Gurgen Yeghiazaryan about Hayrikyan’s past and “revealing” law
“I would read the names of secret informants, who slandered, did harm to their neighbors, the same prisoners for a box of canned food in Mordovinia camps, with great pleasure. However, I don’t think that the Russian Secret Services will allow themselves such a luxury”, stated Gurgen Yeghiazaryan, a former high-ranking officer of the National Security Service (NSS), a member of the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (SDHP). Generally, referring to the bill of the Heritage Party, providing for revealing the archives of the Soviet Secret Services from the professional perspective, Mr. Yeghiazaryan has reached a conclusion that now the Western superpowers are interested in the agents who worked in 1980s and who may still continue working, “Now if we uncover the foreign intelligence network of a certain country, it will uncover many other details, as the domino effect.” In the meantime, he thinks that agents working for the foreign intelligence and counterintelligence honest people who served their fatherland, “People who serve theRepublicofArmeniatoday have remained out of that intelligence network. The state is the borders of the country, nation and intelligence. If there is no intelligence, there cannot be a state. The agents of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence are people who serve their fatherland. The issue here is not either socialism or capitalism, but damaging the important state phenomenon, i.e. security. Consequently, NSS system is struck the first blow and when the security system is vulnerable the statehood becomes vulnerable.”
Gurgen Yeghiazaryan thinks it is natural that the law on revealing was adopted in nine countries of the former Soviet bloc, including our neighbor Georgia, taking into account that those countries are members of EU and Georgia is on the threshold of becoming a member, “Every Western superpower needed to reveal the intelligence network established after the World War II in Europe as the breath of life. The shortest way to reveal those agents was the existence of such a law, particularly, with articles that providing for uncovering to the last man. It was necessary for the West, it was its top priority to get rid of the intelligence network in the Socialist Camp.” The articles related to uncovering the foreign intelligence and counterintelligence network in the bill of the Heritage Party are “incomprehensible” and even doubtful for our interlocutor, “They talk about the agents who worked against theUS, theUnited Kingdom, the Federal Republic of Germany,Franceand others inside those countries. You will agree that these agents who solved those problems have nothing to do with repressions of 1930s when, as some loser politicians note, thousands of people were sent to concentration camps. The agents of the foreign intelligence and counterintelligence are honest people, they worked mainly forArmeniathat was aSovietSocialistRepublicat the time.” Those people worked for a country that was their fatherland – now they will also work for their fatherland, theRepublicofArmenia, with pleasure. What is the logic in publishing lists of their names? Doing that, we just interfere with the fate of people, threaten their connections with friends and relatives and weaken our fatherland. Check out the French border, the Czech border in the heart ofEurope, the German border and borders of others – none of them has an archenemy like Turks under his nose. We, on the other hand, are surrounded by Turks and the war is not over yet. If we publish those lists, we will deprive our national security of the possibility to attain new agents for 20-30 years. There is no intelligence, counterintelligence without an intelligence network.” The former official thinks that revealing the intelligence network of 1930s is also absurd, “99.9 percent of those are dead. If a few of them are alive, they are 90-100 years of age and are suffering from marasmus.”
There is a clause in the bill, according to which, the agents, holding offices in government bodies today, will be revealed in the future. In that regard our interlocutor thinks that a research should be conducted to reveal those who loyally worked even for that regime, however, aiming at supportingArmenia, and those people must be respected, “Certainly, there were people who served the idea. I think the national security system should decide on that, let the national security decide, which agents to work with and with which not, let them decide the degree of agents’ usefulness. If there are people among them who committed crimes in the times of that regime, acted despicably, ruined people’s lives, nobody impedes the authorities. There is no need for a law on disclosure of personal files.”
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By the way, Paruyr Hayrikyan, the leader of the Union of National Self-Determination (UNSD), referring to the observation of the host during a TV speech recently that Gurgen Yeghiazaryan is “against” the law on revealing, said that he did not know such a person. In response to “Aravot’s” question whether Yeghiazaryan and Hayrikyan had not really met, the former NSS high-ranking officer said, “Hayrikyan… yeah, I remember such a person who is inspired by free and independentArmenia, elevated ideas of independence. However, in my opinion, his political career was over when he privatized the Bardzrashen Poultry Factory. The Communists hated by him built a poultry factory that supplied 1.5 million chickens to the city ofYerevan, providing food, also employing 200 people from Bardzrashen. Today the factory is completely ruined, destroyed. Well, what can I say, a white, plump chicken pecked Hayrikyan on the head and took the elevated idea of independence out of his head. By the way, there are other interesting stories concerning that person – the cattle breeding farm and the Lachin innocent casualties – I will talk about those on a different occasion.”
NELLY GRIGORYAN
