Tweet
MANVEL SARGSYAN: MASHTOTS PARK HAVE INITIATED A NEW MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE WHO NO LONGER ASK BUT DEMAND
David Stepanyan
arminfo
Tuesday, April 24, 10:52
ArmInfo's interview with Manvel Sargsyan, Director of the Armenian
Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS).
There is an opinion that this time the election rigging will not
so cynical as before. Is there any change in the methods or, maybe,
the ideology of the authorities has changed?
One cannot say that the forthcoming parliamentary elections in Armenia
will be free and fair. The methods have changed, but the goal hasn't.
They have simply realized that it is senseless to stuff the ballot
box and they can act more fastidiously. The authorities say that the
elections in May will be transparent, but it is only the secondary
factors that will be transparent Is the administrative terror on
the threshold of the elections transparent? No, it is not. Teachers,
doctors, state officials undergo the roughest criminal pressure. What
transparency can there be? They have simply realized that all the
secondary and insignificant things can be made transparent and waved
as a flag. At the same time, the real picture is not disclosed,
because in this case they will directly go to jail.
People should make their own conclusion. The parties running for
parliament should reply to a simple question: do they think that there
is a mechanism of free elections in Armenia? If there is no such a
mechanism, they should explain to the people how they are going to
receive mandates without obtaining the electorate's votes. If the
constitutional way of receiving deputy seats is paralyzed and does
not operate, then the seats are gained in a non-constitutional way.
Election results will depend on the
criminal and administrative machine, which dictates the rules of the
game and distributes the votes in line with these rules. People will
not only be forced to vote. The authorities also make people join the
party lists, saying that otherwise they will simply lose their job or
business. Earlier the authorities gave promises to people, but now they
are simply intimidating them. The society itself is able to change the
situation by means of its own efforts without any political parties.
Thus, do you connect the new wave of migration with the political
factors, first of all, and only then with the social factors?
Yes, of course. To do or to undertake something a citizen of Armenia
needs to join someone, otherwise it is impossible to self-realize in
the country. Therefore, people leave anywhere with the only goal to
get an opportunity of self-realization.
Do you think that mass migration from Armenia is a threat to the
national security or it means Levon Ter-Petorsyan's theory "less
people less problems"?
Well, migration is actually a threat. However, Armenia has other
factors of national security. The system of security oriented at
Russia has no alternative. In the economic issues, Armenia may afford
staking on the West and the EU, first of all. As for the cooperation
with NATO, it is just partnership. It will be possible speaking of
alternative guarantees of national security when NATO armed forces
replace the Russian military base in Armenia. I know no political
force in the country, even in the opposition, that would harshly
oppose the pro-Russian vector of the country's national security.
You are a member of the "brigade" for dismantling of boutiques in the
Mashtots Park. Do you consider that fight as something more than just
protection of civil rights?
Actually, everything is simple, as the young people which do not want
to let lawlessness in the Mashtots park are educated and have been
doing that what their equals in age have been doing in all over the
world. It means, these are the people which do not want to run away
from Armenia, and are going to finally build a legal state. "Before
these young people nobody disputed about pretension of the criminal
to what does not belong to it. It has turned out that every time
when suddenly somebody says or initiates something in Armenia,
the community asks first of all - who is behind it? This means that
nobody thinks that people can simply gather and do something. This
is a natural fruit of the 20-year old policy in the Armenian way.
Unfortunately, over these 20 years the Armenian society became
accustomed to think that it is practically can do nothing. In
such conditions when all people are confident in their disability,
and when they see any initiative, they ask first of all - who, if
not us? These are possible options: Russia, the West, KGB, CIA,
the American Embassy, masons, etc. He also added that the only
phenomenon which the society thinks it is its own - is criminal:
"Cherny Gago" (black Gago), "Tokhmakhi Mher" (Mher from Tokhmakh
district of Yerevan), Sashik, etc. "And the society never asks -
who gave so many billions to Gagik Tsarukyan? If Robert Kocharyan,
in that case, who gave them to Kocharyan? That is to say, the society
recognizes everything regarding corruption and criminal like its own
one, and never blames for something. Everywhere where the society
sees no corruption and criminal, it asks - who finances these people?
