Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
On June 17-18th co-reporters of the PACE Monitoring Commission on Armenia, Acsel Fisher and Alan Mill, visited Armenia. The last time they visited Armenia was in January 2012. Meanwhile, Armenia is still being monitored, as a country which hasn’t fulfilled all the recommendations of the Council of Europe. In this context, the co-reporters should visit Armenia every two years at least, but they haven't appeared for 2.5 years.
What is the reason for the unexpected visit?
The PACE Monitoring Commission is an important political lever of pressure of the West on the vulnerable administration of Serge Sargsyan, which came to power on the rebound of the events of March 1st 2008. The topic of March 1st is touched on in all PACE resolutions on Armenia adopted in the last six years.
At the same time, the co-reporters’ behaviour was aimed at protecting Serge Sargsyan’s administration, the government, and the parliamentary majority. It caused dissatisfaction of the opposition, civil society and relatives of the people who perished on March 1st. They are indignant about the fact that the 1837 resolution of PACE on October 5th 2011 states that “the page of the events of March 1st is closed.” Some experts believe that the PACE promoted the positions of the West, which is interested in Sargsyan’s administration being in power in Armenia, despite their statements on support of democratic processes.
The Armenian authorities realized that the Council of Europe wouldn’t investigate the events of March 1st 2008 in detail and blocked all attempts by the opposition to establish a parliamentary commission to investigate the developments.
In December 2012 the parliamentary majority offered the opposition a compromise: in order to avoid politicization of the matter ahead of the presidential elections the discussion should be postponed to the postelection period. The speaker of the parliament, the current premier Ovik Abramyan, gave public guarantees that the question on establishing a commission on the events of March 1st would have been included on the agenda right after the elections and the Republican Party of Armenia would have voted for the draft. However, in spring 2013 the parliamentary majority rejected the opposition’s draft on the commission.
In February 2014 the Armenian National Congress tried to revive discussion in parliament on establishing the commission. That time the authorities blocked the initiative by the opposition once again.
“Such behaviour by the authorities confirms that a series of crimes leads to the top authorities of the country; it explains the policy of hiding information about the events of March 1st,” the head of the ANC Levon Zurabyan thinks.
Representatives of the opposition in the PACE tried to achieve a second analysis of the events on March 1st, but due to efforts of various PACE officials these initiatives were blocked.
It turns out that the PACE Monitoring Commission has never taken any steps against the Armenian government. During the current visit, the co-reporters stated for the first time that those guilty of the deaths of 10 innocent people hadn’t been found, even though so many years had passed.
It seems PACE’s shift from hushing-up the tragedy to such a strict position is connected with the inconsistent foreign policy of official Yerevan. The West is dissatisfied with Sargsyan’s decision to join the Eurasian Economic Union. PACE is still one of the levers of pressure on the Armenian government by the West. We can’t rule out that a new resolution on Armenia, which will be developed by PACE in summer, will be unpleasant for the Yerevan authorities.
