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Belated Stimulant for The Opposition

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  • Belated Stimulant for The Opposition

    BELATED STIMULANT FOR THE OPPOSITION
    Editorial

    Hayots Ashkhar Daily
    Published on May 30, 2008
    Armenia


    What's the goal of the State Department?


    The reports published yesterday by the State Department of the United
    States and `Amnesty International' human rights organization depict
    Armenia's situation in the sphere of democracy and human rights in dark
    colors, based on the results of 2006 and 2007.

    The State Department report is devoted to the human rights issues of
    the year 2008 which is just approaching the `equator'; as to `Amnesty
    International', it has tried to recall each single flaw in the sphere
    of the development of democracy in our country.

    From the very start, there is an impression that these two documents,
    which were published on the same day, supplement each other, and only
    the organizations are different. Furthermore, the document of the State
    Department, the more powerful organization, is more like a strictly
    generalized attempt aiming to solve certain problems through unfounded
    accusations rather than a report.

    It is somehow possible to understand `Amnesty International' human
    rights organization's attempts of enumerating the flaws observed in the
    sphere of the protection of freedom of speech in 2007, as the year was
    full of political events.

    At the same time, it is extremely difficult and very often impossible
    to consider the State Department's document a report, as it mostly
    contains assessments `filling' the gap. The thing is that, by
    representing the well-known developments concerning the first half of
    2008, a period of exacerbated internal political struggles, and adding
    to them unfounded and unproven allegations, the authors of the document
    use the sum effect of all this for drawing certain political
    conclusions. That is, to evaluate the Armenian government's activity in
    the sphere of the protection of human rights as unsatisfactory.

    This gives rise to several questions.

    First: Which government of Armenia do they mean, as Armenia has had 2
    governments in the course of the past 5 months?

    Second: What facts does the State Department lean on when advancing
    purely contemplative allegations concerning the `stuffing of the ballot
    boxes', `multiple voting', `pressure against the pro-opposition press'
    - things that were not found in the assessments of the OSCE and other
    observation missions?

    Third: On what grounds does the State Department insist that `the
    citizens in Armenia are unable to freely change their government' when
    the international observation missions estimated both the 2007 and the
    2008 elections mostly in line with the international standards.

    Does this show that the OSCE and the other observation missions were
    mistaken in their assessments, so the US State Department is now trying
    to re-edit their conclusions by publishing the current report? However,
    the desire is not a requisite condition yet; such highly reputable
    state structures are required to publish serious facts.

    Moreover, after all that happened in Armenia, our country has started
    to slowly come around, overcome the extreme tension of the
    post-electoral atmosphere, bring to life the proposals enshrined in the
    PACE Resolution and seek ways for a dialogue between the authorities
    and the opposition. In such conditions, the international community has
    to do its best for contributing to the further development of this
    process.

    However, instead of doing that, the State Department report makes the
    previous assessments on the February 19 elections stricter, and `mixes'
    them with the accusations made by the Armenian opposition and never
    proven by the Constitutional Court. By doing this, they seem to be
    making hints to the opposition that it's time to take more active steps
    and re-stage the well-known post-electoral developments. We believe
    that including the `unproven facts' on the February 19 elections in the
    State Department report may play the role of a political `stimulant'
    offered to the opposition. Moreover, such allegations may be used as a
    pretext for suspending the assistance provided to Armenia under the
    `Millennium Challenges' program.

    It's quite possible that hints about all this may be dropped in the
    Karabakh settlement process as well, because the same tendencies are
    now observed in the relationship between Azerbaijan and a number of
    Western organizations.

    Instead of giving some time to the country busy implementing the
    proposals of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and
    contributing to the efforts towards relaxing the internal political
    tension in Armenia, the assessments contained in the State Department
    report may push the opposition (which is preparing for the 20th of
    June) to new steps.

    Is this the goal the State Department is seeking to achieve?

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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