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Fact or Fantasy: Contemplating Life and the Armenia Beyond
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21/09/2012
Author : Raffi K. Hovannisian
Fact or Fantasy:
Contemplating Life and the Armenia Beyond
By Raffi K. Hovannisian
Yerevan - This 21st anniversary of the Republic of Armenia is my moment
of ultimate truth. That moment can define and distinguish each of us
or, even better, nurture common human ground. In a world of so many
differences, I favor the latter.
1. I shall devote the next 100 days to the creation of a
compelling citizens' candidacy for the presidency of ancient Armenia's
modern state. Whether it is I or someone else who ultimately becomes
the carrier of that quest, scheduled for the dawn of 2013, a few basic
requirements apply.
2. Our beleaguered homeland, where I was not born but to which I
returned two decades and a couple of years ago, must hold its first
democratic elections since its post-Soviet independence in 1991.
Armenia needs a new, de jure president.
3. The new administration will serve for one term only; the
fourth presidency will not seek reelection.
4. Over the following five years, the Armenian nation will
convene a constitutional congress, proclaim a parliamentary republic,
enforce the rule of law, separate powers and make them accountable,
divorce big business from public governance, safeguard civil
liberties, lift the immunity of officials, and through offices of a
special prosecutor root out corruption, graft, and conflicts of
interest from the presidency on down. There shall be no exceptions to
supremacy of the human right.
5. Every person resident in the country, whether ethnically
Armenian or representative of a minority, and every compatriot living
in dispersion will be ensured fair access to citizenship, with all
pertinent duties and entitlements, including those of suffrage,
dignity in life and death, due process, and equal access to and
protection under the law.
6. Homeland and Diaspora together will find the contemporary
formula for nation-building, economic development, environmental
conscientiousness, citizen prosperity, and global statesmanship.
7. With humility but self-confidence, Armenia finally will forge,
frame, and make relevant its vital national interests and
international imperatives.
8. The Republic shall cherish its sovereignty and at once become
a true contributor to the strategic balance in its region and the
world. It will recast its unbecoming vertical relationship with the
Russian Federation, achieve partnership on a mutually respectful
horizontal plane, and diversify its outreach through separate but
equivalent connections with NATO and CSTO, China and India, an
improved Georgia, a renewed Iran and the broader Middle East.
9. By the midpoint of the presidency, on April 24, 2015, the
centennial anniversary of the Genocide and Great Dispossession of the
Armenian people and its patrimony, the Republic of Turkey will find
the political courage and moral fortitude to surmount the
Turkish-Armenian divide, to recognize that unprecedented crime against
humanity, and to deliver reconciliation through truth and
normalization through meaningful restitution. Overcoming its
deep-seated strain of denialism, Turkey will take responsibility by
rolling back its blockade of Armenia, establishing diplomatic
relations without reference to outdated protocols or other
conditionalities, and launching a landmark process of negotiation with
the Armenian nation for closure of mankind's gaping wound, for
restoration of individual and collective rights, and for a program of
guaranteed return to a national home. Absent a significant change in
Ankara's long-standing approach, Yerevan will release its own demands
and preconditions on that day. Along with these, it will unveil a
monument in honor of those righteous Turks and Kurds who saved
Armenian lives, including my grandmother's, during the Genocide.
10. Before overseeing the conduct of benchmark elections to usher in
a new parliament, prime minister and then president, Armenia's fourth
administration will recognize both the Mountainous Karabagh Republic
and the Azerbaijani Republic against the background of their
respective, legitimate, and post-Bolshevik territorial integrities.
Sui generis (for Kosovo or anything else) is copout, or at best a
legal manipulation for the projection of power, and the international
community too will come clean and apply the rule of law in this case.
All refugees of all nationalities can then be permitted secure
exercise of their recourse to repatriation. But it is crystal clear,
and beyond debate, that Artsakh will never again suffer the suzerainty
of a regime that glorifies axe-murderers and destroys in broad
daylight cultural treasures such as the medieval cross-stone cemetery
of Jugha.
11. Armenia, an antique source of Western civilization, will become a
member of the European Union, not in the instant period, but during
the service of its subsequent government. Led by a promising
generation of educated young brainpower and civic activism, the nation
will own a Constitution that is no longer a mere documentation of
dreams and declarations. It will assert mastery of a functioning
parliamentary republic. It will revere its own sovereignty and
interests and the birthright of its citizens.
12. And it will expect Europe, and the world, to do the same.
Fiction or finally not, these points will shape the contours of
Armenia's domestic credentials and geopolitical capacities into the
foreseeable future. I might have a few more to add later on,
especially in light of the realities, both hard and soft, which are
bound to be triggered by its most pivotal election of all time.