Describe the essence of public-authorities conflict, please.
The oligarchic regime ruling in Armenia is based on usurpation of
the property and the wealth of a whole nation. And when the regime is
illegal, nothing can be legally privatized. Those people had freely
misused our property for years until they faced people who said that
what they had stolen was ours. This is the only way we can handle those
usurpers. Calling them bandits did not work. So, we came and said:
'This is ours, give it back to us! And that was the beginning to the
regime's crisis. The same happened in the 1988, when people came and
said: 'Karabakh is ours, go away!'"
As regards the conflict between the young protesters and the police,
the conflict started when the youth said that the policemen's actions
were illegal and anti-constitutional and urged them to go away. The
policemen refused, saying that they had no right to dispute the
legality of the orders they received. We said if so, they would stand
there for ever - and not only there but all over Armenia, wherever
there was an illegal boutique. What we meant was that they would have
either to give up or to ask Sahakashvili for additional policemen. The
policemen realize that they are in a losing situation. "They say,
'You have no right to pass the barriers we have placed,' and we say,
'You have no right to place barriers here.' This is a legal dispute,
where the opponents are hiding behind each other's backs: the mayor
behind the police, the premier behind the mayor, the president is
acting as if he has nothing to do with the whole thing. But this time
we are firmly committed to go on, and our brigade will be growing.
That is, the Mashtots Park is just a small part of the dark
phenomena that unveiled more serious problems in the system of state
governance...
The situation is extremely serious and the public has no right to
leave such big problems to the youth. The right to private property is
inviolable. But it must be legal and not just on the paper. Methods
of the fight for the constitutional statehoods are currently being
revised. Our task is to make the public behave as the owners of their
own country. Unfortunately, the greatest part of the public in Armenia
subdues to illegal decisions. When people begin to protest against
illegality this ugly phenomenon starts yielding and a constitutional
state can be built instead. The authorities have just no methods to
influence a man protesting against illegal demands. You can arrest him,
beat him up, but never influence. There is peaceful protest against
the police now. Tomorrow it may grow into peaceful protest against
courts. It is a start of a new movement when people no longer ask
but demand.
From: Baghdasarian
David Stepanyan
arminfo
Tuesday, April 24, 10:52
ArmInfo's interview with Manvel Sargsyan, Director of the Armenian
Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS).
There is an opinion that this time the election rigging will not
so cynical as before. Is there any change in the methods or, maybe,
the ideology of the authorities has changed?
One cannot say that the forthcoming parliamentary elections in Armenia
will be free and fair. The methods have changed, but the goal hasn't.
They have simply realized that it is senseless to stuff the ballot
box and they can act more fastidiously. The authorities say that the
elections in May will be transparent, but it is only the secondary
factors that will be transparent Is the administrative terror on
the threshold of the elections transparent? No, it is not. Teachers,
doctors, state officials undergo the roughest criminal pressure. What
transparency can there be? They have simply realized that all the
secondary and insignificant things can be made transparent and waved
as a flag. At the same time, the real picture is not disclosed,
because in this case they will directly go to jail.
People should make their own conclusion. The parties running for
parliament should reply to a simple question: do they think that there
is a mechanism of free elections in Armenia? If there is no such a
mechanism, they should explain to the people how they are going to
receive mandates without obtaining the electorate's votes. If the
constitutional way of receiving deputy seats is paralyzed and does
not operate, then the seats are gained in a non-constitutional way.
Election results will depend on the
criminal and administrative machine, which dictates the rules of the
game and distributes the votes in line with these rules. People will
not only be forced to vote. The authorities also make people join the
party lists, saying that otherwise they will simply lose their job or
business. Earlier the authorities gave promises to people, but now they
are simply intimidating them. The society itself is able to change the
situation by means of its own efforts without any political parties.
Thus, do you connect the new wave of migration with the political
factors, first of all, and only then with the social factors?
Yes, of course. To do or to undertake something a citizen of Armenia
needs to join someone, otherwise it is impossible to self-realize in
the country. Therefore, people leave anywhere with the only goal to
get an opportunity of self-realization.
Do you think that mass migration from Armenia is a threat to the
national security or it means Levon Ter-Petorsyan's theory "less
people less problems"?
