THE LABOR PAINS OF THE ARMENIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS

The Movement Becomes a Party

The 2nd congress of the “pan-national movement”, held in the conference hall of the Government yesterday, was far from being considered “revolutionary”. It was rather like a demonstration; a demonstration in a closed area.

The activists of the movement occupied the entrance of the conference hall much before the appointed hour. Even L. Ter-Petrosyan and his retinue had difficulty in forcing their way through the crowd and going inside. Finally, everybody went in and began shouting, “Levon, Levon!”, “Struggle, Struggle Till the End!”, “Free, Independent Armenia!” etc.
Definitely, the number of the invitations and permits distributed by the center of the movement was three or four times more than the number of the seats in the hall (1200). They organizers had also thought about installing monitors in the foyers, so as the demonstrators would be able to follow the activities of the so-called congress from there.
It should be noted that the speeches (more than 15 in number) delivered till the break-time were inappropriate and senseless. Neither the leaders of the People’s Party of Armenia and “Republic”, nor the heads of Hnchakyan and Marxist parties and nor even the other revolutionary orators said anything new in their speeches.
They made bombastic statements on keeping up the spirit of the struggle and leading it to a triumphant end and warmed the hall with their pathos and fighting spirit, as they did at the end of February on the Theatrical Square and or in the Children’s Park.
After a long-lasting pause, everybody was definitely eager to listen to the successive “historic” speech to be made by L. Ter-Petrosyan. And in order to enjoy this moment, the demonstrators participating in the congress had good food during the break and then pricked up their ears not to miss a single word delivered by the leader.
The leader’s speech consisted of three parts. Let’s note that even though the first two parts of Ter-Petrosyan’s speech were absorbed with great enthusiasm (although the statements could hardly be considered as something new or fresh), the third part was not only difficult to digest, but it also stuck in the throats of the attendants.
The allies who had made ardent speeches looked somewhat discouraged, after listening to the speaker introducing the third part of his speech.
But let’s start from the beginning. Ter-Petorsyan “devoted” the first part of his speech to Robert Kocharyan. First, he introduced long quotations from R. Kocharyan’s statements - parts from his speeches which he had quoted during his press conferences held on March 1, 5 and 20. The speaker introduced the “factual distortions” and discrepancies which had been found and came to the conclusion that “the authorities had callously elaborated the program of using violence against the peaceful demonstrators and crushing the opposition a week before the March 1 events.”
LTP’s unfounded allegation is, mildly speaking, unreasonable. If there had been such a program, the authorities would have crushed the opposition on February 20 right in front of Matenadaran, thus disallowing the illegal series of demonstrations to continue on the Theatrical Square for 10 days on end.
Then, as a witness, the ex-President recounted in detail what he had seen on the Theatrical Square in the morning of March 1. He had recounted exactly the same story at the press-conferences held in his “palace” on March 1 and 11. In short, we yawned.
The second section of the speech was devoted to the west or, more precisely, to the European structures. The ex-President said things he had already spoken about during the demonstration held on February 29. The “unserious” and “unprincipled” approaches of the European observation missions give no rest to the defeated candidate. Only the fact that the OSCE/ODIHR observers have recorded that the presidential elections of Armenia are mostly in line with the international standards, “has served as grounds for the authorities to use violence against the peaceful demonstrators on March 1,” LTP said.
So, everybody except him was guilty of and responsible for what happened.
The ex-President also addressed words to Azerbaijan and the United States. He warned the former to give up the idea of resuming the war and never try to take advantage of our country’s internal political situation and unleash an aggression on the Armenian-Azerbaijani contact line. Should Azerbaijan try to take such a step, LTP himself will call on the people and the activists of the pan-national movement to temporarily cease the struggle and settle down to the protection of their motherland.
And he addressed a request to the American organizations not to suspend their assistance and the “Millennium Challenges” program, because deprived of the assistance programs, our country will find itself in a hard condition, and the social riot resulting thereof will pose a danger to the state.
Both this statement of the activist and the section of his speech introducing his further plans aroused something more than mere reluctance among the activists following his speech through the monitors. “What is he saying,” they were asking in a surprised and disappointed tone.
KIMA YEGHYAZARYAN

<< | Home | >>

E-mail article | Discuss article new!

RSS © Hayots Ashkhar

Headlines for May 03, 2008

THE WEST IS SERIOUS ABOUT AZERBAIJAN
VARDAN GRIGORYAN
On May 1 touching upon the forthcoming, October 15 presidential elections in our neighbor country, the US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Ann Darcy, proposed merely unsolvable issues to Azerbaijani authorities. ...
THE FORMULA OF VICTORY
G. KH.
In our reality, May has always been a month of victories: Avarayr, Sardarapat, Shoushi … This seems to be the repeated regularity of our history, which coincides with the awakening of spirit and courage ...
THE LABOR PAINS OF THE ARMENIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
KIMA YEGHYAZARYAN
The Movement Becomes a Party The 2nd congress of the “pan-national movement”, held in the conference hall of the Government yesterday, was far from being considered “revolutionary”. It was rather like ...
THE EAGLES INSPIRED BY THE REVOLUTION
LILIT POGHOSYAN 1
The activists of the rallies came to partake in the “Second Pan-Armenian Congress” of Armenian Pan National Movement taking place in the government session hall, yesterday. The participants of the meetings ...