Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 2 – The failure of the
ruling Republican Party in Armenia to approve Nikol Pashinyan as prime minister,
an outcome which led him to call for a general strike against the authorities,
sets the stage for some potentially very dangerous developments, according to Yerevan
commentator Tigran Khzmalyan.
The Armenian Republicans by their
actions voted against the Armenian republic, he says, discrediting themselves
as an Armenian party and highlighting the extent to which this “party of oligarchs,
thieves and murderers” is a “comprador” group ready to carry out the imperial
center’s wishes (5165news.com/armenia/республиканцы-против-республики/).
Khzmalyan argues that “the
Republicans went against the overwhelming majority of the Armenian people, in
fact, against the republic, if one remembers the Latin origins of this word, ‘the
public thing,’ or its Greek prototype ‘democracy,’ the power of the people.”
Pashinyan has made “peaceful,
non-violent and constitutional methods of struggle” the centerpiece of his
movement. “But can a revolution resolve the question about a new power with the
help of instruments and the operatives of the old one?” Especially if the old
one is prepared to use force and violence to keep itself in power?
“Nikol Pashinyan has pursued the path
of compromise and dialogue relying on national solidarity,” the Armenian
commentator says. “The Republicans have responded with sabotage, boycott, and
rejection.”
That there was going to be some kind
of Vendee in this revolution was probably predictable, but it emerged in
Armenia not after three years as did its French predecessor but “after only
three days” and it acted in ways that undercut the optimism of many like Khzmalyan
himself who thought that no one could immediately oppose the united nation.
But “the colonial administration of
Armenia” which has “sold out to Russian imperialism” instead “conducted a Valpurgis
night on May 1” in which it displayed subservience to Moscow and “hatred toward
its own people.”
“The eight hours of debate in the parliament”
showed this when “every other speaker accused Pashinyan that Saakashvili had
greeted him, Navalny had supported him, and the US State Department had
welcomed him,” things that justifiably “displease the Kremlin and anger Putin.”
“For naught,” he continues, “Pashinyan
again and again patiently explained and insisted that the protests against the
local powers do not have a geopolitical subtext, that the crisis arose because
of the greed and incompetence of the former powers and the Republican Party,
and that he intends to develop balanced and friendly relations with all
partners.”
Moreover,
Pashinyan continued, he would on assuming office immediately call for new
elections in which all parties could make their case to the Armenian
people. But the Republican Party didn’t
listen and thus “committed political suicide” having shown itself not to be the
representative of the people but of a narrow circle of greedy people and of a
foreign power.
“What could have forced them to go
against hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens – greed, ambition, fear?”
Khzmalyan asks, especially given that their leader Serzh Sargsyan had “personally
admitted defeat and left office?” Who
then could have forced them to “continue this senseless and dangerous resistance
to the people?”
Unfortunately, the answer is all too
obvious, the commentator says. “Remember,” he says, that the date for the next
vote on the prime ministership in Armenia comes only a day after Vladimir Putin
is slated to be inaugurated – and the Kremlin doesn’t want anything to happen
that will spoil that event.
“Armenia’s escape from under the
yoke of Muscovite agents clearly isn’t what the Kremlin chefs have in mind for
the celebratory menu, despite all the calming reassurances from Pashinyan.” And that makes the coming days extremely
dangerous, Khzmalyan says.
“Moscow does not believe in tears.
Moscow believes only in blood. Here is why one should expect” that Moscow’s
agents in place will try to exacerbate the conflict on the border between Armenia
and Azerbaijan” in order to restore its order in Yerevan. “The chekists here
have no other means of holding on to power besides war.”
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