“My father is Arkady Semerjyan. He liberated Shushi. I was two years old when my father died in Lachin. Nikol Pashinyan handed over the present my father gave me to those monsters who killed my father. I will never forgive Nikol Pashinyan for stealing my homeland and for making my father’s work mean nothing,” Elena Semerjyan, the daughter of commander Arkady Semerjyan, said during a protest organized in front of the Consulate of Armenia in Los Angeles.
Arkady Semerjyan
According to her, her father was the commander of the Artsiv (Eagle) suicide squadron. “Suicide, being condemned to die means that there is no surrender for Armenians because when you retreat as the commander-in-chief, you create chaos. We do not surrender. We only advance or we stay where we are and maintain our country. But Nikol Pashinyan cannot know the price of all of that because he did not serve in the army. He did not even take a gun to defend our borders during peaceful times. Our soldiers must know that their only command is to defend our soil. They do not have another commander.”
According to another protester, “Our goal is to get Nikol Pashinyan out of that position as soon as possible. He cannot defend our nation. He must leave so that another person who can defend our country can come to power. Our soldiers have never been as discouraged as they are now. They are coming and beating our soldiers right in our own country.”
A few dozen people participated in the protests. The protesters gathered in front of the consulate building. They were calling upon other American-Armenians to join them. “It’s not just about writing songs for Armenia. We are losing Armenia, but everyone is asleep. We are losing Armenia, but you are dividing us into black and white. Wake up, people. Tomorrow, they will come to Yerevan and rape your wives and children. We cannot be brothers with Turks. They are our enemies.”
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They said that Nikol Pashinyan is a “national traitor” and they took to the streets to say their piece. “Regardless of who belongs to what political party and what ideology they have, our ideology is the same- homeland. And we now may lose our homeland.”
“Syunik is the backbone of Armenia, and they want to break it. We do not even want to imagine that in our worst dreams. We must set our political differences aside. Our government is doing everything so we can lose our country,” the protesters were saying. They said that if we do not unite, we will become like Assyrians- without a homeland. One of the protesters said that we must unite to save the homeland, Artsakh, and even Western Armenia and Nakhichevan, as we did in 2018.
Lusine Budaghyan
