On June 8-14 the first president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan was in France. During the recent period neither Ter-Petrosyan nor his spokesman or teammates gave any comments on the visit. They only fixed that Ter-Petrosyan is in France and that’s all.
Of course, there was certain information publicized in the media, according to which Ter-Petrosyan had a meeting with the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, however later they neither confirmed nor denied this information. This secrecy of the visit and also the mystery around that originates certain questions. Thus, it is known that Ter-Petrosyan and his teammates are struggling for democracy and liberty. It is similarly known that such national struggles require transparency and publicity as a basic principle of democracy. However, the only information we have about Ter-Petrosyan is that he paid a five-day visit to France and even his loyalists don’t know what exactly Ter-Petrosyan was doing there. It turns out that Ter-Petrosyan and his teammates contradict the principles that they are struggling for. However, that is not the essential thing. Last week despite the fact that the media didn’t much focus on Ter-Petrosyan’s visit however they didn’t ignore it either. Moreover, there were too many various assessments made on this visit because of the absence of the actual and official information about that. For example, there was an opinion that Ter-Petrosyan left for France to put pressure on the PACE delegates and the Council of Europe officials closer to the PACE summer session. By another opinion Ter-Petrosyan tried to receive the support of the west closer to his planned June 20 rally. There was even an opinion that Ter-Petrosyan left for Paris to discuss his further deeds with Khachatur Sukiasyan and Vano Siradeghyan, who are being searched by the Armenian law-enforcement bodies. There was also another assumption, according to which Ter-Petrosyan was in France to attain certain financial resources for his campaign. It is understandable that all these are just assumptions because the initiator of the visit Levon Ter-Petrosyan wouldn’t communicate the details of his visit to his supporters and the public in general. They only suffice by spreading believable and unbelievable rumors. Indeed, this style fits into some logic and in order to understand this we will have to go a little bit backward. Although the Armenian media and experts do not advert to this fact however it is quite clear that after the visit of Ter-Petrosyan to Moscow and the rumors that he had met the newly elected (at the time prime minister) president of Russia Dmitri Medvedev had its influence on the conduct of the post-electoral developments. Up to now we don’t know what the actual purpose of Ter-Petrosyan’s visit to Moscow was and what it had to do with Medvedev. However, this mysterious visit caused the opposition to spread all kind of rumors on their own behalf. If we bring this information to a formula we will have approximately the following, “Ter-Petrosyan received a guarantee from Moscow that the Russian government will forbid the Armenian government use force against the protesters.” If we add to this Ter-Petrosyan’s thesis that the leaving Kocharyan wouldn’t benefit from using force we will have a case when the protesters would be sure that no matter what the government wouldn’t dare to apply force against them. Nevertheless, we know what we had. But few people can determine the amount of Ter-Petrosyan’s responsibility because all these rumors were groundless. It is not excluded that in this case we are also dealing with another tactical step and there is no doubt that in the coming future new rumors will be spread regarding the visit to France. Thus, the opposition not as much signifies the truthful information and transparent activity as rumors and mystery. By doing that they are creating an image, which stimulates the masses and try to solve political issues. The privilege of this tactics is obvious because they can avoid responsibilities later. Let us also add that the pro-ANM circles are also spreading rumors that the only purpose of Ter-Petrosyan’s visit to Paris was to obtain financial resources for the continuation of the rally. According to the same rumors essential amount of money is needed for the June 20 rally and the plans to be implemented afterward. Moreover, they are saying that in Paris he met Yesai Stepanyan. The latter, if you remember, was the minister of foreign economic ties during the days of Ter-Petrosyan’s presidency. The notorious Stepanyan stayed in the memories of people of more like an illegal exporter of national values, the greatest one of which was the gallery of painter Hakob Kojoyan. According to the same rumors Stepanyan in the name of certain other former ANM leaders, who live in Europe, stated that Ter-Petrosyan shouldn’t much rely on them. It is unclear why information of the activities of Ter-Petrosyan is delivered to the public via whispers and rumors. If these rumors are so important as they claim why don’t they make those more like official information? Moreover in their speeches they are bragging of being transparent and public. But for them the dissemination of believable and unbelievable rumors is more important as a technology in order to create mystery than to tell the actual truth.