During a rally that took place yesterday, the most interesting part of the speech of the first president of theRepublic of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrossian, in my opinion, was that about the Union of Yerkrapah Volunteers (UYV). Noting that the UYV decided on February 18 to unreservedly harness to “Serzh Sargsyan’s shaky cart,” the Armenian National Congress (ANC) leader called it an “inappropriate transformation” and “position of an opportunistic bureaucratic brass.” One can imply from it that before February 18 this organization had had a different position – freethinking, fair and independent from the establishment’s will. Probably, the yerkrapahs showed such an attitude when in 1995 they beat up Krishnaists and others that were, in their opinion, “sectarians” or when they attacked citizens displeased with the election. The UYV was probably not opportunistic when it stated in 1996 that it endorsed Levon Ter-Petrossian’s candidacy. I wonder to whose shaky cart they harnessed at the time.
And then, in 1998, the yerkrapahs showed a very strong adherence to principles, when they joined the conspiracy against Ter-Petrossian and organized a “rat-deserting,” making super-opportunistic MPs desert the sinking Republic faction and join the Yerkrapah group. By the way, where were current members of the ANC Mushegh Saghatelyan and Sasun Mikayelyan at that time? Perhaps they were saying that a coup was a bad thing. And remind me, please, whom these and the other yerkrapahs endorsed in the 1998 presidential election. By saying “endorse,” I mean what the opposition justly criticizes today.
After the terrorist act of October 27, 1999, when the president of the UYV was assassinated, the yerkrapahs systematically gathered, expressed their indignation, cursed, but in the end did not venture to make any articulate statement. And a few months after the crime, Robert Kocharyan attracted their chairman Manvel Grigoryan with the office of a deputy defense minister. In a nutshell, the UYV has never had a good reputation to transform now. Certainly, there are heroes among the members of that organization, who must be respected for their service to the Motherland during the war, but since the 1994 ceasefire the yerkrapah brass have become exploiters of the people.
The first president is certainly right, when he says that not ordinary yerkrapahs, freedom fighters, but the “bureaucratic brass” are opportunistic. However, the connection between them has not been disrupted today, it has never existed.
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ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
