Dr. Marie Rose Abousefian
“This carpet is not merely a gift to me. It is the testament of my ancient country and my heroic people – the call of its sky-reaching mountains, the strength of the eagles soaring over those mountains and guarding their land, an eternal fragment of our homeland.”
Before me lies this carpet given to me by the President of Artsakh, Arkadi Ghukasyan, after my first performance in Artsakh. Each day, looking at it adds a new surge of bitterness, despair, helplessness, and humiliation to the reality of my country as it moves toward destruction.
A symbol of an entire republic, proudly cradled in the wings of a mountain eagle, and above it, just as proudly, the inscription “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic”, lovingly and devotedly woven by the hands of an Artsakh carpet maker, with pride and care.
The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.
Where is it now? How did an entire republic, which for thirty years lived by its own symbols, with its state structure and its population, vanish in the span of five years?
The same question keeps hammering my mind every time…
How, how did we suddenly destroy, down to the foundations, all this that was earned at the cost of the lives of thousands of our children, all that was imprinted and carved with devotion and pride in our eyes, our souls, on our carpets, stones, flags, signs, and postcards, and destroy it in such a way that we declared it the property of our enemy, depriving our future generations of the struggle for the right to possess their own country? How were we able to do this…
Yes, before me stands the undeniable testimony of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Artsakh Republic, in the form of this carpet. And the one who gifted it is the reserved, soft-spoken, highly educated President of Artsakh, Arkadi Ghukasyan, who once survived an assassination attempt. I remind you that it was organized not by a Turk, but by an “Armenian”, Samvel Babayan, who still remains part of our leadership. Along with other presidents and high-ranking officials, he was treacherously handed over to the enemy and remains in Baku prisons, completely abandoned to oblivion by our people and by the current criminal gang that came to power from the streets.
With these inner upheavals, I follow the speech of the 66-year-old President of the Republic of Armenia, Vahagn Khachaturyan, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where, with a radiant smile, he expressed his doubled gratitude and appreciation to the triumphantly seated Aliyev for having brought peace to his country over the past two years, something, he claimed, they had been unable to achieve during the previous 30 years.
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For the first time, the head of the Armenian state, perhaps due to his age, spoke candidly, and that too at a global forum, admitting that for thirty long and arduous years Aliyev had been unable to seize Artsakh. The short-sighted president did not even consider that, for any analyst or political scientist, this was not a statement of praise but a mutual humiliation, and even more so, a slap in Aliyev’s face. The president emphasized the fact that for thirty years the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic was Armenian and could not be conquered by war, that the proudly seated Aliyev had been unable to take possession of the Artsakh he so desired, until the present leadership of Armenia, which came to power with the help of external forces seated at that very forum, treacherously and through betrayal handed it over to Aliyev. On behalf of this leadership, gratitude was being expressed by the former advisor to the first president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, and the current president, even though Aliyev himself knew that he had not captured Artsakh through victory, but that Armenia’s mercenary authorities had gifted it to him.
Surely, many of the forum’s participants still remembered that, with their assistance, our authorities orchestrated the handover of Artsakh. Perhaps many of them, even before that conspiracy, had received this very carpet as a gift while acting as negotiators “in Armenia’s interest”, and still remembered the indomitable spirit of Artsakh. And on that day, the so- called architects of “peace” were praising one another, one for his “victory”, the other for becoming the willing subordinate of that “victor”.
It is a strange world, is it not?
Although Aliyev has every right to sit proudly everywhere and boast of what he has achieved, because while our leader was busy with flattery and groveling in Davos, which is the only foreign policy of our country’s current authorities in relations with major powers, Aliyev was at the same time negotiating and signing contracts worth billions with the world’s largest commercial entities.
He did not even need to listen to the representative of our ragtag government, his subordinate, since today he effectively governs two countries: one is his own, the other is the future so called Western Azerbaijan, which, although it is still the Republic of Armenia, humbly carries out all his orders. After calmly emptying Artsakh of Armenians, even expelling its last ten inhabitants, he is thanked by the authorities of Armenia. And yet, not a single word, not a single demand, not even a single reminder is uttered about the Armenian prisoners held in his prisons, including all the leaders of Artsakh’s government, about the sentences handed down to them, or about their release.
