Former NA deputy Hmayak Hovhannisyan is looking for a courageous person among the 131 MPs who can go and buy a flower wreath for the National Assembly and put an inscription on it, “from me and Hmayak Hovhannisyan.”
– The opposition of this parliament must be considered as one which is representing the interests of foreigners. They are not pro-Armenian, and this was clearly shown during the first NA session, where the bill on shutting down Radio Liberty was being discussed.
– What does the opposition have to do with this package? Were they against it?
– Here the important thing was not to what extent they “struggled”. The important thing was what they were saying and why. If they were saying that the US State Department wants the Radio Liberty transmission to continue in Armenia, it clearly means that they are serving foreign interests in Armenia. It would be a different thing if they struggled on behalf of their voters, the Armenian citizens. These are different things. During the discussions, people didn’t even want to confess that Liberty doesn’t have any alternative in Armenia because all the other independent media agencies are still not developed. That should have been the objective of the parliamentary opposition, instead of mentioning foreign influences. We don’t have any independent opposition right now in the parliament. I am independent now, both from the Alliance party of Samvel Babayan, or any other party leader. Now I can clearly state that the NA elections were not successful. Having seen this picture, I regret that I wasn’t nominated as a single-mandate candidate and didn’t mobilize my voters. These discussions have hurt me a lot.
– It turns out that your dignity is hurt, not because of the Radio Liberty transmission, but because of the foreign-serving opposition.
– It is not only my dignity. I think that we don’t have a National Assembly now. I got disappointed from these long-lasting discussions, which hurt our national dignity. The majority hasn’t quite understood the objective it was supposed to follow, and the opposition was only protecting foreign interests. The NA majority first of all must not have denied that, yes, the package I directed concerned Radio Liberty. One cannot deny in the 21st century the simple logic of order established by Aristotle – the theory of syllogism. If all the radio companies are refusing to provide transmission hours, it means that this relates to Liberty as well. And Tigran Torosyan was making efforts to deny the logic of order of Aristotle. The majority of the parliament says that Liberty jeopardizes the national security of our country. This is shameful. They should have said that there is an alternative to Liberty and that the means of our media are developed and pluralistic enough to provide objective information. They should have thanked Liberty for its mission in Armenia, which is over now, and advised the mission to move to Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, or other countries where Western values are denounced. Liberty, which was established to struggle against totalitarian governments, has in fact completed its mission in our country. In the end, they should have offered to change one of the street names of Yerevan to “Liberty” as a sign of gratitude. But instead they stand and praise Liberty by saying that it doesn’t have any alternative in our country. For example, Manvel Badeyan’s speech. On one hand he says there is no alternative to Liberty, while on the other hand he says that the package must be adopted. Fine, if there is no alternative, why did you pass this package? This means that the NA majority hasn’t realized what issue it’s solving. The opposition should have done the opposite, by claiming that no progress has been registered in this field in Armenia since its independence. Instead, they stood up and irrelevantly announced that the State Department wishes Liberty to continue to function in Armenia. If the transmission of Liberty through state radio is going to serve the interests of the US instead of the interests of the citizens of Armenia, then its transmission must be banned. Public radio must transmit programs that reflect the interests of our people. The dignity of Hrant Margaryan is hurt because Liberty keeps functioning in Armenia, and my dignity is hurt because of the contents of the discussions of the NA. I am deeply insulted because we showed that we don’t have an NA. The NA businessmen deputies were praising Liberty like lambs, because on that day Anthony Godfrey was at the Parliament and those businessmen have businesses in foreign countries.
– When you were an MP you were organizing funerals, putting a flower wreath in the lobby of the National Assembly, and announcing that you were burying the NA. Can you do similar things now?
– Unfortunately even the courageous policeman, who allowed me to enter the NA building with the flower wreath and whom I promised I would promote to a general some day, cannot let me enter the NA building with a wreath because I am not an MP anymore. Perhaps he is not even that courageous anymore. I’d just like to see a bold person in the NA, who’d do what I did – place a flower wreath in the lobby of the NA. I will not place a wreath on Baghramyan Street in front of the NA building, because Baghramyan Street is not the right street for such a thing. The real place for that wreath is the NA lobby or session hall. If you and the people help me go into the NA building with the wreath I will place it inside the session hall, where it actually belongs. Yes, only a flower wreath must be put on this National Assembly. And if there is one courageous person among the 131 MPs, he should go and buy a flower wreath for the National Assembly and put an inscription on it, “from me and Hmayak Hovhannisyan."