Raffi Hovannisian, independent Armenia's first minister of foreign
affairs, currently chairs the Heritage Party
http://www.europesworld.org/NewEnglish/Home_old/CommunityPosts/tabid/809/PostID/3218/FactorFantasyContemplatingLifeandtheArmeniaBeyond. aspx
21/09/2012
Author : Raffi K. Hovannisian
Fact or Fantasy:
Contemplating Life and the Armenia Beyond
By Raffi K. Hovannisian
Yerevan - This 21st anniversary of the Republic of Armenia is my moment
of ultimate truth. That moment can define and distinguish each of us
or, even better, nurture common human ground. In a world of so many
differences, I favor the latter.
1. I shall devote the next 100 days to the creation of a
compelling citizens' candidacy for the presidency of ancient Armenia's
modern state. Whether it is I or someone else who ultimately becomes
the carrier of that quest, scheduled for the dawn of 2013, a few basic
requirements apply.
2. Our beleaguered homeland, where I was not born but to which I
returned two decades and a couple of years ago, must hold its first
democratic elections since its post-Soviet independence in 1991.
Armenia needs a new, de jure president.
3. The new administration will serve for one term only; the
fourth presidency will not seek reelection.
4. Over the following five years, the Armenian nation will
convene a constitutional congress, proclaim a parliamentary republic,
enforce the rule of law, separate powers and make them accountable,
divorce big business from public governance, safeguard civil
liberties, lift the immunity of officials, and through offices of a
special prosecutor root out corruption, graft, and conflicts of
interest from the presidency on down. There shall be no exceptions to
supremacy of the human right.
5. Every person resident in the country, whether ethnically
Armenian or representative of a minority, and every compatriot living
in dispersion will be ensured fair access to citizenship, with all
pertinent duties and entitlements, including those of suffrage,
dignity in life and death, due process, and equal access to and
protection under the law.
6. Homeland and Diaspora together will find the contemporary
formula for nation-building, economic development, environmental
conscientiousness, citizen prosperity, and global statesmanship.
7. With humility but self-confidence, Armenia finally will forge,
frame, and make relevant its vital national interests and
international imperatives.
8. The Republic shall cherish its sovereignty and at once become
a true contributor to the strategic balance in its region and the
world. It will recast its unbecoming vertical relationship with the
Russian Federation, achieve partnership on a mutually respectful
horizontal plane, and diversify its outreach through separate but
equivalent connections with NATO and CSTO, China and India, an
improved Georgia, a renewed Iran and the broader Middle East.
9. By the midpoint of the presidency, on April 24, 2015, the
centennial anniversary of the Genocide and Great Dispossession of the
Armenian people and its patrimony, the Republic of Turkey will find
the political courage and moral fortitude to surmount the
Turkish-Armenian divide, to recognize that unprecedented crime against
humanity, and to deliver reconciliation through truth and
normalization through meaningful restitution. Overcoming its
deep-seated strain of denialism, Turkey will take responsibility by
rolling back its blockade of Armenia, establishing diplomatic
relations without reference to outdated protocols or other
conditionalities, and launching a landmark process of negotiation with
the Armenian nation for closure of mankind's gaping wound, for
restoration of individual and collective rights, and for a program of
guaranteed return to a national home. Absent a significant change in
Ankara's long-standing approach, Yerevan will release its own demands
and preconditions on that day. Along with these, it will unveil a
monument in honor of those righteous Turks and Kurds who saved
Armenian lives, including my grandmother's, during the Genocide.
10. Before overseeing the conduct of benchmark elections to usher in
a new parliament, prime minister and then president, Armenia's fourth
administration will recognize both the Mountainous Karabagh Republic
and the Azerbaijani Republic against the background of their
respective, legitimate, and post-Bolshevik territorial integrities.
Sui generis (for Kosovo or anything else) is copout, or at best a
legal manipulation for the projection of power, and the international
community too will come clean and apply the rule of law in this case.
All refugees of all nationalities can then be permitted secure
exercise of their recourse to repatriation. But it is crystal clear,
and beyond debate, that Artsakh will never again suffer the suzerainty
of a regime that glorifies axe-murderers and destroys in broad
daylight cultural treasures such as the medieval cross-stone cemetery
of Jugha.
11. Armenia, an antique source of Western civilization, will become a
member of the European Union, not in the instant period, but during
the service of its subsequent government. Led by a promising
generation of educated young brainpower and civic activism, the nation
will own a Constitution that is no longer a mere documentation of
dreams and declarations. It will assert mastery of a functioning
parliamentary republic. It will revere its own sovereignty and
interests and the birthright of its citizens.
12. And it will expect Europe, and the world, to do the same.
Fiction or finally not, these points will shape the contours of
Armenia's domestic credentials and geopolitical capacities into the
foreseeable future. I might have a few more to add later on,
especially in light of the realities, both hard and soft, which are
bound to be triggered by its most pivotal election of all time.
Raffi Hovannisian, independent Armenia's first minister of foreign
affairs, currently chairs the Heritage Party