Armenian MP Samvel Farmanyan’s speech at PACE
Madame President, distinguished colleagues,
The coming February will mark the 30-years anniversary of a democratic movement that has been coined in history as Karabakh movement: an unprecedented democratic and peaceful consolidation of millions of Armenians at the southern shore of the giant empire of the Soviets. Along with the independence movements in the Baltic States, Solidarity movement in Poland and similar democratic uprisings in other eastern European countries, Karabakh movement and the inability of the Soviets to provide any meaningful response to the democratic wave came to challenge the very foundations of the socialist camp and the Soviet Union itself fueling its final dissolution at the end of 1991.
At the very doorstep of this historic anniversary it would be useful not only for historians but also for politicians to look back onto reflections of this democratic consolidation in world media and political institutions in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Application to history is important not only for putting the facts together while considering a possible comprehensive solution to an existing problem but also for smelling the air of that time. It gains even more significance given the useless attempts of the Azerbaijani state policy of massive falsification of history and attempts of re-inventing its own past as a part of on-going process of nation-building – a process that is unfortunately built on a platform of anti-Armenian hatred.
In its resolution on January 12, 1989 the European Parliament names Nagorno-Karabakh as a region that “has been arbitrarily given by Stalin to Azerbaijan.” In other resolution of January in the same 1989 the European Parliament concluded “the conflict now taking place is largely the result of dividing up the territory imposed by Lenin in Transcaucasia and particularly the forced integration of Nagorno-Karabakh into Azerbaijan in 1923.”In a resolution of November 10th of 1994 this Assembly of the Council of Europe called on Azerbaijan “to immediately end the blockade of Armenia.” In its decision of October 24th of 1992 US House of Representatives concluded “United States assistance may not be provided to Azerbaijan unless the Government of Azerbaijan is taking demonstrable steps to cease all blockades and other offensive uses of force against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Hundreds of other resolutions and statements by different international organizations and national parliaments, well-known intellectuals and rising leaders of democratic movement across Europe, thousands of publications in the world media, came to reflect the large scope of sympathy and support of the democratic world of late 80s and early 90s to the desire of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to enjoy freedom and independence. This massive support continues today and will certainly continue tomorrow against the ongoing nightmare of democracy and increasing darkness in Azerbaijan.