(Or, How to Come Out of the Fracas Unscathed…)

At the rally held on October 17th organized by the Armenian National Congress (ANC), opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan (LTP) in essence took an unusual step that we had touched upon in our previous article; “Being one of the most influential forces in Armenia’s political life, the Popular Movement or the Armenian National Congress has an obligation to outline its position in this situation. If you remember, in one of my previous speeches I had stated that in our political struggle we put national and state interests above everything, and that in case of a military threat against Karabakh I would appeal to the participants of the movement and ask them to suspend their activities and take up the sacred cause of the national struggle.

The imminent resolution of the Karabakh conflict is equivalent to a military threat given the dangers that it contains, and, therefore, I think it makes the fulfillment of that appeal imperative.” This totally unexpected move by LTP will illicit analyses and discussion for a long-time to come for at least two reasons.

First, what impact will it have on internal political life and on the future Activities of the opposition and to what extent was it a factor of and flowed from the primary concerns of the ANC? Secondly, are the negotiations regarding the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) conflict actually teetering on the brink of a solution which, as LTP has noted, is not so favorable to the Armenian side and thus it is necessary to consolidate all forces, or rather, is such an analysis of the conflict simply a very literate and coldly calculated excuse/shroud to mask the dead-end position in which the ANC finds itself; a crisis of tactics. In any event, one thing is clear. LTP succeeded in transferring attention from the ANC to the Karabakh conflict arena where domestic political problems will be relegated to a secondary level for the time being.

This will allow the leaders of the opposition to breathe freely for awhile and, by following regional developments, modify their tactics and strategy to correspond to these developments. Presently, this is something that is directly impossible to do given that the policies enacted in the Southern Caucasus by the global power centers, the United States, the European Community and Russia, are so entangled, contradictory and objective information so scarce, that no one can clearly state what actually is taking place and what is being planned in the NK negotiations process.

Thus, in such uncertain conditions, by groping along in a dark room, it wouldn’t have been possible to adopt tactics such that, corresponding to regional developments, it would have led the opposition to reach its stated goals. In other words, this move to take a temporary break in activities, wasn’t as much directed towards not becoming a toy in the hands of the West in the settlement process of the NK conflict and thus neutralizing the possibilities of exacting pressure on the Armenian authorities, as much as the necessity of taking sides in the newly created regional complex state of affairs.

The question arises as to why LTP so stubbornly conditions the solution of internal political problems based on foreign factors. If we turn our attention to the political line he has adopted and the tactical steps implemented, beginning from the statement he made one year ago regarding his return to the political stage, it becomes evident that for him the role of the foreign factor in solving internal political problems has a directly pivotal, even decisive importance.

Furthermore, it must be noted that on this front LTP has suffered the most serious defeat. First, international public opinion overlooked all their protestations related to electoral and human rights violations and then twice gave a carte-blanche to the authorities in poser to implement the demands as stipulated by two famous OSCE resolutions; demands for which even the European Council has shown no real desire to follow-up on with any consistency of purpose. In other words, that calculation made by LTP, that strong pressure brought to bear by European institutions on the authorities of Armenia and the intensification of the question regarding Serzh Sargsyan’s legitimacy on an international scale, could possibly serve as a marvelous weapon to be used on the road to regime change, totally collapsed and he no longer can fully place any hope on this factor.

What is of note is that during this last rally he expressed a very interesting and unprecedented thought that clearly displays the failure of his calculations when it comes to tying any hopes to the West. At the rally LTP stated, “Serge Sargsyan has in essence received a green light from the West to do as he pleases in domestic affairs, which is evidenced by the recent escalation of police violence against the people. This behavior of the West, aside from being immoral and demonstrating that the West is ready to compromise on its values for a very low price, contains an element of conspiracy that is being hatched against Karabakh.” Naturally, in such conditions, the impact of the external factor in the context of the opposition’s plans, becomes directly uncertain because in the opposition camp, for the most part, it is understood that presently the West is not stressing the removal of the leadership in power in Armenia as much as it is using the vulnerability of that leadership, in terms of its legitimacy, to extract serious concessions from Armenia in the NK settlement process; something that in a strategic sense is absolutely not in the best interests of the opposition.

