In the 70s when we were waiting for the bus at the bus-stop on Achapniak bridge, and transport was arriving 30-40 minutes late, the passengers were attacking the bus driver with the words, “Where were you, we were longing for the bus to arrive.” And the driver was explaining away, “I have arrived in my time, talk to the one who has missed arriving.” And there is some logic in this explanation, why to accuse the one who is working by the extent of his possibilities rather than the one who does not work at all.
This summer, during the protests on Baghramyan avenue, Yerevan deputy police chief Valery Osipyan was explaining to the protesters how auditing will be conducted at the ENA, when and how much the electricity fee is going to rise. Certainly, the deputy police chief’s education and training allowed to have general information on this issue. On the other hand, the police officer has no authority to give an official explanation on such matters, but when no one else (before the president’s speech) was giving any explanation, generally, the state official source to the public was Valeri Osipyan. Blaming the colonel that he (naturally, based on his service problems) was talking with the protesters on these matters, it seems to me, is not fair.
Whether we are in a war or permanent cease-fire violations, in my opinion, this should be told to the public not by the soldiers but the foreign political ministry, because war is a political matter and the continuation of a political activity (Karl Fon Klauzevic). There is one more saying, whose author is the French diplomat Talleyrand. “War is much too serious a thing to be left to military men.”
But since our Foreign Ministry is silent on this issue, and our main hope is the Defense Ministry, the spokesperson of this ministry speaks about the war. The point that the situation is at war, I agree, but it is one thing when I am telling about it and quite a different thing when it is said by an official. And this person should act by the political leadership. The Defense Minister’s Spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan speaks instead of the Foreign Ministry. To blame him for it is the same as blaming the driver, who is driving his bus when others do not do it.
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I think I have had the opportunity to write that during the war of 1992-94, the then RA President’s Spokesman Ruben Shugaryan and, later, I were giving weekly briefings at the president’s office. While Aram Safaryan was working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the same manner. Could we be mistaken for speaking so often? Of course, we could and we did. When necessary, we were corrected, but in all cases, they were trusting us.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
