A STEP BEFORE THE POWERFUL POLITICAL MOVEMENT

   Ara Sahakyan remarks the opposition’s procession on April 24 in this way.

 NA former vice chairman Ara Sahakyan was also participating in the opposition’s procession to “Tsitsernakaberd” on April 24. We were interested whether his participation means his return to the active policy. Mr. Sahakyan avoided of the answer. We asked him to represent his impressions he gained on that day. “People gathered in the North Avenue and walked to Tsitsernakaberd to respect the memory of the Armenian Genocide victims. I have not been in such a crowd for a long time and was enthusiastic looking at the people’s faces, their behavior, speech and mood. The majority were women and the youth. There was an invisible communication among them. Thank to Levon Ter-Petrosyan the Movement is so consolidated that there is one step before the formation of a great political movement,”- Ara Sahakyan says.

All TV Companies represented in the evening of April 24 that procession and movement as a group of “anti-national” people who are ready to ignore everything for their ambitions. Was the opposition right in using the Memorial Day for its demands? In answer to this question Ara Sahakyan said: “Yes it was right and has been used for many times. It was used in 1965, 1988, 89 and 90 as well. April 24 is not only a memorial day or an action of cursing Turks. The Armenian people summarize and raise all their old and new anxieties on April 24 for more than 40 years. We have walked to Tsitsernakaberd to commemorate Komitas, Charents, Sevak and others, to save the Armenian schools, defend Armenians of Karabagh from Azeris, to call the organizers of Sumgayit slaughters to responsibility, restore nationality. As a rule, the authorities have accused the people of such manipulations. It might be right in a country where elementary political and civil freedoms are guaranteed but not in case of Soviet totalitarian regime or the current dictatorship. And now when people are killed, more than 70 peoples are jailed, hundred of people are beaten; it is not allowed to keep silence. We should us any opportunity.”