deputy did that with the following formulation:
“Any terrorist act against Armenians in Armenia is condemnable”.
We then asked Karapetyan if, according to him, terrorist acts against foreigners are non-condemnable. At first, the deputy pretended not to hear the question and continued his speech, but when one of the journalists asked him again, Karapetyan replied:
“I knew you were going to ask me that.”
According to him, Armenia has participated in more than 40 anti-terrorist international conventions, thus “we cannot support or preach for any kind of terrorism”. The Dashnak deputy went on to say:
“The hint that you made has nothing to do with terrorism. The struggle for the Armenian Issue is part of our national-liberal struggle which has nothing to do with terrorism”.
It is no secret that the ARF accepts terrorist acts “in the circle” of the Armenian Issue. This is not the first time that ARF leaders are declaring that. Of course, they don’t consider acts committed “for the defense of the Armenian Issue” as terrorism, as Karapetyan mentioned during the press conference. In other words, the Dashnaks are guided by the “ends justify the means” principle and thus, according to them, those means can in no way be called “terrorism”. However, Mr. Karapetyan’s thesis is strictly debatable. For example, was it terrorism when Turk nationalist Ogiun Samast assassinated Hrant Dink? Based on the logic of the Dashnaks, no, Ogiun Samast didn’t assassinate Hrant Dink “for the dignity of the Turk people” but, as we shall call it, it was “in the circle of the Turkish Issue”. Is it terrorism when Osama Ben Laden’s Al Qaeda bombs buildings, kills government officials, kidnaps and executes people? According to the logic of the Dashnaks-no, because by doing that, Al Qaeda is somehow in defense of the circle of some issue. Was it terrorism when the armed soldiers of Shamil Basayev seized a school in Beslan and killed hundreds of children? The Dashnaks say no, it wasn’t because Basayev did that with “honest motives”-in the “circle of the Chechnya Issue”-and most definitely Basayev and his followers consider that as part of their national-liberal struggle, and not terrorism.
Was it terrorism when the Palestinian Hamas group, the Irish army, the Basques, the “Hezballah” group and I don’t know what other groups organized terrorist acts in different places for years and killed thousands of people and top-ranking government officials of different countries? Based on the logic of the Dashnaks, no, no and again no because the terrorist groups considered all of that as part of their national-liberal struggle. Those acts are placed in the circle of the “Palestinian Issue”, the “Irish Issue”, the “Basques’ Issue” and many other issues. Isn’t it terrorism when dozens of people are killed each day in Iraq by the bombings of some groupings? The ARF says no; after all, it is being implemented in the circle of the “Iraqi Issue” “for the sake of the bright future of the Iraqi people and for the free, independent and united Iraq”. In general, nobody wakes up with the sudden obsession of killing people, and all terrorist acts are aimed at something and that something is not that bad and fits in the “circle of the issue of certain people” (according to the organizers of the given terrorist act). There is “only” one reason for the deaths of tens of thousands of people each day-the organizers of the bombings and other terrorist acts accept that type of struggle to realize their “issue”. After all, that mentality was the reason that former Dashnak Nairi Hunanyan and his group committed the crime of October 27, 1999. They thought that they were “doing a great deed for the nation” and that they should get a heroic ranking for that. So, if the ARF accepts the terrorist acts in its “circle of the Armenian Issue” and considers it as a part of the national-liberation struggle, then it either has to announce that Al Qaeda, Hamas, “Hezballah” and many other organizations are not terrorist, or announce that the ARF itself is a terrorist organization. In reality, terrorism is not and can not be justified.