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Chairman of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor Artur Sakunts is our interlocutor.

Mr. Sakunts, it is obvious that the CU does not look forward to Armenia. Presidents of Belorussia and Kazakhstan clearly stated that Armenia cannot become a member of the CU in the near future. On the other hand, Armenia lost its chance to sign the EU Association Agreement.  In fact, was the aim of the RF to prevent the signing of the EU Association Agreement?

Certainly, this is fully in line with the logic of the policy carried out by Russia, the gist of which is to avert the signing of the Association Agreement by Eastern Partnership member countries. Particularly, the Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia have more than once publicly claimed about their determination to join the EU Association Agreement. Such a policy to abolish the signing of the association agreement by Armenia was anticipated from Russia, which was done by staging the CU concept. The CU  or the Eurasian Economic Union had been established long before, but when those structures were undergoing  formation, the RF did not strive to involve Armenia in the CU. Thus, Armenia participated neither in the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union, nor that of the CU and naturally cannot become a member of the CU, since the latter was established by some of the founding members of the Eurasian Economic Union   (Belorussia, Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan), later Belorussia, Russia and Kazakhstan founded the CU, it means, no demands were required from Armenia neither from the beginning, nor during it. This process in relation to Armenia commenced in a stage immediately preceding the signing of the Eastern Partnership Agreement. Hence, Armenia’s membership to the Customs Union is merely formal, although we see that apart from Serzh Sargsyan’s statement issued on September 3, the Government has also taken a decision to establish an Interagency Committee to arrange the CU membership documents. It is striking that especially after October 25 it is revealed that Armenia’s membership to the CU is not the problem, but its subjugation to the RF.

After Putin came to power in 2000, it became more obvious that the RF had adopted the reanimation of the Soviet Union. In general, the Renaissance in the West is applied in its positive sense, since it relates to the return from medieval deep clerical domination of 1400 years to culture, which had been long forgotten. Putin’s “Renaissance” is more aimed to revive the Soviet Union. As a political leader, through his system of values he relies on totalitarian principles and in order to hide his nudity he does not want his state with such great resources to hold a marginal status, as the Soviet Union used to do for quite long years.

Although the Soviet Union had proposed the call for world revolution, for which it was negotiating with various counties, was bringing the obeying authorities to power and establishing world socialist systems not to stay alone. In order to conceal its totalitarian nudity, Russia founds a Pact of Armenia like countries in order to justify its civilization existence.

Unfortunately, we were denied the unique chance to leave the history hollow and turn into another system of civilization, where we would obtain very serious opportunities for development: we lost the opportunity of resolve those issues.  The Association Agreement could serve as a unique Marshal’s plan for Armenia, such, which was formed in Western Europe after World War II aimed to restore the economic and political systems, which had been greatly affected by the fascist dictatorship and the World War.

Why did we refrain from it?

Here the lack of the political will of the authorities is meant. Even if we try to understand which were the outer intentions (the policy implemented by Putin), nonetheless, the inner factors are far more important due to which the outer factors were successfully carried out.   The incomplete establishment of the democratic institutes, the mass corruption and the great rate of unpredictability of the actions carried out by the authorities. And the unpredictability of the internal factors served as a fertile soil for the implementation of Putin’s dictatorship intentions. This ambiguous situation is a serious challenge.

What should those, who are against Serzh Sargsyan’s decision, do? Are there solutions? What will be done in the future to regulate the relations with the EU after Vilnius summit?  

It is definite that a mobilization of forces is needed. I do not think we have no chance to change the situation, but it should be of organized nature. The problem is that the political institutes should have in fact solved the issue of political dependence on Putin’s Russia. This is the only political program which is available for any political force at this point. Besides, very serious organizational work should be done. I understand that it takes great financial and human resources. The first obstacle is misinformation and the tendency to divert attention from the main issue via keeping of pseudo-issues and fake agenda in the center of public attention.  We should be able to overcome it, which requires serious work. Meetings, discussions, public discourse, this is the only way to change this situation. An agenda of debates should be developed.

Why there is no public discourse or consolidation, overall, are ambitions prevailing? 

The political forces do not have the definite approach, which is called the CU disposition.  The absence of a relevant attitude towards such a challenge is awkward to me. During February, 2013 presidential elections, the main political forces refrained from nomination of their candidates for elections. It means, already back then not nominating presidential candidates meant rejecting policy, but we could not imagine that the same renunciation could exist or be expressed in case of such an important issue, which is the challenge to independence.

Recently Taron Margaryan has stated that the transportation fee will grow up, do you think such an issue can be the last drop of public patience?

Everything is possible. Of course, historical parallels are extremely dangerous since they occur in different conditions, but ecological movements preceded 1988. 150 AMD civil movement may entail mobilization around such an important issue. But the problem is that expression of decentralized, spontaneous, multi-layered political movement of summer should have served a good lesson for the authorities and they will try to prevent it. To my understanding, the authorities always find themselves in such a gyre, that in the long run everything ends up  worse, it means they do not have a vision of adequate  response to the situation and day by day the situation is becoming more uncontrollable and day by day new civil movements will come to the fore. And in this case the civil initiatives, which are going to grow as a result of aggravation of the social condition, may entail the formation of the demand, which is called Serzh Sargsyan’s dismissal from power. Now Putin will dismiss Serzh Sargsyan earlier than the RA citizens, this issue is being regulated. His visit to Armenia is scheduled immediately after Vilnius summit and it is curious that it also coincides with the decision of November 29, 1920 to hand Armenia to Communists and the singing of the notorious agreement.  There are no unsolved problems in the society. Our solution will once again be painful and we will have human losses. Our time does not work for the benefit of the RA and it should be well comprehended. Challenges are even more serious than we can imagine.

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