...

Serzh Sargsyan and 30 years of slavery

Commentary Materials 24 February 2018 09:51 (UTC +04:00)
Liberty. What does the word stand for? Many things. It was fought for and it was died for. There are as many meanings for the word as there are people on the Earth, but all of them have something in common: free will of a human soul.
Serzh Sargsyan and 30 years of slavery

Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 24

By Fikret Dolukhanov – Trend:

Liberty. What does the word stand for? Many things. People fought for it and died for it. There are as many meanings to the word, but all of them have something in common: free will of a human soul.

“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” is a more than 200-year old maxim of the French revolution.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen defines the liberty as a right “consisting of doing anything which does not harm others”. The definition seems to be the most accurate and simple, although other people and nations may have different views.

But none of them, I dare say, has anything to do with the “liberty” Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan is talking about, at least because his “liberty” presupposes the harm that is done to many hundreds of thousands.

Sargsyan, on Feb. 20 addressed on the occasion of the so-called “Karabakh Movement” 30th anniversary. In other words – 30 years since the beginning of occupation of Azerbaijan’s lands.

“February 20, 1988 was the moment of unity, determination and national awakening of the Armenian people,” the president said. A rather bold assertion if we consider current state of Armenia, its sock-puppet semi-country in Nagorno Karabakh and the Armenian people.

“Monte was right to insist that if we were to lose Artsakh, we would have turned the last page of Armenia’s history. On 20 February 1988, the Nagorno-Karabakh Regional Council met in an extraordinary session to adopt a resolution expressing the Karabakh people’s will for free self-determination. Three decades ago, Armenians all over the world joined the fair demand and struggle of Artsakh. Today, we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of that historic turning point,” Sargsyan’s message said.

A “turning point” indeed. A turn so sharp, that wounds it has left will be healing during many years even after resolution of Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

First of all, it is rather interesting to see how the Armenian president quotes infamous Armenian nationalist and terrorist Monte Melkonian, an author of numerous attacks against Turkish diplomats in Europe. Anyway, Armenian authorities have shown their attitude towards the problem long ago by declaring a criminal the national hero.

Secondly, the “Karabakh people’s will for free self-determination” phrase looks even more interesting. Hard to understand: whom does Sargsyan refer to by saying the “Karabakh people”? Are they the residents of Nagorno Karabakh or of all the occupied territories? Does the phrase encompass Azerbaijani population of the region, who was forced to flee as a result of the Armenian aggression?

In any case it is quite obvious that the so-called “Karabakh people” is quite a useful term for needs of Armenian ruling circles, allowing to show the Armenian people of Nagorno Karabakh as an independent entity. It is the only way to use the idea of “self-determination” side-by-side with the “Karabakh people” thingy. Otherwise one could ask: who is “self-determining” and on what grounds? I haven’t heard of a law allowing any group to “self-determine” on a certain area yet.

Sargsyan blatantly lies in regard to the “self-determination” concept, as we don’t deal with the actual liberty or independence here, in spite of fruitless Armenian efforts to show it that way, but rather with a banal annexation. Nazi Germany talked about anschluss and “beginning of German unification from Austria”. Greece looked at the Turkish shore in nostalgia, remembering glory of Byzantine Empire, and talked about enosis. Armenia has been filling heads of its people by the “Great Armenia from Sea to Sea” concept during many decades and talked about miatsum.

All these terms mean “unification” and all of them represent a forced amputation of other lands. All of these movements have been mere tools in the hands of certain political individuals and groups.

Sargsyan’s “self-determination” is no different from an occupation of someone’s territories. Armenian politicians have made up a “cunning” game with the “independent Karabakh” and are talking about the “two Armenian states”. This lie is so gross in its nonsense that I struggle to understand, how Armenian officials manage to spread it with serious faces. Be it annexation or secession – all the same – a crime against Azerbaijan and its territorial integrity, and effort are able to conceal that.

By the way, an interesting remark regarding the concepts of self-determination and territorial integrity was made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov who commented on the situation in Syrian Afrin by saying that “Russia is committed to resolving all issues related to this matter, but these solutions need to be done in a manner that respects Syria’s territorial integrity.”

Such an attitude is quite interesting by itself, but it’d be better if all the actors dropped the double standards policy in regard to Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and made similar confident statements.

Let's get back to Sargsyan's remarks.

“Subjugation does not have an excuse, while freedom has no alternative. We are building modern and democratic statehoods in the Republics of Armenia and Artsakh. We fully respect the fundamental human rights, since freedom and dignity are absolute values for the Armenian people,” Sargsyan continued.

The Armenian president has become a skillful word-juggler jumping from the “pilaf in a war” to respect towards human dignity. How soon has he forgotten about his own interview with a British journalist Thomas de Waal, when he hypocritically justifies the Khojaly Massacre by the necessity to “break stereotypes”?

Or might it be that he hasn’t read his favorite thug Monte Melkonian’s “My Brother's Road: An American's Fateful Journey to Armenia” biography book written by Monte’s brother Markar? The book very eloquently retells the “respect towards human dignity” in Melkonian’s performance. After all, it was his “Arabo” group that stabbed fleeing Azerbaijanis in Khojaly.

This book could prove very useful for Armenian Foreign Minister Edvard Nalbandyan, as well as the reports of Human Rights Watch and “Memorial”, placing responsibility for the Khojaly Massacre on “Armenian Karabakh forces”.

The mentioned foreign minister of Armenia recently made a statement, where he mentioned "massacres in "Kirovabad, Gandzak and Baku". Given than Kirovabad and Gandzak - are the historical names for Azerbaijani city of Ganja, why not throw in "Yelizavetpol" as well?

And before talking about the “necessity to make Baku answer” and “blaming the victim” next time, Nalbandyan would better recall the message of Armenian Foreign Ministry, shamelessly asserting that "Azerbaijan shot the civilians themselves". This hypocritical message sent to the UN regarding the Khojaly events, caused a wide bewilderment of the international community.

What I am talking about anyway… It would be too naive to believe that the aforementioned officials don’t know about all of that. But it is always hard to see and accept such insolence and insincerity.

Three decades had passed, but nothing actually changed. The Armenian Foreign Ministry is busy blaming others in its own sins, while the president discourse about liberty and independence, both of which are simply non-existent not only in marionette “Artsakh”, but in Armenia itself.

The country has almost no open borders left and no access to the world market. The economy is largely reliant on foreign financial injections. The army is fully dependant on Russia, what can be observed from the panic in Armenia caused by the US sanction to the Russian defense industry. The people flee the country or die in a war, ignited by Armenia for specter goals. Such country has neither liberty, nor independence.

It does have slavery though. Slavery, in which the criminal regime of Armenia has been keeping its people 30 years already.

Tags:
Latest

Latest