This halt in activities will also become vital for the ANC to turn the willingness of the regime to go down the road of concessions in the NK settlement process into a new and strong motivating factor for pan-societal and pan-national resistance. Thus, it will be necessary not only to present any possible concessions as “treason” to the public but going taking this route to shake-off the mantle of being a bearer of ‘defeatist politics’ that was assumed as far back as 1998 and transfer that image to the authorities now in power. Thus, within the context of this objective the following point, stressed by LTP during his October 17th rally speech, becomes totally comprehensible; “It is in this dangerous situation that instead of thinking about the interests of our state and the well-being of our people, Serge Sargsyan is worried exclusively about clinging on to power and having his legitimacy recognized.

What is more, his recent steps demonstrate that in order to attain his goals he is ready to revise Armenia’s foreign policy doctrine, and instead of preserving the policy of maintaining a balance between Russia and the West, gradually to lean toward the latter.” If we pay attention LTP is attempting to adopt tactics whose main aim is to also turn the Armenian authorities against the interests of Russia. On the one hand this message is clearly directed at Moscow; to locate the real “traitors” within the ranks of the Armenian authorities themselves.

On the other hand, it is directed to those sectors of the society who view the involvement of Russia as decisive regarding the issue of settling the NK conflict. In this context, however strange, it becomes fully understandable why LTP, who accuses the Armenian authorities of participating in a solution to the problem pursued by the West which desires to omit Russia from the NK conflict and from the region in general by means of Turkey, in his speech never referred to the flowing statement of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that, “It seems to me that in the event that a state of continued conflict in the Caucasus, that the heightened awareness of its vulnerable situation on the Armenian side and the comprehension of the uniqueness of the present moment on the Turkish side, coupled with the proposals of the Minsk Group Co-chairs, created a critical mass for a solution to be found.”

This is to say that LTP is attempting to hold sway over the interests of those sectors of society that at one time were accusing him of adopting a politics of defeatism and he’s trying to direct their feelings against the current regime. Based on this, we must expect that the entire public relations machine of the opposition will be aimed against the regime, to paint it with the image of a “conspirator” and as “adopting a defeatist position”. This factor, i.e., the statement by LTP that the halt to operations pursues the more deep-rooted aims we’ve mentioned, is shown by the several heretofore unanswered questions that arose after his last public speech. It is impossible not to pay attention to them. 1. If the opposition really sees a conspiracy in the NK conflict settlement process then why is it deciding to temporarily halt the struggle right now, when it is clear that by remaining inactive it is merely creating a larger arena for the ‘conspiratorial’ program to be realized? 2. If, as a vital condition to escape the present state of affairs, LTP sees, “Alleviating the political and social tensions in Armenia, ensuring the primacy of the law, ceasing to put curbs on democratic freedoms, stopping the unrestrained violations of human rights, uprooting the wide-spread corruption, stopping the plunder of the country’s wealth, which goes on unpunished, getting rid of unscrupulous and criminalized officials, restoring the independence of legislative and judicial branches of power, starting a constructive dialogue with the society - in a word, neutralizing all those things that have become levers in the hands of the outside world for putting pressure on Armenia”, then why create the possibilities for those negative manifestations to continue and expand by calling a pause to the struggle? 3. And why does LTP, who places importance on the counter-balancing role of Russia in the Minsk Group and in the NK settlement process, claim that to “impose his personal solution in the conditions of the West’s present possibilities” that “we are now standing on the brink of a resolution of the Karabakh conflict”, without analyzing the question why would Russia accommodate itself to the status of observer being force upon it by Turkey and the Armenian authorities when events in South Ossetia clearly proved that in the South Caucasus Moscow is absolutely not ready to assume such a secondary role. What is the reason for such a contradiction? 4. If LTP really believes that in exchange for extracting concessions from the Armenian regime, “… the West is naturally ready to turn a blind eye on Serge Sargsyan’s all aforementioned flaws, to forget the scandalous elections of February 19 and the atrocity of March 1, to pretend not to see his dictatorial domestic policy, to tolerate the curbs put on constitutional liberties and the wide-spread human rights violations, and to have the resigned attitude toward the fact of the existence of political prisoners in Armenia.”, then why doesn’t he step-up his actions even more in order to turn-off that green light and defeat that plan to extract concessions? In reality, LTP executed a very interesting and clever move designed to insure that the opposition “comes out unscathed” regardless of the scenario that develops in the region. If the regime actually goes the route of concessions, then all the possibilities will exist for solving the question of regime change, since in that case the Congress will assume the mantle of the main organizer of the opposition. If not, both the Congress and LTP will simply declare that due to their correct policy of taking a time-out averting the impending danger was realized.