Well, migration is actually a threat. However, Armenia has other
factors of national security. The system of security oriented at
Russia has no alternative. In the economic issues, Armenia may afford
staking on the West and the EU, first of all. As for the cooperation
with NATO, it is just partnership. It will be possible speaking of
alternative guarantees of national security when NATO armed forces
replace the Russian military base in Armenia. I know no political
force in the country, even in the opposition, that would harshly
oppose the pro-Russian vector of the country's national security.
You are a member of the "brigade" for dismantling of boutiques in the
Mashtots Park. Do you consider that fight as something more than just
protection of civil rights?
Actually, everything is simple, as the young people which do not want
to let lawlessness in the Mashtots park are educated and have been
doing that what their equals in age have been doing in all over the
world. It means, these are the people which do not want to run away
from Armenia, and are going to finally build a legal state. "Before
these young people nobody disputed about pretension of the criminal
to what does not belong to it. It has turned out that every time
when suddenly somebody says or initiates something in Armenia,
the community asks first of all - who is behind it? This means that
nobody thinks that people can simply gather and do something. This
is a natural fruit of the 20-year old policy in the Armenian way.
Unfortunately, over these 20 years the Armenian society became
accustomed to think that it is practically can do nothing. In
such conditions when all people are confident in their disability,
and when they see any initiative, they ask first of all - who, if
not us? These are possible options: Russia, the West, KGB, CIA,
the American Embassy, masons, etc. He also added that the only
phenomenon which the society thinks it is its own - is criminal:
"Cherny Gago" (black Gago), "Tokhmakhi Mher" (Mher from Tokhmakh
district of Yerevan), Sashik, etc. "And the society never asks -
who gave so many billions to Gagik Tsarukyan? If Robert Kocharyan,
in that case, who gave them to Kocharyan? That is to say, the society
recognizes everything regarding corruption and criminal like its own
one, and never blames for something. Everywhere where the society
sees no corruption and criminal, it asks - who finances these people?
Describe the essence of public-authorities conflict, please.
The oligarchic regime ruling in Armenia is based on usurpation of
the property and the wealth of a whole nation. And when the regime is
illegal, nothing can be legally privatized. Those people had freely
misused our property for years until they faced people who said that
what they had stolen was ours. This is the only way we can handle those
usurpers. Calling them bandits did not work. So, we came and said:
'This is ours, give it back to us! And that was the beginning to the
regime's crisis. The same happened in the 1988, when people came and
said: 'Karabakh is ours, go away!'"
As regards the conflict between the young protesters and the police,
the conflict started when the youth said that the policemen's actions
were illegal and anti-constitutional and urged them to go away. The
policemen refused, saying that they had no right to dispute the
legality of the orders they received. We said if so, they would stand
there for ever - and not only there but all over Armenia, wherever
there was an illegal boutique. What we meant was that they would have
either to give up or to ask Sahakashvili for additional policemen. The
policemen realize that they are in a losing situation. "They say,
'You have no right to pass the barriers we have placed,' and we say,
'You have no right to place barriers here.' This is a legal dispute,
where the opponents are hiding behind each other's backs: the mayor
behind the police, the premier behind the mayor, the president is
acting as if he has nothing to do with the whole thing. But this time
we are firmly committed to go on, and our brigade will be growing.
That is, the Mashtots Park is just a small part of the dark
phenomena that unveiled more serious problems in the system of state
governance...
The situation is extremely serious and the public has no right to
leave such big problems to the youth. The right to private property is
inviolable. But it must be legal and not just on the paper. Methods
of the fight for the constitutional statehoods are currently being
revised. Our task is to make the public behave as the owners of their
own country. Unfortunately, the greatest part of the public in Armenia
subdues to illegal decisions. When people begin to protest against
illegality this ugly phenomenon starts yielding and a constitutional
state can be built instead. The authorities have just no methods to
influence a man protesting against illegal demands. You can arrest him,
beat him up, but never influence. There is peaceful protest against
the police now. Tomorrow it may grow into peaceful protest against
courts. It is a start of a new movement when people no longer ask
but demand.
From: Baghdasarian