Although the main “message” of Levon Ter-Petrossian’s latest interview was the plan to establish a new party on the foundations of the Armenian National Congress (ANC), it is quite hard to make judgments about that. If, as the leaders of more prominent parties of the ANC claim, the Pan-Armenian National Movement (PANM) will remain the PANM, and the People’s Party of Armenia (PPA) will remain the PPA, in what will this structure differ from the current one of the ANC? So in that case, the Congress will be maintained as a union of at least nominally independent parties. And if a new party, in which the other parties will merge through dissolving, will be established, it will most probably meet with resistance of the PANM and Demirchyan. I don’t talk about other units, because the other parties and figures that haven’t left the ANC don’t play a pivotal role in society.
However, it is a secondary question whether the ANC will or will not become a party as compared to the issues raised by the first president in the main part of the interview. And here Ter-Petrossian makes absolutely correct assertions. If the rate of emigration remains the same and particularly if, as the first president assumes, it doubles, we will disappear as an independent state in 10-20 years, and in that case, the lesser of two evils will be the tested scenario of becoming a part of Russia, in order to avoid the threat of extermination. More tragic scenarios are also possible. This is not a political statement made by Ter-Petrossian, but rather this is a scientific, I would say, mathematical truth. It is also correct that the main reason for emigration is the quality of state institutions. In countries like ours, these institutions are “programmed” to rob and to make the powers that be rich. And in this sense, by the way, cultural cooperation with Guatemala doesn’t seem so fanciful. In the end, it is also right that the West doesn’t have a concrete strategy toward the countries of the South Caucasus.
However, questions arise after all this. Why did we, unselfish and educated people, led by Levon Ter-Petrossian establish state institutions of that very quality in the 1990s? I say “we,” in order that it is clear that it is an assertion of a fact, not an accusation of someone. (Although this is the very fact the first president’s fans don’t accept.) Why did the founders of the First Republic establish institutions of that very kind, which ended in “capitulation” to Russia as I mentioned above? Weren’t they patriotic and honest people? Moreover, why do the state institutions don’t change their quality in our “friendly” Guatemala, Haiti and elsewhere, where the mentioned institutions are of the same kind, and where the West, having a concrete strategy, regularly stages coups, bringing “tough guys” to power? Can one draw a conclusion from here that the quality of institutions doesn’t depend on the quality of persons?
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
