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Artur Sakunts, Chairman of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor answers our interview questions

What do you think of Serzh Sargsyan – Levon Ter-Petrosyan meeting and the solidarity shown by the latter to Serzh Sargsyan?

In the current situation, the RA and NKR citizens have 2 main concerns. One of them relates to further events, i.e. restoration of the ceasefire, and the other incorporates a number of questions to the authorities. In particular, such questions target issues related to the casualties, missing persons and prisoners of war. And I think that the 2 main questions below should be currently on the agenda of the National Assembly: firstly, what are the causes and the circumstances that inflicted so many casualties, missing persons and prisoners of war and secondly, why the Armed Forces were not ready. These questions should be addressed to the military leadership, and first of all, the Chief of the General Staff should provide explanation. The functions of the Chief of the General Staff are not restricted to visiting Moscow for ceasefire, but he is also responsible for proper coordination of the military training, military service and provision of armaments. And if there were any problems, and we found out based on various information that there were problems, why did we face such a situation? Does the responsibility lie on the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense, or the Commander in Chief, or political authorities? And I think that these issues should be discussed, and people should receive answers to their questions. How does it happen that the casualties, missing persons and prisoners of war come from socially disadvantaged families? Such questions are of direct concern to the public. Another issue is that the bodies of the servicemen and civilians were tortured by the Azerbaijani armed forces, and this issue should be raised by all means before relevant international institutions.

Currently, issues related to consolidation are essential since I do not think that we can at the moment neglect the issue of political prisoners, Shant Harutyunyan and friends, Gevorg Safaryan, Hayk Kyureghyan and others still suffering criminal prosecution and imprisoned. What else, if not their immediate release can restore the trust so that we can talk about cooperation? As long as we have political prisoners, the civil society and the public at large have no trust.

And last but not least, as for current challenges, the societies of the RA and NKR have shown that they are ready and willing to protect their security and freedom from abuse, which we cannot see on the part of the authorities and major political forces. Specifically, this concerns the obviously adventurous, open, public and cynical actions aimed to fuel the conflict, which receive no assessment. Whenever dignity is sacrificed for security purposes, we lose both dignity, and security. This has been the main logic under the actions of the RA authorities and major political forces so far. If the consolidation or cooperation is built around this principle, it cannot yield any results. There is no signal or message that the actions will be based on the principle of respect for human dignity in both domestic and foreign policy issues. I reiterate that taking the path of humiliation and destruction of dignity for security purposes would lead to nowhere. I observed and saw that the vast majority of NA deputies expressed absolutely no public position on the main factors fueling the escalation of the conflict, i.e. promoting the arms race. Secondly, they expressed no positions on the absolute bankruptcy of their own decisions on accession to the EEU and on the absolutely unreasonable, shortsighted, unpromising decisions and in this case, as we again face the behavior of failure to admit this publicly, we have no trust in cooperation. We must have the courage to see our own mistakes. While we constantly talk about combating corruption, nowadays the representatives of the entire corruption system act as benefactors, and this is also unacceptable and degrading. Feudal lords and serfs cannot consolidate; they can only collaborate on certain principles.

Should we nowadays consider the issue of withdrawing from the EEC or should we boycott the session of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council that was moved to Moscow from Yerevan?

These are small and specific steps; the matter is that immediately after the cessation of the hostilities, a special session should have been convened to discuss the two issues I mentioned above, i.e. firstly to examine the incidents of the missing persons and prisoners of war, and secondly, to consider the preparedness or unpreparedness of the Armed Forces, based on which a final opinion should have been issued on the factors that led to the escalation of the hostilities. And the NA should have raised issues on the positions of Russian Federation, CSTO, EEU, to the effect that it strongly condemned their behavior as ally states and Armenia should have raised a question on the reasonability of its further adhesion to the organizations above. This would be a decent approach; otherwise, talking about any cooperation becomes pointless. Nowadays, those who voted for accession to the EEU or the forces supporting Armenia’s accession to CSTO or allied, but actually vassal relations with Russian Federation try to consolidate around these approaches. This is a degrading proposal to our society, which showed a dignified stance by confronting the external challenges. I consider our current unreasonable policy seeking compensation through some consolidation calls as incompliant with the public, which without any calls by any political force spontaneously stood for the its dignity and protection of its freedom.

What does it mean “to consolidate, so that Serzh Sargsyan does not feel weak”? Serzh Sargsyan has been weak from the very beginning due to his lack of legitimacy before the public and such lack of legitimacy was brought about by the most recent shameful constitutional referendum, failure to solve the crime of March 1, 2008, systemic corruption, illegal criminal prosecution against political dissidents and restriction of freedom of speech by the Public Television, which fails to ensure pluralism amid the public at large, and the unprecedented abuses by the law-enforcement agencies.

Did this meeting with Levon Ter-Petrosyan legitimize Serzh Sargsyan?

I do not think so. Actually, Serzh Sargsyan is perfectly aware that these challenges are linked to his policy and are a real evaluation of his policy, and he must respond to such challenges. I think Levon Ter-Petrosyan once again saved Serzh Sargsyan. Of course, they can tell us that the true aim of the meeting was the NKR issue, but the lack of the answers to the issues I mentioned above shows that the meeting was more about saving the power of the authorities. Such meeting has no other context and no other justification. I consider this among the ways of forming a stable political majority in the future. In this regard, the situation of the other ally, Dashnaktsutyun (Armenian Revolutionary Federation) Party and that of another potential player, Robert Kocharyan, is of interest, i.e. their potential expectations have become completely bankrupt. Perhaps, this is a knight’s gambit in domestic polices or court games but it has nothing to do with the expectations of the RA citizens.

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