There has never been any point in any country’s history that has been completely good or completely bad. This also goes for any country’s leader, including Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Is it possible for an Armenian state official to be a special “troika” member (this was a body that made decisions to shoot people under the disguise of justice)? And, at the same time, put a lot of effort into publicizing the “Daredevils of Sasun” epic or building the Matenadaran museum? One of Soviet Armenia’s leaders, Giorgi Arutyunov, had this type of contradictory personality.
Robert Kocharyan is not excluded in this case; there was both light and dark during his administration. He frequently praised himself in his autobiography (as do almost all memoirists), as though trying to convince us that we lived in perfect and divine economic conditions for ten years.
Those against Kocharyan only saw nightmares from 1998-2008, through the undisclosed murders of government officials, through taking A1+ off the air, through the “Poplavok” murders, October 27th, and March 1st. There are rational parts of both praise and criticism, and it’s possible that, in a few decades, historians will give a more unbiased review.
Kocharyan, naturally, needs to be held responsible for the bad things that took place during his time as President, and it’s important for that not to happen in a few decades, but right now. But, when analyzing the events, it’s important to do so within the system. Let’s look at the Poplavok incident, for example. The second President’s bodyguard beat someone to death for greeting him improperly, and Kocharyan freed him from being held responsible. Didn’t members of the Yerkrapah beat people in the 1990s and go unpunished? Didn’t one of the leaders of a political party currently in parliament free one of his bodyguards from being held responsible for beating someone through using his immunity as deputy? Can we truly say that the system has changed? I do not think that there is any basis for such optimistic conclusions now.
Now, Kocharyan will stand in front of the court and he will be imprisoned, under my impression. But I am worried; the investigations went poorly, the second President has the best lawyers in Armenia, and the Court of Human Rights will not get involved too deeply in the niches of politics or morality. And I, as a taxpayer, don’t want to pay Kocharyan any sort of compensation from the state budget.
Aram Abrahamyan