As is well known, under internationally accepted law, when countries declare peace, or even conclude it discreetly, the first step is the exchange of prisoners. And yet our country’s president boasts of a signed peace when Aliyev has returned only four civilian captives, and even those in exchange for two Syrian mercenaries sentenced to death, who were handed over by our country to the Syrian authorities.
Yes, we are indeed obliged to thank Aliyev, as long as we remain dependent on him, as our ragtag ruler proclaims aloud, because we buy cheap oil, grain, and sign joint energy agreements with him, forgetting the conditions in which the people of Artsakh were plunged into darkness and hunger.
Under the name TRIPP, even the name itself a flash of Aliyev’s imagination born of Turkish-style flattery, we are fragmenting the most vital artery of our country, content with the mercifully granted 26 percent, while being deprived even of the right to control it by virtue of our own land. More than that, Armenia voluntarily relinquishes its right of control, becoming merely a service provider, or in international terms, an infrastructure.
What horrifies me is the indifference of our president, born in Sisian, even toward the seizure of his own birthplace. Is our country truly so worthless to him? Then why did he assume this office, when it obliges him to care for his country, and not only for his chair?
I accept that our people do not know, do not fully comprehend, lack the experience, and in truth even lack the awareness of what it means to turn your country’s territory into an international infrastructure. But the time has come for them to awaken and to understand the situation in depth. How much longer can one remain indifferent to the country and wait only for outside help, even if that help comes from the enemy?
The authorities of the Republic of Armenia have the right not only to offer thanks, but also to boast of the “achievements” they have jointly attained in recent years. To boast, because step by step they follow all of Aliyev’s orders. Among the most urgent in recent months is the fanatic religiosity of our immoral leader, through which, on Sundays, accompanied by local people gathered by force or by phone calls, he violates, desecrates, and discredits the rites of the Armenian Church through his unlawful intrusions into churches in various regions, gradually trampling and undermining Armenian faith and transforming everything that represents spiritual and intellectual value. But perhaps he is praying for Aliyev’s prosperity, since Aliyev granted him everything to which he clings so tightly, from the prime minister’s post to the White House, to every place where Aliyev appears and in whose shadow he stands eagerly and submissively. What does it matter that he stands in Aliyev’s shadow, as long as he appears on international platforms?
With such “great achievements” and such fanatical popular followers, we are approaching elections which, for many of us, are not an ordinary vote, but the final choice of our destiny, upon which, amid this geopolitical turmoil, our existence as an independent country depends. The question is whether you will be able to unite, to open the minds of those blind Sunday followers dressed in rags, to instill in their bribable nature the necessity of having and preserving a country, and to cast out this deranged, non-Armenian authority, or whether, by accepting their bribes, their intimidation, their terror, we will continue our march of despair.
I should also warn that enormous effort is certainly being invested, and large sums of money are being injected into the country by those who brought this leadership to power and reelected them, in order to secure their election once again, as is done in other countries around the world. Especially now, when our region has become an active factor directed against Russia.
Before our very eyes stands the vivid example of Syria’s destruction. The alarm sounded for war against our neighbor Iran should awaken us and make us vigilant.
Everywhere, under the name of changing power or regime change, countries are being fragmented and destroyed, while their populations become displaced, losing their face and identity, their nationality, which is precisely the slogan of today’s new worldview.
The past eight years have confirmed that we have become a fully dependent country. When there is no instruction from outside, our leadership occupies itself with drum beating. If we do not take this seriously, if up to the elections we continue to dance to the drum of this mob, we are heading toward national destruction. We have not a single means of protection. And to those who place their hopes in the help of the West and Europe, I would advise you to reconsider how Ukraine was helped.
I would especially urge you to read, these days, the Epstein files, finally exposed in the United States and made accessible to the public, which has caused a major scandal. Without concealment, it reveals how a group of immoral, money worshipping individuals living in the lowest forms of perversion united and created a single, interest driven, mutually coordinated entity that now governs the world both politically and economically. Everywhere they seek out people of base character, capable of any depravity, liars, slanderers, those who sell themselves for money, like the members of our current government, and they use them to overthrow governments, like they did to us, seize countries, and take possession of their wealth.
As repulsive and unbelievable as all this may sound, it is nevertheless a published fact. And even aside from this fact, through the comings and goings of the Boltons, senators, the Macrons and Michels, we already know from our own country’s example what has happened to us. Therefore, let us think about how to confront both the internal and external mob, so that we are not utterly destroyed.
