The joint photograph of Noubar Afeyan and Nikol Pashinyan has stirred deeply unpleasant feelings in many of us. The Prime Minister of Armenia is not someone with whom it is possible to have a sincere discussion on any issue. I do not rule out that the Armenian-American businessman spoke about Ruben Vardanyan, about the brutal attacks by the Civil Contract authorities against the Church, or even—possibly—about Samvel Karapetyan. Perhaps he was looking for some form of compromise on these or other matters.
But as a mature and experienced person, he should understand perfectly well whom he is dealing with. And, most importantly, he is obliged to know what kind of regime Pashinyan has established in Armenia—a regime in which personal and political vendettas and reprisals take precedence over everything else, including the state’s political and economic interests. Or perhaps Mr. Afeyan is so naïve that he believes Pashinyan might show magnanimity or nobility on some issue and agree to compromises or take a step back. (At this point, one can only add a “smiley.”)
Yes, Western businessmen often do business with rigid authoritarian regimes—but only when their leaders do not lie at every turn, pile lie upon lie, and when state decisions, as well as the actions of the legal and judicial systems, do not depend on how the country’s leader happened to wake up that morning.
No, Noubar Afeyan is not a naïve man. For instance, he knows that Archbishop Arshak is imprisoned for allegedly having instructed a subordinate more than seven years ago to plant drugs in the bag of an activist in order to discredit him. Later, in some fantastical—or rather, anecdotal—manner, this was reclassified as drug trafficking.
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Afeyan is certainly aware that Samvel Karapetyan was initially persecuted for public calls to seize power (because he had said he would defend the Armenian Apostolic Church “in his own way”), and only afterward was “money laundering” concocted. Is he not afraid that he, too, could be arrested for some “wrong word”?
I have no doubt that the businessman knows how Pashinyan’s authorities first accused the Catholicos of having a child. When they saw that this, by and large, did not interest anyone, they began hinting that he was an FSB agent, but did not dare to say it outright.. Now they are once again trying to pin “money laundering” on him, thereby demonstrating the poverty of their imagination.
Afeyan knows all of this perfectly well. But since he pretends not to know, I will never refer to him again.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
