Members of the ruling Civil Contract party and government officials walked out of a discussion on Artsakh Armenians at the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Human Rights after committee chair Lilith Galstyan said that representatives of Artsakh’s state institutions were also attending the meeting.
Let me remind you that, under the D’Hondt method, the chairmanship of the Standing Committee on Human Rights was allocated to the opposition Hayastan faction.
Of course, hardly anyone would be surprised that representatives of Armenia’s ruling political force leave the room upon hearing the name of Artsakh’s state institutions. What is more, just two days earlier they had presumably attended the lavish event held in Republic Square at taxpayers’ expense to mark the 35th anniversary of Armenia’s independence.
And perhaps, with admiring expressions on their faces, they listened to Nikol Pashinyan’s speech, which essentially echoed the long-standing “meaning” he has promoted: that by losing Artsakh, we gained independence.
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It is a “meaning” that one of the government members had stated even more openly during the days of the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh.
The “formula” of independence acquired at the cost of Artsakh is this: one must not do anything that might displease Azerbaijan. The very word “Artsakh” is forbidden.
For example, Ilham Aliyev and his current and former officials are not merely free to refer to Lake Sevan, for instance, by its Azerbaijani name, or to give Azerbaijani names to other Armenian territories, while calling Armenia itself “Western Azerbaijan.” Armenian officials, on the other hand, are forbidden even to utter the word “Artsakh.”
If the word happens to slip from someone’s lips, they immediately repeat “Karabakh” several times. The record so far belongs to the newly appointed Secretary of the Security Council, who, back when he was still Speaker of the National Assembly, accidentally used the name Artsakh and then repeated “Karabakh” four times in succession.
Who knows, perhaps soon the government that has supposedly “brought independence” will be required by Azerbaijan not to settle for merely repeating “Karabakh” several times after an accidental mention of Artsakh, but first to disinfect its lips with alcohol.
Do you doubt that this could happen—“for the sake of everlasting independence,” which the happy electorate swallows like oil?
For now, apparently, in addition to not uttering the name Artsakh, the condition is not even to hear it.
Members of the government and MPs from the parliamentary majority are apparently not only forbidden to say the name Artsakh—they are, in effect, forbidden even to hear it.
Hakob BADALYAN
